Log in

View Full Version : The Plague



Bjornnesss
10-25-2014, 05:55 PM
I want legit feedback from other people on this short story that I made.


Although it was warned, nobody expected it. The White Plague, the plague that internally tortured and eventually killed over 80 percent of the worlds population over a time span of two months. The only survivors live on an island eighteen miles away from the mainland. The luscious, mountainous , evergreen-filled haven is the only inhabitable place left on Earth (or so we know). Even now as I speak, the unlucky beings on the desolate mainland are dying off one by one. Sometimes I sit down by the old oak tree near the shore of the island and grief about all the lives lost, the famine, the torture, the pain that everybody experienced during the plague. Although, I cannot dawn on the past forever, as there is much to be done in order to secure our lives on this island.
At three o’clock in the morning, I was awaken by John, one of my best pals. He told me that I must go to the Town Hall as soon as possible, I knew something was terrible wrong because, even though John was a good friend of mine, he barely ever spoke. I quickly got out of my cot and put on my only pair of jeans, which were ratty and dirty, I then quickly put on muddy muscle shirt. As I was about to walk out, I found a bees nest located in the top corner of my wooden hut. I knew I couldn’t deal with it now, so I left, trying not to dawn on it as there was clearly a more serious issue that confronted our island. When I got to the Town hall, which is the biggest hut in the island, almost everybody from the island was in a circle surrounding surrounding something. As I weaved my way through the awe struked crowd, I finally saw what they were looking at, it has Danny, he was dead. I gasped when I saw a huge, bloody gash on his head. I wanted to know what had happened to him, but everybody seemed to question the same thing. Eventually the chaos was subsided by the village elder Elaine when she slowly came out of the Town Hall. Everybody respected our elders, as they are the wisest and smartest of them all. “Please calm down, fussing over Danny’s death will solve nothing. If we are to solve the problem, we must work together in a calmly fashion” exclaimed Elaine. The whole crowd was now dead silent as they listened to what Elaine had to say.
As I went back to my hut for the night, everybody was still discussing what had happened to Danny. I myself was curious too, but when I got back to my hut, my curiosity was broken by a bee sting to the leg. I jumped out of my hut, screaming in pain, I knew this was not some ordinary bee sting. I then fell to the ground, writhing in pain. My neighbors scrambled toward me and tried to help me, but it was too late. In a matter of seconds, my leg leg felt like nothing. “He lost circulation!” panicked one of my neighbors as he tried to give me water. A second later, I completely fell unconscious and everything else after that incident was a blur.

Bjornnesss
10-26-2014, 09:46 AM
Can I please have feedback from other people.

DATo
10-26-2014, 10:28 AM
Although it was warned, nobody expected it.
The word IT refers to the plague. The plague was not warned, the people were. So it would be better to write ...
Although it was FORETOLD (or you could also say PREDICTED), nobody expected it.

I sit down by the old oak tree near the shore of the island and grief about all the lives lost
GRIEF is the state one is in while they are grieving. One cannot GRIEF over something. The word you want to use here is GRIEVED. I would say "GRIEVED OVER" rather than GRIEF ABOUT.

weaved my way ... should be ... WOVE MY WAY

awe struked ... should be ... AWE STRUCK

in a calmly fashion ... should be ... IN A CALM MANNER

I think you have talent for creating good story ideas. Your story itself has an interesting basis, and it shows promise of possibly becoming a VERY good story, but of course it is incomplete. We do not learn what happened to Danny or the narrator who suffered the bee sting.

Please write more of the story. I would like to see how this story develops.

Bjornnesss
10-26-2014, 04:24 PM
Although it was warned, nobody expected it.
The word IT refers to the plague. The plague was not warned, the people were. So it would be better to write ...
Although it was FORETOLD (or you could also say PREDICTED), nobody expected it.

I sit down by the old oak tree near the shore of the island and grief about all the lives lost
GRIEF is the state one is in while they are grieving. One cannot GRIEF over something. The word you want to use here is GRIEVED. I would say "GRIEVED OVER" rather than GRIEF ABOUT.

weaved my way ... should be ... WOVE MY WAY

awe struked ... should be ... AWE STRUCK

in a calmly fashion ... should be ... IN A CALM MANNER

I think you have talent for creating good story ideas. Your story itself has an interesting basis, and it shows promise of possibly becoming a VERY good story, but of course it is incomplete. We do not learn what happened to Danny or the narrator who suffered the bee sting.

Please write more of the story. I would like to see how this story develops.
Thank you very much for the feedback. I did not edit it or bother to fix any grammatical mistakes before submitting it. I wrote the beginning of the story just to see what people thought of it. I will continuer the story soon.

Again, thanks for your feedback.

Calidore
10-26-2014, 06:28 PM
Thank you very much for the feedback. I did not edit it or bother to fix any grammatical mistakes before submitting it. I wrote the beginning of the story just to see what people thought of it. I will continuer the story soon.

Again, thanks for your feedback.

Some advice: Asking for feedback and then essentially telling a respondent that he's wasted his time because you weren't done anyway is a good way not to get more feedback from anybody. Polish what you're posting to the best of your ability, and if you're posting an incomplete work, say so up front.

Carousel
10-26-2014, 06:51 PM
As been pointed out, you really have to use a spell check and try to improve your sentence structure. The story line moves which is good, so many amateur writers when starting a short story get carried away by writing paragraph after paragraph of descriptive writing. You can almost hear the reader saying
“Look I know fields are green and the sky is blue and I am sure Mary looks very pretty in her blue dress but get on with the damn thing”
It’s just a question of keeping the balance between descriptive writing and the story line.

Although it was warned, nobody expected it. The White Plague, the plague that internally tortured and eventually killed over 80 percent of the worlds population over a time span of two months. The only survivors live on an island eighteen miles away from the mainland.


Instead of the above try something like this; fill in the italics.


The White Plague in when? had all but wiped out the earths population but for a few thousand who had survived on an island where and what mainland/? A Pacific island? Atlantic island etc?


I have omitted Although it was warned, nobody expected it, I think its better to start with The White Plague because it instantly grabs the readers attention. Also omitted is--80 percent of the worlds population. Because that leaves 20 % and would mean 1425.000000 million still left alive, obviously far too large for the island you had in mind.

Take this as a demonstration, just some ideas you might want to try; it’s not a re-write, it’s your story’

Hope this helps.

108 fountains
10-28-2014, 11:03 AM
I also picked up on the math that Carousel pointed out concerning the numbers of survivors of the Plague. And I also agree with the previous commenters that you need some work on grammar and diction, but I also agree with them that the story shows a lot of promise.

I would suggest you drop the idea of the plague altogether. By setting the story at some unspecified time in the future when most of mankind has been destroyed by a plague, you will lose a lot of readers right away because you are presenting something that can be categorized immediately as "young adult fantasy" with a setting that is similar to settings that have been done a thousand times before in that genre.

If you start of the story setting it in the present day in a small village on a remote island - perhaps in Hudson Bay off the coast of Quebec or in the North Sea or Norwegian Sea between Scotland and Norway - you immediately have a unique setting that is both exotic and something that most people could identify with.

Then I would suggest you take your time and not be in such a hurry. For example, you have, "The whole crowd was now dead silent as they listened to what Elaine had to say." But then you jump to the next scene and don't tell us what Elaine had to say.

You have several interesting things going on already - Danny's mysterious death with a gash on his head; a mysterious, deadly bee sting. I suspect that your original idea was to relate the beesting to the plague, but I really think it will be a more believable, and therefore a more appealing story, if you just leave the plague and the destruction of mankind out of it and focus on the strange things that are happening in this remote village.