silverfoxgirl

I'm writing a novel about werewolves (yah!) and honestly, I love the way its turning out. Except this part. I think it sounds awkward and overall "meh". (However, I'm pretty fond of my cheetah analogy) What do you think, and what would you advise that I do to fix it?
FYI: Will is a werewolf, Arianna (the narrator, "Anna" for short) is a human.



“Blood,” Will said suddenly, his ocher eyes widening. He lifted me gently, placing me against a tree behind him.
“Who?” I whispered, panic making my voice crack.
“A human,” he answered quietly, not meeting my eyes, which had grown to twice their normal size.
“How… far away is it?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice even.
“Not very,” he told me hesitantly, “But don’t worry. We’ll be OK. I don’t think its anyone dangerous.”
How safe can you be if someone is bleeding to death because of you, not to mention the fact that you’re about to eat them? I thought, but didn’t voice aloud “But… it’s a werewolf… the one who… made the human bleed?”
He winced and nodded slowly.
“Is there more than one?”
“No…,” he said, sniffing the air carefully, “It’s been freshly turned.”
“Oh,” I said weakly.
“Please don’t be scared. I won’t let him hurt you.”
“Mm-hm,” I agreed quietly, not trusting my voice to say anything else without cracking. But then an awful thought came into my head… “Will?” I asked, my voice trembling.
“Yeah?”
“If… he’s a new werewolf, than who turned him?”
“I’m not sure. But they’re not anywhere nearby,” he answered reassuringly. I nodded and sank to the ground. “What are we going to do with you?” Will mumbled, shaking his head. “Stay quiet,” he said quickly, his eyes searching the trees nearby, “And don’t move.”
A gray wolf stalked out of the bushes. It looked at me hungrily, its mouth covered in blood. My stomach turned unpleasantly. Will put himself between the ravenous creature and me, watching it fiercely.
The wolf stared at Will, its yellow eyes gazing solemnly into his amber ones. After almost a minute, it nodded once and walked away slowly.
“What the heck... Will, what was that? Was that a wolf or a werewolf?”
“He was more wolf than human, so I guess you could call him a wolf.”
“Wait… No, I mean, was he once a human?” I asked, very confused.
“Yes.”
“Then…”
“Our human forms are only illusions. Still, it’s the only way we can hold on to our old life… Once we are bitten, we are not humans who behave like wolves, but wolves who behave like humans… Some have just given up and let the wolf part of them take over, but even then, they are driven to kill once a month, during the full moon. Very few have managed to lose touch entirely, at least those who were once human. But I have seen some who are the children--”
“Puppies?”
He grinned broadly. “The puppies of other werewolves turn wild… and that’s where wolves come from, the ones you humans know about.”
“You’re joking.”
“Am I?”
“But… they just shot a wolf a few miles away--”
“They caught him in town, I think… he was in his wolf form, and he approached them, smiling and wagging his tail… They though he had rabies. Animal control shot him. His name was Ben. He was sixteen.” Will said, a distant look in his eyes.
“That’s horrible!”
“I guess it makes up for us killing humans.”
“Why can’t you both stop killing each other?” I mumbled.
“That would be nice, but it won’t happen. Its life, Anna.”
“Well, it sucks,” I grumbled.
He almost smiled. “Are you just finding that out?”
“But… it has to stop eventually… all of the killing…”
He looked at me sympathetically. “It’s been going on since before we were born. Before anyone living now was born. For as long as the wolves and the humans existed... But you know what, Anna? I can only tell you about the past. Maybe we’ll find a way to live in the future, someday soon.” Will smiled at me.
I hoped so. But though Will was smiling, I could tell by the look in his eyes that he didn’t believe it. I sighed. Weren’t we too young to be in the center of a never-ending war?
“And there’s no way to get around the whole human flesh thing?”
“Not… at the moment, no. We only kill one a month, and share it. Humans kill each other more often, Anna…”
“That’s not the point, Will! You’re ending some one’s life, and you have no idea who they are! They have families and jobs and lives!” I exploded.
“So do we, Anna!” Will’s voice rose angrily. I realized I hadn’t thought about that. I remembered watching nature shows when I was little, seeing cheetahs kill baby antelopes and hating them for it… until they dragged the body behind bushes, where baby cheetahs that would have otherwise starved waited. I had realized that I didn’t want the cheetahs or the antelope to die, but life had to end for the other to continue.
Why was this so much harder to accept when the baby antelope was human?
“How do the puppies hunt?” I decided to ask
“They don’t need the blood until they get older,” Will answered tersely.
“Oh,” I mumbled.
“I better take you home before something else tries to eat you,” he said, a little more light-hearted than before.
It was getting late. The sun was sinking under the hills, and Will’s body cast a long shadow on the forest floor. I looked at the shadow, furrowing my brow. It wasn’t a human shape that his shadow reflected, but a wolf’s.
“You’re in your human form. Why is your shadow...?” I asked stupidly.
“Hmmm? Oh, that. Our human forms are only illusions, ‘member?”
“Creepy,” I murmured, still staring at the shadow.
Will looked away. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“Oh, Will, don’t be! I’m sorry. C’mon, let’s go home,” I said, feeling extremely guilty. It wasn’t the shadow itself that bothered me. I hadn’t minded having a werewolf for a boyfriend—after all, weren’t werewolves mostly human? I mean, they were human, unless they decided to turn into wolves, and even that had proved itself useful, But this… he was a wolf. Like in the zoo. Like a dog, only shaggier and wilder. The shadow seemed to confirm this, that his body was that of an animal and not a human, as I had so often viewed him. None of it seemed to make sense.
We were silent as we made our way back. It was an awkward silence, made even more awkward by the fact that I was riding on top of him. Tension between us hung thickly in the air like humidity on the sticky days in the middle of August.

