First Few pages of a story I am writing (extremely rough draft)

[fiend_skull]

Smoke poured from my lips as I set my cigarette down on the ashtray that sat on my office desk. My eyes strained from a long night of paper work as a novel’s worth of solved murders already sat beside me. I typed away listlessly trying buy time until my shift was over, but the clock seemed to be ticking ever so slowly. The clicking of a couple dozen keyboards seemed to drone on like a light rain against a nearby window, but to me it all seemed far more abrasive. I could feel a pinch in my back as I arched over my keyboard, staring at its dull grey design. Frustrated, I muttered obscenities to myself and stared into the blindingly bright monitor. I detested the idea of so many people joyfully sitting around with their thumbs up their ass as I anxiously waited for a reason to jump out of my seat and go speeding along to the next murder scene.

Usually the calls never stopped coming, but tonight they were dead silent. The eeriness of it all overwhelmed the room. The notion of a silent office was so alien to me that, from time to time, I would look up from the screen to make sure I hadn’t gone def from years of gun fire. For a moment I tightly shut my eyes and I could feel them burn behind my lids. As I opened them, finally, a phone started to ring. With such a familiar sound I had almost not noticed it. I quickly jolted myself back into reality and answered the phone. A homicide had taken place at a run down apartment building on the south side of town. When I asked on what floor was the body found I heard the officer on the other end pause for a moment and then answered that it hadn’t been found. I instantly felt a red flag go up, so I rushed down to the scene of the crime before another word could be said and when I got there my suspicions were confirmed.

“Oh, dear god,” I gasped as I looked around the thirteen by thirteen room, slowly at first, trying to not let myself feel the horrid curiosity of wanting to know what else there could be. My body kept seizing as my eyes revealed more about the room and left less to the imagination. The walls were soaked in the splattered blood of a poor victim, dripping down and disappearing into cracks along the floor and walls. A single light was all there was to illuminate the room and it shined like a museum display of violence. Everything so “in place“ and “deliberate“ for the sake of show, as if to induce horror on all those who entered. The furniture was smashed against the floor leaving wood chips all over the room. The suspense of waiting for a dead body to appear began to build upon itself and my heart started to beat heavier and out of my chest. I moved from the living room to the bed room, but what waited for me there told more of the horrific story. The floor and walls were covered in the bloody prints of the victim’s limbs as if they were use for some kind of sick art project. It was almost enough to make me want to walk away, but I pushed through it.

I was waiting, almost hoping, to see a dead body to finally kill the suspense and let my imagination die down, but no body could be found. Blood all over the walls, but not so much as a fragment of flesh left behind. I could feel my stomach turning and convulsing, but I refused to give it the relief it pleaded for. I looked in every crevice and corner and even with the discovery of more blood I felt like the chances of a body became less. I stood in the bed room looking at the mess with my insides twisting into knots begging me to stop looking. The scene defied my imagination as it left more questions than answers. Even having no idea what had happened that night, it was almost obvious that it was something demented and inhumane.

Finally, the urge to exit the apartment overwhelmed me. I stepped around the apartment, careful not to disturb the scenes of violence. Finally, I reached the hallway feeling immense relief from the sensory overload. There was no way for me to prepare for the horrors not only in the room, but beyond it as well. The floor in the hallway creaked eerily as the heel of my shoes pressed down in rhythmic patterns, but my mind paid no attention. The old and dimly lit levels of the apartment building gave a depressing and lifeless feel as florescent lights flickered uncontrollably down every corridor. The wallpaper pulled itself off defiantly and revealed swollen and decayed wood underneath. Every single hallway was the same dull gray walls and carpet, almost seemingly better suited for an Asylum then an apartment. It doesn’t even look like a place the dead would converse.

In the distance I could hear a buzzing like a sort of machine. I continued to make my way down the hallway and the sound got louder with each step. The sound soon became deafening as it roared down the hallway. It didn’t just drone on, but instead it was chaotic, as if it was shredding scrap metal between its gears. My mind was scrambling to try and rationalize what kind of machine that makes such a horrendous sound. The crushing and scrapping of metal, drawn out to a point of extreme irritation, my hearing was being torn to shreds. Soon enough I had to put my hands over my ears to keep from being overwhelmed from the noise. My hands nearly muffled up the sounds, but the sheer volume of it was enough to still wreak havoc on my hearing. I just wanted to make it stop, I want to take whatever it was and smash it to pieces. It was starting to become to much. Why did I feel a strange urge to walk towards the noise in the first place? It was like something was telling me to walk and I just did it. What kind of hellish machine would be sitting in any apartment keeping people up all night long.

