In preparation for National Novel Writing Month, I've been exercising my prolificity! Check it out (your comments/criticisms are craved):

House Sitting
by Grismath

“Has she called back yet?”
“No, not yet… dammit.” Fred looked at his phone in disgust.
“Then let’s go! What are you waiting for?”
“She could still call. We were supposed to get dinner. She was the one who asked me! I just don’t get it…”
“Come on, we’ll have a few beers, some pizza, and you’ll get over it. It seems like she doesn’t even like you, anyway.”
“But - she asked me!”
“I’ll meet you out front,” Neil sighed, heading out the door.

Fred turned off the lights and unplugged the toaster. His life was a wreck. Glancing at his phone, he shook his head and went outside. Neil had already fired up the car and had pulled out into the middle of the driveway. It was a blue Chevy from the seventies, it’d been in Neil’s family for awhile and was a source of some pride that was a mystery to Fred. Fred hung his head and stepped out into the rain, stepped into a puddle that soaked his pants with a splash.

Over the back-and-forth squeak of the windshield wipers, Neil said, “You look beat.”
“I am beat.”
“Well there’s nothing like a cold beer and a hot slice of pizza to revive you. It’s about time we hit the road.”

The car slipped out of the driveway and into the night. Neil hit the gas and turned out of the neighborhood, but when he tried to straighten out, his back wheels kept on going. The rear of the vehicle swung out towards the guard rail. Neil slammed his steering wheel hard to the right.
“OH MY GOD HOLY **** WHAT THE ****” Fred screamed, gripping onto the terror-handles that dangled from the frame of the car door. Bucking in opposition, the car’s tail swerved right, so Neil twisted the wheel left. Still caught fishtailing in the intersection, Neil stared down the headlights of an oncoming station wagon and just fought back control of his car before a collision. Fred was shaking his head.

“Talk about evasive driving! Hooah!” Neil hollered.
“You almost killed us!” Fred accused.
“You mean I saved you,” Neil corrected.
“We almost died…”
“We survived. Ha! That’ll show the old man!”
“You’re going to tell him?”
“Never.”

Never failing to pick up on a cause for celebration, Neil cranked up the radio. It was playing “Highway to Hell.” Fred stared off into the void, mesmerized by the rubbing of the windshield wipers. A few songs later, he noticed a sign shoot by.

“What are we doing in Chatham? I thought you were taking us to your aunt’s house,” Fred asked.
“I am.”
“Yeah, but isn’t it faster to take the red route?”
Neil winced a little. “I guess, but I’ve never liked driving on the open highway in weather like this… plus, I go this way all the time. I’d rather go a way I’m dead sure about even if it’s a little longer, know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I guess.”

Somewhere, from a distance, a strain of the calypso could be faintly heard. “The hell is wrong with this station, anyway?” Neil fiddled with the radio dial.
“No, no, it’s my cell phone,” Fred admitted, producing the vibrating noisemaker from his pocketed recesses.
“Is it Kerry?”
“It’s Carrie. And no,” Fred frowned, “it’s just Steve.”
Neil concentrated on the road.

“Yo Steve, what’s happening, my man?” Fred jived, “uh-huh, uh-huh… no, she never called. What bull****, right? … Nah, I don’t care. No big deal. I’m not even that in to her. What? Oh, right now? Yeah, I’m with Neil. We’re going to his aunt’s place for some beers. Want to come? … Oh. Yeah, that’s cool. So get this – he’s taking us through Chatham to get there. … That’s what I said. Chatham! I hope we don’t get lost, either,” Fred glanced up at Neil with a smirk.
“What’s the big deal, anyway?” Neil protested, “It’s just Chatham! You guys are a bunch of fags. This is my home turf, Fred. Trust me - I know exactly what I’m doing.”
“What’s that, Steve? Oh yeah, he says he ‘knows exactly what he’s doing’” Fred laughed a little and then looked back up. “Wait, what? Oh ****!”
Smiling, Fred said to Neil, “Quick! Say something else!”
“What?”
“Say something else! I told everybody that those would be your last words! Those are totally famous last words!”
“What are?”
“’I know exactly what I’m doing.’”
“You’re all full of ****,” Neil growled and hit the accelerator.
Back on the phone, Fred said, “He said, ‘You’re all full of ****.’ What nerve, right? Ahhh whatever. Well listen, I’ve got to keep my eyes on the road, too, in case we spot an axe-murdering hitchhiker. Haha, I’ll catch you later. … Peace out, Steve. … Yeah, bye...” After another pause, he hung up.

