October 28th, 2013 at 09:25am
*Here from the Mibba magazine's contest*
This was really great! I love the suspense you built right from the get-go. With setting a story in, pretty much, the middle of nowhere, you know something bad's going to happen. And I think everyone knows exactly how it feels to be home alone and have your mind run away with itself.
I like how you make Maggie a relatable character, especially with the situation she's in. One thing I really like about the girl is that she chooses to hide in the darkness rather than make her presence known to whoever is in her home. I don't know why but I just think it's something I would do, ha!
Your descriptions are good; not too much information to bore the reader but enough for us to picture what's happening. It's great how you ended the story on a cliffhanger. It immediately made me want to find out what happened next!
All in all, you did a really great at this!
I have to admit, when I first read the summary and saw that it would involve a girl at home alone, I was fairly skeptical about it since that is such a common horror cliche. But you wrote it wonderfully. You made it your own, and that takes a special kind of talent. I always quite enjoy when a writer can use a common horror element and make it work in such a magnificent way. Your story was very beautifully written and you used the elements very well.
From the first few sentences to the very end of the story, it did have me captured and interested in reading. The story had me so engrossed in it that when I read through the part about Maggie realizing she'd locked the door, it gave me chills. As someone who is well-versed in the horror genre, that's not an easy thing to do so I'm really liking that your story was able to make me feel like that. I love a good piece of horror that can give me chills and make me feel fear, and that's what your story did. It was so subtle and mysterious, it was brought along in such a enchanting way.
I also must commend you on the way you made Maggie react to whatever was in the house with her. A lot of people would go with the typical idea of making the character investigate, so I loved that you took a different route and had Maggie use the shadows and darkness as her cover. I loved that you made her react differently than most would. On that note, Maggie was a very well portrayed character. She seemed like an average teenager (guessing her age range), which made the character so relate-able and well portrayed. She was very real.
I loved the aura of mystery and suspense you kept with this story. All in all, your story was a very good read. It was very mysterious and very scary indeed. Well done on it~