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The Sheriff Todd Westcraft, faces a terrible problem. In his small town people are dying or going missing. When a whole family dies and their are signs of struggle he must find the killer or killers before they strike again. But when whispers start that this happened to the town once before only then it was called a plague. Will he be able to Protect the town? Will he be able to defend the town against something his brain is not prepared to accept?
T.R Garris was challenged to write a short story, something that could be kept between 5 blog posts. This is the result. Please enjoy.
Right off the bat, it's a good idea to introduce a viewpoint character by name before you start throwing around pronouns like "his", "he" or "him". Also a good idea to quickly establish where and when. Mention the town by name. And I don't know if this was just a formatting issue when you uploaded it, but multiple lines of dialogue from different speakers often occupy the same paragraph.But no one is expecting an early draft be perfect.
I like the CONCEPT of a small town being under attack by unknown forces but this feels like more of a shadow of a story rather than an actual story.
A large chunk of the story seems to be told in summary rather than scene. Again, this is a pitfall I see in a lot of early drafts of short stories.
Hi, TR:My first impression is that the story needs a gripping beginning. If you're going to name something "terror" you're going to have to begin with something terrifying (IMO). The writing is a little stilted and could use a tightening up. It's always good to rewrite with the objective of cutting all unneccessary words , especially in a short story. Think of words to use that pack more of a punch to replace additional words. Question your use of "ing" and "ly" words and make sure that you can't improve a sentence by using more active words. You can eliminate many "ly" words such as in this sentence: Tabitha shook her dark head negatively." Negatively is not needed for two reasons: the reader will assume it is negative or she would have nodded, and the immediate dialogue tells us that.I can't make sense of this sentence: Unless they that no one...At 11%, I would steer clear of adding things like "after all" in a sentence like "He, Todd Westcraft, was the sheriff..." you don't need such a tag at the end for the reader to get the message and it slows down the reading. In short story you want your writing to be taught. I'll give a couple of examples but then not point out further examples even if I see them later in the story.You could further tighten up your writing by using fewer words to paint a picture. In the same 11% area where you introduce Tabitha, you really use too many words and it comes out a little awkward. You could instead, write it something like this: In the distance, Tabitha approached. He sighed, hypnotized by her beauty and graceful, fluid movements. Unless there's a reason to be specific, you can paint enough of a picture with fewer words. Although, if there were some reason to give the reader a specific picture of a character that helps define the character then you would want to add more specific description. When possible, "show don't tell" in this same page you say, "He had worked all night long..."Think visually when you write so that you quickly paint a picture for the reader. Instead of saying, Todd went back to his digging, say"Todd drove the shovel into the ground" Or Todd wiped his brow and surveyed the long ditch that had been his nights' work and with a sigh, drove the shovel into the ground. At 16% I think you make the jump from her eyes gleaming to him questioning where she came from too quickly. I think you need to give more info to the reader; make Tabitha odd in their eyes. What makes him finally question where she came from? Make their encounter stranger, build it up a bit. Another example of unnessary words: @20# -"Should he follow and pursue" Follow and pursue have pratically the same meaning. At 44% you say: Todd was about to be sick. This sentence is an example of telling and not showing the reader what they should be formulating in their mind. How is he about to be sick? Is he doubled over with dry heaves? Or is he feeling queasy? By 50% there has been no real action, only a lot of telling the reader what has happened in the past, preparations for what is to come, and some vague conversations. As a reader, I have to say, I've lost interest. You have way too much set up and too little action or dialogue that moves the story forward. The only mystery here is what the true nature of the creatures is. At 78% nothing has happened and in fact you have spent two or three pages before that telling us nothing has happened. This is something the reader won't enjoy. Tabitha's love for Todd comes unexpectedly and doesn't really track. They have had a couple of brief exchanges and she disappeared. "Tears fell like rain" is trite. It's best to dig deeper for metaphors. Watch your sound alike words: Chard is incorrect: s/b charred. In the end, there was no killing in story, no mystery for the hero to solve and you don't even reveal what the creatures plauging the town were. I've got a vague notion they were vampires, but even if this is the case, this is a very tired subject and one that your story fails to bring any fresh material on.
The plot is disjoint. I don't think that you followed any particular plot. It seems that you are not sure what story you want to tell because three quarters of the way through you seem to be telling a love story. I wish I had kinder comments but the fact is that the story didn't hold my attention and didn't answer any of the questions that I posed as a reader early on.
The pacing is painfully slow and in fact, nothing much happens throughout the story.In order for a story to be paced well, it has to have action and dialogue that moves the story along at a good pace. Unfortunately, most of your story is repetitive without much being revealed or resolved except what seems like a conveniently wrapped up end.
I didn't really understand the detail choices in this story. Some details, such as what the water barricade was like and the reason for it, were left out, while other details, such as Tabitha's gloves covering her bloody hands, were unnecessarily included.
This was not a believable plot to me. I didn't believe that Tabitha would be in love with Todd. I was confused by the water barricade and Tabitha's memories of the dying girl.
The pacing was alright, except for the bit in the middle where the seasons changed. There was not enough action, dialogue, change during those paragraphs.
I think a good edit would work wonders of this short story - punctuation is poor throughout. In the opening paragraph there is a typo - quite/quiet and numerous repetitions that spoil what could be an evocative opening. Once the Sheriff character is introduced, no need to repeat his name in full. And in the first line of dialogue with Tabitha there are mixed tenses which confuse the whole paragraph. Also, found the POV switch a bit confusing when Tabitha took over as narrator. But there are some nice descriptions here and a good use of dialogue.
Confusing at times, new characters introduced and then not developed and the end was rather abrupt. I think you could make this more gripping and more fluid.
Pacing held up well for the most part other than some repetition.
This reads more like a hurried synopsis of a much longer work than a coherent story. The writing is far from polished and the errors are very distracting. If this is how people write on their blogs, it's just sad.
What plot. Sorry, there's a vague idea here but it's just two scenes stitched together.
It does not flow smoothly and there isn't any real action.
Correcting typos would improve the read. An experienced editor (or writing partner) could help you with that as well as with word choice in various places and other improvememts.
Good plot. You could shift this into SF if you wanted.
A bit slow in spots. Could use more action or efents.
Goof story, the pace was well done and I saw nothing that detracted from the story at all. My only wish is that you could expnad this into an actual novel and fill out the characters more. I know this is a short story and because of that it feels like merely a scene cut from something bigger.
The plot is simple and easy to follow. I would like to see more of sense of danger. There are times when I feel like something is left out this may be because it is a short story.
Hard to say really, it's short. They go from point A to point B so quickly that I guess that means the pace is good.
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