They drove in silence for a while.

“There’s nothing wrong with Chatham, anyway, it’s a nice, old town,” Fred rejoined.
“You mean, a creepy, old town.”
“Whatever! We’re just leaving it, anyway. Are you happy now? Goodbye, Chatham. I’m sorry you’re missing out on some B movie horror action tonight. Loser,” Neil kidded with a glance.
“Hey, look, isn’t that the off ramp for the… red route? Oh man! We could’ve been here ages ago.”
Neil didn’t answer.

Past the city limits, Neil and Fred were out in farm country. Wide fields, lit only by shreds of moonlight through the rainclouds, were punctuated with stretches of thick woods. The road lost the rigidity town planners had imposed on it back in Chatham and begun to weave a little, reflecting old property lines and older dirt trails.

“Damn, I love the country. Check this out,” Neil said, turning off the headlights and killing the radio. The car was smothered in complete darkness all around. Even the sky was black, and all that either of them could hear was the rain beating down on the windshield only to be wiped away by the incessantly futile wipers.
“Neil, don’t do that! We could get into an accident.”
“Ahh, don’t get your panties in a tangle… tussle… whatever it is. I’ve known these roads since I was a kid.” Neil said, flicking the headlights back on nevertheless.
“It’s not that often that you get darkness like that back in Doylesford, what with all the light pollution. Quiet’s hard to come by, too.”
“I don’t like it. It’s like being dead.”
“Will you quit it with the ‘dead’ analogies? It’s not my fault that whatsername won’t call you back. I’m telling you she doesn’t like you.”
“Let’s not talk about that, okay?”
“Yeah, alright. Look, here we are,” Neil said, as a country home emerged from the darkness, illuminated by the car’s headlights.

The home was just over a century old, but looking little worse for wear. Neil’s aunt was clearly an attentive housekeeper, and added a feeling of warmth and hospitality to a structure that might otherwise have elicited more of an impression of antique dilapidation. The sturdy wooden construction demonstrated fine turn-of-the-century craftsmanship from nearby Chatham, then a booming coal town. A previous owner had painted the house an agreeable shade of light blue which only added to the cozy atmosphere surrounding the place.

Parking the car, Neil said, “I’ll go unlock the door, you bring the beers.”
“Got it!” Fred replied, his spirits raising with the prospect of drinking.

Fred slammed the car door and headed for the trunk. “Dammit.” Neither of them had remembered to pop the trunk from inside, and Neil had the keys. Fred looked around, but Neil was nowhere to be seen. Finding his way to the porch, Fred discovered that the door was locked and no lights were on inside. Fred looked back into the night, which had swallowed his friend’s Chevy and threatened to consume him.

“Fred! Where are the beers?” Fred jumped. “What are you doing up here, I thought I asked you to get the beers!” Neil was right next to him on the porch.
“Oh… I forgot to pop the trunk.”
“Here’s the keys, I’ll be inside. Hurry up, alright? I’m going to order the pizza.”

Inside, Neil flicked on the lights and went to the kitchen. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number from a page he’d left open in the phone book from previous visits. He’d discovered not long ago that his aunt was fortunate enough to live just on farthest edge of the pizza delivery coverage area. After he placed his order, he opened the freezer and removed an ice-encrusted bottle of liquor. Closing the freezer door revealed a black and white cat.

“Oh, hello, Sam. You again,” Neil said. He prepared some food for Sam and Tracy, the other cat, and, holding the liquor bottle up to them, said, “now remember guys, you never saw anything.”

“What are you doing?”
“Huh!” Neil jumped up, “oh, it’s about time. Put the beers in the fridge, I’ll start up the movie.”

