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Post #1
I'm working on a novel, or possibly a novella (big ambition I know), and I was wondering if I could get some criticism. Please go easy on me (just kidding, go apeshit).
The main plot is that airplanes begin exploding in mid-air, raining down wreckage below. No one knows why, no one knows how. Eventually other transportation devices begin to go off. Starting what could be WWIII.
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“What the hell is this?” Craig said to himself, the beam of light he had been scanning around the crawlspace had landed a dead cat. The sight was repulsive. It had been a large tabby cat, with orange swirls all over its skinny little body. Still in the process of decomposition, the cat was crawling with maggots, and it looked as if its stomach had caved in. The sight reminded him of when he saw a dead rabbit in summer camp. He had been under the house a few days before to fix a plumbing issue, and he didn’t remember seeing anything like this. Because of the smell, His eyes teared up, and a few tears managed to spill over, running down and sting his cheeks. He quickly rubbed them off, slipping on a pair of gardening gloves beside him. He gagged, he swore the smell was getting worse by the second, he better make haste if he wanted to keep his lunch down.
His arm jerked towards the cat, urging him to pick it up and get it over with. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and grabbed the cat by its nape, unfortunately hearing the cat’s neck snap under the pressure. Craig began to wretch, dry heaving off to the side. Maggots were climbing on his gloves. This is really disgusting, he thought. He looked at his jeans, the knees caked in mud, and what he thought was also cat shit. Ducking his head down, he slowly walked on his knees towards outside, where all the fresh air was. Somewhere along path, he lost his balance and went face-first into the mud. He slowly raised his face out of the mud, feeling anger rise, but was overcome by humility. He wanted to find out who this cat belonged to, and stuff it up his or her ass.
Once he was out from under the house, he looked for a collar on the cat, but he couldn’t find one. Who buys a cat and doesn’t put a collar on it?
Pondering this question for a moment, the world began to shake. Craig instinctively yelled, and dived under the porch awning, bumping his head on the brickwork, sending a shock all the way down to his feet. When the apparent earthquake was over, he ran inside yelling for Laura. His head hurt something fierce; he thought he might’ve had a concussion. He found her in the kitchen on her knees surrounded by broken glass, spilled coffee, and a puddle of blood that seemed to be growing larger. In her hand was a dustpan, splattered with a few drops of blood, but generally clean. He couldn’t see where the blood was coming from.
“Laura, are you okay?” he asked.
“I think I cut my back.” she said. She turned around to show him. There was a shard of porcelain protruding out of her back. This was where the blood was coming from, he thought.
She began to tell him what happened, “I dropped my mug. I got the dustpan and broom to clean it up, but then everything started shaking.” Her voice began to crack.
“And then things started to fall on me. Now I’m bleeding everywhere and my back aches.” She was crying now. “And my shirt is ruined.”
“We have bigger things to worry about other than your clothes, like that thing in your back.”
“What’s sticking out of my back?” she said, panic evident in her voice.”
“Nothing for you to worry about.” He got up and ran to the bathroom. Laura screamed, “Where the hell are you going?”
Once he was in the bathroom, He began pulling out their contents, and then moving onto the next one. Moving on to the cabinets, he finally found what he was looking for: Stainless steel pliers. Grabbing some disinfectant soap, he ran out the bathroom. Arriving in the kitchen, he saw Laura, but what was in her hand? A white shard of porcelain was gripped in her hand, blood capping the point. He felt sick.
She grimaced, “I got it out.” Blood was pumping viciously out of her back. She lost consciousness. Craig ran to her and caught her before she hit the grounded, when the world began to shake again. The rumble sent china cascading over the shelf onto them. He threw his body over her to protect her from the plates, feeling dishes pound at his back. When it was over, he looked out the kitchen window. Smoke was filling the air, taking the beauty of the blue sky with it. Craig pulled out his cell phone and dialed nine-one-one.
“We’re sorry, but all the lines are busy. Please try again later.” He tried dialing the number again.
“We’re sorry, but all the lines are busy. Please try again later.”
