Original Works Prom Night

Discussion in 'Written Works' started by flowergothic, Sep 24, 2015.

  1. flowergothic Twilight Town Denizen

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    So this was a piece I wrote back in May one day when I had nothing better to do... feel free to express your true feelings about the work and enjoy. =)
    WARNING: Contains violence and other suggestive material. Please read at your own risk.

    Prom Night
    Now, before I begin, I'll let you know that I'm telling the full, 100% truth of what happened on that faithful night nearly four years ago. I've never told the whole tale, to admit, because that night, the people that... didn't have to go so early in their lives, Pe-

    I'm getting too ahead of myself; I've been haunted by those memories ever since they occurred, which travels to me by nightmares with hyper-realistic faces and bloodshot eyes, as well as hallucinations of the dead and Pe-

    You're getting what I'm saying, right? I'm not here to waste your time, so you can basically assume that this still affects me four years later. I know you probably have other things to do today, so I might as well just begin the tale. Ok? Ok. Let's get this over with...

    What I'm here to talk about happened on the day of Prom. Yes, Prom, but this is no Carrie White bullshit with the telekinesis here (and as far as I knew, there were no students in my class with super-religious, period-loathing mothers like her's). The Prom was actually at this really nice country club called “White Elk” on the outskirts of town. It was quite a sigh to see, with marble steps leading to the velvet-carpeted entryway and the emerald chandelier-

    Oh, am I getting carried away? Sorry about that, I guess... I guess I'll just explain what you came for...

    I was happily walking up to the double-glass doors via the marble steps with my date, a member of the school spirit club (The Birdmen, I believe) while making a few last-minute adjustments to my outfit of choice. I wasn't dressed extravagantly, but classy enough for the occasion by sporting a turquoise dress that touched the floor and had a halter cut with tiny silver sequins lining the cleavage area.

    “Trista!” As I approached the doors, my best friend noticed me and excitably turned around from her date, “You look great!”

    “Thanks, Winnie,” I softly smiled, “You do, too.” (She really did, wearing a tangerine-colored dress with small hints of yellow).

    “Heh, thanks. It's nice to see you with Angus all dressed up like that; you two are adorable together!”

    Angus' face turned rosey,
    “Well... there was a reason why I asked a beautiful, kind girl like Trista Butler to prom...”

    “Awwwwwww!!!!” Winnie gushed while he turned even redder, making his cropped sand-colored hair stand out.

    “Well, I might as well make my merry way back to Josh!!! See ya!!!” She eagerly waved and skipped off.

    As Angus and I entered the club, I pulled a strand of almond hair behind my ear and patted him on the back,
    “Yep, that's Winnie being, well, Winnie.”

    “I guess...” He sighed, forming an embarrassed look on his face.

    As we entered the dancing area, a familiar... man with a dark-colored... typical pulled-back hairstyle... and a suit the shade of midnight stumbled in the club: Pe-

    Per-

    Perc-

    Percy! Percy Britton! There, I said it! I was surprised at his arrival, since he was turned down by several girls (not me- he never asked!). He had nobody to go with, so I didn't know what made him decide to come to Prom. Oh well, I thought at first, I'm here for the night of my life, and I hurried off further into the dark yet colorful dance room swarming with high school seniors doing some kind of joint dance that was popular back in the day.

    Time passed, and slow songs, dancing songs, and songs that no one could jam out to passed with each song gaining more anticipation from the graduating class than the last. I danced (obviously), laughed with my fellow upperclassmen, and ate hour d'evours (or whatever the Hell those small bits of food at parties are called), and drank a soda every now and then; it was all a pretty normal prom night, like one you'd typically see in a movie.

    Then, If You Were Here Tonight played over the speakers. As if coordinated, we all headed over to our dates for the next 6 or so minutes and sway back and forth while standing in the typical slow dance position. As such, I layed my arms across Angus' wide shoulder blades and he placed his on my petite waist as we swayed to Alexander O'Neal's serenade.

    “Quite an odd music choice, isn't it?” Angus tried to initiate a bit of conversation.

    I shrugged,
    “It's a classic song from like the 80s or something. I've heard it on the radio a few times before.”

    “Ah. I guess some of the faculty added their fantasies in the playlist.”


    We both laughed silently and continued our little back-and-forth swaying.

    However... about 3 ½ minutes into the song, a red... red-haired girl screamed at the top of her lungs:
    “Oh my God! Is that Percy Britton with a gun?!”

    The music... stopped dead, dead cold and all of us in the room shivered in worry of what that girl exclaimed.

    The lights flashed on and I was able to glance around the area... and saw Percy... with what looked like a sho...shot... shotgun! How...he got one, I don't know. He either... brought it from home or stole it... from the club's gun shack.