Neil’s aunt had an impressive home entertainment system, and her nephew gratefully fished through her DVD collection, tossing “maybe’s” into a pile on the couch. Fred joined him in picking a movie and put the DVD into the player, “Blues Brothers,” specifically. When the menu came up, though, the remote was nowhere to be found. They looked under pillows, under the couch, under seat-cushions, behind curtains, in table-drawers, under the rug, in the next room, until they finally found that it had somehow gotten in Fred’s pocket.

When he hit play, the TV turned off. In fact, everything in the house turned off.

“****, I think the power went out,” Fred astutely observed. Neil’s aunt had fortuitously installed plug-in emergency lights, though, so the friends didn’t have to stumble around in total darkness. “That’s really weird, we haven’t had any lightning.”
“It might not have been a power outage from the plant, old houses like this often have ****ty wiring, and poor rain insulation never helps,” Neil mused.

“Well that sucks,” Fred frowned.
“Yeah, what are you gonna do.”
“So I have a question - where were you when I came onto the porch? I thought you said you were going to unlock the door.”
“I was… and I did – Aunt Wendy keeps her spare key in a little box by the cellar window. I always leave it in the same place so I never have a chance of coming all the way out here and forgetting it at home, you know?”
“Oh. That makes sense,” Fred snickered. “I came up to get the keys, and I was weirded out that you weren’t there. I was imagining that I’d be lost and alone in this place in the middle of nowhere.”
“Come on, I think this place is pretty nice. I’m glad Aunt Wendy lets me house sit for her, it’s like having my own house. I might even throw a party out here next time.”
“What does she do, anyway?”
“I think she’s some sort of archeologist. Whatever it is, she’s traveling all the time. She gave a lecture at Mason College last month, but it was the week after my visit. I spent the summer working carpentry around here, so I’d stop by and visit every once and awhile, I guess that’s why she let me do this. She’s pretty cool.”
“Nice.”
After a pause, Neil had an idea, “Hey, you’re going to think this is stupid at first, but my aunt keeps some of her finds from her trips in the basement before she submits them to museums or whatever. Want to see them?”
“No, yeah, I don’t think that’s stupid at all, I think it might be pretty cool. Lead on,” Fred said.

Neil found two flashlights, but only one had batteries, so he took it and led Fred down into the basement. Fred was visibly impressed as his friend led him between shelves of artifacts from various parts of the world. Neil was glad he had the chance to show off a little.

“Check this one out, it’s one of those hooks the Egyptians would use to scoop your brains before they mummified you. Pretty gruesome, huh?” Neil said, turning around to find Fred swinging an Ethiopian spear around.
“Don’t touch that! If you break anything, my aunt’s gonna kill me.”
Fred put it down and frowned at realizing that since Neil was the only one with a flashlight down here, Fred was stuck on his museum tour.
“Oh, and here’s my favorite, this one is from Haiti, I think my aunt was there just before all hell broke loose with the government, or maybe it was after.”
“How did she get it out of the country, then?”
“I’m not exactly sure, I think she was working with a pretty big museum, though, get ready for it…” with a flourish, he redirected the spotlight.

“Well, Neil, that’s a pretty fine display case. I bet you that dates back at least a thousand years.”
“What? Oh, she must have taken it back.”
“To Haiti?”
“No, these things all wind up in museums eventually, even if she just loans them out. Alright, show’s over, let’s go back upstairs.”

As Neil and Fred fumbled around to get back to the stairs, they heard someone knocking on the door nonstop. “Oh ****! The pizza guy! He’s probably been out there for a good while,” Neil said, running up the creaky stairs, “I’d better give him a big tip.”
“Sure! Just leave me down here!” Fred yelled, making his way, too, back up to the dim glow of the emergency lights. “I’m going to go wash up, bring the pizza into the kitchen.”

In the bathroom, Fred checked his cell phone again. He got spotty reception out here, and one bar at best, but nevertheless, it didn’t seem as if Carrie had called him back. “Maybe she called and didn’t leave a message,” he mumbled. It wasn’t likely. He sighed and resolved not to worry about it for the rest of the night. Neil had voiced his own fears, she probably didn’t like him anyway. He placed the phone on a window sill and dried his hands.

