TITLE: DIRTY DANCING AND VAMPIRES
GENRE: YA paranormal
Delilah, one of the main characters in the story has just taken a moonlight swim at the mansion where she's staying.
I dried myself off, ready to go back inside, when I heard a deep-throated animal growl.
Heart pounding, I turned around and stared.
In the dark behind me, two huge eyes glistened.
I squinted to make out what it was, while slowly backing up.
The creature closed half the gap between us in one lunge.
The ten-foot-tall bear stood on its back legs and flapped its front paws in the air at me, ready to attack. Mouth open, head thrown back, the animal made another deep throaty sound.
I tried to scream for help, but only “H-h-h-” came out.
The bear shook its huge head and clacked its teeth, then gave an explosive blow of air.
Hands on the top of my head, I cowered before the gigantic creature.
The animal slapped the ground and let out another explosive blow in the direction of the sky.
I cringed.
The bear put its ears back and rushed me, pouncing across the ground, slamming its feet down on the tile surrounding the pool.
Fear scurried around inside my chest. Hands shaking, I picked up a pool chair, held it over my head, and shook it at the bear.
It rose up on its back feet, popped its jaws, and made another horrifying throaty sound. More terrifying clacking and huffing sounds followed, filling the dark with deadly tension.
Miss Snark's First Victim
This has the potential to be a terrifying scene. I think it just needs a little more of the internal feelings of the MC. I'm curious about the rest of your story :)
ReplyDeleteI don't think I could read this one. Bears absolutely terrify me. You did a great job of managing that with your writing. Very realistic. I would like to feel a little more of your MC's fear, however, rather than my own. Overall, very good job, though.
ReplyDeleteYou definitely picked an action scene! I think the only suggestions I have would be to split up some of the sentences, and to rethink some word choices. A lot of the sentences are long and have modifiers which lengthen everything out. Try to break them down into shorter bits for more suspense, but not sacrificing style or info. "Flapping" seems odd for a bear. Maybe swiping, or something similar? Also, blow used in those two sentences sounds odd. Bellowed?
ReplyDeleteOverall, it's a good action scene. Cheers!
I'm both intrigued and amused by the choice of bear for your paranormal beast (I'm making an assumption here that that is not a regular Grizzly).
ReplyDeleteI agree that some word choices would be best re-thought.
Having gotten quite a few critiques myself, I can say that some of the phrases you use will probably not be winners with agents:
'Heart pounding' is a bit overused in general so it's better to think of another way of saying someone is scared. 'Huge eyes' - what does 'huge' mean? As big as hubcaps? Dinner plates? This is an unusual bear, so give us a more specific description.
I agree that 'flapped its paws' is not a good choice, unless you're not going for a fear factor. Same for 'slapped the ground'.
'More terrifying clacking and huffing sounds followed, filling the dark with deadly tension'. Don't tell us the dark is filled with deadly tension. The word choices should do it for you. Having a ten-foot-tall bear growl at you while you're nearly naked is pretty tense by default.
Having said all that, I still really like the premise.
You have a "deep-throated animal growl"
ReplyDeletethen "another deep throaty sound"
and finally
a "horrifying throaty sound"
watch for repetition
All the short paragraphs makes this seem rather disjointed, like I have no idea what action is supposed to be grouped together because it's al separate. Like I got parts of the image you were trying to create, but not enough of it before you switched paragraphs, signaling that something new was starting.
ReplyDeleteUnless you're trying to write a novel in prose. Then I'd disregard what I said above.
Also, I felt that "blow of air" could create a stronger image if you used bellow instead. Then you'd get an additional sense in the scene.