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The Curse of Grindale

8 years ago

I have been on the site for quite a long time now, and I have started a few projects, but I have never finished them. I really want to commit to this one though so that's why I am doing this. Anyway, tell me what you guys think. This the first page of The Curse of Grindale.

As you walk down the dark hallway all you can see are the majestic purple drapes lining three windows on the cold brick walls, and the one black door that leads out of the hall. The walls try to protect you from the winter cold, but it doesn’t do much good because the windows are open. The wind almost whispers to you. “Keep moving” it tells you. Or maybe you’re just imagining it. I mean the wind can’t really talk can it? You just know you are going to freeze if you stay too much longer. You start heading toward the door.

As you walk by the second window you see an image blur past your peripheral vision. You stop to look out the window but there isn’t anything there. You casual laugh at yourself as if trying to prove to the empty room that you weren’t scared and continue on your way. That’s when you hear her. She screeches from her perch on a tree outside the third and final window.

She sits on a branch of the dead old oak tree you used to play on as a child. As she starts to stand she unfolds two wrinkled leathery wings revealing to you that she isn’t wearing any clothing. You are frozen in terror. You haven’t ever seen anything like this before, and because of that you watch her. She looks over a hundred years old. Her skin looks like one of your shirts after it has came out of the dryer and you’ve stuffed in a drawer and forgotten it for a week or two. Her legs are long and skinny with dangling skin barely clinging to the bone. Her arms are to long for her body as the reach down to her knees with fingernails long and untrimmed. Her hair is bleach white and runs down her body to her waist. That is when you see her most striking feature. Her eyes. They are clouded up by the ages, but you can still see the icy blue that have long since faded leaving only small traces to prove color was ever there in the first place.

“KEEP MOVING!” she demands in a voice that to you sounds like she hasn’t spoken in a long time, but is still very authoritative. You back away from the window and she spreads her wings to there full wingspan that you can only guess to be six feet or so, and she jumps.

You turn, as you know what she wants you to do. The door still seems far away. Like you haven’t even gotten any closer as you’ve approached it. You start back on your way, but for every two steps you take the door seems to slide a single step further away from you. As you finally close in on the door you hear her screech again, but this time behind you. You turn to see the ancient winged woman standing in the hall only a few yards away.

“Keep moving, boy, before I get you.” You turn to run, but the door that was only a few feet away a moment ago is now half a football field away. You look back at the woman and she starts to walk slowly towards you with a hungry look on her face. Your heart starts to beat frantically and you start to sprint in the direction of the door. “That’s it boy let me chase you..”

As you run you hear the woman’s wings start to flap and you know without looking that she is now flying towards you. You’re half way to the door when you feel her stale breath beating down on the back of your neck. You close your eyes and pump your legs forward as fast as you can. All you want to do is give up and let this woman do whatever it is she wants to do with you. However you know that isn’t an option. You have to get to the door. You must.

That’s when you open your eyes again. You’re only a few steps away. You feel her elongated grip your shoulder and she tries to pull you back from the door. You are so close. You can almost reach it, but she has a hold of you. Her grip isn’t tight now, but even though she seems old to you know she is strong. If she was able to grab a hold of you better you might not be able to make it.

 

  • Try to slip out of her grasp.

 

  • Rush for the door anyway.

 

  • Give in. She already has you. 

The Curse of Grindale

8 years ago

I am by no means an expert, so take my feedback as you will.

Sounds good, enough detail that no one will get confused... like they did with my first page :x

I think there is one or two mistakes, but again, I am no expert and might be reading it wrong. However this part stuck out:

- "she seems old to you know she is strong" The 'to' should be a 'thought'? Or the 'to you know' part should be 'to you, you know'.

Another thing I read in a guide is, avoid pointless choices. Just gives you more scripting work (ie, gender choice) or makes some readers unhappy. Also from the three choices here it seems like the first two will lead to the same place, just different wording, and the last choice sounds like you die, so that's sort of pointless. Also if they all end in "you wake up" the illusion of choice here will be un-cool! >:0

Don't get me wrong, if your using advanced editor its not too hard to make some sort of butterfly effect. ie. I rush for door anyway, get scratched, play game normally. Than towards end turns out I was a monster the whole time doing evil things but seeing them differently.
Also you CAN have illusion choices, seeing as some stories tend to be linear, but I personally recommend staying away from too many choices of this kind (but that's up to you).


That's all I got! Good luck on writing your story, the start is definitely good and seems original.

P.S. Also for the more or less negative feedback don't let it get to you, after all it is YOUR story and this is all based off the first page anyway. Don't go rewriting everything because of what I said. xD

 

P.P.S. As you might have seen before:
- Don't make demo's.
- Only make direct "Part 2" if the story is REALLY long, not fun having the story end halfway through.
- PROOFREAD, don't forgot that, makes the story a lot better.
- PROOFREAD at the end, when you wrote everything. Will take a while but will ensure a much better reading experience.

 

Ok now THAT'S all!
Have fun and good luck!

The Curse of Grindale

8 years ago

Been thinking about some of the things I said and:

"Pointless" choices are actually useful and have a purpose, so you can disregard half my feedback xD
Its late so won't get into why/how, just had to say they aren't actually pointless.

The Curse of Grindale

8 years ago

Well I did write it at like one in the morning so the mistakes were inevitable. I really should have re-read it this morning, and then post it. However I felt like if I didn't post it I wouldn't post it at all so I did it. lol. I am writing on word so putting putting up demos seems like an extra step that frankly I don't want to take. I might put up a page preview or two like the first page. I plan on making it long too. I tend to keep on writing once I get in the groove. It is a dream obviously, but these three choices do matter. Getting caught isn't a death scene either. I hope to be a little less straight forward than that when its a death choice. Haha.

Anyway, I appreciate the comment. Helped me a lot. I understand constructive criticism and that is another reason why I posted it. I wanted to see what people thought, good and bad. The bad will help me write a better story in general, and the good will help me keep writing. :D