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Ok here is the deal. I've always enjoyed writing, so it was fairly natural for me to pick professional writing as my major. The thing is, I havn't actually done much writing. I consider myself to be a decent poet, but my prose is pretty pathetic.
I'm also a big fan of horror media (films, books, ect) with a special love for zombies. It seemed only natural for me, then, to bone up on my general knowledge by reading a wide variety of horror/suspence works and try to squeeze out a zombie story of my own. Up until now for my adult life, as far as fiction goes, I've only written two trashy 8-page short stories. I am 100% welcome to any critique. Whether it is good or bad, comes from someone with an english degree, or comes from someone who is in seventh grade, I will gladly read every comment and take them all to heart.
I know there are a myriad of excellent writers on this site, all of whom I respect, and look forward to their help. Thanks in advance to everyone who reads it.
(As a side note, this is not for school ((summertime!)), but rather for my own personal enjoyment)
Here is a big chunk of the first chapter. If this becomes a big hit, I can post the rest as I write it. If not, I won't be sad to let it just die in piece.
(Edit: This site obviously will not let me tab or indent my stuff, so please overlook that)
+ Show Spoiler +
“I’m dying…”
“Oh, you are not. Stop complaining.”
“But I haven’t eaten in, like, ten hours! I’m going to waste away…”
“Fine.”
Ericka took one last handful and threw her bag of spicy potato chips over the table to Josh, her boyfriend Razi’s roommate. She had known him now for little over a year now and they had become fairly close. Close enough for her to not mind giving him the last few remaining crumbs of a nearly empty bag.
“Aw, c’mon. What’s this trash?” Josh hissed immediately after he felt the bag’s light weight. He spun around on his chair to get underneath the light and peered inside for a better look. “I thought we were friends.”
“Oh, we are,” chuckled Ericka, “I just didn’t want to spoil your appetite before dinner.”
“Yeah right, that’s impossible. Razi probably skipped town with our money anyway.”
“All nine dollars of it?”
“ Haha, yeah. I wouldn’t put it past him.”
At this, Ericka grinned. It did not seem like something he would do, but it was still funny anyway.
Razi looked down at the clock on his cell phone and grimaced. He had been waiting for eight minutes now and was still fifth in line. It was all expected of course. Every time the pizza store held a student appreciation day and offered extremely discounted pies the place immediately became congested with college students trying to get the most out of their meager budgets.
A couple of female students in front of him wearing trendy school colored gym clothes turned to each other and started chatting loudly over the general noise of the store, “This is ridiculous.”
“I know. Every time I come here it’s like this.”
“We totally should have gone to the Sub Shop instead.”
“Alright, let’s go.”
“Okay, but you are driving this time.”
“Fine,” the more attractive of the two girls said. With this, they both turned out of the line and forcefully threaded their way through the mass of bodies, heading for the door.
A kid who looked as if he had been working in a pizza store that had been under heavy, constant activity for seven hours straight slowly waddled over to a closed register and flipped a switch. After typing a few numbers on the keypad he regretfully announced, “I can help someone over here.”
This signaled the start of a maddening dash as the students in the back of the line quickly tried to outsprint the ones in the front to the new register. Razi had anticipated this, though, and took up a defensive stance, effectively blocking off their path and sealing up the first spot for himself.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes, could I have two medium pizzas – one with ham and the other with pepperoni, please” said Razi, as he fished around in his back pocket for his wallet.
“Is that all?” dryly asked the kid. With a nod from Razi, he continued, “That will be $10.70 please. Your pizzas will be done in about ten minutes.”
After receiving his change, Razi took up an empty booth near the counter and pulled out his cell phone. In order to waste some time, he started scrolling through his pictures, deleting the ones he no longer cared for: a close-up of a friend taking a shot of cheap vodka, a different friend sitting on a recliner flipping the camera off, an off-center picture of a huge battleship he had taken while vacationing on the coast, a picture of a homeless man who seemed to be chasing…
The picture disappeared and was replaced with large, blinking text that read ‘INCOMING CALL FROM Ericka’. Razi quickly clicked the green Talk button and flipped the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
“Hey Razi,” answered Ericka, “We are starving – where are you?”
“Still at the pizza place. Everyone is going nuts, but I managed to get our order in without breaking any bones.” said Razi, only half joking.
“How much was it?”
Razi hesitantly answered, “Ten seventy,” Something outside the large glass window that served as a wall had caught his eye. A crowd of about five large students, presumably members of the football team by their clothes, were sprinting down the narrow two lane road leading from campus to the pizza store.
“Hello… ?” questioned Ericka.
Looking over at Ericka’s puzzled face, Josh laughed, “Haha, what wrong now?” He had taken up residence on his bed which occupied the greater right half of their rather small dorm room. It was also conveniently facing the television, which was showing reruns of a stand-up comedy show.
