"See you tomorrow!" George calls, as I walk away. I do not turn around as I am desperate to get home and play on my P.S.P, the December light fading slowly away in the distance.
"See you later!" I call back. Yippee! Now I can run home! So I turn and sprint, stopping to cross the road.
At the other side, I see an alleyway that could be a shortcut. I run towards its mouth and throw myself in, emerging what seems like a long time afterwards. I notice something. The street here is nothing like the other streets
in London. There are no people anywhere - and, even though it is nearly dark, there are no lights either. Both street lamps and houses are pitch black, the road seeming to go on for ever. Despite my growing fear, I keep on walking.
It quickly gets even darker. My stomach is begging for food, so I decide to knock on the door of a spooky house. No one answers, but the door opens. I step inside and the lights come on, but there are no light switches.
"Hello," I call, but no one calls back. My voice echoes and the pipes start to whistle. I run out of the house and slam the door, dashing back to the alleyway. I wish I had taken my normal way home.
My heart pounding, my breath racing, I arrive back where I started, relieved that I am away from all that terror. But the alleyway is not there. In its place, there stands a wall. Its bricks battered, its cement peeling off, it looks like it has been there for ages. I am trapped.
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3 comments:
Dear Allspark
Your story has a very good structure.
Beginning with dialogue is a good idea.
The ending is both a good conclusion and has possibilities for future editions of the story.
There are several phrases which show the wonderful poetic ability from previous tasks:
"The December light fading slowly away in the distance" is both beautiful and causes the first paragraph to fade the same way as the light.
"I run towards its mouth and throw myself in" is vivid and original.
I think with more revision you can make each line and word as powerful as these examples. Sometimes the prose becomes a bit stale. This is very natural when you transfer from poetry to prose and most readers wouldn't notice it, but because of your talent more is expected of you. For instance: "my heart pounding, my breath racing". "my breath racing" is original but makes the more usual phrase "my hear pounding" seem tired.
Look at this passage:
"It quickly gets even darker. My stomach is begging for food, so I decide to knock on the door of a spooky house. "
The "begging stomach" is original but while the rest of the passage conveys meaning it doesn't sparkle like the rest.
With prose two techniques may help.
For instance, at the beginning when the character is desperate to get home to play on his PSP, you could use the title of a game which might somehow add to the tone of the story - perhaps a frightening game.
Also I think you especially need more details in the central event. For example, how is the house spooky?
One final thing. Try and use more active sentences with strong subjects. The best sentence here for me is "My voice echoes and the pipes start to whistle". Compare this to "There are no people anywhere - and, even though it is nearly dark, there are no lights either." Can you spot the perhaps unecessasry words and find a way to make the sentence as tight and powerful as "My voice echoes....".
Please do let me know if you need more explanation. But as always promising work. Have you read Edgar Allen Poe stories? Your ending reminded me "The Cask of Amontillado".
Hey Allspark,
Apologies for the late comment (yet again). :)
Your ability to throw the reader straight into the action is extremely good, showing us that you've drifted away from the cliché beginning of: "Once upon a..."
The pace of your story is excellent also, and I admire the control you have over your character and the actions that he takes, building up to that cliffhanger of an ending! Nothing seems rushed with your prose piece, and you even manage to throw in some wonderfully crafted phrases amongst your straightforward narrative to make the piece seem that bit bolder - "...December light fading slowly away in the distance." is my favourite. Reading that makes me visualise a sunset seen from an old horror movie of somekind, sunlight slowly evolving into the darkness that you speak of. Really good.
I have to agree with Pugnax: some of your phrases lack the sparkle that you've demonstrated in phrases such as "...December light..." Of course, simple is always good. Some of the best stories that I've read allow most of the events in the book to become the product of my own imagination (instead of the author's detailed writing). However, it would be good to get a little more detail once in a while.
Take "It quickly gets even darker." as an example.
Such a simple sentence could pack a tonne of visual imagination into it - if you knew what to do. "Very quickly the darkness envelopes me in its hungry thirst for a victim." There is no doubt that this type of writing will come with practice, and there is also no doubt that a talented young author like yourself will develop these skills gradually over the next few years.
Practice does (although we hate to admit it) make perfect.
Allspark, you have a noticeable habit of taking everything that we Mods say on board - thank you. Carry on doing this, and you'll be able to mature into a very respectable young writer.
I also agree with Pugnax's reference to Poe - it's that sudden unexpected end to a story that really fires up the reader's imagination.
A fantastic Task 5, Allspark.
Keep up the great work.
E. :)
*Sunset scene.
I hate being ill. :(
E.
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