Just After Sunset by Stephen King
In my opinion, Stephen King avoided the blood and guts typical horror story which reeled me in immediately. Keeping it human meant there was more room for description and suspense. I especially like the line where he says ‘It was simple curiosity’ it instantly sums up the character – meddlesome and inquisitive. He also used the show, don’t tell technique which keeps the reader baffled and makes them want to read more. Every line gave the story a twist and added a great deal of suspense. I hung off Kings’ every word. I really enjoyed this story opening, it was exceedingly gripping. I want to read more!
Run
Running and stumbling across this deserted field, frantic with fright, I constantly look behind me. Although my senses tell me that something is wrong, I can see nor hear nothing in this murky, dark evening except the singing of crickets. Perhaps I should have stayed on the road inside my car and waited for someone to help me fix my flat tire, instead of taking a short cut across this field towards the dimly lit house I see in the distance.
Earlier, I must have taken a wrong turn onto an unused road because after an hour, there had been not a single vehicle seen. Yet, something had bumped against my car several times. Something that I couldn’t see or hear, but felt. My repeated calls of, "Who's there?" were not answered. My sense of fear escalated as the sky darkened, welcoming the approaching night.
I could no longer just sit there waiting for the coming dilemma. With all the courage that I could gather, I opened the car door and started running as fast as I could towards the house. Thinking, perhaps I'd be safer there, safe from whoever or whatever was there. Now, I feel something watching. "Leave me alone" I scream aloud, gasping for breath as I run. The more I run the farther the house becomes, what was happening? I was too busy running through the thick grass to realise the uneven ground. I did not see the sink hole; I only feel the sharp pain as I shift my ankle. Howling in agony, I fall face down, biting my lip. I can taste the gritty earth ... and the warm blood dripping from the cavernous cut that my teeth have made.
A most unspeakable sense of fright has now taken seize of me, squeezing my heart in its unyielding icy grip. My throat is spit-less and dry, my body, damp and limp, sprawled upon this freezing ground. Tears merge with mucus from my nostrils and run down onto my bloody lips and chin…
Hi lilmiz,
ReplyDeleteGood observations of King's work! You sum it up nicely: he "keeps it human."
Something I noticed in your own work is that your narrator describes his/her own fear for us, which is more telling than showing. For example, in your first line the narrator is "frantic with fright," and in the last paragraph he says "a most unspeakable sense of fright has now taken seize of me." If you take a look at King's exerpt, you will notice that the narrator never outright says that the main character is afraid. Instead, he includes images that highlight the tension in the story (i.e. thunder) and allows the main character to have thoughts such as "Oh God." These elements prompt the reader to feel tension and fear - sometimes telling your readers that a character is afraid can block your readers from feeling the tension themselves.
So some suggestions - instead of telling us that your narrator is afraid, you could include details such as his heart rate speeding up, his stomach sinking, or perhaps describe the icy feeling of fear without using the words "fear" or "fright."
Also, not that I'm asking you to change it, but I want you to ask yourself why your story begins with the character running rather than the incident with the car breaking down. Why did you choose to show us these events in this order?
Your piece definitely has some great, creepy elements of horror. I think the feeling of panic is the most powerful emotion we get from this piece. There's also a juicy amount of suspense - I'm desperate to know what happens next. :)
Keep it up!
Maria
I love your first two paragraphs, and the way they gradually notch up the tension and danger. Your final sentence is paragraph two is simply brilliant: "My sense of fear escalated as the sky darkened, welcoming the approaching night." It embraces a powerful pathetic fallacy and an overwhelming sense of imminent doom to great effect. Well done!
ReplyDelete"Thinking, perhaps I'd be safer there, safe from whoever or whatever was there": I am a little confused by why you would be safer "there" from whatever was "there". Are you sure this makes sense? Also, both in this paragraph and elsewhere, you are flitting back and forth between present and past tense, and this gets somewhat confusing. In my opinion, you should stick to present tense throughout here, as the immediacy that would afford you would be especially apt.
"I can taste the gritty earth ... and the warm blood dripping from the cavernous cut that my teeth have made." I love the focus on the senses in your description here, and the alliteration towards the end is brilliant.
"My throat is spit-less and dry, my body, damp and limp, sprawled upon this freezing ground. Tears merge with mucus from my nostrils and run down onto my bloody lips and chin…" What a fantastic ending to your excerpt. Your protagonist's plight is brought to life in vivid and palpable detail, and their fear and danger overwhelms us. Brilliant stuff.
On the whole, therefore, this is extremely impressive, mature and effective writing. Well done!
Hi lilmiz, some great stuff here. Sorry for this late response.
ReplyDeletePART 1 - you have made some very good observations. I wouldn't say that King's opening was totally void of the 'blood and guts' approach (after all, there is a bloodied dead body involved) but as you rightly point out, the way we see it through the eyes of an everyday woman out for a run makes it more personal and human. This in turn makes the horror more substantial.
PART 2 - Nice opening. As the others have said, make sure you don't just 'tell' us how afraid the narrator is, show us like King has managed to do. I would also suggest maybe looking closley at your structure - the time line seems a little bit chaotic. Careful you don't use the passive voice ('there had been not a single vehicle seen' would be stronger as 'I had not seen a single vehicle') and try to avoid cliches ('icy grip'- that kind of thing). Other than that, you've built up a great picture of panic and isolation. Good stuff.