He hung his head and slunk out of the bathroom – only to see the front door wide ajar. Fred stepped out into the night but saw neither pizza man nor friend. The headlights of a delivery car cut through the rain, their beams vanishing off into the woods. For a moment, it seemed as if a shadow had passed through them.

Looking down, Fred noticed a pizza box tossed on the porch. He stooped down to pick it up, but when he got up, he noticed that the pizza man had appeared and was crossing the threshold into the house.

”Excuse me, I’m over here,” Fred called out, “sorry we kept you waiting out here so long – have you seen my friend Neil?” The pizza delivery man mumbled something in response. “Say what? I couldn’t make that last part out…”

The pizza man lashed around with inhuman speed and reached clawing hands out towards Fred in a deadly embrace. Fred ducked and darted past his assailant, a slice of pepperoni pizza in hand and slammed the front door in the suddenly-belligerent visitor’s face. The door began to shake with the same frantic knocking and scratching that Fred and Neil had observed before. Fred struggled to lock and deadbolt the door and slid down onto the floor, gasping.

Fingers shot through the door’s mail slot in an attempt to strangle Fred. He sprung back and kicked down at them. “What do you want from me?! What have you done with Neil? Neil!” Fred heard a rattling at the back door. Since the front door seemed securely fastened, Fred decided to investigate, trying to balance the speed dictated by the sudden urgency of the situation and caution for the various poorly-lit pieces of furniture he had to pass.

By the time Fred slid into the kitchen, the back door had stopped rattling. Fred inched towards the door, picking up a meat cleaver from a cutting block on a nearby counter. The door had a lace-curtained window, but when Fred approached and parted these curtains, he only looked out on the blackness of the woods. No one was there.

It was then that a head burst through the pet flap and bit down on Fred’s left shin. “Neil?!” Fred cried out in pain and surprise. He kicked at the head of his uncharacteristically aggressive friend. It wasn’t like Neil to hunger for the flesh of the living. Remembering the cleaver he wielded, Fred winced as he raised the blade to slice down on his insistent biter. As he hesitated for a moment at the prospect of lacerating a long-time buddy of his, Neil thrashed his head around, bringing Fred down on his back with excruciating pain in the leg still in the grip of Neil and sending the cleaver clattering across the linoleum flooring as Fred heard glass breaking in the distance.

Grasp around as he did, the cleaver was out of Fred’s reach. Looking back down towards the door, Fred glimpsed Neil gnawing on his leg with primal delight. Luckily, since he was focused primarily on holding Fred in place, Neil had failed to chew through Fred’s blue jeans and actually break skin. Fred reached for something to pull himself up with and ended up grasping on to the doorknob, turning it and swinging the back door open. On account of Neil’s position in relation to the door, the swinging door slammed into the side of his head, shocking him into releasing his prey. Fred jumped up and slammed the door shut again and ran back into the house.

The door burst open behind him and Neil chased Fred inside. Fred spotted the pizza man climbing in through a window, so he took a quick right turn and jumped into the basement, throwing the door shut behind him. The basement was in total darkness save for a few slivers of light cutting through a cellar window from the pizza delivery car. Trapped, Fred hid behind some urns in a corner. All he could hear was the steady rain pouring down upon the roof.

Time passed. Thoughts began to cloud the survival instinct that had saved Fred earlier. Did they leave? Perhaps, with Fred out of sight, they turned on one another. Why weren’t they coming for him? Maybe he could sneak upstairs. Fred suddenly recalled that Neil had left the keys to the front door in a box by the cellar window. The window was big enough for him to crawl through. If he moved quickly, he could be outside and drive off in the pizza delivery car before Neil and the pizza man could catch up with him. If they caught up with him, they would surely tear him apart - or even worse, he would join their ranks. But perhaps driving off would not help him – maybe the streets of Chatham were clogged with legions of the undead, the doors of shops and homes alike vomiting out lumbering servitors of cannibalistic hunger.

Fred’s thoughts were interrupted when the basement door creaked open. Fred gulped and hesitated for a second more and then whispered, “Now or never.” He sprinted for the window, but as he tried to climb up and undo the latch, Neil and the pizza man had already thundered down the stairs. The darkness did not help him, as Fred was caught right in the headlights from the car outside. As the shadows closed in, Fred noticed another familiar shadow in his line of sight.

