Horror Fest (obviously the horror genre) - Writers Forum

TevenB · 06-22-2008, 07:18 AM

Hello everyone, this is the first part to my new story I am working on. Please, bear with the beginning. It is just a taste of the story. Also take note that I labeled this horror, but nothing will be scary in this part. I do intend to make this story serious, but as you will notice while your reading, it will have some laughs...I hope anyway. I hope you like it!

Note: The story will have derogatory statements and imagery.

"Hey, Tristan, whats wrong?"

"Oh nothing Jenny, just kind of puzzled." He says as he sits on the couch

"Puzzled about what sexy?" she asks as she sits next to him and starts feeling his chest

"He's puzzled because he cant get it up!!" A guy named Josh chimes in, him and his buddies laugh hysterically

"Thats not why you moron!" Tristan yells as he gets up

"Then what is it!?" Jenny asks as she continues to feel his chest

"We are supposed to be camp counselors right!?"

"Yeah, of course, thats why were here right?" Jenny says

"All we have been doing since we got here is party!"

"Yeah, so, were waiting for the kids." Jenny says as she goes in for a kiss

"Jenny, its been two fucking days since we have been here!" he yells as he breaks away from her "Where are the fucking kids!?"

"Whoa, calm down Tristan" Josh continues "They'll be here, probably in the morning."

"Yeah, your probably right." Tristan said

"Good, now that you have calmed down, lets go outside" Jenny says as she grabs his hand and leads him out.

Tristan whistles "Ooh, sexy baby, lets do it" Tristan said

As they made their way outside the so-called party was drifting off behind them. They started kissing passionately and barely took a breath. They made their way into the shed right by the lake and started making out some more.

"Aah, Tristan, you are so hot!" Jenny says as she starts taking off her clothes

"Aah, I know!" Tristan says back as he takes off his clothes

"Uh, what was that?" Tristan says

"What was what?" she asks

"I heard a noise, I'm going to check it out." He continues "Stay here, I'll be back"

Tristan made his way out into the shed they were close to. He had to find out what that noise was. Inside the shack Tristan saw all sorts of tools and sharp objects hanging on the wall. He slowly made his way inside. As he started making his way in he heard another noise.

"Who's there!?"

"Tristan!" Jenny yells

He turns around facing the door "I said stay ther-" he stopped as he heard something heavy land behind him. He slowly turns around and sees a large well built man with an umpire mask.

"Shit, Jenny!" he yells as he starts to run only to have a pitch fork thrown straight at his back and through his chest.

"Tristan, was that you!?" Jenny yells as she stands right outside the shed

She makes her way in, and starts looking around "Tristan, was that you?"

She begins to look at all of the objects on the wall as she slowly goes in farther "Tristan, was that you?"

She then hears a bang above her "Tristan, stop playing games, lets go back to the house!"

She then makes her way up the ladder "Tristan, was that you?"

As she makes her way up the ladder she runs into a cobweb "Eew, nasty, I hate spiders!"

When she is done getting it off she sees a man in front of her "Tristan, is that you?"

The man takes the pitch fork and jams it through her face

"Oh shit, dammit, I lost another five bucks!"

"Give it here, Smitty!" I said as I held my hand out

"Damn, how could I be so stupid!?" Smitty said as he smothered his hands through his brown hair

"Yeah, you should have known they were both going to die, simple horror movie common sense!" I said as I put the money in my pocket.

"Well, anyway, I have to go." he said as he got up and made his way out the door

"Ok, see ya, Smitty!"

"Davis, will you take out the garbage?" my mom asked as she poked her head into my room

"Yeah, sure mom."

I made my way outside and saw Smitty still here, in my backyard. "Hey, Smitty, what are you still doing here?"

"I heard a noise over there" he said, pointing towards the bushes "You wanna go check it out?"

I laughed "Fuck no Smitty, never check out a strange noise at night." I continued "You saw what happened to those idiots on Saturday the 15th!"

He laughed "Yeah, just testing, anyway be careful!"

"No, you be careful, your the one who has to walk home!" I yelled as I put the garbage in the bin

As I started walking inside I heard a noise in the same bushes Smitty pointed to "Hello, is anyone there?" I said in a sarcastic tone.

I tapped my hand twice on my leg and out comes dashing my dog "Connor, get off of me, I didn't tell you to lick me!"

I walked my dog into the house and started staring off into the starrey night.

My name is Davis Deek, and as you can already tell, I love horror movies. Me and my friends get together every weekend to watch nothing but horrors. Sometimes we bet on who is going to die first, or who is going to survive.

Sometimes, we bet in the moment. I am what you would call a nerd, well, thats what everyone but my friends and family call me anyway. I wear glasses, maybe that could be why, although thats a stupid reason. Anyway, I cant wait until tomorrow. Me and four of my friends are going to have a horror marathon, its going to be great.

HippoHead · 06-22-2008, 01:25 PM

... I... I... oh, TevenB... poor, poor, TevenB...

This is unfixable.

TevenB · 06-22-2008, 01:28 PM

What do you mean? Its that bad?

Granted, I wrote it pretty quick, but I would like detail if you wouldn't mind.

Sam Winchester · 06-22-2008, 01:44 PM

Teven, it's not a movie you're writing. 90% of this is dialogue. Also, you're changing tense by the paragraph.

TevenB · 06-22-2008, 01:49 PM

This is definitely a work in progress story. I posted it early mainly because of my other story that was in the grave (Rellik Laires). I wanted to make it up to the couple of people who read it with this new one. As you said, 90% of it is dialogue, but 90% of it is also most likely going to change.

Sam Winchester · 06-22-2008, 01:53 PM

Okay, but you still need to pick a tense and stick with it. For starting off, I'd recommend third-person past.

