Question

D&D Shadow fell based Gothic Horror Short Story!!

I stood there, peering over the gaping maw that was the dark and ominous ravine below me. Fear filled my heart as I thought about the creature that chased me. His pale, grey skin and glistening fangs. I looked across the ravine and was greeted with an almost mirror image of what was behind me, a dark forest of leafless grey trees and colorless grass. I changed my view to the sky above only for my eyes to be met by a colorless grey void. All hope escaped my mind and body as I thought about what that horrendous undead creature might do to kill me. I turned around to the greyed forest behind me. I saw a hint of movement within the shadows of the trees as my thoughts raced; thinking about how I might escape my dire situation . . . or if I even could. My mind drifted to thinking about my other ventures into the shadow fell. Gargantuan shadow dragons seeking to steal the life of all things living; and dark, scheming hags seeking ways to leech of the life force of downtrodden communities. I thought about my trip to the queen of undeaths fortress of memories and how the nightmare I experienced there would haunt me beyond death. But this creature was more horrifying to me than all those horrors put together. The look in his eyes told a story of untold corruption, as though; for him; all friendship had turned only to jealousy, all love turned into obsession. This horrendous corruption of humanity and virtue was more horrifying than one might believe, or even imagine. The only thing that scared me more was the thought of the beings that created such corruption . . . The Dark Ones, the mysterious, unseen, unheard, rulers of the shadow fell, of which their origin is completely unknown. My thought was interrupted by the deep, growling voice of the once man creature that was chasing me, as a cheetah does a gazelle. “You were quite the chase; I’ll give you that. But that is not enough to save you from me, mortal,” I turned my eyes towards him; him being completely covered by a shadowy cloak, making the only parts of him visible being his pale, fanged mouth. He walked towards me slowly, knowing there was nothing I could do . . . his prey was caught.

Answer 1

This is my first draft and a quick write up so I don't have everything like paragraph separation.

Answer 2

@ggmydude

Answer 3

@shadow

Answer 4

>All hope escaped my mind and body as I thought about what that the horrendous, undead creature might do to kill me.

Answer 5

Do you think I use the word "I" a little to much here? I don't know what else to put.

Answer 6

>I saw a hint of movement within the shadows of the trees trees' shadows as my thoughts raced

Answer 7

uhh lemme get done with some of the grammar then I'll re-read it

Answer 8

OK

Answer 9

I didn't have a lot of time to work on grammar because I pretty much did the entire thing like 8 minutes ago so this is much needed

Answer 10

>thoughts raced; thinking
This is repetitive, you're essentially using the same diction but with different phrasing

Answer 11

Grammar is extremely important. Without it, your story will have a hard time getting off the ground.

Answer 12

Yeah, I just wanted to get it done so you and shadow could see it

Answer 13

>how I might escape my dire situation—or if I even could. <--- consider using concise language here. Also use an EM dash instead of ellipses when attaching a loose thought. It's a more formal way and looks a lot prettier, at least to me. You don't have to agree lol.

? could replace strikethrough with "if such a go-lucky plan was even plausible."

it denotes the MC's lack of faith in his present situation, which—in return—allows the reader to feel the element of suspense if MC were to escape. "Go-lucky" would be a good implication here; it's a subtle yet effective change that can spice up your writing.

This is simply an example I thought would better represent this "fear" MC feels and pass on that same emotion to the audience. You do not have to use my sentence, I would rather see your own ideas put into the character, since it's quite the rewarding process.

Answer 14

Thanks Man!! I'll make those changes as soon as I can and post an updated version!! Appreciate the help mydude!!

Answer 15

You use "thought" and "thinking" a lot. Avoid word repetition, you can use a thesaurus to help find synonyms.

>contemplated, analyze, understand etc.

these are all similarly defined words to create a more varied vocabulary

Answer 16

>Gargantuan shadow dragons seeking to steal the life of all things living; and dark, scheming hags seeking ways to leech of the life force of downtrodden communities.

These can be divided into two separate sentences, since the semi-colon is used to connect two loosely related ideas. In this case, you're talking about dragons and then witches. It would allow an easier reading experience.

also, change the bold words to synonyms

Answer 17

queen of undeaths fortress of memories These feel like they should be proper nouns

? Queen of Undeath's Fortress of Memories

Answer 18

Yeah, I was thinking about that one but wasn't sure because here actual name is The Raven Queen and I didn't know if that would translate but I will make those proper

Answer 19

*her

Answer 20

But this creature was more horrifying to me than all those horrors put together.

Answer 21

yeah I had a hard time with that one

Answer 22

Alright I think I fixed most the things you said but there might be a few I forgot