Picking up the Ethiopian spear he’d handled earlier, Fred tried to swat at his predators to keep them at bay. In their frenzy; however, Neil and the pizza man paid the spear no head. Neil raced in first for the kill, followed by the pizza man close at his heels. Fearing the end, Fred braced down behind his spear and closed his eyes. When he heard two distinct howls, he opened them again. His opponents had skewered themselves on the shaft, like some sort of grotesque shish-kabob.

Fred let go and ran upstairs as Neil and the pizza man tried to extricate themselves. As he fumbled with the deadbolt to the door, the only thing between him and the open highway, he heard the crack of snapping wood and spied an enraged Neil at the basement’s threshold, part of the spear still sticking out of his gut. Screaming, Fred abandoned the door and ran up the stairs to the second floor.

He looked behind him to see his enemies fighting to follow him up. The stairs were narrow and dark, leading to a closed door at their top. Fred turned to open this, but as he flung it open, he beheld the last thing he’d ever see. Standing there, with a visage as torn and tattered as the ragged dress she wore was a vicious lady holding high a shrunken head. Fred stumbled back, tripped, and fell headfirst down the staircase and into the waiting arms and teeth of his fellow visitors to the house of Aunt Wendy.

We will never know what Fred thought or felt in the last slivers of time before he lost consciousness, life, limbs, and gratuitous amounts of blood, but as Fred fell, a strain of the calypso wafted faintly through the house.

I read through it last night, and after thinking about it, I've got a couple suggestions.

Suggestion 1

You've got too many "essay words" in this story. DUmb down the vocab a bit for two reasons. 1) The guys involved in the story are obviously none to bright and don't talk like science professors. 2) The story needs to have a more fast-paced feel, and your wording really destroys the ambiance in some parts. I'll give you an example, by re-writing a section. (This is just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about, not to show you up, or anything)

Original:

It was then that a head burst through the pet flap and bit down on Fred’s left shin. “Neil?!” Fred cried out in pain and surprise. He kicked at the head of his uncharacteristically aggressive friend. It wasn’t like Neil to hunger for the flesh of the living. Remembering the cleaver he wielded, Fred winced as he raised the blade to slice down on his insistent biter. As he hesitated for a moment at the prospect of lacerating a long-time buddy of his, Neil thrashed his head around, bringing Fred down on his back with excruciating pain in the leg still in the grip of Neil and sending the cleaver clattering across the linoleum flooring as Fred heard glass breaking in the distance.

Rewritten:

Pain lanced through Fred's left leg. Glancing down, he saw that Neil had stuck his head through the pet-flap in the door and bitten his leg. Even now, Neil's jaw was locked on Fred's pantleg. “Neil?!” Fred cried out in surprise. It wasn’t like Neil to hunger for the flesh of the living. He kicked at the head of his uncharacteristically aggressive friend. Remembering the cleaver, Fred winced as he raised the blade to slice down on his insistent biter. The thought of it turned Fred's stomach sour. He hesitated and Neil took advantage of that hesitation. He jerked his head to one side, causing Fred to lose his balance on the slick linoleum and fall backwards. The cleaver was sent clattering across the linoleum floor. Glass broke in the distance.

Now there's a couple things I did here. First, I shortened the sentence lengths. During action scenes like this, it's a good tactic to speed up the pace and excite the reader. A super long sentence will cause us to relax, but a shorter sentence will put us on edge. Second, I cut some unnenecessary info. An action scene is no place to start introducing info to the story, as it distracts us from the action going on, and throws us off track. I still said basically the same things, but rather than telling the reader, I showed him/her, which brings me to my next point.

Suggestion 2

Show don't tell. Try to say that to yourself every 2 minutes when you're writing. Don't tell me someone is sad, show me the tears coming from their cheeks. Get the idea? Overall you didn't do too bad a job of this, but keep working on it, cause it's the best thing ever for a writer.

