A Vampire's Story

Unfinished #3

There was something wrong in the air that night. I should’ve listened to my family before I had gone outside to gather with my coven. I shouldn’t have gone out to the meeting. Everything pointed to things going wrong with everything. Times were crazy anyway. My family was right to call me the unlucky one. I was the oldest and only woman, besides our mother, in the family.
    “Danny!” my father yells after me as I sit at my laptop.
    “What?” I yell back, knowing perfectly well that he was outside my bedroom door.
    “I don’t want you to go out tonight,” he says as he opens the door slightly. I look back at him to look at his dark brown beard, blue eyes, and friendly face.
    I smile softly at him and says, “Dad, I have to.”
    “If you are going outside, please, please, please, be completely careful,” he says as he steps into the room.
    “Dad,” I say, standing up. I am up to his tall shoulder and was every little bit of him and my mother put together. My long dark blonde hair hung to my knees and sways when I walk to him. “Daddy, I’ll be fine. I promise.”
    Then I sweep out the door and walk to my coven. The woods outside are dark and mysterious. As they always are on nights that the moon is full and the sky is perfect. A light fog covers the grounds, covering the brown and golden leaves on the ground.
    “Welcome, Lady Sunset Fire,” my high priestess says when I finally arrive in our clearing. A roaring bonfire stands blazing brightly behind her. She stands facing me and her arms are out. “Welcome to our blessed clearing.”
    “Goddess bless you, Lady Ravenstar,” I answer our greeting. “I am blessed to come here.”
    “As are all of us this blessed night. Welcome all of you. Come warm yourselves by the fire,” she says to the others circled around the bonfire. We gather around, either standing or sitting as she slowly circled around the circle. I stay standing, I can feel something in the air this night.
    “My lord,” I say softly as our high priest stands next to me, “what’s going on? Something’s not right.”
    “She’s gone mad with power, this night, Sunset,” he whispers softly as the high priestess starts speaking.
    “Covens come and are united. Many spend years together as those forced to part ways come before us. Lady Sunset Fire, step forward,” she says as she holds out her hand to me. She waits for me to take her hand as the others begin to stir.
    “Be careful. She’s carrying her ritual dagger underneath the cloak,” my high priest says as he steps away from me.
    “Come, Sunset Fire,” she says softly. “Let us begin the night in ritual.”
    I stand frozen to my spot as I see the madness in her eyes from where I stand. The red and orange colors of the flames are dimly reflected in her once emerald green eyes. Now her eyes were the colors of dull red. My thoughts race from possibility to possibility before I was shoved from behind me.
    “Now, we shall begin our night with a ritual long forgotten,” she says as she lands a grip on my right wrist. Her grasp is too strong to pull out of or break as she twists my wrist, making me go down on my knees and let out a whimper of pain.
    “What are you doing?” I ask as she pulls her dagger from a sheath at her side.
    “Covens are united in a ritual of blood sacrifice,” she speaks louder for everyone to hear. “Lady Sunset Fire will be our blood sacrifice this dark and mysterious night.”
    “What?!” I say shocked beyond belief. She pulls me closer to the fire as I try to pull away from her.
    “Lady Sunset Fire will be our beautiful and powerful sacrifice. Her power will unlock the goddess from her slumber and She shall protect us forever,” Ravenstar speaks to the coven, who had yet to react.
    Then she did what I thought she would never do, she lays the dagger’s blade across my throat and presses. A thin red streak of pain shrouds my eyesight for a moment and the dagger was gone. “I will not let you do such a thing, Lady Ravenstar,” a strange voice speaks in an accent that was like thunder across the sky.
    “My Lord God, you said to use someone powerful to wake the Goddess,” she stammers.
    “I did not say to use Lady Sunset Fire,” the voice speaks again. The pressure left my wrist and a strong arm wraps around my waist, lifting me to my feet. “My lady, forgive her. She was drunk with the power that I had granted her through a small touch. Forgive me for placing the power upon her.”
    I feel my energy returning and looked at the man holding me. He was handsome in his own way. Beautiful dark brown, almost black, eyes looked deep into my own. The rest of his face was like that of a fallen angel. He was handsome in a beautiful way.