“I’m st…ll here,” replied Razi.
With a confused face, Ericka asked, “What is all that noise in the background?? Where are you?”
“St… at the pi…a store… A gr…p of guys …st ran into here…”
“Razi I can’t hear you! Talk louder!” shouted Ericka. Her expression changed from confusion to one of terror. The campus was safe enough, but there was recently a stabbing just off the grounds. Looking for some quick cash, a presumed crack head had viciously attacked a student who was waiting at the local bus stop.
“Holy …uck, they are attacki…,” shouted Razi.
Josh, able to hear the louder than normal conversation sat up and moved to the edge of his bed that was closest to Ericka. All too aware of the stabbing himself, he no longer was smiling. “What going on?” he demanded.
A deafening crash was heard on the other end of the telephone line, which was followed by loud screams.
“On…f them just ta…cled through the gl…ss. I have to …ucking get th.. hell out of here…”
At this, Ericka let out a short gasp that would no longer be contained. Josh urgently motioned for the phone. When it was passed to him, he shouted into it, “What’s going on, dude? You want me to come down there?!”
“I’m …most to m… car. Jus.. wait. I’m comm…g back now…”
“You sure, dude?”
“Yeah… Dude…they were fuc…ng … eating people…”
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wasnt gonna read, but that was pretty good
i like the cardoljain ellipsis
more please
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Totally unrealistic
Theres no way they got two pizza's for 6.13
Okay really, It's good but it leaves me wondering...What happened to the pizza?
[/jokes]
I really liked it, obviously only the beginning, but it was a bad time to stop. All we know is:
-Hungry college students
-Recent crackhead attack
-Random possible football attack on pizza store
edit: ahh i realized its about zombie after reading the OP. In that case, everything is happening way to fast, i.e. way too short to be a chapter, and too long to be a short story (in my experience) The first part does a decent job of setting up the scene (more description ftw if its a novel, if not short + sweet is good) But then the action comes to fast. If you've ever seen a plot chart, it starts off w/ setting, char, etc, then RISING action, just cutting straight to the height of action, which leaves very little time before the turning point.
Okay i'm probably just rambling nonsense that is terrible advice so i'll stop.
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the pizza price is not made up and comes from ... intense research... put forth between my buddies and I. My plan was to switch the story now to another group of people, but eventually come back to these kids. Perhaps I should stay on them for a bit longer?
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ummm tell me more or write more and i can critique more T_T
edit: going sleepy
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Continue! Please, you leave us at a cliffhanger-ish thing. I like it so far 
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any ideas on how I can stall, then, to slow down the pacing a bit?
Edit: The no indentation thing really takes away from the story. Im going to try and fix it asap - its making me mad
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I don't know, it just seems that the guy got out of the resturaunt way too easily and quickly. Maybe go back to Razi's point of view during the 'eating'?
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mmmmmm Zombies!
My friend always liked them, maybe I should show her.
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On June 16 2007 22:51 Superiorwolf wrote:
I don't know, it just seems that the guy got out of the resturaunt way too easily and quickly. Maybe go back to Razi's point of view during the 'eating'?
Yes, this is what it needs. Thanks for the quick advice, everyone. There seems to be a shortage of zombie books, as I have only come across four, three of which are all by the same author and do not conform to the standard zombie story (the zombies can talk and grow huge in size, mummies, liches, ect.), so I'm pretty much writing this in the dark without any references to check myself on.
I'll try to write a bit more tommorow and post it up here asap. At least now I can sleep easy without worrying about getting it started :O Also, if anyone knows of any good zombie books, let me know ^^
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i liked it. idk how you could write a full page book out of it, unless you go back to how the zombie "epidemic" started, or was brought to the campus. i think it would be hard to write a long story if you only focus on the kids, well a good story :/
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This may be down to my television background, but I think you need to start with something that will grab the reader's attention. From everything I've read, I don't see any storyline or anything that would compel me to stay yet.
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You gotta give the reader a taste of what's to come. Maybe, a quote or a paragraph from later on. Something attention gripping. I don't feel inclined to read anymore.
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Austin10831 Posts
I've read over your opening, and here's what I think so far.
In regards to your choice of genre, I think there's plenty of room for a creative person to expound upon Zombie fiction. Most Zombie stories fall squarely under an umbrella of cliches, where pre-established notions of the rules are taken as canonical, and writers are unable to divorce themselves of what Zombies are. The best Zombie works, in my opinion, are those that are unafraid to change what everyone thinks. Maybe Zombies don't really lurch around slowly. Maybe they aren't as physically different as we imagine. Maybe we wouldn't notice them in a crowd. At the end of the day, there's plenty of places a creative mind can take a Zombie story so long as the author is willing to throw out convention, and realized his own personal vision.
As per your execution so far, the following is simply the opinion of one man, and I hope you'll accept is as such.