Suggestion 3

Cohesiveness. I kept waiting for all the random parts of the story to come together. The near car accident, the girl not calling, going the scenic route, rather than the faster way to the house. Nothing came of those things, and so they just sound like filler. It's vital that your story be cohesive. Right now it feels like a bunch of random events of two guys, and then suddenly there's zombies. A good sprinkling of foreshadowing is always nice too.


So there's my advice.. Hope I don't sound to harsh. But I imagine you're looking for helpful criticism or you woudln't have posted here.

Bah I'm an avid creative writer and would love to do a thorough critique of this, but I don't have time right now @_@

With Sarn's first point, though, I'm not sure I agree (though I admit I haven't read more than a paragraph or two yet). The diction and tone of your prose need not be consistent with those that your character might use (especially since this is third-person).

Although, I personally have an affinity for Fitzgerald's high prose style and scene construction, which is very difficult to pull off without sounding over-the-top or like a hackneyed attempt to be flowery, so this might be irrelevant and inappropriate for your story. I myself rely a bit more on metaphor and imagery than anything.

Pommy, I don't think I described very well what I was getting at. I said that the author's voice ought to reflect the voice of the characters, and while that works sometimes, you're right. It's not necessaryily .. uhh necessary.

I think what I was trying to get at more, was to make the author's voice fit the overall tone of the story, which is, in my opinion, quite important.

I agree with Sarn on the points he made. It felt as if the events before the zombie-attacking didn't really connect with the rest of the zombie-stuff (or visa-versa, depending on which is more of the story you want to tell). The stuff before the zombie attack seemed a little drawn and dull, where as the zombie-part of your story felt a little simple and irrelevant. Connecting the two parts of the story together more will really help strengthen your story.

Yay for people posting new content on the ISB

These three things jumped out at me as being slightly absurd:



That's like three different exclamations in the space of one.



Aren't those identical pronounciations (or was this a joke?)?



No, yeah?

Anyways, Nice story. I'm not really into horror, but it isn't bad. I might post a bigger critique in a few days. Or not, but whatever. Good on you for writing something.

And I should add that the thing Geb and Sarn are talking about didn't bother me much, but you should take my comments with a grain of salt (I did think some of the descriptive action stuff was a bit clunky, but I'll get to that if I get to that).

Sran wrap:



I agree. I happen to think with a broad vocabulary that often gets in the way of what I'm trying to convey in informal writing like this. While I think some of my diction was prudent & intentional, some of it was unnecessarily complex, especially for a story like this. It didn't help that I was kind of rushed at some points to submit to a writing workshop club and I sat down after having left my keyboard for some time without having re-read what I'd already written.




I like your rewritten version much better. I'd kind of lost sight of increasing one's reading pace in narratives. I'll remember to do this better when/if I redraft.



I caught myself telling, not showing several times and I made a conscious effort to avoid this.



Here, I disagree. The near accident, the girl, the banter, the route... all these were to set up the characters and flesh them out. What I have going on here is a normal night in the lives of two normal college aged kids. Then something suddenly goes wrong. In fact, I chose my title semi-carefully to avoid implying in any way that the dead would walk amongst the living in my story, so that it came as a (somewhat cheesy) surprise. Some of the things that happen earlier come together later, like the usefulness of the Ethiopian spear, but even that's more gratuitous than I want to be. In real life, things don't, in fact, always work out in a "storybook" fashion.

I suppose there was some foreshadowing nevertheless: the reference to B movie horror action, Fred "feeling like he's dead," etc.

This story was more of an exercise than anything else. I was trying to work on two aspects: dialogue and twists. Often, when I'm doing a "workshop exercise piece," some other elements of storywriting fall along the wayside because of time constraints and because I'm not actually writing a story for any literary value: just to realize certain aspects.

Pommy:



All through my eductation in writing, I'd received heavy criticism for my reliance on high prose. I've ignored most of it, but now write in a clear, simpler voice, while still expressing myself in more complex words/phrases when the need arises. Nevertheless, I can't please everyone.

Sran Wrap:



I don't think this is necessary. The narrator is an impartial 3rd party observer. He's not a youth in the same way the characters are. In fact, my next exercise will be to do just the opposite of what you said and make it work.