HippoHead · 06-22-2008, 03:29 PM

tense-shifts
corny dialogue
sentences don't flow
no imagery, despite what you say in the beginning
irritating characters
bland
bad idea
badly executed

Murder it.

Tough, but tis my opinion.

GodofLiterature · 06-22-2008, 03:57 PM

Why is there no tension?

Because there is no conflict from what I see. Nothing is happening.

Nothing is happening.

Again, nothing is happening.

TevenB · 06-22-2008, 09:12 PM

Hippohead, despite what you say, I believe this can be fixed. As to some of your arguments, such as "corny dialogue" I made it that way on purpose. Did I not say there would be laughs? The beginning was merely a spoof of the movie Friday the 13th. I would guess your "irritating characters" also means the intro as well, since I wouldn't find anything particulary annoying with the actual main characters. Again, I did that on purpose. The "tense shifts" because I didnt want the intro to be third person, the usual way I write my stories.

I do admit that the tense was present when Davis was talking, that I'll fix. I would also like to know why it is a bad idea. When you say "no imagery" do you mean descriptions? I guess I could put some in at the part I posted. If I put descriptions in the intro though (The movie), it would be very little.

To comment on the bad idea again, I must say if you think the story would stay the way it is, as in them watching horror movies, not at all. You could be right though. However, I dont think any story is beyond redemption. I have seen much worse.

Oh and there is no tension because if I went with this intro its not very big. Really, in a sense, causing a conflict in the beginning like so many people do is cliched. Whats wrong with creating a different kind of story?

GodofLiterature · 06-22-2008, 09:14 PM

It's boring?

No conflict = boring.

TevenB · 06-22-2008, 09:24 PM

Not to be rude, but that sounds awfully close-minded. You have to have conflict in every story just to have certain people read it? There would be conflict, but not at the beginning. Other than making the intro with Tristan and Jenny more meaty, I dont see what I can possibly do to make conflict this early.

I dont understand that mentality. What do you expect them to do? Davis and Smitty start fighting? Or better yet, some evil force comes through the Tv and hunts them down? I dont get it whatsoever.

GodofLiterature · 06-22-2008, 09:33 PM

Conflict compels the readers to read. Even if they don't want to.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TevenB

Davis and Smitty start fighting? Or better yet, some evil force comes through the Tv and hunts them down?

That would be great!

Your story reads like a Goosebumps book, as of now.

edropus · 06-22-2008, 11:08 PM

Alrighty, here's what I'm gonna work with here.

----------

"Jenny, its been two fucking days since we have been here!" he yells as he breaks away from her "Where are the fucking kids!?"

----------

The first thing you're gonna want to do is rewrite the dialog and try to make it sound more natural. Different people do this different ways. Most people, from what I can gather, say the sentences out loud, so try that. Personally I imagine a voice I enjoy (an actor for example) and try to imagine the voice in my head. Do whichever works best for you. For now, let's go with 'say it out loud'.

Say the sentence out loud. "Jenny, it's been two fucking days since we have been here!" Does anything about it strike you as strange? Does any part of that sound unnatural? Say it again a couple times. Maybe even imagine you're the character saying it. Don't concentrate on the words; concentrate on what you're trying to SAY to the person, what you're trying to convey. Re-write it, and see if it feels any better.

---------------

"Whoa, calm down Tristan" Josh continues "They'll be here, probably in the morning."

"Yeah, your probably right." Tristan said

-----------

First, 'continues' and 'said'. If these are gonna be together, they should be 'continues' and 'says' or 'continued' and 'said'. You get the point there? 'Continues' indicates this story happened in the past; 'said' indicates it's happening now. It's not really confusing, but it's distracting, and breaks the flow of the story. This might not be the best example, but that kind of thing jumps around all up and down this post.

Second, the conflict issue. In order to keep a reader interested, you have to either get them to care about the character or wonder about the situation, IE 'have conflict'. Both would be best. Let's say I just happen to be a fanatic about stories about horny young camp councilors. Even if this is my favorite subject matter, unless there's something to keep my interest, I'm going to have trouble reading.

In this case, I'm not particularly interested in the aforementioned subject matter, so when I'm about halfway through the chapter and nothing has happened yet, I get kind of bored.

The way I understand it, the beginning is supposed to be campy. It's supposed to be the literary equivalent of watching a really bad 70's horror flick. But it's just not enough. It falls short, and just feels weak. You need to really mix it up and drive the camp way up. You also need to let the reader in right away on the fact that this is not how the rest of the story is going to go - it's bad like this for a reason.

It's a nice literary trick, and I was fooled (and a little confused) when I got to the transition. Give it a look pretty much line by line. I suggest a rewrite, and will be interested to see what you come up with.

TevenB · 06-23-2008, 02:16 AM

Wow, thanks edropus, that was great constructive criticism. I will definitely do as you said. Reading your comments gave me a good idea. Thank you very much, based on what you said, I dont need to do away with the story.

Candrah · 06-23-2008, 01:49 PM

Nice to see you back on tevenb

Edropus's comments pretty much covered it. I agree with the others about this having no conflict and being weak but not that you shouldnt continue with it. It is an interesting way to start a story - from the inside of a horror film being watched by the characters of the book. It just needs a helluva a lot of work to make it believable.

I kind of think you need to do away with the movie script feel of the first part and describe it as if it is actually the story... and yes crank up that camp factor

It'll seperate it from the next section better. I also think you need more descriptive imagery - describe the room: how it looks, smells - describe the back yard: what does the noise in the bushes actually sound like? How do the characters react to it?

Anyway, just my thoughts. Good luck with it.