To read this story or to participate in this writing event, you only need a free account.
You can
To find out what this event is about click here
DREAMCATCHER
How It Rates
Description
A boy needs some help conquering his nightmares.
- Login to post comments
Comments
This was an interesting story. I'm a little puzzled by the religious grandparents, though. They act like very radical Protestants (a born-again type experience, a "pastor," etc.) but then the boy has a crucifix on his wall. So are these grandparents Catholic? That doesn't seem to fit either, nor do their beliefs fit other Christian groups that use crucifixes ( certain types of Episcopalians, for example). Maybe nobody else notices these things, but the discrepancy distracted me.
I enjoyed this story. I liked how the destruction of the dream catcher brought the "nightmares" alive. I had no idea where the story was going; the ending was a nice surprise. Very gripping story.
I enjoyed your story very much. You have a traditional sense of horror in the nightmares and at least for me, you have a modern equivalent in the behaviour of the grandmother and how she treats Danny. Great job and the visuals will stay with me for a while.
Good storytelling, with great visuals. I liked your description of Artemis's first appearance, and appreciate your eye for detail - "crooked, unhinged doors," is a simple, but effective use of words. Needs more proofreading, but just minor stuff. Great work.
Thanks all, I appreciate the feedback. Jane - I see your point, I'll work on making them more consistent in my next draft. I hope you'll all take a second look when I update. :)
The more I read this story, the more annoyed I got with the characters. The Grandparents, as you have them written, are some of the most despicable people I can bring to mind. Neither of them appear to have a redeeming quality. They just didn't make sense to me.
The intent was for them to be unquestionably horrible people - but if they are awful to the point of distraction I can try to dial it back.
There were quite a few moments in the story that I found myself really enjoying, but there were also lot of little parts that kept interrupting the flow of the story, as well as few stylistic choices that I think a second draft can really clear up.
As cliche and as often as it gets said, I think something that will immediately streghten your story is a a bit more showing and less telling. I tried to mark in the LBL the moments where I felt that there was a bit too much telling-like I said in the LBL, it can be specially noticable only because you then have some really good scenes that pretty much do the job for you.
Writing wise,I felt like the story would be serviced better by having a tighter focus on Daniel. For most of it, it feels 'pulled back' in a sense, as if the narrator is hovering above all the characters-this can work for certain stories, but with something like this, with nightmares and mosters, I want to be able to read and feel waht the characters are feeling, and this can't really be achieved with detachness. A great example of when you go into Daniel's head is when the dad first gives him the dreamcatcher-I really would like to see more of that.
The story right now felt a little bit scattershot. In all honesty, I'm not sure that you need the first section, with Daniel packing up all his stuff, as other than the dreamcatcher(which can be introduced when Daniel 'remembers' it), most of it either doesn't come up again(like the Uncle) or can be shown elswhere through a difference scene or dialogue(like his parent's death).
Finally, I'm not quite sure what happened at the end. Now, this might have been your intent, but I don't know if the nightmares at the end were real or not. If they are real, I sort of would like to see a logical reason(as logical as it gets in horror mind you) as to why they are appearing, and why they have suddenly become 'real' and can attack people.
I do think that you have the beginning of something good here, and there are moemnts where your writing shines, such as the snips of dialogue or when you describe your character. I hope this is of some help if you decide to pursue a second draft.