Gebblz:



Can you suggest any ways I can further connect the parts without making the zombies seem too obvious before they come about? I want it to be a surprise. In many ways, I tried to model the 3rd party focus on detail/perspective on Hollywood horror movies. Note how the "focus" switches to Neil when the two split up and Neil goes inside at first. Later, the "focus" goes exclusively to Fred when he's wondering where Neil got off to. Very horror movie.

Tracer:



Thanks for the criticism! I'm not going to redraft this until after Monday (when my Writing Workshop club grills me over it), but until then, I may work on something new....

Well overall you did a good job of weeding it out. That was more of a friendly reminder, rather than a specific critique.

As to the whole twist at the end and whether or not it should be foreshadowed, I've read books on both ends of the spectrum. I've read books that something completely random happens at the end and they call it a twist, and I've read books that had so much foreshadowing and hints that by the time the "twist" occurs you're already expecting it and it's no shock. Neither of these is ideal. A twist works best when it surprises the reader, but then the reader has a thought like "Oh yeah, that's why back in chapter six so and so did this..." However, I do have to say stories that over-hint at what's to come are usually better than stories that don't have any tie-ins in my opinion. The reason I say that is because at least when the twist is obvious, the reader still spends the rest of the reading up to that point, wondering 1) if the author hasn't made it purposely easy in order to fool them, and 2) how the characters will react when that twist happens. These things keep the reader interested.

Now, earlier, I described the reader's ideal throught process when reading a twist. With your story, I didn't get that thought. Before the zombies showed up, I was thinking, "This is boring. Is something ever gonna happen? Who cares about all these things?" The zombies came, and my thought was more along the lines of "What the hell? Where did that come from?" A bit more foreshadowing and cohesiveness will change those thoughts to first, "Oooh, I wonder what's gonna happen next?" and then to "Zombies! It all makes sense now! Earlier when he said that one thing, he was leading up to this! What a reward!"

(note: the "thought processess" were exagerated a bit to make my point, but you get the idea.)

Yeah. The ending was pretty good - I figured something was up when the artifact was missing, but I did not see it coming when Fred ran right into the aunt.

Also, I have an aunt named Wendy.

Is she an archaeologist?



I want more of a "what the hell? where did that come from?" instead of a "it all makes sense now!" Nevertheless, I want the reader to wonder what's going to happen next. I don't want the reader to expect that this is going to be a horror story, although the atmosphere may kind of set it up. That's why I tried to drag out the beginning so it could have been a normal story about two friends discussing one's issues. I think I ought to make the whole Fred/Carrie thing stronger and be able to stand as its own story, but before it's resolved, it's interrupted by zombies. The zombies are not a reward to some tension I've been building, there is a place for that sort of formula - this is not it. The zombies are a surprising kick in the face. You're expecting a boring yet thoughtful feelings story - when suddenly - action! terror! zombies?

Well, I get what you're saying, and I will say that writers should not necessarily follow a "mathmatical formula" when writing...

But...
Two problems with this. 1) If someone expected a story to be boring, why would they continue reading? I fear that many of your readers would miss out on the zombie attack simply because they put the book away expecting your story to be, as you so eloquently put it, boring. 2) If you want it to be thoughtful, then you *definately need to go into more detail with the Carrie/Fred relationship. Not only would it fill the time before the zombie attack with something relatively interesting, it would also fill out your story and make it a bit longer.

My reccomendation for that would be to actually write the inital meeting that Fred has with Carrie. Throw in some "spark" material, and get the reader excited about their upcoming meeting. Then, she never shows up, and Fred is confused. Then at the end of the zombie story, tie it back in by having it revealed somehow to Fred that Carrie is now zombiefied, and that's why she never called.

Anyway, that recocmendation is something to give you an idea, and notice that you could tie that back together, and give the reader one of those "Oh, so that's explains why..." moments (why Carrie never called Fred) without ruining the "kick in the face" zombie surprise, and thus, you get best of both worlds.

(note: Remember these suggestions are only that, suggestions. Something to get your own thought processes going. If you don't like the idea I've given, you don't have to use it, but I'd encourage you to at least try to implement the concepts I'm talking about)