A Short Story About A House That Kills People - General

[quote] The house sat emptily at the end of the road. It had been deserted nearly forever and would likely stay that way until the bureaucratic government noticed that it was missing tax revenue, that the money didn’t add up to the numbers of properties and that someone, somewhere, wasn’t paying taxes. I’m sure a few months later they would have figured out which property it was, perhaps within the same year they may even send someone to check it out. In fact its even possible that within a decade of discovering the problem that revenue to the government may be restored. That is of course a naively optimistic view, but alas, still possible in theory. But this story isn’t about the government, its about a house, a house at the end of a road. A look into the past may tell you that the house was a family’s home, that there were children raised in that house, that the home had a soul and at some point that soul was alive and well; happy even. But houses cannot be happy, because they do not have a soul and any notion to contradict that is ridiculous. If you have that view point, John would certainly agree with you. John was a man, according to the government he was an adult, however, anyone that knew him would find that notion ridiculous. John lived in a time where there was not much to do for entertainment, he had been born in the 30s, and now it was the early 50s. Had John been living in America, he would be doing fairly well and perhaps be well off; however, John was living in the United Kingdom, in a town that had certainly felt the German’s bombing campaigns during the war. John had friends that he would have been spending time with, getting in trouble together, and such. John had these friends, but they died in the war. And although an epic could likely be written about their lives and sacrifices, it still is not what this story is about. This story is about John. John was not well off, his town was poor and attempting to rebuild, many of the men in the town had died in the war, which led many families to move to the cities to attempt to find work. This is why the house next to the one at the end of the street was for sale. It was empty and deserted, but lacked the absolute air of emptiness of the one at the end of the street. That’s not to say that the emptiness didn’t bleed over onto the surrounding properties, it did, and the prices of the nearby houses reflected that. John had family problems, everyone had family problems, his father had died in the war and his mother became an alcoholic because of it. John, now an adult, was expected to take care of himself, his mother had not wanted anything to do with him; he reminded her of his father. That’s what she told John, but the truth was far closer to the fact that money spent on John could not be spent on whiskey. John had decided to move out; he had been saving up money, doing odd jobs for the widows of the town, jobs that would normally be taken care of by their husbands. He could not stand his mother’s drunken antics anymore one day, and he had to leave. Though he did not have the amount of money he had hoped to have, he simply could not stand her drunken antics any longer. He did not have the money to get out of the town yet, and despite his better judgment, proceeded to go to the house at the end of the street. Standing in front of it was imposing and emasculating, the sun setting to right behind the house’s tall spires was casting a shadow over anyone who stood in front of it, and the overgrown grass on the elevated platform the house was built on suggested some animal may leap out at any moment. John stood in front of the steps, and looked up toward the third floor of the house, the shutters were closed at that window, unlike the sometimes broken glass of the surrounding windows. The coat of paint on the house was far outdated, not that light blue was out of style in the society of houses; it was simply that half of the paint had fallen off. Whoever painted the house knew not what they did as they coat of paint below it was showing through, a bloody maroon color. The overgrown grass in the front was overshadowed by the untrimmed bushes in front of the porch, now entirely obscuring the view from the overturned table on the patio. The second floor was less eventful, merely containing broken and foggy dark holes into the house known to some as windows. John took one first step toward the house; he hesitated, and looked up at the imposing visage again, though he was the one who had moved toward the house, it looked to him as if the house was the one approaching. John trudged up the steps to the elevated foundation; the grass along the path was nearly waist high. John’s backpack plopped against his back with every step he took; it was light and only contained his necessities but felt heavier and heavier as he neared the house. John thought himself crazy, and pushed his fears to the back of his mind while continuing up the porch steps. He stopped in front of the door; the glass on the door was still intact despite the cracks and flakes of the door’s paint. John knocked. He wasn’t sure why, he knew no one lived there and