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As the motorbike spun, the screeching of metal on concrete seeped into her ears. The brutal abrasive surface ripped at her skin, beating her body with its unrelenting hardness. This wasn’t good. She stopped. Everything stopped. The sound of traffic, people speaking, sirens and crying, attacked her ears. She let it sink into her head. She knew it would be too late for her; she couldn’t feel her body. The numbness crawled over muscles, towards her brain. Her mind was the last thing to die.
‘Hello there,’ a deep voice whispered. She cracked open her eyes, letting in the glaring light. It didn’t hurt though. In fact, she felt good. She started to climb to her feet, noticing a pulling sensation as she sat. Looking up, she saw a tall, dark-haired man standing over her. His hand was held out towards her as he smiled.
‘Who are you?’ She reached out slowly and placed her palm against his.
‘I’m Danny,’ he replied as he pulled her to stand. She looked back at where she’d been lying and rubbed her eyes. Her heart tried to escape her chest. There, on the floor, lay a body - her broken and twisted body.
‘What...?’ Her words trailed off as Danny turned her away from her old self. A bright flash enveloped them, clearing to reveal a sparkling lake.
‘Anna, I’d like to welcome you as my newest recruit,’ he said. She looked around her. Where was she? Where was her mum?
A community of houses and buildings lay in the distance.
‘What is this? What’s going on? Am I in heaven?’ Anna spun in a circle, facing the woods, the buildings, Danny.
‘No, this isn’t heaven. This is your new home. You’re a spirit, Anna, and you have a new job.’ He took her hand and made her face him.
‘A job…?’
‘Yes...welcome to your new life as a Deadliner.’
Hi Rachel, It's a very good opening but you need to watch out for 'ing' words, and word's like 'seeped' when they should be more active like 'screech' and 'reverberated' in her ears. The action is now so the words have to carry impact if you'll excuse the pun. :)Also, best not to water down the action with phrases such as: This wasn’t good, as the reader knows this.
But all in all an excellent opening that just needs a little tweaking.
Yours, Barrie
Liked it. Agree with Barrie that some of the 'ing words need cropping and there are a few additional words that can be cut back. Disagree (;-)) with him about the 'this was not good' sentence. I like that kind of statement in the right context. Pushes you along as the reader. All most caps it off sucking you in to their mindset (although perhaps something stronger is needed for a fatal motorbike crash...). Needs to be consistent through certain types of scene in the rest of the story though.This is what I love and hate about feedback - it all contradicts itself ;-)
Couple of other thoughts: it actually seemed a bit too quick. The first paragraph seems to go from the actual crash to being dead very quickly. Either needs the tense changing ('I remembered the screech of etc') or a couple of extra sentences to pull it all together. It seemed as though she crashed, thought it wasn't good and then the emergency services were there. That make sense??
Also, it has a great hook in giving us a glimpse into deadliness and wanting to know more about Danny. Would like to know more about the protagonist though. Is there some hint about them you could give us? Something she wanted to live for? Something she's leaving behind that could make me want to know about?
Nice piece of writing :-)
Mod
First off, this definitely makes me want to read more! I do wish you had spent more time with the death scene and letting the reader know about Anna before the hook (her new deadliner job). I know that's the main event but I think you can feel confident you can keep the reader interested by going slower and we'll still want to know what happens next.
"The sun was setting when she woke up. Good thing too. She needed the darkness to hide in. She had a feeling that today she was going to actually do it. Then again, she said the same thing yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that. For the last two weeks she’d been hiding near their camp and she still had no idea how she was going to approach them. After all, before the world had gone to hell, they were technically her enemy. But the girl she’d seen…
Lilita shook her head to clear her thoughts and got up. She quickly made a small fire and ate some of the strawberries she had picked the day before. They were still fresh enough to make a decent meal. She wished she had some cream to put on them, or even some sugar, but plain strawberries were better then nothing at all.
After she finished eating and washed up, she packed her belongings into her sack and put out the fire. After cleaning up the camp a bit so it wasn’t so obvious she had been there, she started walking towards the nearby camp. She knew that she was taking a big risk, but she didn’t think she had any choice at this point. She was running out of food and fall was coming. She had no tent or any type of shelter. The summer hadn’t been too bad, with the occasional rain storm, but when fall hit, it was gonna get cold fast up here in the mountains.
While she was lost in her thoughts, she didn’t notice that she had company until the other girl spoke.
“Are you real?” the other girl asked.