“My ass they’re busy!” he yelled, and threw his BlackBerry at the wall, showering the floor with bits of plastic and glass. He had to help Laura himself, but how? The least he needed to do was stop the bleeding, but he didn’t have any of that wrap, what did they call it? Gauze, he needed gauze, but who keeps gauze in their house? He suddenly had an idea. He unbuttoned his shirt and began to furiously wrap it around her upper body, slowly the bleeding but not stopping it. Her breathing was beginning to sound rough and labored. He had to take her to the hospital. Slowly but carefully, and scooped her up in his arms, and lifted her up. She was surprisingly light, and it was easy for him to carry her. Accidentally kicking off the back screen door, he walked outside with her, taking great care to make sure that shirt tied around her bust stayed where it was. He carried her through the open gate. As he walked down his driveway, he could hear the sirens of ambulances approaching. Towards the big boom, he supposed. Laura began to fidget, then she mumbled.
“Sweetie, don’t forget to feed the birds.”
“I won’t, I won’t.” He had no idea what she was talking about, but he decided to play along for her sake.
Once at his car, he pulled on the door handle, and to his relief the door was unlocked. He set Laura gently in the passenger seat, and opened his glove compartment to get a few safety pins. He clipped the loose ends of her makeshift together, to ensure it wouldn’t fall off during the car ride. He buckled her in, and then himself. He turned the car on and instantly put it in reverse, pushing the gas all the way to the floor
They were smashed into by a car.
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Woah. What happened? Do continue. By the way, check grammar, sentence flow, and you are missing a period in the second last sentence. What is the story about, anyway? The intro doesn't give anything away.
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Good stuff so far, easy to read, the last sentence though needs a bit more preface. I realize it is supposed to be sudden, but as it is right now it feels very broken (the last sentence).
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Thanks for the criticism so far, but I wish that Facepunch had some paragraphing tools. Like Justify position paragraphing
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Or actually maybe it is just how the sentence is written. Instead of "They were then smashed into by a car" maybe it should be something like "That was when they were hit by a car."
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-Chapter 2-
Danny was late for work again, and he was sure he was going to be fired this time. Going ten miles over a 20 mile speed limit, he was also sure he was going to be pulled over. Speeding down the neighborhood, he saw quite a large man carrying what looked like a woman. He brought his car to a screeching halt along the curb. The man didn’t seem to notice Danny’s presence. Stepping out of his car, he cautiously walked toward the man, who was pulling out the driveway when the house to his left exploded. Siding and shingles rained down upon them, prompting Danny to run back into his car and roll up the windows. The house was quickily enveloped in flames. The man who backed up had jumped out of his car, shouting curses and nonsense. The fire licked at trees nearby, threatening to ignite them. Danny got back out of the car and stood on the lawn, the flames illuminating his face with an orange glow. Something was sticking out of the roof of the house, or where the roof had been. Looking closer, he found it to be an airplane tail. A god dammed airplane had crashed into a house. He heard popping noises come from the house, and there was another explosion. The light and sound caused Danny to throw himself onto the ground, trying in vain to cover his eyes and ears. Once the light and sound had abated, he picked himself up and looked at where the house had been. He could no longer tell it had been a home, a place where people lived and spent time with their family. He could see some furniture through the fire, but before he could get a good look at them, they were devoured by the hungry flames. Embers were sprinkling the grass, creating an effect similar to freshly fallen snow.
The man began to scream, and literally began to tear his hair out. Unbeknownst to Danny, the man’s wife was losing her hold on life in the car.
I'm nowhere near done with the chapter, but read as you please.
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That should be "slowing", methinks.
Other than that, I'm really enjoying this. I'm prepared to read any more that you write.
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Hey, thanks man. Also thanks for catching that error with the slowly/slowing. I'm a dumb ass.
Moar content:
Danny thought it’d be best if he left, and then got into his car. He stuck his key in the ignition then turned the key. The car didn’t make a sound. Thinking it was a user error, he turned the key again, harder this time. The car still didn’t do anything.