    “Someone pin that kid down!” The D.J. Hollered, and... a couple of the chaperones raced over to the... midnight-suited Percy. But... they couldn't subdue him, because he aimed... aimed his gun at the adults and caused them to hesitate, moving any closer.

    “This is for all the people who rejected me!!” Percy... declared, “I poured my heart to every girl I felt was sweet, beautiful, and kind enough to ask to this prom night, but they all treated me like garbage! This world should be free of such trash like them!!”

    At this point, most of us (including me) were fleeing away from... the dancing area and all of the adults were... trying to circle Percy and call the authorities, treating him like an animal with rabies. I chucked my silver heels off in order to get the hell out of the area, grabbing Angus... by the arm.

    As my feet touched the velvet ground, I sighed in relief and reassured myself until I heard what sounded like... fireworks. Gunshots!, I thought, and checked out my current status. I was uninjured, and so was Angus. However, someone was missing from the party...

    Winnie... where was Winnie? She was farther from the exit than me... but she was close to Angus back when the serenade was occurring! She had to... be... fine!

    So, I peeked... back into the dance room. I saw a couple of limp... people there... the blood... oh my God... the blood was just flowing...oh God... oh God.... Winnie... I saw her... she was being... held at the head.... by Percy...

    I couldn't hear well... from the chaos... but I could make out...
    “Ah, Winifred Johnston, remember... I gave... but you said... no!”

    BAM! A bullet, pierced through Winnie's pale head. Her bunned wheat hair was splattered by the blood and... grey stuff... her tangerine dress was splattered with the blood... just everywhere on her head and upper body... bloody as a horror movie... oh God... the blood... the blood.... WINNIE!!!

    Ok... I'm sorry, I really am. It's just... you can't unsee something like that... Oh my God, the blood... the blood....

    Thank you for the water, that calmed me down a bit. Winnie... wasn't the only victim of that prom night. Other girls like... hard to please Lexi Curits and exchange student Yuuko Kawayama... they died... too. I saw them... Lexi's pale yellow dress covered... Yuuko's long dark hair ruined by... the blood... the blood.... oh God, oh God....

    Percy... apparently shot himself by the time police arrived, so no justice was really done... but people are still trying to figure out what made him think... about doing that kind of attack. Was it jealousy? Insanity? What was it? I think... personally... it was a bit of both. Percy didn't have a date... but he had a gun... and the blood he caused to spill... the blood....

    There was no real way around it, anyway... If I didn't go? Winnie... still would've died. If I tried to convince Winnie to say yes to Percy? Like Hell that'd happen... she was dating Josh. Fate... just couldn't change... for this.

    I've also lost contact with both Angus and Josh, and I know they're scarred too... of a sorts. Everyone was scarred. I was scarred, my parents were scarred, so many people were scarred. Me... obviously... a little more than others.

    I really don't like to talk about my prom night, and now you can see why. But, I trust you. Why I trust you? Well, you don't seem like someone who... would distort this story and say that it was just a jealous loverboy... shooting people out of his envy. Those takes I saw in the tabloids pissed me off. People died, and so many others were physically and mentally injured by this probably insane teenager... and you blame the VICTIMS for this boy's outrage? He probably needed professional help! If only they saw what I saw. Lexi, Yuuko, the blood... the blood... Wi-Winnie.

    Sometimes, I wonder what would've happened to me if the prom night never happened, like if fate decided in my favor, y'know? Would I be pursuing my then-dream as a teacher? Would still be in touch with Angus, Josh... Winnie? It's been four years, but seeing your best friend... be shot in such a way.... seeing the blood... the gore... the blood... the blood... by a classmate.... can really take a toll on you. I remember that night like it was yesterday, and it has been burdening me like heavy baggage... ever since.

     
  2. Technic☆Kitty Hmm

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    Alright, it's been a while since I've actually reviewed a work. I'd like to start off by saying I absolutely loved the color scheme. Highlighting all the dialogue by using a brighter pink was also something I enjoyed. Now I'll get into the review and after I'll post any grammatical/spelling errors that I caught along the way.

    Review

    This was a pretty interesting read. I wasn't really sure where the content warning was going to come into play. I could tell by the narration that something bad had happened but I had no guess it was going to be that. I also enjoyed the character descriptions. It made painting the picture a whole lot easier. I will admit that, even though this was supposed to happen at a country club, I did play everything out in a gymnasium. It still played out the same way, twist and all.