I think when you open a story like this with a heavy dialogue pacing, you deprive the reader of valuable exposition. It may feel naturalistic, but it places us into the environment too abruptly. A writer has to be equally aware of the world he's creating as he is of the character's he's creating. Dropping us in the middle of a conversation is a mistake if it isn't done for a very deliberate purpose.
Another thing to note is the inclusion of superfluous details or characters. The two girls in line do nothing to further the story. You've already told us that the pizza place gets crowded, so their entrance and exit changes nothing for us. It just reiterates what we already know. Almost everything after their departure until that first cell phone call could've been taken care of with one efficient paragraph.
I won't comment anymore until I read the next part of the story. Remember: re-read whatever you write and judge each and every detail on it's relevance to the story and interest to the reader. If it seems like I'm being to overly-analitic it's only because I want your story to turn out well =].
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its really unpolished. theres a lot of words in there that are really suspect and awkward, and even the descriptions and the actions seem misplaced and dont really contribute to the story.
like at the beginning, you say he "looked down at this cell phone watch," which doesnt really make sense. most people wouldnt consider their cell phones watches, and this could also be mistaken as he has a watch thats a cell phone as well. even your choice of action "looked" really doesnt describe what hes doing and feels more like filler than a real action.
a lot of good writing comes from a lot more than simply the basic skeleton of a plot and characters and all that. language is such a huge factor in creating a story that unless you master it, no matter how unique and individual your plot is or how real your characters feel to you, your story will be bland and mediocre.
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The opening sentence is clever, but the dialog that follows it feels contrived. Some of the descriptions later on also don't follow. For example, at one point Ericka has a look of "sheer terror", but several sentences later she can no longer "contain" a short gasp. That doesn't seem like it flows logically very well.
I think you're off to a decent start, but everything needs a bit of polish in terms of flow and dialog. And like decafchicken points out, the $6.13 for two pizzas also doesn't work well. Unless you - before this point - alluded to the story being set at an earlier time when pizzas may have been cheaper (e.g. 1950's).
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Wow, good advices ^^ Thanks everyone. Let me digest them all and brush up what I have written tommorow. I plan to bring back the two females who left the pizza place later in the story as side characters - I have their next scene as happening in the school fitness center. Also, I will be following at least 3 different groups of people in the story and try to give them at least one section each per chapter.
As for the opening dialogue, I wanted to establish the fact that they had no food with them, establish character names/relationships, and establish that they would not think Razi would be playing a practical joke on them when things start getting crazy on the phone later on. If you have any ideas that could freshen it up a bit so it isn't so slow, hit me with it.
And I assure everyone again that the pizza price is not made up. I may be off like 2 cents, but that is all
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On June 16 2007 23:52 ZaplinG wrote:
And I assure everyone again that the pizza price is not made up. I may be off like 2 cents, but that is all
It appears your cheap pizza access is superior to ours. Here, two mediums will run about $20. Regardless of whether you can find pizzas that cheap in your area, it's something that jumped out at at least 2 posters in this thread as not being right. Unless there is a specific later purpose for the price of those pizzas, just bump up the price. You don't want your reader to sit there thinking how that detail doesn't make sense rather than reading your story. It's like running a TV commercial for clothing using a curvaceous, sexy model with a big green wart on her stomach. The devil is in the details.
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My honest opinion, as a guy that has watched a large number of zombie-movies, is that this should be your second, or possibly later chapter. There needs to be a build-up so that we, the audience, are attached enough to Razi to feel scared during this scene. As of right now, although I did enjoy it, Razi could have died and I would have merely shrugged him off as an insignificant character, where it seems that you want these three characters to be the leads in the story. Other than that, I liked what I saw, and am interested to see more.
EDIT: That is just my thoughts, but I don't know how long you are going for, or if the characters are supposed to develop, (in our eyes) during the zombie attack, so please don't take offence or be discouraged by anything I said.
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#nvnplatypus you are right, of course. I've changed it, although it saddened me. But can you understand how many college students who would try to take advantage of that deal of 3$ a pizza? When they host that deal, the line is wrapping around outside and the drivethrough is spilling out onto the regular road, backing up traffic. Its rediculous and if ever there were a zombie attack, this would not be the place I would want to be stuck. You cant just order on the phone, because the phone is constantly engaged, and when you do get through after an hour of trying, you have the pleasure of finding out there is a three hour wait. This means everyone piles into the store itself.
#Lemonwalrus, how can I take offense when people keep giving nothing but solid advice? ^^ I'm used to recieving critiques much worse than these from my professors (both in quality and language). And I plan for this to be a 2-300 page book.
