[Tia]

Okay I am back. This time with a kinda horror story. Hopefully not a crash and burn like my other one.

I did this one with guidelines, and that is why it may seemed rushed.

http://www.sffworld.com/community/story/2603p0.html

[Tia]

What no one?

[James Carmack]

It depends on if you want fast food or a fancy restaurant. If you want a $2.49 value meal critique, you can expect a speedy response to the effect of "ur a good writter kepp on truckin". Or you can be patient, give it a few days, and get something a little more valuable.

Since work has sabotaged my plans to meet my deadline for this week's update, I can give you a preview of my critique.

I'm guessing you were thinking of that epitome of the gentleman's personal gentleman, Mr. Reginald Jeeves, when you created your antagonist and not the alien pawn broker/arms dealer from MiB. Oh, do make a decision on whether his name ought to be "Jeebs" or "Jeezs".

I will say in brief that your story was far too short to build up any suspense, so it unfortunately falls flat as a thriller. It reads more like a synopsis than an actual story. "She meets this butler and she hears voices and the voices are these dead people and, oh my God, the butler did it and he's got a knife and, oh, she's dead."

Now, I want you to hold still and open your mouth. Let this tab dissolve under your tongue. That's concentrated punctuation. The commas should get into your bloodstream and start showing up in your prose.

While you're letting that tab do its work, you might want to view my lessons on dialog tags (http://www.palidormedia.com/james/editor/lesson1.html) and direct address (http://www.palidormedia.com/james/editor/lesson2.html).

In your last story, you admitted to haste leading you to a product of lower quality than what you're capable of. Relax. Don't rush. Take your time writing the piece, proofing it and then proofing it again before you post. You're hardly incompetent as a writer. You just need to pay more attention to detail.

A more thorough critique (quibbles included) will follow in a few days. Until then.

[choppy]

Hi Tia,

As it stands, what you have is a pretty straight forward thiller-esque story. Your main character seeks out a haunted house, finds one, and is left confronting a murderer. The plot is rather common, so in telling the story, I think the challenge you face is tailoring the story to make it a unique experience for the reader.

Here are some comments, line-by-line...

Well I'm a novelist.
Why start with "Well"? It softens the impact of the statement.

I love challenges, and well I was at a totals writers block.
This is both grammatically incorrect and telling. Show us this character has writer's block - and so much of it that she dares to risk her life to overcome it.

As I was creeping out of my bedroom and into the hall way, something touched me and made me jump out of my skin. I turn to see this towering man, in a butler outfit? "H...Hi." was all I could say. "You must be the new mistress." All I could do? was nod.
In general, when a new person speaks, you should start a new paragraph. Also, it seems odd that she would rent a house that comes with a servant and not have met the servant until she has moved in.

"What ever you feel like making Jeezs." I hollered back.
Jeebs or Jeezs?

I quickly got into my bed, and clapped the lights off.
Awesome. I loved this line - a haunted house with a clapper.

I went straight to the section that seemed to be full of newspapers.
Did is just seem to be full of newspapers, or was it actually full of newspapers?

I went to a date that seemed reasonable to look at.
What's a reasonable date in the context of this story. Is she tracing a history of the house? Or of its previous tenants? Why would a bulter who murdered the previous guests and who has cleaned the place up leave this information lying around?


Thanks for sharing your story!