Lilita almost screamed with fright and stopped walking to look around. Just off to her right was the girl Lilita had woken up thinking about. Not that she was going to advertise that information.
“Are you real?” the girl repeated.
“Yes,” Lilita replied slowly, “Why wouldn’t I be?”
The other girl slowly came up to her and tentatively reached out a hand to touch Lilita. She stopped with her hand maybe an inch from Lilita’s arm as if to ask permission. LIlita nodded slightly and the girl touched her.
“What are you?” the girl asked.
“I’m a faerie,” Lilita answered and immediately regretted it. Now she would probably be taken away to the camp and kept as a prisoner. But the girl just looked at her in shock and disbelief.
“You can’t be. All the faeries were destroyed.”
In answer, Lilita slowly spread her wings, so she wouldn’t startle the other girl. They were beautiful. It was the one part of herself that Lilita loved. They were black, but there were streaks of royal purple running through them. They were so thin that during the day, they were almost transparent. The other girl gasped and Lilita saw that her first assumption was right. This girl was a vampire. Her teeth were just visible.
“What’s your name?” Lilita asked.
“Selene. Whats’s yours?”
“Lilita. That’s a pretty name.”
“Yeah, I was named after a moon goddess. My tribe is really into Greek Mythology names. What about yours?”
“Lilita is Latvian for Lilith. So I got to be named after a demon or evil spirit, depending on which myths you believe.”
“Wow. I didn’t even know anyone still used that name.”
“Yeah, well I guess I got to be that lucky one.”
Both girls laughed a bit and Lilita was glad she had decided to come this way today. In the back of her mind she knew that one girl wasn’t going to be able to make a decision for the whole tribe, but at least she would have someone on her side.
“So where are you staying?” Lilita thought it better to ask then let the girl know that she had been spying on her.
“After two weeks you’d think you knew how to get there,” Well shit, so much for that plan. Lilita tried to step back but the girl started to laugh. “I’ve been watching you. I didn’t think you’d ever come out and actually talk to anyone.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t sure if you guys would be…” Lilita just kinda trailed off.
“You mean you didn’t want us to eat you,” the other girl finished.
LIlita just nodded. Some vampyre tribes took pleasure in torturing her kind, and others didn’t. She didn’t know which side this group was on.
“Well lucky for you, you found one of the good groups. Come on,” the vampyre grabbed her hand, “Let’s go introduce you to my parents. They’re kinda in charge.”
LIlita couldn’t believe her good luck. Not only did she find a friendly group of vampyres, which was more and more difficult these days, but she had just befriended the daughter of the leaders. Surely they would listen to their daughter and help her. Even if it only meant giving her supplies before sending her on her way.
As the two girls walked hand in hand into the camp, Lilita couldn’t help but notice the stares she was getting. She wasn’t sure if it was because she was holding hands with Selene or because of what she was. Her wings were once again tucked behind her, but she was definitely not a vampyre. Walking next to Selene, she could immediately tell the difference between the two of them. While both of them were graceful, Selene was very much a predator. She walked like a tiger stalking an elk. Lilita on the other hand was more of a butterfly gliding along. Lilita’s black hair trailed out behind her. It was currently down to her waist, but it would need a trim soon and she wondered if anyone here had a pair of scissors that she could use to do it. She loved her long hair and often was told by her parent to stop hiding behind it. Lilita’s eyes were jet black to match her hair and her pale skin made them stand out.
Selene on the other hand had much shorter hair. It was also black, but had red streaks in it which matched her red eyes. Her pale skin and red eyes almost gave the impression of an albino human, but one look at her mouth and you knew exactly what she was. Vampyres had the ability to not only change into more human like forms, but also into bats, and Lilita idly wondered what Selene would look like in both those forms. Her musings were brought to a halt when Selene suddenly dragged her into a huge tent in the center of the camp without any introduction."
ok, so that's the first 1,115 words of my story. does it sound like something anyone would want to continue reading?
Lilita shook her head to clear her thoughts and got up. She quickly made a small fire and ate some of the strawberries she had picked the day before. They were still fresh enough to make a decent meal. She wished she had some cream to put on them, or even some sugar, but plain strawberries were better then nothing at all.
After she finished eating and washed up, she packed her belongings into her sack and put out the fire. After cleaning up the camp a bit so it wasn’t so obvious she had been there, she started walking towards the nearby camp. She knew that she was taking a big risk, but she didn’t think she had any choice at this point. She was running out of food and fall was coming. She had no tent or any type of shelter. The summer hadn’t been too bad, with the occasional rain storm, but when fall hit, it was gonna get cold fast up here in the mountains.
