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I'm wondering if this is well made....

9 years ago

Is this well-made, or should I work more on it? All reviews are welcome.

Mortuus Ambulate.

 

Infernos Es Terra.

You instantly gasp for air. The sudden very cold air surrounds you and a feeling of dread enters your body. Darkness is all around you. Nothing but endless darkness and the smell of... Death. The stench overtakes you, and you feel the urge to puke. Strangely, you have the need to stand up. Realizing you have a flashlight in your hand, you press down on the button.

The small metal stick projects a light illuminating a dark corner with a mangled corpse. Blood drenches the ground only inches away from you, and a fractured rib cage sits directly in front of your position. You puke, and blood comes out. A terrible feeling overcomes you, and you start to feebly walk in the opposite direction. The flashlight with a waning light shows gore and guts strewn across a seemingly empty hallway, almost as if someone decided to decorate with organs and intestines.

The strange sickness makes your eyesight begin to fail, and you get dizzy. You must clench your mouth to resist regurgitation and hold your aching stomach. Suddenly, a red fluid sprays out from a wall, forcing you to stifle a scream.

Coming into sight, when you believe you will falter, is a door. In between the mechanism is a squashed body. Next to the door is a panel in which you slide open. Grabbing a limb carefully from below, you push the disgusting thumb into the machine.

Access Denied.

After testing out a few more, you finally come across a right one. The door opens slowly. The new hallway is much bigger than the other one, and much wider. The flashlight is ever so dimming, so you are careful. Suddenly, you hear a quiet sloshing noise. Peering around a corner, you can barely make out the silhouette of a figure leaning over a corpse.

Better make your move fast.

I'm wondering if this is well made....

9 years ago
Best recommendation: kill all adverbs that end in "ly" in your writing.

Strong verbs and nouns are the key to good writing. Use adjectives sparingly. And adverbs even less. Strong nouns and verbs paint clearer and more succinct pictures, and they keep the reader engaged.

Also, "suddenly" and "instantly" are unnecessary and distracting words. You're writing in present tense anyway. Everything that the narrator reveals is happening right now. But even if this was a paste tense story, I wouldn't use those words.

"Realizing" anything usually sounds corny when you read it. Get rid of words like that and be more direct. This is supposed to be a creepy scene, so cut the fat and throw your punches hard and sharp.

"The small metal stick." Really, Mason? If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and shits like a duck, it's a duck. Just call it a flashlight. You're not going to win over any readers with your cutesy deviations here.

"The strange sickness makes your eyesight begin to fail." - Use stronger verbs.

"You get dizzy." - Use stronger verbs. Also, you're telling us we're dizzy. Show us.

"You must clench your mouth..." - "Must" serves no purpose whatsoever, and it weakens the sentence.

"In between the mechanism is a squashed body. Next to the door is a panel in which you slide open." - What mechanism? This is the first you've mentioned one. And that's not very descriptive. A mechanism could be anything.

"Coming into sight," - We are playing through the eyes of the protagonist. You don't need to tell us things like this. If it's being described, we know the protagonist sees it.



Edited:

You gasp for breath, choking down lungfuls of frigid air. Though you can see nothing through the darkness, a foul odor finds you and creeps into your nose. The stench of death. Bile tickles the back of your throat as you fight the urge to vomit.

You have something in your hand. A flashlight. You click the button and stagger to your feet.

The beam of light reveals a mangled corpse rotting in the corner. Blood drenches the ground. And a fractured rib cage lies before you, only inches from the tips of your toes. Slivers of gristle still stick between the bones. You cannot hold back your roiling gut. And bloody bile spills from your mouth. You must get out of here.

You wipe the slop from your mouth and hobble away form the carnage. The flashlight flickers and dims. Despite the failing light, you can still see all the grisly decorations marring the passageway. Intestines, strips of shredded flesh with blackening skin, and organs, many of which you cannot identify, bedeck the hall. They lie in almost purposeful patterns.

The sickness in your stomach spreads. And your vision falters. Vertigo sends you spiraling. You choke back another wave of vomit and cradle your stomach in your arms.

Red fluid sprays out from a wall, coating you in... blood.

Even your screams taste of death.

Through your delirium, you shuffle onward until you see a door at the end of the hall and a panel embedded in the wall. Another corpse lies before the door. The panel appears to be some type of scanner. You hold your breath to safeguard your poor nose from the stench and raise the thumb on the right hand to the scanner pad.

"Access Denied" flashes across the screen.

You test a few more fingers and finally come across a right one, the left thumb. The door slides into the wall. And you enter a larger room with several corridors spanning off of it. The flashlight dies. You whack the bastard against the meat of your thigh, and the light flickers back on. Duller though. Much duller.

Slosh. Slosh. Slosh.

Goosebumps scour your skin. But you follow the noise and peer into one of the corridors. A hazy silhouette looms over a still body.

Time to act: fight or flee.

I'm wondering if this is well made....

9 years ago

Thanks. Just working to flex my writing ability, the tips are appreciated.

I'm wondering if this is well made....

9 years ago
I'll also add that everything you put into a story needs to do one of the following:

1) Advance the plot
2) Add characterization

A bit of scene setting isn't bad, but it's best not to get carried away. Anything you describe should add to the characterization of the world, at any rate.

For example, in your story, you talk about the cold air in the opening paragraph, but you don't bring that back into the fold anywhere else. Why is this important? At least show the character shivering, chattering teeth or growing goosebumps. But it'd be better if it had a bearing on the plot or setting too. It shouldn't just be cold for the sake of being cold. This will help bring realism, true meaning and life to your world.

I'm wondering if this is well made....

9 years ago

Thanks. 

I'm wondering if this is well made....

9 years ago

daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn!

bucky you're friggin' good!