Unfamiliar Country

Trying to clear my WL. If this is a return read sorry for the delay.

This was packed with a few surprises. I wasn't expecting the dead man to tell him to kill the farmer, I wasn't expecting Boyd to take one in the chest, and I wasn't expecting the Lorem Ipsum.

Nice work. Best,
Bill
Haktaw Heart

Hello TS. I spotted Unfamiliar Country on the list for horror. Your short pitch really grabs, I must say.

Here's what I thought:

The dialogue is strong. I like the interaction between Boyd and the dead guy. The antagonist/antagonized thing is working well here.

The biggest weakness here is the samey-feel, the thickness, of the prose in the sections that are not dialogue. There's a lot of 'He did this, He did that. He did this. It seemed like that. He did that.' And so on. If it were my work, I would break this stuff up into pieces (smaller paragraphs), each based on a hook for the reader. Instead of informing the reader of how the story is unfolding, entertain the reader --- and along the way, get the story across too.

All in all I like the story, and the characters/character interaction does hold my interest. I hope my critique has been helpful. If you can make time to critique my work, I'd much appreciate any feedback. But whether or not you do, good luck with Unfamiliar Country. It's good and I'm shelving it.

-Throck

TS,
I was happy to back ‘Unfamiliar Country’ and think you have promise.
As Al says below even this small offering (shamelessly fleshed out with cut and pasting!) still needs some work and I’ll come back when you’ve given it a polish, and written some more.
If I were to offer specific suggestions it would be that-
: on occasions, some of your prose is ambiguous – it’s not clear who the definite articles refer to
: at times it reads like watching a film, you tell us about the actions but somehow the feelings don’t come across
Good luck with it.
Write some more so you don’t have to pad the piece out with dummy text!!!
G
Nothing you can do.

General comments: An interesting start. A cold, yet facinating main character. Vivid imagery. Not much tension until the ghost appears. Good pacing.

Specific comments:
1) ' ... his lips felt cracked.' Try to avoid using the word 'felt.' Just describe how his lips felt so realistically the reader will experience the feeling along with Boyd. By doing this, you pull the reader deeper into your scene. There are more cases where you use 'felt.'
2) Hyphenate 'well maintained' and 'self sufficient.'
3) 'The main bedroom window looked out from the back of the house, ... ' You used the word 'looked' two sentence before this and four sentence before that. Consider using an alternate word for one of them.
4) "I live at the farm at the top of the road here," he jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Period after 'here' and capitalize 'he.'
5) "You find everything OK?" The farmer asked. 'The' should be lowercase. 'The farmer asked' is a dialogue tag (tells who said something). When a dialogue tag follows dialogue, the first word of the dialogue tag is lowercase (unless it's a person's name). There are more cases where the first word in a dialogue tag that follows dialogue is capitalized when it should be lowercase.
6) "Hello Boyd," said a voice. Comma after 'hello.' When you address someone in dialogue, offset their name or title with a comma.

I hope this critique helps you further polish this clever story. These are just my opinions. Use what works for you and discard the rest.

Thank you for supporting "Savannah Fire."

Have a marvelous day.

Al

Wow, two languages. Very interesting story. You do a great job in building Boyd's character. Of course love the whole supernatural thing at the end of the chapter. Will look for you on Amazon. Highly recommended.
Dina of Halo of the Damned and Last Degree

I´m putting you on my watchlist kiddo.

Very interesting, especially the ideas behind it. I like the style and genre. Could there be a way to extend it to the right word count? Without the risk of compromising quality?

T S,
Backed you spell bounding book. Please take a look at mine DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS or MY GENTLEMAN FRIEND, for a possible backing. Your support will be appreciated. Good luck and happy writing.

Dwain-Thomas

Hi,Really very impressive work. i am very much impressed the way you narrated the story.
All the best.
backed with wishes,
S.Vinay kumar,
"10 roses for love"

the basics are here; you write well. l'm not about the latin section....l shall back all the same...
SEASONS...

Backed Unfamilar Country. Antidote for snowed in…18 inches…cabin fever? Glass of Riesling, logs on the fire, and a scary book. Liked the description of the gun shot in chapter 1.

Suggestion: Use a Varity of sentence structures.
Example:
He was tall and thin and looked every one of his forty seven years. Could be changed to -Tall and thin, he looked every bit of his forty-seven years.

Your book was recommended by CC Brown author of Dark Side. Read, liked, star rated, and backed. Hope you will find a place on your shelf for their book.
Kat51

Tom
Read your 6 chapter's, great start with the dispatching of the victim, loved the plot and the MC's growing paranoia. Maybe would have dropped the lengthy shopping list. But why leave this as a short story? it's such a good idea...Best of luck
Babs