    “My lady?” he asks softly, breaking me from my trance of studying his face and lips that look extremely kissable.
    “I forgive you,” I say softly as he holds me close to him. I place my hands on his chest and felt the rock hard muscle there. He felt comfortable and safe, yet dangerous to a certain point.
    “Sunset?” Ravenstar’s voice speaks at a distance.
    I turn to look at her and my eyesight narrowed in on her. “You tried to kill me, Ravenstar,” I say softly. It feels like someone else was speaking through me. “How could I ever forgive you?”
    “Sunset? Danny, please, forgive me,” she cries softly. “I did not know what I was doing.”
    “You are forgiven to a point, Ravenstar,” I say. The man still held me close as if he did not want to let me go. I honestly did not mind that he held me so closely. I felt perfect in his arms.
    “Thank you, my lady,” she says as she falls to her knees before us.
    “Now, Lady Sunset Fire, shall we leave?” the man asks as he turns my face to look at him. I felt my heart skip a couple beats and I nod softly. I did not know what I was doing, but I wrap my arms around his neck and press my lips against his lips.
    That kiss blocked out everything else. I could not think about the coven, my family, or anything, but the taste of him. He tasted like vanilla ice cream on a hot summer day, like rain after a long drought. Everything about his kiss was like a dream. I fall into his arms as he pulls me against him.
    “Wake up, Danny! You’ll be late for school,” my dad yell. I woke up as I heard him pounding. My head spun like crazy as I sit up in my own bed. I grabbed my head and look around slowly.
    “How the f**k?” I ask myself bewildered. I was sitting up in my own bed. “How’d I get here?” All I can remember from last night was the kiss from the man.
    “Danny! I said wake up!” he yells at me as he pounds on the door.
    “I’m up,” I say softly. I stretch and shrug my shoulders. “Maybe it was a dream.” I shake my head and rub my face with my hands.
    “Breakfast will be ready soon,” he says and I can hear him walking away from the door.
    “Okay. I’ll be down in a minute,” I answer as I run my hand over my face. I sigh softly as I open my dresser drawer and pull out a sky blue tank top. I pull it over my head, slip my arms through the holes, and pull the bottom of top down over my flat stomach. Pulling out a pair of black jeans, I shove my left foot through the pant’s leg. I shove my right foot through the other one and pull them up and over my slender legs.
    “Hey, Danny,” one of my brother’s say at my door, “breakfast is ready now. Mom made pancakes and scrambled eggs with bacon pieces.”
    “Yum. Alright Brandon, I’ll be there in a minute. I’m getting dressed,” I answer him. I look at myself in the mirror and see the color of my eyes. They were like the ocean blue meets the sky on a semi-cloudy day. The colors changed places at times of stress or anything else.
    I pull my long hair back into a tight ponytail and braided it tightly. I twirl the braid around the first holder and place another ponytail holder around it. Staring at myself in the mirror, I notice that my skin is just a little bit paler than it was yesterday, but shrug it off, thinking that it was just lack of sleep.
    I stand and walk out my door, grabbing my book bag and my leather jacket. As I shut my bedroom door, I can smell the wonderful aroma of bacon and eggs. The smell of pancakes, bacon, and eggs made my stomach grumble with approval. I toss my things on the leather couch and walk into the kitchen to see my mother and father talking while she makes our food. My two twin brothers, Brandon and Jonathan, sitting at the kitchen table.
    “Danny, you’re finally up,” Jonathan says with a soft laugh. “Have a long night out with the coven?”
    “Jonathan, shut your mouth,” Mother says. “If Danny wants to be part of another coven, then we will have all the respect of that choice.”
    “Thanks, mom,” I say softly. I sit down beside my oldest brother, Zeren. He is the spitting image of our mother, but as quiet as a mouse. He was reading a journal that Mother had written to him while she was pregnant with him. A soft smile plays on his lips as he keeps reading. “Hey, Z.”
    “Oh, hey, Danny,” he says, lifting his tri-blue eyes to meet me with a warm smile. Zeren is my favorite brother. He and I get along perfectly and we have a great deal in common. “Ready for school?”
    “As always,” I laugh, grabbing a piece of toast. “Are you ready for your last year of community college?”