that it was deserted. Perhaps he had hoped another vagabond like him had settled in the house temporarily, and thus he waited for a response. He waited almost a minute before knocking again, yet still had no response. The sun was setting fast and the cold autumn night was at his back. He knew he had to go inside soon, or spend a very cold night outside. John attacked the house, or that’s how it would be seen if the house was a living entity. He broke the window on the door with his elbow. A shard of glass had, despite the staggering chances, somehow pierced the cloth of his sweatshirt and cut his forearm. The wound was not deep but it was long. John reached his other hand through the broken glass and reached for the handle. John turned the handle and the lock inside snapped and twisted his wrist toward the edges of the broken glass. John, startled, quickly let go of the handle and withdrew his hand without any injury. The door creaked open slowly, tearing off the spider webs stuck on the bottom, the spiders themselves long gone in face of the approaching winter. John stepped inside the house, his backpack swaying with his slow stride. He looked around the room he was now in. It was an entrance hall, dirty footsteps suggested earlier locations of boots, and skid marks on the wooden floor were evidence of the furniture being dragged out, apparently without much care for the value of the house. A broken mirror hung at the end of this hall, reflecting John in his jeans, sweatshirt, and backpack slung over his shoulder. In between the shards of mirror one could see the autumn night set in behind John, the sun being nearly gone now. The floor reflected back in the broken mirror, and if you looked at it front the right angle, it looked as if the skid marks were actually dragging into the house. In itself this was possible, a family rushed to move into the new house and didn’t care for the floors as they should have, yet there was something unsettling about it to John. He wanted to leave already, but the cold autumn at his back was very harsh, now coupled with a piercing breeze, he could feel the cold passing straight though his thin sweatshirt and onto his back. John though back to the warm day it was today, and was surprised at the frigid sudden onset cold of the night. He decided that it was best to continue into the house. John passed the door frame out of the entrance hall, which only led to another long hall, a broken door hung at the end of the hallway. The bottom hinge was broken off, and the door swung all by itself on the top hinge, twisting to the left, and then to the right, and then back and forth. In the hallway leading up to it, there were many paintings hanging from the walls, some very old, according to the plaques beneath them. John walked past the paintings, toward the basement. He casually brushed the dust off the plaques, “1746, 1795, 1821… 1928”. The paintings above the dates were always of men and while the earliest was dressed in the fanciest clothes 1746 could provide, the most recent one, 1928 had none of the fancy trimmings. Even the frame for the latest one was lacking in detail and quality to the previous ones. John proceeded forward; he stood at the top of the stairs to the basement. It was far too dark to see down there and thus he had taken out a candle, and then lit it with a match. The flame danced and lit up the stairs in front of him. They were old, but certainly looked sturdy. John took a step down, and another. Before long he was at the middle of the stairs. A gust of wind from outside had blown in, John realized he should have closed the front door. The wind blew past him, and swung the door forward. Its remaining hinge gave out, the iron nails keeping it attached to the doorframe now splintering the wood around them followed with the falling door. John had no chance to dodge it, and the door hit him in the back. It slid past his back and landed at the bottom of the stairs in front of him. John too had lost his balance and fell forward down the stairs. His feet struggled to stop his maddening decent down the stairs but failed. John came to rest on top of the door that had taken him down the stairs. The lit candle landed in front of his face. His back was to the ceiling and he could not roll over. He was paralyzed. He could not move. He could not speak. He could not call for help. He could not scream. John heard the dragging of wood on the cold basement floor. He saw the three wooden legs of something get dragged up next to him. He felt a brush reach down and glide over his face. It felt as if it sucked the life out of him. About every half minute the brush came down again, to suck out more of his life. The candle burned in front of him, leaking onto the cold stone floor. He had felt nearly dead now. A foot shoved under his shoulder and lifted up, it flipped him on his back. He looked up and saw the brush; it was dripping red with blood. The figure holding the brush looked down at him; then back the three legged easel. The easel held a canvas, with John’s nearly completed painting, the only thing missing was the face. The brush came down on his cheek. [/quote] i wonder if anyone will reply even.