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*~Hannah~*
Boys are like purses-- cute and full of crap.

sylvia.cheers

For a start I would cut out at least half the adverbs (slowly, fiercely, quietly) and a lot of the comments that accompany the dialogue. Otherwise, the writing is pretty good.

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JHB

Interesting...

Shen

i agree with sylvia. cheers - too many adverbs.

HippoHead

yeah, the adverbs here point out the obvious and weaken the flow.
'I said, very confused',
'my stomach turned unpleasantly.'

Your writing is good enough to not need these words. We already know the context in which they are used.

silverfoxgirl

Thanks, I think thats what made it sound so awkward... I'll edit it

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*~Hannah~*
Boys are like purses-- cute and full of crap.

silverfoxgirl

UPDATE: This is harder than I thought. It turns out I have a full-blown adverb addiction.

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*~Hannah~*
Boys are like purses-- cute and full of crap.

lilacstarflower

agree with cutting the adverbs. Also there is a lot of dialog and not much description in there, or enough emotion from the narrator IMO. But it was good to read

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Sen Yama

Agree with previous adverb posts. Maybe you could try and use different verds to cut down on the adverbs? Also, it seems like her perspective changes on the werewolf halfway through, but I can't point out where, and the perspective seems to be more negative, where the dialouge makes you think she would regard him better afterward. (but I'm probably reading into the story the wrong way)

BTW, thank you. You have not fallen into the Stephane Meyers trap. So many werewolf writers have been doing that lately.

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silverfoxgirl

Actually, I was TERRIFIED of sounding like the Twilight novels (another addiction of mine). I'm glad it didn't seem that way to you, because my friend said she was picking up a Twilight vibe....
Thanks for all your help!

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*~Hannah~*
Boys are like purses-- cute and full of crap.

starStuff

obviously, as everyone has said, cut down the adverbs. using them *occasionally* is ok for specific effect. Its hard, i often fall into that trap and have to stop myself. Ask yourself, does the dialogue itself achieve what i would be trying to add with the adverb?

a couple things that seemed a little odd to me


you can end this sentence at "..., I thought." since, its a thought, she obviously doesn't voice it aloud.

why did he wince?

aside from the actual dialogue, this seems unnecessary. We know she is scared. You could simply state so here.

this is another instance where the adverb belies what is actually happening. He is so sure the wolf is no where nearby but then the wolf comes out of the bushes a second later. Of course, the character can be sure the wolf is not nearby but be wrong. In this case I would expect that he would be surprised when the wolf popped out of the bushes, which he was not. Another remedy would be to take out the adverb and change his dialogue to express that he is *confident* the wolf isn't nearby. also, the pronoun 'they're' sounds odd too since it means plural.

this implies to me that the more wolf they embrace the less they kill (only once a month). It seems that it should be the other way around, that as they lose touch of their human side they kill more. If they only killed once a month they would be embracing human and losing control at full moon.

this seemed weird to me because, i understand that the human form is an illusion or a trick of light so the shadow would be wolf, but why is she riding on him if he looks human? Wouldn't that be weird to see as an objective viewer? Also, I appreciate the whole shadow thing, but you may want to extend the illusion to the shadow as well. It would give him away in a second. Imagine seeing a person in line at a coffee shop that threw the shadow of a werewolf...

and lastly
this simile is weak, imho. I would maybe use a metaphor to make the analogy stronger. For example The tension between us was humid and hung thick. or Humid tension hung thick between us. be creative

That being said, as you know, this is all just one man's opinion. These are things that stood out to me, the reader. Hopefully you can gain some insight to why this part of your story seems "odd."

write on!
\m/

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Please read and critique my Novella-in-Progress, tentatively titled:
The Gadon Stone
Prologue
Chapter 1: The Library

Chapter 2 is in the works. These are posted in the Critique and Advice forum here.