“First a house explodes, now my fuckin car won’t start?” he said. Biting his lip, he tried the car five more times, all with no success. He knew he shouldn’t have bought this old piece of shit. He wondered if he could walk from his current location. He estimated that he was at most two miles north away from the bank. If he could walk fast enough he could get there in about thirty minutes. He got out of his car and began to powerwalk to his destination. Another plane flew overhead. He stopped walking to watch it fly off, disappearing from sight. He was about to continue walking when the ground shook. What the hell was going on? The shaking eventually subsided, and he heard the man behind him yell, “HELP MY WIFE!” Danny turned around and saw the man running at him. The man had blood stains on his arm. He grabbed Danny’s arm and led him towards the car, opening up the passenger door on arrival. Inside Danny saw a young woman, who was abnormally pale. The man grabbed the woman’s torso gently and bent her forwards. On her back Danny saw a horrific wound the size of a golf ball. She didn’t seem to be bleeding though.
“My name’s Craig, my wife and I had an accident.” He was speaking fast and he was taking short breaths, “The ground began to shake and stuff fell on my wife, and now I need you to help her.” Danny didn’t want to disappoint the man, nor did he want the woman in the car to die, but he had no medical experience.
“What do you want me to do exactly?” he asked Craig. He didn’t say anything. Danny looked up at where the home had been, and saw that the fire was dying out, but it had spread fairly close to where they were.
Edited:
By the way, the writing can't be that good. I'm thirteen.
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It might be me but the 'and threw his BlackBerry at the wall' sounds weird if I read it out loud.
Edited:
Good writing doesn't come with age, it comes with experience and knowledge.
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You really need to pay closer attention to grammar and syntax. Your sentence flow is often choppy and unpleasant, and your improper use of commas (and other important grammatical tools) makes them even more jarring to decipher.
There's a lot I could pick at in the overall quality of your writing style, but I feel like the very first thing you need to address is how to properly use a comma. You have an abundance of run-ons and sentence fragments as a result of using commas where periods or semicolons would be more appropriate.
For example:
This is not a properly formatted sentence. You used a comma where you should have simply put a period.
To further improve your opening line, you need to rework the flow. I would recommend dropping "Craig said to himself," and leaving "what the hell is this?" on its own. Then, to introduce Craig, replace the pronoun "he" in the second sentence with "Craig," and restructure the sentence to read more fluidly, as the way it is currently laid out is simply unpleasant.
It's still not an ideal opening line, but I would continue to tweak it over subsequent drafts.
There is an awful, awful lot I would like to point out as far as your writing style goes, but I think it would be much more productive, for the time being, to simply recommend that you more thoroughly learn the rules of grammar!
Edited:
OH! I can't believe I didn't immediately jump on this, but you simply have to stop using passive tense verbs! They make your writing style feel weak, as if you don't have the confidence to get right to the point.
...he had been scanning...
He scanned.
...had landed...
Landed.
Don't use passive tense verbs unless any other option just wouldn't make sense. Passive tense is a clear sign of an unsure writer. They make your writing feel shaky and tenuous, like you might try to snatch it back any second. If you do have to use a passive tense verb, try to avoid weak verbs like "had been." Find a more appealing way to say the same thing.
It looked as if its stomach had been caved in...
Its stomach was caved in.
or
The cat's caved in stomach was...
He had been under the house.
He was under the house.
Or
He crawled under the house...
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what was urging him? the cat? his arm?
you can't use a participial phrase without a subject
and in this case, I can't even think of a logical example of what to use for the subject... his brain??
also, look at the two "it"s later in the sentence. One refers to a cat, the other to some weird general concept of "it", the action that he needs to get over.
you shouldn't be using two of the same pronouns so closely without distinguishing between the two anyway, but you also can't use a pronoun without a subject (the second "it")
that was just one random example i pulled out of MANY mistakes in almost every sentence
you really need to work on grammar
I could barely even focus on the story itsef
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There's a lot of good advice in this thread, so I'm gonna make one little aesthetic suggestion: since you're posting it here, on the web, where there are no indents, put line breaks between your paragraphs, please. It'll make your stuff way easier to read. People tend to get lost in huge, unbroken blocks of text.
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More on That Cat please.
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You need to use less commas, because that was very hard to read.
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You need to work on the flow of your sentences a bit. Every time you write a sentence read it in your head as if you were reading it to other people. If it doesn't feel right, tweaking the structure of the sentence can always help.
Dumb x 1
Agree x 1