All I saw was John John John John John. Stop this and go back to 3d. Atleast you're decent at that.

Poor - below criticism at this stage to be honest. Read some books and then approach your own writing again fresh

So is this like monster house but for grownups?

John Mode Engaged? Honestly, I counted almost 40 John's in what is probably one page, how did you not notice how agonizing that is to read? [editline]4th July 2011[/editline] Fucking doublepost again, what is this sorcery? [editline]4th July 2011[/editline] And on the actual writing, I can't really come up with coherent criticism, mainly because I know next to nothing about writing theory, but it feels really off, as if you're skipping things or a lot has been cut out. Again, get actual criticism by the FP bookworms, but I don't like it.

JOHN EVERYWHERE plus the vocabulary isn't really engaging nor is the way you narrate it. [editline]3rd July 2011[/editline] it has potential btw.

[img]http://i.cubeupload.com/JJqpDy.png[/img]

[QUOTE=wewt!;30888718][img]http://i.cubeupload.com/JJqpDy.png[/img][/QUOTE] When we had to write short stories in school the teacher always said that if we see we're repeating a word to much we should try to use synonyms or anything to replace them. I ended up making up words. [editline]4th July 2011[/editline] [img]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1275475/Posts/the.png[/img]

So, he just has to find four hundred synonyms for "the". [editline]4th July 2011[/editline] Oh look, post #500! I'll be a super admin in no time!

It's not finding synonyms for 'the' It's finding a different way to say a sentence. For example, Instead of [quote] 'John passed the door frame of the entrance hall, which only led to another long hall, abroken door hung at the end of the hallway' [/quote] you could have [quote][b] John walked straight into the hallway and entered a never ending labyrinth of winding paths, all tiled and painted white, giving him the sterile feeling of being in a hospital. At the end was a door, that seemed to hang in silence[/b] [/quote] I'm sure you can find better examples, and rework your words, that was just after like five seconds of thinking. I don't quite know how to say it, but 'the' should always be for transitions, not just descriptive. It should seldom be 'the door' 'the hallway' 'the painting' etc.

[QUOTE=k00lwhip;30892549]It's not finding synonyms for 'the' It's finding a different way to say a sentence. For example, Instead of you could have I'm sure you can find better examples, and rework your words, that was just after like five seconds of thinking. I don't quite know how to say it, but 'the' should always be for transitions, not just descriptive. It should seldom be 'the door' 'the hallway' 'the painting' etc.[/QUOTE] That's a really rotten example, though. "A never-ending labyrinth of winding paths?" If I were reading a story and that sentence popped up to describe anything other than a literal endless labyrinth, I would put the book down and shake my head. Other than that, what you're saying is true. The author needs to practice finding different ways to say the same thing in order to write a story that really flows. The bareness of the narration makes it a struggle to read.

[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;30894110]That's a really rotten example, though. "A never-ending labyrinth of winding paths?" If I were reading a story and that sentence popped up to describe anything other than a literal endless labyrinth, I would put the book down and shake my head. Other than that, what you're saying is true. The author needs to practice finding different ways to the same thing in order to write a story that really flows. The bareness of the narration makes it a struggle to read.[/QUOTE] I know it's a rotten example, i just needed an example :(

[QUOTE=MakoSkyDub;30890775]So, he just has to find four hundred synonyms for "the". [editline]4th July 2011[/editline] Oh look, post #500! I'll be a super admin in no time![/QUOTE] Don't be a moron. I'm trying to point out that he uses 'the' a lot. People that only started out writing do this.

Try [url]http://www.tagcrowd.com/[/url] it will show you what words you use a lot. You're most used words should be names of things and people [sp]don't over-use them[/sp]. You used a lot of 'looked' [sp]beginners always do[/sp], your thesaurus will be a big help to you. Avoid was and were, they're boring words. Also use more descriptive adjectives. Most importantly show and not tell.

[QUOTE=Nyaa;30923343]Don't be a moron. I'm trying to point out that he uses 'the' a lot. People that only started out writing do this.[/QUOTE] It was a joke, god. No one gets me D:

your models may be 3d, but your characters arent :v:

Oh great, now we're all going to have word counting contests

Title reminds me of a "creepy-pasta" I read once.