I quickly turned the corner and was met with a door that sat slightly ajar. All of a sudden, as if by some miracle, the god awful noises ceased. I made a quick glance back to the room I had just exited and I saw a rather peculiar sight. It was as if no one had heard a damn thing. Had I been the only person who took notice of it? In disbelief I just shook my head and turned back to the door. A light poured from the crack and my instincts told me to open the door, I didn’t know what I was going to find, but I just had to open it. My hand reached out and gently pushed the door open. I had my hand on my gun waiting for almost anything, but nothing that had come to mind was even close to what laid behind the door. There was no machine, the room was practically empty. The walls and floor where as white as possible and the light illuminated every inch of the room without flickering or dimming. In the center was a ghastly sight of almost demonic proportions. It was the body we had been looking for, in the center of the room, but it had been mutilated in ungodly ways. The torso sat up straight on top of a table and he faced directly at me, as if he were staring at me, begging for my help. His skin was pale as a ghost, but that was not where the horror ended. His limbs where hanging from giant meat hooks, as if a piece of meat waiting for some kind of cannibalistic butcher. Not a drop of blood anywhere in the room, had all his blood truly have been spilt in the apartment or had someone physically drained it from his body? I started to step back from the room and I started to scream, oh dear god how I screamed. I turned away from the room and I shut my eyes as tight as I could. My partners were right beside me in a matter of moments, but I had felt as if I was screaming for eternity. I tried to wipe it from my mind, but the horror was as real when I shut my eyes as when I sat it.

“What are you screaming about?” one of them had said, I don’t who know it was, but it had brought me out of my frightened trance. I opened my eyes and I looked back at the door, but when I went to point towards the door and tell them what I had seen, the door was gone. It was just a hallways that led to the elevators that sat on both sides. I was baffled, I know what I saw, but it was all gone. The body, the door, the display, all of it…gone. I couldn’t find the words, I had so many things to say, but only inaudible noises escaped my lips. It was like being a small baby, no words to describe anything, only primitive sounds and gestures. I tried to swallow my shock, but it just kept coming back up. I sat down and stared at the hallway in disbelief. Was I losing my mind, was the years of doing this job finally to much for me? After a moment of silence my partners, although obviously worried for me, let me sit and recover.

[milktoaste]

The story doesn't move well, good story tellers learn how to show, not tell. Pay attention to your story, where does it actually start? You may find the first 7 paragraphs of your story are only important to you (which is still important for you-the writer-so you can stay true to your characters), but the actual story, the bread and butter and the chewy center doesn't start until the awkward confrontation with the killer.

I learned more about writing from Anne Lomott's Bird By Bird. If you seriously want to write, read first.

I have a long ways to go myself.

[fiend_skull]

Thanks, its been a while since I've actually worked on a story and I will definitely admit that my writing needs work. I not use to writing horror, I'm more use to Dystopian writing, but I really wanted to branch out and try something new. I will definitely take your advice and work on these first few pages. Again thanks for the feedback

[X¤MurderDoll¤X]

part I hated the most:

We had no suspects, no eye witness, and get this, all the blood was sprayed down with ammonia making the blood completely unidentifiable. That’s right, we don’t even know who was murdered. That means the killer got away, which means another loose criminal on these god forsaken streets, which means…shit…more fucking murders.


I wouldn't say its terrible so far. I don't like it at all, but there are a lot of books from accomplished writers I can't stand to read either.

[Doc Faustus]

I know you do not write frequently, so pardon me if this seems really gauche of me to say: that is a horrendous first sentence. Don't do anything like that again. Never tell people point blank that there is incomprehensible horror. It guarantees a response ranging from an eyeroll at best to no longer reading the story. It looks like a very cheap trick. Also, do not have your detective confess his phobia two paragraphs in and expound on it, particularly if he doesn't know exactly why he has this phobia.
Good:
"Blood. Why don't I ever get used to it?"
Bad:
"I'm afraid of blood even though Iwork around blood all the time. It's a contradiction and to be honest I don't know why they hired me to do this job and how nobody notices and keeps on sending me to crime scenes. Guess I'm just lucky or that chief of police is some kinda big silly. All in all, this is a character trait that you'll remember me for, that's for sure."
Don't be too talky and don't tell people what conclusions to make with superlatives about the awesomeness of the murder.

[fiend_skull]

Thanks for the constructive criticism, I will do my best to apply it to my writing as I go back and constantly work on this story.

[fiend_skull]

I made a huge rewrite on the story and I think I made a pretty good improvement, I still have quite a ways to go, but it is much better than the first attempt.

[milktoaste]

I'm not real keen on the opening yet, the entire scene with your main character at his typewriter felt too slow. Then your character didn't stay very consistent, first he's nearly deaf from gun fire (I'm guessing from shootouts with bad guys) the next he's reacting like a rookie who just saw his first dead body. Police actually have tips and tricks to help them deal with that kind of stress- like telling telling jokes to help them keep their head on straight. Generally, even at the worst crime scenes, law members won't lose their cool till much later.

If I could make a suggestion it would be to start the story at the crime scene, maybe start with a few details (not more than two or three sentences) and then have your detective/super-cop arrive on scene. If he has an issue with blood and dead bodies, let him say so with a bit of dialogue even if it's only in his head. Maybe he's run out of his meds, maybe he thinks he knows the victim.

Those curtains, the smashed furniture, the blood; the stench was enough to turn a mans stomach, but over it all I swear I can still smell lilacs. Isn't that the smell she wore, damn my head these days. The scene was so out of place, as if the killer had taken his time, deliberately painting the walls with every drop of her blood. I can feel the small pill bottle in my coat pocket, I give it a shake just to be sure-yep, still empty. I guess I'll have a smoke instead.