Next Big Recognition Contest

Round 47

2. Does the main character's commentary and imagery get the point across, and if it doesn't, what should I change?

I think it does, for the most part. The main obstacle I'm seeing is the one I just mentioned—that the past story events and her current narration are not clearly indicated and separated. As I said, I'll address that below.

3. Is the story/idea interesting, would you possibly read on? If not, why?

Yep & yep. The story is intriguing thus far, and the way the vampire operated was unexpected—and a clever idea on your part! I will say that I would probably have to tamp down my editing inclinations a fair bit, but would probably find the story pretty enjoyable once that's set aside. As it is, I'm already planning on checking out the next chapter—partly because the writing quality is high enough that I'm cautiously optimistic about the overall story, and partly due to the curiosity you've succeeded in sparking about what comes next.

"Additional Notes:Here I'll note things like grammatical and logical issues. I'll usually just show the revised version, and then explain what changes were made from the original. Here we go.

First: I know I'm in an odd mood; even the trees near our house look somber. [Changed comma to semicolon, because the two clauses being joined are independent clauses. That is, they could each stand as their own sentence:I know I'm in an odd mood. Even the trees near our house look somber. In fact, that's another way you could fix the punctuation here—by simply writing them as two separate sentences.]

Next: The farther we drove, the stronger it became.My mind was in a stalemate between two possibilities—one side pleading to be heard, the other obstinately clinging to the idea of a vivid imagination being the culprit. But the worry was demanding, anxiously pestering me, and I tried to block it out by focusing on the scenery.

Should I speak up about what I felt? As I gazed at the forest, the landscape took on a bitter tone.[Changed the paragraph groupings of this passage. (The first sentence, the one about driving, does go with the sentences before it. But the spacing a I show afterwards are my edits. Also, I changed the hyphen to an em dash. Until you find the keystroke for that on your device or keyboard, you can simply use two hyphens--like this.]

Next: I felt the eyes on me again, and I focused on the trees, intently searching.... For what, I didn't know. [Given the capitalization, I assume you intended for these to be two separate sentences rather than one sentence with a pause. Therefore, I added a fourth period, plus a space after it. Also, I changed "don't" to "didn't." Her point seems to be that she didn't know BACK THEN what it was she was looking for, so I used to past-tense verb rather than the present-tense one.]"

Next: Not only that, but it was also keeping perfect pace with our car, neither lagging behind nor going slightly ahead. [Either/or is a pairing, as is neither/nor. But neither/nor, which is what the original version had, is not. Additionally, I was taught that "not only" & "but also" are also a pairing, so I added the latter two words, as well.]

Next: I was...right? [Changed spacing and capitalization here; from what I can tell, this should all be one sentence, not two separate ones. She's asking if she's right, and there's simply a pause in the sentence. In other words, I assuming the meaning is:I was right?And NOT:I was. Right? ]

Next: Jenny thought that she had managed to check me. She had been trying to scare me that entire year, and I was never going to live this down. But I couldn't focus on that right then. Such childish things didn't matter. What *was* that creature? [Had to use asterisks to indicate the italicization. That wasn't the issue here, though. The problem is that we're jumping around between tenses. The timeframes of the verbs are varied; the narrator goes from talking in "past perfect" tense to past and present tenses. For example, "such childish things don't matter." Since she's referring back to her mindset during those past events, saying that she was dismissing their importance back then because of the urgent circumstances, using present tense doesn't really make sense. And then "What is that creature" REALLY doesn't make sense in that context; she's echoing her past thoughts, so she wouldn't ask them in present tense. The exception is if it was an exact quotation of her thoughts, in which case the whole sentence would be italicized. That's the only way I can think of that it would make sense to have that sentence in present tense. By the way, there were also some typos in the Jenny sentence, so I fixed those. I also changed a comma to a semicolon in the second sentence of the paragraph.]"