There’s something about this snippet that’s bugging me, but I’m not 100% sure what it is… apart from the fact that you’re using the American spelling of ‘theatre’ and it’s bugging me, but that’s neither here, nor there. I think my problem is that this is potentially a very shocking scene – sure they already knew Long was up to more than he was admitting, but surely they weren’t expecting him to turn up with Sara? (I know
I wasn’t.) And I’m assuming him
murdering her wasn’t expected! And while your players were clearly genre savvy enough to realise
something was going to happen (and I love Derive’s fed up ‘tentacles’ at the end), there is still the fact that what happened is still shocking (metagaming from your players aside – and there doesn’t seem to be a huge amount of that in this one anyway). The entire snippet has a very casual, unconcerned, almost lackadaisical effect that’s totally at odds with the content… and I suspect it wasn’t intentional on your part. There is the potential for some good drama here, I want to see you do more with it.
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It was opening night at the Paradise. Despite their investigation, the three adventurers had been unable to find reason to stop Sara from putting on the show on-schedule. Despite her reassurances, Lupin and Derive 'knew' that something terrible was going to happen.
I’ll freely admit, this is a bit of a pet peeve with me, but I
hate the use of inverted commas… here, all you’re trying to do is emphasise that they knew something was going to happen, all you need here are italics or bold (I’d use italics, but that’s personal preference). Inverted commas are, to me at least, meant to show sarcasm or irony, neither of which you’re really portraying here.
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"No time to fret over her now," Lupin reminded himself as he watched the line of patrons from the darkness of the alley across the street. "Like Uncle Jan always said, 'when you aren't sure what you're looking for, look for everything.' Hmm ..."
Lupin furrowed his brow and a frown crept upon his face. "Then again, he was usually passed in the corner from his turnip wine."
I like this… I love the words of wisdom from Uncle Jan, and the way Lupin gradually realises that they’re not really that helpful after all!
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Suddenly, a hand gripped him by the shoulder. Screaming like an eight year old girl, he scrambled away from his supposed attacker and bolted out of the alley. He tripped on the curb and fell into the street, turning around with his gun pointed at the alley.
Something about the specifics of him screaming like an eight year old girl bugs me. I think it’s too specific for the image to work. The whole ‘scream like a girl’ thing is very much a generality – the idea that when startled, someone will give vent to a high-pitched scream, much like a small/young girl would do, that’s the cliché here. Telling us that it’s actually like an eight year old girl gives us too many specifics and ruins the impact of the cliché.
Also, at this point, Lupin doesn’t know his attacker is ‘supposed’ or not. As far as he’s concerned, he’s being attacked. I’d remove ‘supposed’ from the sentence. I assume you put it there to give the reader the hint that it’s actually Lucy, but trust me, the clever reader will get that without you making it obvious.
Finally… he fell into the street, which to me at least, implies he fell over… in which case he wouldn’t be turning around to face the alley, he’d be rolling over, or scrambling to his feet and
then turning around. It occurs to me as I type this that yes, he could stumble and trip and ‘fall’ into the street without actually falling
over, but if that’s what you meant, then I think you need to make it clearer that he fell into the street, but managed to catch himself before he fell over. Perhaps change it to read that he stumbled into the street, but caught himself before he fell.
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"Whatcha doing?" Lucy asked curiously as she exited the darkness of the alley.
To emphasise – if you change the above paragraph to remove the comment about a supposed attacker, then the tension is heightened, give Lupin a bit more of a sense of panic and then the reveal that it’s just Lucy will be that much more impactful. (Impactful? That ain’t a word… though the spellchecker isn’t complaining at me, and that worries me… either way, you know what I mean.)
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"Chasing hobos," Lucy answered with an innocent smile.
I love that you don’t actually
show us Lucy chasing hobos, it leaves it open to all sorts of interpretation and leaves one with the question of exactly
what Lucy was doing. Was she actually chasing people, or was she just away with the fairies again?
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Lucy's smile slowly morphed into concerned curiosity as she looked beyond Lupin at something across the street. Turning to follow her gaze, the halfling felt an icy chill run up his spine as he saw Jonathan Long entering the theater, his arm wrapped tightly around Sara's waist.
"Trouble," Lupin said bluntly.
I believe the good Doctor said something about this needing more info to let us know that Lupin is referring to Long as being trouble. I respectfully disagree. I found it perfectly obvious that he was referring to Long, and that Long would indeed be trouble. If anything, I want you to emphasise the point more. It strikes me that this would cause a certain degree of tension… I would be inclined to add something to describe that… Lupin is being blunt, which
starts to suggest tension, but I want it to be more explicit than that.
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A cheer rose up from the theater patrons as the film began. Lupin glanced intermittently at Sara and Jonathan, and every time it seemed as if Mr. Long had pressed himself more firmly against her as he whispered into her ear.
