I was getting a little spooked as your story took the reader onto the forbidden abandoned property. That scenario can make for quite a thrilling story! So I got ready to go on an adventure with your character.

However, as my mind's eye tried to envision what was ahead for this young man, I wondered how it would wrap-up within 300 words.


Observations:

You have a lot of word waste up-front which can be tossed away and replaced with plot, scene and shivers. This is a flash fiction, under 300 hundred words, for a contest, thus you need to choose your words carefully, conserve the word count for developing the story a little more.


EXAMPLE: This paragraph highlighted below, is way too wordy for a limited word count such as the one you had to meet.

"He had always been curious about the old barn. He passed it daily on his way to, and from, school. Even though it was quite a distance from the road, it piqued his interest. According to his father, the property was long ago abandoned and the locals weren’t quite sure who owned the land. James had been admonished not to trespass on the rundown property. Now that he had finally turned twelve, he thought it was time he explored the mystery."

TRY: The twelve-year-old James, was always curious about the abandoned barn that he passed-by daily. His father forbade him to trespass upon the property because it was run-down and dangerous. Today, he decided to ignore that admonishment. Fewer words and the reader gets the picture.

This should actually be your opening paragraph so that the events go in order rather than flash-backing to the warning by his father. Then you (go to the first paragraph, place it here, because it tells of his trek into the barn)

Further Observations:

Occasionally, he tossed toss a rock in front of him in order to scare off any creature that may be living in here.


Your conclusion is wrapped up too quickly. The reader is left unsatisfied because there was no imagery for them to feel the anticipation of something terrible possibly happening. This is where you have space to use all those words you tossed out in the previous paragraph, highlighted.

EXAMPLE:

"He turned his light back on. So far, he had walked less than 30 feet into the barn. He could now see his breath. He knew he had to leave. Something bad happened here."

TRY: He felt the hairs on his neck rising and the bumps on his arms more pronounced. There was a scent in the air that had a sickly smell. He nervously turned on the light, noticing his breath in the air. James turned and exited the barn, never to return, for he knew from the odor, that something wicked happened there.

This is just an example of giving the ending a little more impact and getting the reader's imagination to fill in the blanks.

You have a fine scenario with this barn, but you do need to do a bit of editing to pull this story together.

You responded to this review 08/27/2014 @ 6:57am EDT

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