The Girl, the Forest, and the Clock-Works

Michelle K's picture
Submitted by Michelle K on Mon, 02/18/2013 - 17:14

It was a dark and stormy evening.

Well, not exactly stormy, but by the time I woke up, it was drizzling.

"It is dark though," I thought. "But it has to be only five o'clock." Squinting at my watch, I felt the bus slow. It couldn't be my stop already, could it? It felt like I had only gotten on the bus a minute ago. Hoping I was correct, I walked down the aisle of the bus assuming that I was at the correct stop. I hadn’t known it at the time- but I was dead wrong.

As I stepped off the bus, the bus driver gave me a strange look, but I didn't really think too much of it at the time. There was that magnificent mountain range in the distance to worry about. In its shadow and in front of me was a shadowy forest, going on forever and ever.

There were no mountains or forests by home...

In an effort to calm myself down, I told myself that the bus driver knew what he was doing- there had to be some sort of logical explanation.

Turning around, I decided to ask the driver why we were not at our intended stop. “Sir, are we…” but then I choked on my words. There was no bus driver. There was not even a bus.

Comments

TeresaL

02/24/2013 - 17:04

Hello Michelle, I think you gave a really good opening here. I think you can make it into an amazing opening by following some of the suggestions posted here. I see some great suggestions from bdmercer and Charles. I see so much potential in it, would love to see it realize it's full potential.

Michelle K's picture

Michelle K

02/25/2013 - 17:29

Thanks, I've been trying to improve on the spots that sound gramatically weird. :) And thank you to bdmercer, Cathy, and Charles, too. :)

Madison Fisher - Madfish's picture

Madison Fisher ...

02/20/2013 - 15:24

A really fun, and eerie, story idea Michelle. I'm eagerly anticipating what the Clock-Works part of the title will mean for the story!

bdmercer

02/20/2013 - 14:13

Michelle, the opening is nicely constructed, starting with a benign situation (waking up and getting off the bus) and ending with a mind bender (missing bus). It's certainly attention grabbing and I'm sure readers will want to find out what happens.

There's a few areas where the tense is mixed up between past and present and makes it unclear whether we're dealing with a past event or something that's happening now - though I think it's in the past. A few other areas:

- "There was not even a bus." - might be better phrased as "And there was no bus."
- "In its shadow and in front of me was an infinite amount of trees, going on forever and ever" - maybe better phrased as "In front of me was a vast forest of trees that stretched out as far as I could see."

Michelle K's picture

Michelle K

02/19/2013 - 16:49

Thank you both for tips! I'm trying to make the main character sound as if she is telling the story to someone else, any suggestions on how to make it smoother?
Thank you so much!

Charles M

02/19/2013 - 09:55

You've created a very suspenseful foundation for your story, and set up the end of the opening beautifully.

A few places that I felt could use some tidying up
-> ".........it, I had panicked." Change to "........it. I panicked."
-> Remove the last sentence in the second paragraph
-> "...........forests by home" Change to ".........forests by my home"
-> "......myself that the home....." Change to "...........myself that my home......."

Cathy B

02/18/2013 - 22:14

What a wonderful story opening. And the last paragraph definitely got my attention! I think there are a few grammar and tense errors. I normally don't pay attention to grammar, but some of these were a bit distracting. Great opening though!