%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 Review #4785519 |
 | The Audition  [13+] A young college student's first attempt at an audition doesn't go as planned  |
| (3.5)  HAPPY WDC ACCOUNT ANNIVERSARY FROM "Anniversary Reviews"   First Impressions: This has the potential to be a great horror story. The premise is certainly intriguing: a young woman who goes to an audition in what turns out to be an empty theatre where she first hears strange sounds, then sees a scary figure that starts to follow her. There are some very good elements here. The audition has been cancelled but she doesn’t know this because she had put her phone on silent so she wouldn’t be disturbed. Consequently, she ends up being alone, and I can imagine that an empty theatre can be a creepy place. There would be structures and shadows that might look strange and even scary in the dark, sounds like footsteps would echo - it wouldn’t be a place where I would like to be alone, even if a theatre is usually a busy, fun place to be. A good setting for a horror story!  Suggestions: The story takes quite a long time to get to the scary part. The last couple of paragraphs were well done and I could feel the dread the main character was feeling as she encountered the figure who was laughing and starting to follow her. I felt that the build up took too long though. You spent a lot of time talking about the weather, how long it took her to get there, why she arrived at a certain time, and similar details that turned out not to be relevant to the story. It’s fine to string it out a bit to heighten the tension, but the details should be important. It would have been different if she had kept checking the time and suddenly, instead of 5pm, it was midnight, or if the weather had been sunny whens he arrived and without warning, there was thunder and lightning - that would have made the scene scarier. I think the story needs a bit of a conclusion as well. It’s satisfying that she got away and the figure didn’t pursue her as she ran away, but it would have been interesting to know why. The story is in the ‘ghost’ category so I assume that that’s what the figure was, but you didn’t explain whose ghost it was or why it was there. That might have been a good bit of backstory to weave into the earlier part of the story, for example, her friend could have laughed about some old creepy stories that the drama students told to others. Or, if you didn’t want to give it away early on, she could have run into one of the stage crew on her escape who casually mentioned that this was the ghost of [whoever you want it to be] and they always come to frighten new students, or whatever you want to make up. It needed something at the end though because as it is, the readers come away somewhat dissatisfied that they didn’t get to find out what it was.  Final Thoughts: I thought this was a very good idea, but I felt there was quite a difference between the beginning and the last two or three paragraphs. If you did a bit of work on the beginning to tie it in more with where you are going with the story, making the details relevant and adding to the atmosphere you’re trying to create, I think the two parts would fit together much better and you’d have a more rounded story.  My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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A Review from: "
You responded to this review 11/15/2024 @ 10:08pm EST