What's wrong with this opening sentence?

In 2 sentences, the word "wait" appears twice. If it were me writing, I'd alter the second sentence to read as follows: His choices: stay behind, be devoured... or run.

Oh, I'd also probably x out "decaying" & use the word "rotted" instead.

SpookyWriter, this opening has a telling, rather than showing, feel to it. Also, "to be" verbs with predicate adjectives are weak (e.g., "was unwilling"). Here's just a quick suggestion on how it might work as pure action:

The decaying corpse reclined against a wall and waited to be eaten. [Name] snapped his eyes from the putrified face down into the depths of the alley. Unseen creatures scurried. [Name] could wait [for what?], but those tiny mouths would tear into him too.

Presumably the waiting and the being eaten are not mutually exclusive, so I wouldn't feel the need to include them both as options. Also, if there's a rotting corpse nearby it doesn't sound like the unseen creatures are that hungry, so perhaps assuming that he's about to be eaten is a little premature anyway.

I'd probably have said:

Unlike the corpse seeping into the floor, he wasn't inclined to stick around for dinner. The clattering claws of a thousand unseen terrors echoed through the alley, snapping him from his morbid trance. Two choices: run, or die.

Three seven has a pretty good sentence, but I don't see a problem with your's. It would certainly get be to keep reading.

SpookyWriter said:

He ran from something that he had not seen, just heard, but knew enough not to wait for what torment awaited him.

Click to expand...

We know something scary is back there, something he hasn't seen yet. How about:

He ran from something that he had not seen. Hearing it was enough.

Just a thought....

The half-eaten corpse propped against the wall was reason enough to run. A terrifying howl of anger bellowing from the alley behind him clinched it. He wasn’t planning to wait around and become a meal(.)Good, I'd end it here though and get rid of: like the dead guy.

Evan ran.

Wherever he turned, it chased him, taunted him, and closed all possible routes of escape. He ran from something that he had not seen, just heard, but knew enough not to wait for what torment awaited him.

IMO 'it' won't worry or scare me and this paragraph is too vague. Give me a hint. Demon, beast, shapeless evil? Give me something, even if I know he's not sure of what 'it' is. I'd rather you show me how he ran, where, what happened and how 'it' blocked and taunted him. Was it an imagined darkness, a suffocation only felt but not seen that had him searching for an escape. Was it a beast or a supernatural predator? What?

Don't get me wrong. This interests me, if your writing didn't interest me, I wouldn't care what 'it' was that seemed to be hunting him. I'm intrigued. I'm interested, now captivate me, throw me in this horror, trap in the the experience.

You are most definitely on the right track. Thank you for sharing your work! Best wishes.

I'm digging the rewrite. I agree with storygirl about the "dead guy" part (as I see you've already agreed with, so why I mention it again is kind of beyond me. Anyway...). I actually dig that whatever monstrosity is chasing him is unknown and unseen at this point. All we know is that it can bellow and has apparently killed/eaten someone already. Good enough for me, I'd run too. Good start.

I think the problem might be something that affects a lot of writers: Why use one word when twenty will do? If you shift a couple of things around you can make it more concise so that the reader is concentrating on what's happening rather than the actual words they're reading.

Something like: "Wherever he turned he could feel it closing in, taunting him, blocking his escape. Evan had no idea what it was that chased him, but he wasn't about to stick around and find out. The sight of the half-eaten corpse and the terrifying howls that echoed all around were more than enough to make him run."


Ok, just noticed I'm coming to this one a little late...

You guys scare the heck outta me

For a newb that loves and is working at creating horror, you just plain scared the crap out of me. You guys know what you're talking about, have awesome feedback and ideas, and I would be almost ashamed to post any of my stuff. SpookyWriter-Kudos to you for putting your stuff out there.Man you guys seem to have the right stuff!!!!! (Maybe I'll just head on over to children's lit)

Hey, SW, since this has been resurrected, where are you on the re-write? I just happened upon it and had a suggestion to get in squarely in the experience of the character and keep it real in terms of the temporal sequence of stimulus-response. How about if you start with the scream resounding in the ears of the man (with a note on where he is) = stimulus-response with an involvement of the sense of hearing? Then, on turning away from the sound, he'd bump into the corpse with the tell-tale signs of a partial consumption (have the character come to this conclusion) = stimulus-interpretation. When it registers in his mind the screaming could come from what partially devoured the corpse, he decides to avoid the same fate = response. Doing it this way would make it very active, and putting in a small amount of internal dialogue (concluding the consumption aspect) would zero the POV in tight--allowing the reader to see, hear, and react along with the character. Doing it in rapid sequence would also give two quick layers to the tension.

If you already have it in a form you really like, never mind...

My $0.02...

How about specifics? I'm leery of all this advice because the pushing and pulling might kill your original vision, but I'm thinking:

The corpse smelled like the closet in Mrs. Haarketch's second grade class. It wasn't going anywhere. But the sour rank of the things in the darkness of the corner was what really caused me to run.

Good luck!