Dead If You Do by KateNorth on Wattpad

Blurb

When Haley Bell is offered a scholarship to study at the exclusive Woodcreek College, famous for moulding the world's brightest thinkers, politicians and entrepreneurs, she jumps at the opportunity. 

Except when she arrives, the murders start.

In a campus hidden from civilization in the mountains of Colorado, Haley's classmates are slowly turning up dead. As the bodies pile up and eyes of suspicion turn on her, Haley finds that there's a reason why she was brought to Woodcreek. 

And it wasn't to study.

---

Original (First 500)

There's a story my brother told Daisy and me when we were little.

We were sitting around a campfire, its fiery flames licking our marshmallows as Elliot held a torch beneath his chin. The effect made white light stretch across his face, distorting his soft, child-like features and transforming them into something sharp -- something deadly. Wind carried the clink of our parents' champagne glasses and their laughter wrapped around me like a warm blanket, but even that wasn't enough to sooth the goosebumps raised on my arms.

Not for as long as Elliot was speaking, anyway.

Beside our little fire was a lake -- Crystal Lake, we called it. In the summer, my cousins and I would drive off the pier and take turns to see who could hold their breath the longest. It was a summer paradise, but at night it looked different.

The shadows swallowed everything they touched, covering the lake in its shroud. Mosquitos buzzes above the water's surface and, as I looked out into the darkness, I swore the darkness stared back. Things moved inside those shadows -- I would have sworn it on my life -- shifting into shapes they didn't teach us in school. But cocooned inside the fire's light, I knew I was safe.

That's what I thought, anyway.

The story Elliot told was about doppelgangers. As we grew older, like most things, it changed. But it always got scarier -- no matter what.

'We all have one,' he whispered, his tiny voice rising sharp against the crackling fire. He leaned forward, blue eyes flickering between my cousin and me. 'They watch us,' he continued, 'hiding in the shadows as we walk our dogs or go to school. Sometimes, they even take out place. I could be my doppelganger right now and you wouldn't even know.'

I bit my lip, every nerve in my body ignited with fear. I knew what doppelgangers did; Elliot's story engraved itself in my mind from the very first time he told it. They watched you in back alleys, studying your habits and traits until they can finally take your place.

Looking back now, I think it was the idea that someone could take me away from my family that scared me more than anything else. It's silly, when you think about it. Back then, I couldn't imagine anything worse than losing the ones I love. Now, it's all I know.

As the moths buzzed around the fire, Mom stretched out front he patio to see us. Her small, delicate fingers unfolded into a wave and I smiled, waving back, trying to ignore how stiff the movement felt. I had to pretend I was enjoying myself, because if she knew what Elliot was saying, what words he twisted, she'd be angry and I wouldn't be allowed to come here again.

I'd been having trouble sleeping since turning seven. Waking up in the middle of the night screaming from nightmares I couldn't remember. Mom boiled it down to Elliot's storytelling, but because I couldn't remember what I dreamt of, I wasn't so sure.

My Edit

Every year, we sat around the campfire at Crystal Lake -- me, my brother Elliot, and my cousin Daisy. This year, Daisy and I were seven, Elliot ten. My brother liked to tell the same story every year, except every year was more elaborate and scarier than the year before. 

My mother, who blamed my night terrors on Elliot's stories, was safely out of earshot with Dad and Uncle Name and Aunt Name, but we could hear them. The clink of champagne glasses and warm laughter swirled around us on the wind as Elliot held a torch to his face, turning his round, friendly features into sharp, fearsome ones.

Shadows swallowed everything they touched, covering the lake in its shroud. Mosquitos buzzed above the water's surface and, as I looked out into the darkness, darkness stared back. Things moved inside those shadows, shifting into shapes they didn't teach us in school. I edged closer to the fire, believing that the cocoon of light was a physical barrier between us and the shapes. I held my marshmallow into the fire, more to mirror my brother and Daisy than out of hunger. 

The story Elliot told was about doppelgangers. "We all have one," he said, his voice rising sharp against the crackling fire. He leaned forward, blue eyes flickering between my cousin and me. "They watch us," he continued, "hiding in the shadows as we walk our dogs or go to school. Sometimes, they even take our place. I could be my doppelganger right now and you wouldn't even know."

Elliot's story always started the same, and I trembled, in anticipation for what was to come. I think it was the idea that someone could take me away from my family that scared me more than anything else. Back then, I couldn't imagine how I'd feel if I lost the ones I loved. Now, it's all I know.

(Original word count: ~510 → Edited: ~309)

---

Critique

Great title, great blurb. The stakes are literally life and death, right there in your face.