    One thing I didn't like, I know that this was a narrated story, was the constant use of pauses. There were times where sentences either halted completely or melded together, for me at least. I know that it was supposed to be narrated by a terrified girl, recounting a very tragic incident, but I'd recommend toning the pauses down a bit. In some cases they were alright. When she seemed to be breaking down due to, what would possibly be considered, PTSD was a very good spot for pauses. Pauses are like a word. You never use the same word too many times consecutively. It is understandable that you'd like to display the narrators state of mind, recounting such a tragedy, but, again, it made it difficult for me to read.

    The story itself was really good in terms of plot. It started strong, built up tension, and finished with a bang. There wasn't too much character building though, no real experiences to go off of. The characters weren't easy to relate to, aside from being teenagers at one point. I suppose it's hard to get good character building into a short story, especially for all the characters, but it's nice to be able to relate to the protagonist. I wasn't really able to find a strong connection to Trista. I don't mean to sound harsh, but, in regards to what happened to her, it was like reading an article about a new moisturizing creme. I just wasn't all that interested. Again, don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed the story. I just didn't have much empathy for the characters.

    Overall I'd definitely rate this story at a 7/10. I can be pretty harsh with my criticism so a seven from me is like a nine or ten from most people. I can definitely see there is some room for improvement, or not. It's all up to you. You're not going to be able to please everyone and I'm just one person. The best way to tell if your story is worthwhile is if you enjoyed writing it. If looking back on it makes you feel accomplished and overjoyed then that's all that matters.

    Marking this as "Would read again" material.

    Grammar and Spelling Mistakes
    Spoilers, obviously. Don't read further if you haven't read the story.


    Spelling errors will be highlighted in red. Grammar errors will be highlighted with blue. Suggestions will be highlighted in orange. I'll only be quoting the paragraphs from the story that I found errors or possible improvements in.

    In this paragraph, 'sigh' should be 'sight'.



    Here there is no need for the comma before "but classy." I'd also suggest breaking apart the last sentence. As it stands, it's a bit difficult to read. Something like, "I wasn't dressed extravagantly but classy enough for the occasion. I was sporting a turquoise dress that touched the floor. It had a halter cut with tiny silver sequins lining the cleavage area."

    Personally I don't see the need for the parenthesis here. Maybe try changing it to something like, "She really did. She was wearing a tangerine-colored dress with small hints of yellow," italicizing 'She really did.'

    It's not really a grammatical error as it's more of an expression, but a strand of hair is a single hair and it's kind of hard to see Trista only moving a single hair behind her ear. "Lock" might be a better word here. For instance, "a lock of almond hair."


    I'd recommend taking the text in parenthesis and turning it into its own sentence. Parenthesis are typically accepted in writing when noting something, especially if there are already a ton of commas being used, but it doesn't really fit in here. Something like this might work, "...girls. Not me though, he never asked!" italicizing the newly formed sentence.

    The last line is also a bit lengthy here and could use a bit of a breakup. Perhaps something like this, "Oh well, I thought at first, I'm here for the night of my life. I hurried off further into the dark yet colorful dance room. It was swarming with high school seniors doing some kind of joint dance that was popular back in the day." Makes it easier on the reader.



    Using 'and' multiple times in the same sentence is typically frowned upon. It's okay in some cases but here doesn't look good. Try changing the comma, after passed, to a period. Then remove the and and capitalize the 's' in 'slow.'

    Also, in the last sentence, I'd recommend removing the semicolon and making them two separate sentences. A semicolon isn't really necessary here.



    There should be an apostrophe after '80' but before the 's'.



    Change the colon to a comma.



    The last line is a bit weird. I had to reread it several times to understand it. I'd remove the comma after 'hesitate' and add 'from' in its place. Like so, "...hesitate from moving any closer."



    'Including me' shouldn't be in parenthesis. Instead, wrap it in commas like so, "...us, including me, were..."


    Also, I would put a break after 'area' and start the next sentence at 'all' like this, "...dancing area. All of the adults..."



    'Gunshots' should actually be in quotations. In this instance it's an internal dialogue for a younger Trista. So, ""Gunshots!" I thought, and..."

    You can also remove the comma after uninjured. 'So was Angus' isn't a complete sentence by itself. Alternatively you could remove the and after the comma.



    Capitalize 'where' at the beginning, technically it is a new sentence.

    Angus also needs an apostrophe after it.


    'Her' should be capitalized after 'stuff'. I'd also recommend reworking this paragraph. It's extremely difficult to read. All of the pauses make it very hard to follow.



    Put an 'I' between 'would' and 'still'.


    Man that took ages. Hopefully my review was helpful to you in some way. Even if I only managed to point out some errors. Thanks for taking the time to look it all over. I did kind of put several hours into this. Again, great story.

    -Nights
     
    Last edited: Sep 25, 2015