    “I’m ready for it definitely,” he laughs, placing the journal down. “Hey, Mom. Thanks for everything.”
    That made Mother stop and turn around. Her tri-blue eyes and short blonde hair reminds me of family. She is estranged, but we love her greatly. Her mind is always working on something, no matter what it is. She loves each of us with everything she has and has given up everything to have each of us feel great.
    “Let’s eat,” Father said brightly. We all sat down by at the table and grab plates from the middle. We start eating breakfast, hardly ever speaking, as usual. Zeren and I sit next to each other. We finish breakfast and gather our things to go. It is the first day of college for all of us.
    “Hey, Danny. I’ll pick you up after practice,” Zeren says as we climb out of his car. I laugh lightly and nod.
    “Have a good day, Z,” I say softly to him. I climb up the thirteen steps to the front doors of the high school, walking next to Zeren. He is my best friend and my brother. I love him.
    “You too. Don’t let the teachers kill ya on the first day,” he laughs and walks off. I look around and sigh softly.
    “Another summer and you are still as beautiful as ever, Danny,” a voice says behind me.
    “And you still get annoying, James,” I laugh and turn around. My best friend and one time lover stands by the doors. His short brown hair is closely shaved to his skull. “You cut your hair.”
    “I had to. My new job requires it,” he smiles softly and stands next to me. “You’ve gotten paler since the last time we saw each other.”
    “I barely left the house,” I answer him as we walk toward our lockers.
    “How’s the coven?” he asks softly.
    “Well,” I say and think about last night. “I’m not really sure. We had a meeting last night, but it got interrupted by a man.”
    “Who?”
    “I don’t know. I didn’t ask him his name.”
    “So, what happened? Jamie called me and told me that you disappeared with him.”
    “I don’t remember. All I remember was his kiss and then I woke up in my bed. That’s all.”
    “A kiss?”
    “Yeah, he kissed me.”
    “And you didn’t know who he was?”
    “No.”
    “Danny, you’re crazy.”
    “I know, James.”
    He touches my shoulder and turns me to look at him. “Danny, you know I care about you still. I always will. That will never change.”
    “James, we’ve already happened. There isn’t much else for us to do together anymore, except hang out and be friends. We weren’t right for each other then and we are definitely not…” I start to say, but someone catches my eye. It is the man from last night. He walks down the hallway, carrying a book bag.
    “What? What is it?” James asks before he follows my gaze to the man walking. “Who is that?”
    “That’s the guy from last night. The one who kissed me,” I say softly as I push James off of me. I jog up to the man and fall into step beside him. “Excuse me, but I don’t want to bother you. But…”
    “Danny, you shouldn’t be speaking to me out here,” he says and leaves me astonished and unable to move.
    “Who was that?” James asks as he jogs to me. “Was that the man from last night?”
    “I.. don’t know,” I whisper softly and hear the chimes for the beginning of class. “S**t! Let’s go!” I sprint off to one of the many buildings and find an empty seat. I sit down, lowering my bag on the floor. It was a music class.
    An hour and a half goes by and my mind is filled with nothing, but the man’s lips on mine. I spaced through my entire class and as I lift my things off the floor, I hear beside me, “Meet me in the library after all your classes.” It’s a woman’s voice, not the man’s voice that I was slightly expecting.
    I look around as I stand straight and see a young brunette walking away from me. From behind, she looks muscular, but has curves like an hourglass. She must get all the men she wants with a body like that, I think to myself. I shrug my shoulders and head to my next class, grabbing my flute out of the trunk of my car. I had been in the marching band of all the schools I had ever gone to since I was a freshman in high school.
    “Danny?” a familiar voice says behind me. I turn and see James once more, trailing behind me. “Hey, Danny. I’ve got that guy in my last class. They say his name is Phillip and goes by the screen name lestat_101. Check it out online after the classes.”
    “James, thank you,” I say and kiss his cheek. I still had true feelings for James, but they weren’t as great as they used to be. I smile at him and watch him smile back.
    “Maybe I should do more undercover work for you,” he laughs lightly.

