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brutalducky
10-31-2010, 01:31 AM
Hi I just joined today and I'm very excited! Although I am young I have a small passion for writing short stories. I hope you enjoy this! Constructive critiscim is welcomed!




Draft 3

Name: Vacant ( not official )

Date: 10/30/2010

*

Part 1


I came home from work as usual. Pulled up in the driveway and parked the car. As i started *walking to my front door. I noticed a small slip of orange paper. It read "Terror on a new level... California's best haunted house. Located at 2835 East Wood park." I looked down to my cold metal watch . 8:55. It was late, I put my jacket on the rack and grabbed a quick dinner at In-n-Out. I went to bed and woke up the next morning. "Good morning early birds! rise and shine! it's a beautiful warm Friday day!" blared my alarm clock. As i basked in the warm hot shower water running down my back i remembered the haunted house. Why not I thought? it's a Friday night! who cares! I shut off the shower, Got dressed, and stuffed the flyer into my pocket. I headed off to work as normal and as normal I was extremely stressed. It's 8 o'clock and my shift is over. I clocked out and started walking to my car. The sound of my hard footsteps echoed off the concrete walls which support the parking structure. I jabbed my key into the hole and turned it."click". I headed over to East Wood Park. I was expecting a abandoned house or factory with the same old scare tactics where something jumps out at you. But to my surprise it was a empty lot. Not even 10 seconds since i parked. 4 big husky men appeared out of nowhere. They opened my car door and knocked me unconscious.


Part 2


When I woke up I was blindfolded. I was in a car driving somewhere. Possibly to my grave... Loud music was playing my cries of terror were heard by no one. I begged to be freed. The car stopped after about 20 minutes. But still the music was playing. I managed to pull off the blind fold and found out I was in the back of a white van with no windows. There was another body in the van... Her body was mangled and contorted. Her neck bone weirdly jutting out scared me. But all I could think about now was how am I going to get out of this mess? A few seconds later the mysterious man binded *my hands together with plastic ties and put a new blind fold back on me. I tried to push out the thought that this was it. I kept reminding myself that this a haunted house. All a trick. A illusion. fake. The music stopped playing and a door opened. I was dragged out onto the cold moist soil. My muscles grew tired of trying to free myself. I lied there without any movement. I heard shovels start digging. Another van showed up and once again a door opened. The sound made from pulling it out of the van was unmistakable. It was a wooden coffin. I was thrown into the place where I knew I was going to die. Splinters began to jab into all parts of my body. they tipped the coffin into the grave and once again the men started shoveling the dirt back on top of me. The world grew more and more muffled with every pile of dirt. I don't know how I was breathing. But after what i thought was a hour they started digging again. Why were they digging me out? what kind of sick and twisted person will torture some one this much? I was thrown back into the van once again with music that was ready to pop my ear drums. They parked the van and cut my plastic cuffs off. They gently laid me down into the back seat of my car. The van drove off and I never see it again. I untie my blindfold with my sweaty hands. My heart was beating. I sat up and crawled into the driver's seat. There was a sticky note on the steering wheel. It said "See you next Halloween "

Heres the google doc. You can view it and is updated more frequently then the forum version. If your viewing it the same time I'm editing it you can watch me change it live. https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=13KxUXoJGiqsHU9_uvCUgJDRUCC3w7YIcctWdu5KzZ XY&hl=en

hillwalker
10-31-2010, 01:19 PM
Interesting story with a seasonal flavour!

You kept me interested long enough to read right to the end even though I'm not a huge fan of horror or fantasy fiction so well done.

As for constructive criticism... well I would have to say Part 2 is much better than Part 1.
Why? Because part 1 takes far too long preparing us for the actual story.

There is no need whatsoever for those bits between I looked down to my cold metal watch . 8:55. It was late..... and .....The sound of my hard footsteps echoed off the concrete walls which support the parking structure.
All that those bits do is tell us how your hero has dinner/goes to bed/gets up/showers/goes to work/clocks out.
What has any of this to do with the plot? Nothing. So I suggest you get rid of it and cut to the chase.

Other than that it's a good story. It might be easier to read if it was broken up into shorter paragraphs (especially when read on a computer screen) but that's a technical issue I guess.

And you might get more feedback (or at least more viewings) if you post this in the Personal Writing - Short Story forum.

Good luck, and welcome

H

brutalducky
10-31-2010, 03:02 PM
Thank you very much! You really have no idea how much you just helped me. I understand some of the bloated stuff but my issue is if I take it out what will help with the flow? For example when he is done with work and walks to his car if I took that out how will I find a way to tell the readers that he walked to the car? He can't randomly go to places. But I will find a way to do it. Thanks!

hillwalker
10-31-2010, 05:18 PM
what will help with the flow? For example when he is done with work and walks to his car if I took that out how will I find a way to tell the readers that he walked to the car? He can't randomly go to places. But I will find a way to do it. Thanks!

Think of a movie - filmmakers regularly jump from one scene to another without having to detail every intervening detail.

You could for example write :

I looked down to my cold metal watch . 8:55. It was late. Too late to think about a visit this side of midnight so it was more than twenty hours later before I found myself approaching the building on Eastwood Park. I was expecting a[n] abandoned house or factory with the same old........

Most readers will be able to cope with imagining what happened in between (in the same way that moviegoers are able to do the same).

Have fun,

H

brutalducky
10-31-2010, 05:26 PM
Ohh I like that. Thanks again haha


I looked down to my cold metal watch . 8:55. It was late. Too late to think about a visit to that side of the town. It was more than twenty hours later before I found myself approaching the building on Eastwood Park. I was expecting a abandoned house or factory with the same old scare tactics where something jumps out at you. But to my surprise it was a empty lot. Not even 10 seconds since I parked. Four big husky men appeared out of nowhere. They opened my car door and knocked me unconscious.

Heres the google doc. You can view it and is updated more frequently then the forum version. If your viewing it the same time I'm editing it you can watch me change it live. https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=13KxUXoJGiqsHU9_uvCUgJDRUCC3w7YIcctWdu5KzZ XY&hl=en

brutalducky
11-01-2010, 09:29 PM
*Bump*