I also forgot last night that today is Father's Day! (happy father's day all you dads!). Because of this, I probably wont be able to write anything more until later tonight, or in the worst case, none at all today. Stick with me though, I fully plan to keep this thing going ^^ Thanks everyone
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Korea (South)11575 Posts
I really like it since I'm kinda obsessed with zombie shit 28 weeks later, 28 days later, Planet Terror, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, all fucking amazing!
On to critique your writing, all I can say is that I would add some more details as to the pizza store, how the zombies got in there (from what I read they jumped through the glass?) and how many people got out as well as Josh. And just randomly attacking zombies? How did the zombies come to be?
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I think it is going too fast... But since I´m taking this as some kind of "writting degustation", just remeber to slow it down when going for the real thing, it is important to set the mood before getting to the climax (I assume that the climax to most of the zombie fans would be the slaughtering), just like sex.
About the pizza price, keep in mind your public, for whom are you writting? The cultural diversity in tl.net is huge (I am from Brazil for instance, which explains my english btw lol), so you have to make sure that logic remains pertinent, even in small details like this. It´s not like I am going to trash a good story because the pizza price in my country is totally different, however paying attention to the details will prevent major mistakes that could ruin your story. Remeber that if want it to be a blockbuster (otherwise ignore it).
Keep coming!
ps.: Is Claire Redfield showing as well? plz plz !! lol....
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I thought this was going to be a sex story after I read the first four lines. I was quite disappointed.
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throw some more background in before the action starts
itll help develop your story, and even though background seems boring, everyone will expect it at the beginning anyway.
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Korea (South)11575 Posts
the price of pizza was right. You can get pizza like that for that price in USA. sometimes cheaper.
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I will echo what some of the others have said. It doesn't sound altogether natural (some of the dialogue, descriptions are somewhat awkward), and it seems like the action started... way too fast. That attack would be on like, the second page, if this were a real, printed book.
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Best damn tale I've read all day.
But I kept expecting Ninjas but they never came 
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On June 17 2007 09:53 davidgurt wrote:
I thought this was going to be a sex story after I read the first four lines. I was quite disappointed.
I actually thought that too, as I jumped right in without reading his intro post.
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On June 16 2007 23:37 BroOd wrote:
I've read over your opening, and here's what I think so far.
In regards to your choice of genre, I think there's plenty of room for a creative person to expound upon Zombie fiction. Most Zombie stories fall squarely under an umbrella of cliches, where pre-established notions of the rules are taken as canonical, and writers are unable to divorce themselves of what Zombies are. The best Zombie works, in my opinion, are those that are unafraid to change what everyone thinks. Maybe Zombies don't really lurch around slowly. Maybe they aren't as physically different as we imagine. Maybe we wouldn't notice them in a crowd. At the end of the day, there's plenty of places a creative mind can take a Zombie story so long as the author is willing to throw out convention, and realized his own personal vision.
As per your execution so far, the following is simply the opinion of one man, and I hope you'll accept is as such.
I think when you open a story like this with a heavy dialogue pacing, you deprive the reader of valuable exposition. It may feel naturalistic, but it places us into the environment too abruptly. A writer has to be equally aware of the world he's creating as he is of the character's he's creating. Dropping us in the middle of a conversation is a mistake if it isn't done for a very deliberate purpose.
Another thing to note is the inclusion of superfluous details or characters. The two girls in line do nothing to further the story. You've already told us that the pizza place gets crowded, so their entrance and exit changes nothing for us. It just reiterates what we already know. Almost everything after their departure until that first cell phone call could've been taken care of with one efficient paragraph.
I won't comment anymore until I read the next part of the story. Remember: re-read whatever you write and judge each and every detail on it's relevance to the story and interest to the reader. If it seems like I'm being to overly-analitic it's only because I want your story to turn out well =].
that's the sexiest critique and possibly the most intelligent post anyone has posted on tl
nice writing
are you an english major/writer/professor
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there were some things in there that sounded kind of weird and also there were some typos i think
hopefully this is a first draft
“Is that all?” dryly asked the kid
i dunno if "dryly asked" sounds right, but i guess u might know more than i do
here are some typos i found while reading
Looking over at Ericka’s puzzled face, Josh laughed, “Haha, what wrong now?”
whats*?
Every time the pizza store held a student appreciation day and offered extremely discounted pies
prices*?
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^^Pies is another way to say pizzas.
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to the op
i'm a little more fond of writing poetry than prose myself too
care to share some of your portfolio
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I updated the text a bit, as well as added the extremely rough draft of the next couple paragraphs. I'm also going to move this discussion to my newly formed blog (made it just for the story), so if you are still interested in helping out, that will be the new place to do it at.
Blog and updated text can be found here: http://www.teamliquid.net/blog/zapling
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I liked the story. However, I didn't feel as though the characters were adequately described. All I know about Josh is that he's Razi's roomate, and that Ericka is Razi's girlfriend. I learned nearly nothing, except that Josh gets grumpy when he's hungry.
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EPT