Author's Note

I wrote this a long time ago.... Should I finish it?

Reviews

[Evil Duncan]

First thing, it's a small point, but be careful with tense; you seem to switch around occasionally and it can be distracting to the reader. Mostly you are writing in the present tense, but occasionally you slip into the past tense. A couple of examples:

"My long blonde hair hung down to my knees and sways when I walk." So "hung" is past tense, but "sways" is present tense.

"My thoughts race from possibility to possibility before I was shoved to the ground." Again "race" is present tense, but "shoved" is past tense.

There's some really nice descriptive bits: eyes "like ocean blue meets the sky on a semi-cloudy day." But don't get to 'bogged down' in description. Describing how you put on a tank top and a pair of jeans arm-by-arm and leg-by-leg is probably unnecessary!

On the whole though it's an intriguing set-up. It's a bit like the Twilight stories. Was that what you were aiming for? I was a bit disappointed when it ended and there was nothing more. I think it would be worth thinking through where you would like the story to go and then maybe try moving it on a little further and see how it goes.

[JayG]

• I should’ve listened to my family before I had gone outside to gather with my coven. I shouldn’t have gone out to the meeting. Everything pointed to things going wrong with everything.

You just said the same thing three times: “Things are going to go wrong.” But doesn’t that describe pretty much any story? Why tell people that things will go wrong? That’s a report, after the fact—history. Why not let them discover what happens as the protagonist does? That would be story, and it’s always more fun than history.

Never forget that the one living the story and the narrator live at different times, and so cannot appear on stage together. The fact that the narrator once was the character living the story is immaterial. Readers want to experience the story, not hear about it. And changing the personal pronouns to first person changes nothing because the “person” you write in has nothing to do with the viewpoint it’s written in. For the protagonist it’s always “now.” And a reader wants you to make the character’s now and their now coincide, so it feels like they’re living the story moment-by-moment, not hearing about it second-hand.

A few points:

• Tags are used to make the reader know who’s speaking when-there’s-doubt. But when the reader knows, by whose turn it is to speak, by what’s said or the way it’s said, you don’t tag the line.

• Don’t over explain. The reader can’t see the scene, and mentioning what’s in it, when the character isn’t focused on what you mention detracts. For example, when you say, ‘ “Danny!” my father yells after me as I sit at my laptop,’ Why does the reader care that the character is sitting? Who cares that he has a laptop when we don’t know why he’s using it? Would the story be changed were he combing his hair or changing his shirt? If not, all you do by including it is clutter the narrative and slow the story.

• Watch for adverb usage, they often over-specify, as when you say, “he says as he opens the door slightly.” In what way is the story changed if he just opens the door? Were the character to object to his opening the door without permission there would be a story purpose. But forget giving the reader things you “see” but which the character doesn’t react to. If he is our protagonist, and the POV is his, we should know what matters to him in the moment he calls now.

• Don’t have the character notice things you want to tell the reader unless he reacts to it, because it’s obvious that you’re dumping in information. When you say,” I look back at him to look at his dark brown beard, blue eyes, and friendly face,” it’s obvious that you’re saying it only to tell the reader what the man looks like. Had he reacted to it—for example feeling a surge of love—the line would have served to introduce character development. But as it, it comes from you, not him. And you’re neither on the scene nor in the story.

• One of the major strengths of the print medium is that we can take the reader into the character’s head. And that’s great, because the limitation of not being able to make the reader hear the voice of the storyteller, or see their performance is a major weakness. But at the moment you’re thinking cinematically, and telling the reader what you visualize as happening in a scene they can’t see, and not taking advantage of making the reader know why the character does what you tell us he does. When you say, “I smile softly at him and says, “Dad, I have to,” think about the reader’s view. They just “yelled” at each other. Why? You don’t hint, but it sounds like they were angry. Perhaps it was them joking, but you give no hint because we never learn how the character reacted, and why they acted. So here, for unknown reasons, he smiles. We don’t yet know what a coven is in terms of this story. We don’t know his place in it, or what’s planned for the night. And we have no hint of why he has to go. Were you him, wouldn’t you ask dad WHY he said not to go, in case it made sense?

Had you been thinking with HIS mind as you wrote, and taking into account the things he does, he would have asked. And in the answer, and his reaction to it, a lot of story set up would have been generated.

What you’re doing—and pretty much everyone does it when they begin recording their stories—is using the writing skills we all learn in our schooldays. After all, no one tells us they’re part of a general set of skills and oriented to the needs of our future employer, not the needs of the publishing professionals and pro writers.

But the writing we learn is designed to inform. So it’s fact-based, and author-centric. The narrator explains the details concisely and clearly, so the result reads like a report, or an essay, and while they can be interesting, as a rule they’re not all that entertaining.

But the reader comes to us to be entertained. They aren’t seeking fact, they want emotion. If you read a horror story, what are you seeking? To know that the protagonist is frightened, and why? Or are you hoping the writer will make YOU afraid to turn out the lights?

See the difference? No way in hell can the writing techniques we all learn in school do that. And that’s why, if we want to move our readers emotionally, we need to add some professional tricks-of-the-trade. We need the answers to questions we didn’t know we should be asking. As Mark Twain put it: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

And after all, doesn’t your story deserve the best telling it can get?

So put some time and a few dollars aside for your writers education.

Start with the free stuff. The link at the bottom, under my name takes you to articles meant for the newer writer. And the stories posted in the fiction section can show you what the things I talk about look like in practice.

But for the best advice, go to the people who make their living writing and teaching. Hit your local library’s fiction writing section and devour a few books to get a variety of viewpoints.

But whatever you do, hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/