Answer 23

I stood there, peering over the gaping maw that was the dark and ominous ravine below me. Fear filled my heart as I thought about the creature that chased me. His pale, grey skin and glistening fangs. I looked across the ravine and was greeted with an almost mirror image of what was behind me, a dark forest of leafless grey trees and colorless grass. I changed my view to the sky above only for my eyes to be met by a colorless grey void. All hope escaped my mind and body as I thought about what that horrendous undead creature might do to kill me. I turned around to the greyed forest behind me. I saw a hint of movement within the trees’ shadow as my thoughts raced; my mind on how I might escape my dire situation - or if such an insane plan might work. I drifted to contemplating about my other ventures into the shadow fell. Gargantuan shadow dragons finding ways to steal the soul of all things living. Dark, scheming hags looking for ways to leech of the life of downtrodden communities. I remembered my trip to the Queen of Undeath’s Fortress of Memories and how the nightmare I experienced there would haunt me beyond death. But this creature was more horrifying to me than all those horrors put together. The look in his eyes told a story of untold corruption, as though; for him; all friendship had turned only to jealousy, all love turned into obsession. This horrendous corruption of humanity and virtue was more terrifying than one might believe - or even imagine. The only thing that scared me more was the thought of the beings that created such corruption - The Dark Ones, the mysterious, unseen, unheard, rulers of the shadow fell, of which their origin is completely unknown. My thoughts were interrupted by the deep, growling voice of the once man creature that was chasing me, as a cheetah does a gazelle. “You were quite the chase; I’ll give you that. But that is not enough to save you from me, mortal,” I turned my eyes towards him; him being completely covered by a shadowy cloak, making the only parts of him visible being his pale, fanged mouth. He walked towards me slowly, knowing there was nothing I could do - his prey was caught.

Answer 24

I didn't fix some of the repetition because I didn't know what else would work there

Answer 25

>The look in his eyes told a story of untold corruption, as though; for him; all friendship had turned only to jealousy, all love turned into obsession.

There's a rule for using semicolons like this, I'll use an example from one of my dumb college applications:

"My Sophomore year launched a unique co-curricular activity of travel and sparked the sense of being an international citizen. It permitted me to live in such places as: Florence, where I learned about the birth of the Renaissance; Rome, where the framework for democracy was born; Paris, whose historic revolution showed the world the inherent power of the will of the people; and Berlin, where a wall that once symbolized a lack of freedom now symbolizes unification. Here were the places that ignited a sense of civic involvement."

Only use this when you're using commas inside of a list. It's to avoid confusion in a sense.

Answer 26

Don't edit it yet, I'm not done with my feedback lol. My final draft took me 6 hours to revise and change. This is a timely process. So please wait and think very hard about what I'm saying.

Answer 27

ok

Answer 28

I just read through your new revision, I found new errors in your changes.

>I saw a hint of movement within the trees’ shadow as my thoughts raced; my mind on how I might escape my dire situation.

"my mind" what? This doesn't make sense to me, try using something like "my mind focused on how I might escape..."

Answer 29

yeah, -_- that was kinda stupid

Answer 30

>This horrendous corruption of humanity and virtue was more terrifying than one might believe - or even imagine.

? change to: This horrendous corruption of humanity and virtue was more terrifying than one might believe or imagine.

Answer 31

ok

Answer 32

>The only thing that scared me more was the thought of the beings that created such corruption . . . The Dark Ones, use a period instead the mysterious, unseen, unheard, rulers of the shadow fell, of which*. ^Their origin; is completely unknown.

Answer 33

? “You were quite the chase; use "!" instead of semicolon(?) I’ll give you that. But that is not enough to save you from me, mortal,*.”

Answer 34

I turned my eyes towards him; him being completely covered by a shadowy cloak, making the only parts of him visible being his pale, fanged mouth.

Answer 35

yeah I had a REALLY hard time with that one, I couldn't figure out how to get across my idea while still sounding ominous

Answer 36

Just think about better word choice and using concise language. Accuracy is very important when writing. Even some of my ideas are inconsistent all the way towards my final draft. I'm not asking you to fix these in an afternoon, just consider what can be changed. You have the ideas on paper now, focus on how you can make it meaningful and "spooky" lol

Answer 37

Not to sound impatient or anything but is that all? I want the second draft done before shadow gets on. (his name partially inspired me to write this)

Answer 38

HAHA, I'll give you some advice. There's a lot of secret techniques that writers use. Notice how my story left a lot of questions to be asked. You want people to ask these questions for the sake of learning more about your environment. Make the reader want to know more about your story. Have a driving plot point, create inner monologue, be very descriptive and focus on diction and connotation. Hell, even add some more fluff to the setting of the dark ravine. It's your world, you can do whatever you want. As long as you maintain the core elements that make reading a story interesting.

Answer 39

Thanks man! I will say however that it is not MY world because I am using D&D Ravenloft lore but it is my own parallel version of that so it still applies. Thanks again for editing this, I really needed it!

Answer 40

I kinda suck at world building (sort of). I always have a hard time figuring what I want it to be like

Answer 41

Hey as long as you don't plagiarizer

Answer 42

Yeah, it not ever going to get published except like on a forum or blog or something where it wouldn't matter so I'm good

Answer 43

You chose a scenario with complex world building. It's a fantasy environment. My short story took place in a school, which everyone is familiar with and doesn't require any extra introductions. However, yours is extremely dependent on creativity.

Answer 44

Yeah but I have a hard time writing in environments that are familiar because I always get stuck on whether I recaptured something perfectly (unless I'm writing comedy) but in a fantasy world I am not trying to recapture anything and I don't have a creative block on trying to decide whether something would fit in that setting. At the same time I get stuck on details when doing fantasy world building

Answer 45

The main issue I have when deciding on writing a story is the setting because I will often abandon a story if I decide I don't like the setting I chose but if I have time and if I like the setting (or if someone else made the setting) then I generally thrive when writing. I should probably have given myself more time before posting this short story but it actually saved me time in the long run because you fixed a lot of issues I would have had to deal with

Answer 46

What I think I need (besides an editor), is an awesome fantasy setting of my own design that I am content with, as well as tons of time to make it and get practice writing short stories. I will probably spend the whole of my spring break next week writing out my setting and getting some short stories down (upon which I will practice the things you have told me) so that I get better at writing