This is good, we’re left wondering exactly what Long is whispering into Sara’s ear. I’d like to know something of her reaction to it though… does she seem okay with it, does she seem uncomfortable? And why have you suddenly started referring to him as ‘Mr Long’? you were just calling him ‘Long’ before and that’s perfectly acceptable. It’s not like you’re actually talking to the guy.
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Suddenly the movie stuttered and stopped, the projector making a horrendous metallic squalling sound. Someone from the crowd called out "Focus!" in a friendly tone.
I don’t understand… why is someone calling out ‘focus’? is the implication that the movie has gone out of focus (a perfectly reasonable assumption)? Is our mystery person telling the operators to focus and get the projector working again? And why are they being
friendly? the bloody movie just stopped running, I don’t imagine anyone would be friendly right now! :smalltongue:
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Standing upon his seat to get a better view, Lupin watched in horror as the image of the dozen men in blank masks came into view on the screen. The theater grew very quite as a palpable feeling of malevolence began to wash over the room.
Lupin stood
on his seat, not ‘upon’… and likewise ‘quiet’, not ‘quite’.
This is another one of those scenes where you have real potential that you aren’t taking advantage of. I want to know why Lupin is horrified at this image. The projector just broke sure, and we know Long is up to no good, but those haven’t been linked to this moment… and for all we (the reader) knows, the men in blank masks are part of the movie… so I why is Lupin so freaked out by it? I want to know what’s going on inside his head. I’m also not sure ‘palpable’ is the right word to use here… it means something that is readily or plainly perceived, or felt… so having a palpable feeling is a redundancy… a feeling of malevolence (or anything else for that matter) is going to be palpable by definition, you don’t need to specify that. I assume you wanted to give the impression that the malevolence is changing the atmosphere, making it tense, like it’s a thick feeling? Perhaps describe it further, tell us that it’s a gradual change starting from the front as people notice the feeling (since I get the impression it’s probably emanating from the creepy men in blank masks) and then it filters back. Tell us that the atmosphere becomes tense, thick with malevolence, that kind of thing.
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The silence was shattered by a scream as Long pushed Sara over the balcony railing. She plummeted to the wooden floor, landing on her head with a sickening crack. Screams and the hackneyed cries of "Dear Gods!" rang throughout the room.
Hackneyed cries? Bit callous, don’t you think? A poor girl just got murdered! If this was directly coming from the perspective of one of your characters, who could possibly have seen enough in their life to reasonably consider ‘dear gods’ a hackneyed cry in this situation, then it would be justifiable. .. but you’re not really speaking as any of your characters right now, so it completely breaks the tension (and leaves the reader with the unfortunate sense that the writer doesn’t really care that someone just died).
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Suddenly, the image on the screen went black as the floor to the theater collapsed, causing another chorus of screams to reverberate across the room. Rising up from the darkness of the hole, terrified patrons gripped in its slime-coated tendrils, was a massive amorphous ball of black and silver film. It lashed out with its limbs, snatching up fleeing patrons and devouring them.
"Tentacles," Derive grumbled. "Figures."
I love the idea of a tentacle blob made of movie film, it’s a wonderful mental image, quite creepy in fact – amorphous is an excellent word to use here. I do, however, wonder how on earth it’s slimy… is it simply because it’s been buried underground? Is it something to do with its composition? Because I find it hard to imagine that a giant ball of film would be slimy. I do
love Derive’s reaction though :smallbiggrin:
I think your problem with this one is that you’ve got an awful lot of wasted creepy potential here. I think the reason is that you tend to waver on who’s perspective you’re writing from. When you’re writing character speech or action, you tend to write from their perspective and we get insight into the situation through their thoughts and feelings about the situation. But as soon as you start describing more neutral things, things that the characters are simply observing, but not directly taking part in, you switch to a completely different, third-person narration that screws up the tension. I think you need to pick a character and stick with them for the entire snippet – what are they thinking and feeling? What are they seeing? How do they react when Sara gets done in? When Lupin is horrified, I want to know
why he’s feeling that way, get me more into the heads of your characters (perhaps not Lucy though, she’s a little scary). Likewise, you subtitled this a ‘cat girl’s worst nightmare’ but there’s very little mention of Lucy and no mention of what part exactly is a cat girl’s worst nightmare.
I’m sorry if I seem harsh, I really think this has the potential to be great, I love this kind of thriller/horror type of story… but you need to work on the tension. Give us more of a description of what’s happening and what the people are thinking and feeling. Lupin got horrified? Okay, I want to see what that
looks like on him. Does he gasp? Does he get physically tense? Does he chew on his lip? Start swearing? It’s those little details that make a story like this believable. I
want to believe in the tension and the horror, but if the characters aren’t feeling it, then the reader won’t either.