While she was lost in her thoughts, she didn’t notice that she had company until the other girl spoke.
“Are you real?” the other girl asked.
Lilita almost screamed with fright and stopped walking to look around. Just off to her right was the girl Lilita had woken up thinking about. Not that she was going to advertise that information.
“Are you real?” the girl repeated.
“Yes,” Lilita replied slowly, “Why wouldn’t I be?”
The other girl slowly came up to her and tentatively reached out a hand to touch Lilita. She stopped with her hand maybe an inch from Lilita’s arm as if to ask permission. LIlita nodded slightly and the girl touched her.
“What are you?” the girl asked.
“I’m a faerie,” Lilita answered and immediately regretted it. Now she would probably be taken away to the camp and kept as a prisoner. But the girl just looked at her in shock and disbelief.
“You can’t be. All the faeries were destroyed.”
In answer, Lilita slowly spread her wings, so she wouldn’t startle the other girl. They were beautiful. It was the one part of herself that Lilita loved. They were black, but there were streaks of royal purple running through them. They were so thin that during the day, they were almost transparent. The other girl gasped and Lilita saw that her first assumption was right. This girl was a vampire. Her teeth were just visible.
“What’s your name?” Lilita asked.
“Selene. Whats’s yours?”
“Lilita. That’s a pretty name.”
“Yeah, I was named after a moon goddess. My tribe is really into Greek Mythology names. What about yours?”
“Lilita is Latvian for Lilith. So I got to be named after a demon or evil spirit, depending on which myths you believe.”
“Wow. I didn’t even know anyone still used that name.”
“Yeah, well I guess I got to be that lucky one.”
Both girls laughed a bit and Lilita was glad she had decided to come this way today. In the back of her mind she knew that one girl wasn’t going to be able to make a decision for the whole tribe, but at least she would have someone on her side.
“So where are you staying?” Lilita thought it better to ask then let the girl know that she had been spying on her.
“After two weeks you’d think you knew how to get there,” Well shit, so much for that plan. Lilita tried to step back but the girl started to laugh. “I’ve been watching you. I didn’t think you’d ever come out and actually talk to anyone.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t sure if you guys would be…” Lilita just kinda trailed off.
“You mean you didn’t want us to eat you,” the other girl finished.
LIlita just nodded. Some vampyre tribes took pleasure in torturing her kind, and others didn’t. She didn’t know which side this group was on.
“Well lucky for you, you found one of the good groups. Come on,” the vampyre grabbed her hand, “Let’s go introduce you to my parents. They’re kinda in charge.”
LIlita couldn’t believe her good luck. Not only did she find a friendly group of vampyres, which was more and more difficult these days, but she had just befriended the daughter of the leaders. Surely they would listen to their daughter and help her. Even if it only meant giving her supplies before sending her on her way.
As the two girls walked hand in hand into the camp, Lilita couldn’t help but notice the stares she was getting. She wasn’t sure if it was because she was holding hands with Selene or because of what she was. Her wings were once again tucked behind her, but she was definitely not a vampyre. Walking next to Selene, she could immediately tell the difference between the two of them. While both of them were graceful, Selene was very much a predator. She walked like a tiger stalking an elk. Lilita on the other hand was more of a butterfly gliding along. Lilita’s black hair trailed out behind her. It was currently down to her waist, but it would need a trim soon and she wondered if anyone here had a pair of scissors that she could use to do it. She loved her long hair and often was told by her parent to stop hiding behind it. Lilita’s eyes were jet black to match her hair and her pale skin made them stand out.
Selene on the other hand had much shorter hair. It was also black, but had red streaks in it which matched her red eyes. Her pale skin and red eyes almost gave the impression of an albino human, but one look at her mouth and you knew exactly what she was. Vampyres had the ability to not only change into more human like forms, but also into bats, and Lilita idly wondered what Selene would look like in both those forms. Her musings were brought to a halt when Selene suddenly dragged her into a huge tent in the center of the camp without any introduction."
ok, so that's the first 1,115 words of my story. does it sound like something anyone would want to continue reading?
I thought we could have a post for us to post short clips of our work to get some feedback. Especially if we've not edited yet. Authors posting, please keep the clip only up to 1,000 words and state what type of feedback you want.
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