Short Story introduction. Review and criticism welcome!!!

kellyjohnp

Hi all. Here's the start of a short story I'm working on. Any review and criticism is welcome. Thanks in advance!!!

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I hate that shed. It sits there, down at the end of the garden, ringed by hedges and trees like an old king surrounded by cushions in his harem. Smug and squat and terrifying. I hate it because at night I can’t really see through the barred window and I can’t see what’s inside until I get very close. And that scares me. Because I always imagine that one night I’ll get too close to the door and it’ll whip open before I can turn away and I’ll be dragged screaming into it’s dark interior. I hate it when I have to trip down the long path to the bottom of the garden, balancing containers full of cooked food destined for the freezer. I hate it because the other night, when I got close enough to the shed to almost touch the door, I looked through the window and saw a pair of red eyes staring back at me. Intelligent eyes full of malice and hate. I could imagine a mouth beneath those eyes, smiling at some nameless horror planned for me. At first I thought my mind was playing tricks and it was the lights from the washing machine and the freezer. But washing machine lights don’t blink slowly, and freezer lights don’t have irises. I stopped, holding the containers of pasta sauce and soup. Then the eyes blinked one last time and vanished.

EileenG

The red eyes are a powerful image, but we have to wait too long to get to them. All that stuff about the shed sitting like a king just slows it down.

On a purely technical note, would a shed a long way from the house have electricity and plumbing?

kellyjohnp

EileenG wrote: »

The red eyes are a powerful image, but we have to wait too long to get to them. All that stuff about the shed sitting like a king just slows it down.

On a purely technical note, would a shed a long way from the house have electricity and plumbing?

Thanks for the reply. I was trying to build up a bit of atmosphere with the preamble for the eyes, but I'll try speeding it up and see how it goes.

My shed is a good step away from the house, and has plumbing and electricity, but it is a bit of a contradiction for a lot of people. I'll shorten the distance to the shed and make it darker. Or raining

EileenG

Be very wary of spending too long building up atmosphere at the very beginning of a story, there's too much chance the reader will say "Boring" and move on to a different story.

The days when you could open a story with three pages of description of a library, before you mention the people in the library, or the will they are there to hear, are long gone. Now, you've got to open with your inciting incident.

Donal Og O Baelach

kellyjohnp wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. I was trying to build up a bit of atmosphere with the preamble for the eyes, but I'll try speeding it up and see how it goes.

My shed is a good step away from the house, and has plumbing and electricity, but it is a bit of a contradiction for a lot of people. I'll shorten the distance to the shed and make it darker. Or raining

Remember advice is just that - advice. Don't go jumping to change something as soon as someone points out what they don't like; use your own judgment Personally, I think a hundred words of setting the scene is totally acceptable, even in a short story. And seriously, pipes and electric cable don't need to come into the story - the shed has plumbing and lights - if the story is gripping, no one cares if its 10 feet or 100 yds from the house. If you get hung up on these niggling points it will strangle your storytelling. Let it flow, you can invent logic later.

pops

"It sits there, down at the end of the garden, ringed by hedges and trees like an old king surrounded by cushions in his harem" - I don't think this bit is necessary, nor is the bit about fearing about being dragged screaming into its interior.

Also do you think that you would be able to see the irises?

James T Kirk

kellyjohnp wrote: »

Hi all. Here's the start of a short story I'm working on. Any review and criticism is welcome. Thanks in advance!!!

---

I hate that shed. It sits there, down at the end of the garden, ringed by hedges and trees like an old king surrounded by cushions in his harem. Smug and squat and terrifying. I hate it because at night I can’t really see through the barred window and I can’t see what’s inside until I get very close. And that scares me. Because I always imagine that one night I’ll get too close to the door and it’ll whip open before I can turn away and I’ll be dragged screaming into it’s dark interior. I hate it when I have to trip down the long path to the bottom of the garden, balancing containers full of cooked food destined for the freezer. I hate it because the other night, when I got close enough to the shed to almost touch the door, I looked through the window and saw a pair of red eyes staring back at me. Intelligent eyes full of malice and hate. I could imagine a mouth beneath those eyes, smiling at some nameless horror planned for me. At first I thought my mind was playing tricks and it was the lights from the washing machine and the freezer. But washing machine lights don’t blink slowly, and freezer lights don’t have irises. I stopped, holding the containers of pasta sauce and soup. Then the eyes blinked one last time and vanished.

I'd lose the stuff in bold.

Otherwise, I liked it.