For the excerpt, I love the contrast between the parents being close by and Haley's fear. They're present enough that Haley could call out to them, but she doesn't because of some unconscious need to be cool enough to listen to the scary story her brother is telling her. And the author doesn't have to say that explicitly because it's told in a way that we can infer it. All of the contrasts between dark and light, between danger real and imagined, are great. 

That said, the excerpt could benefit from a bit more clarity in the writing. For instance, we learn the kids' ages after this excerpt, but that should be mentioned as early as possible. What the reader would expect from a seven-year-old's perspective would be different from a thirteen-year-old's, even though, as an adult looking back, you'd describe either age as being a kid. And knowing that Elliot is ten will also contextualize how scary the story will probably be.

Another thing is that we get a line about how it's so dark that Haley is seeing shapes that don't exist, and then a sentence later, we see her mother leaning over the balcony to wave at her. If we wanted to show that Mom is a worrier, we could have her calling out instead of visible. Then, Elliot could be exasperated, Haley could be reassured, etc.

Setting

Sticking to the excerpt, we have two settings: the campfire where Haley, her brother, and her cousin are sitting, and the deck where their parents are hanging out. We basically get the clinking of champagne glasses and floating laughter as the setting for the parents, and that's great. That's all we really need to know. 

The campfire crackles, it licks marshmallows, and we can't see the lake but we can hear mosquitoes buzzing over it. Great details, short but evocative descriptions. The darkness that stares back is awesome.

Characterization

We have seven characters in this scene plus some unnamed cousins who go swimming in the lake but who aren't present at the campfire. I think that parents letting their kids tell campfire stories out of sight indicates a level of complacency and safety they feel with their environment.

Daisy is only mentioned as being physically present but we haven't heard from her yet by the end of the excerpt. Elliot is a storyteller, he tells a more elaborate version of the story every year and his mother believes that his stories are responsible for Haley's night terrors. I think that, despite that phrasing, Elliot must tell stories year-round. 

And Haley, our POV character, is scared of just the idea of a doppelganger taking her away from her family, but she doesn't want Elliot to stop telling his stories. When her mother waves, Haley tries to smile so that her mother won't figure out that Elliot is scaring her. Although, if her mother can see them, she can probably see Elliot holding a flashlight toward his face to make himself seem scary, so I don't know.

Haley is properly nuanced, which is good, since she's our POV character. She's scared of the story but more scared of not being included. She's sensitive and observant and aware of her autonomy to a believable extent for a seven-year-old. If we wanted Elliot to be more dimensional, we could have a line talking about how he makes the stories less scary for her, which doesn't work, or he makes them even scarier because ten-year-olds are sociopaths.

Conflict/Tension

We have internal conflict in that Haley is scared but doesn't want to stop the storytelling, we have the contrast of laughter being like a blanket but having goosebumps from the scary story, we have the contrast of the bright fire and the dark forest. And we have the foreshadowing line about Haley losing all of the people she loves.

The tension is undercut by things like Haley reiterating the point that Elliot just made about doppelgangers watching from the shadows.

 'They watch us,' he continued, 'hiding in the shadows as we walk our dogs or go to school. Sometimes, they even take out place. I could be my doppelganger right now and you wouldn't even know.'

I bit my lip, every nerve in my body ignited with fear. I knew what doppelgangers did; Elliot's story engraved itself in my mind from the very first time he told it. They watched you in back alleys, studying your habits and traits until they can finally take your place.

In general, even though the writing is evocative:

The shadows swallowed everything they touched, covering the lake in its shroud. Mosquitos buzzes above the water's surface and, as I looked out into the darkness, I swore the darkness stared back. Things moved inside those shadows -- I would have sworn it on my life -- shifting into shapes they didn't teach us in school.

Interruptions like "I would have sworn it on my life" and the mom checking in from her place on the patio keep the scene from feeling focused and purposeful. If the point of the scene is the story Elliot is telling, we need more focus on the story. And more story.

---

Final Thoughts

The first line, "There's a story my brother told Daisy and me when we were little," indicates that the story her brother tells in this prologue is important to the rest of the novel. But he doesn't tell a story. He introduces the concept of doppelgangers and then we switch to present-day Haley at a crime scene, who concludes that we shouldn't be afraid of doppelgangers, we should be afraid of ourselves. This is an intense line, and an exciting one to step into the first chapter with, but it negates the entire purpose of the storytelling scene. Why are we experiencing an entire scene that the author essentially dismisses with the last line?

Anyway, other than that, this is a promising start. At the very least, the author can set a mood and come up with compelling hooks.