is this scary enough?

Question

i have written a short part to my story. and would like you to tell me if you think it's scary.

She rises up from the lake very slowly. She seems to almost look as if she is standing up above water. Sierra looked at the long-haired spirit as it twitches it’s head and lets out an eerie sound. The girl backed away in panic. The spirit turns it head as if mechanical. The hair splits open, revealing pale face in the moonlight. The eyes became bloodshot as it stares at Sierra.
“No!” Sierra cried as the spirit began to move it’s feet towards her. Dragging its feet across the dirt and grass, the spirit makes the eerie sound. Like mix of croak and crying. The spirit’s eyes looked at her as the pale face becomes more bloody instead.
Then sierra tries getting onto her feet, and starts racing to the grounds for a way out. But the only way out is through the school. The very place she did not want to return.
The spirit reaches its hand out to reach her as the cry became more frightening and ominous. Sierra ran to the school door and tries yanking it open. By the time she got it opened, the spirit’s pale face came through the darkness towards her. She slammed the door and turned.
The spirit is nowhere to be found. She slumped into the ground partly paralyzed and exhausted. She put her hands onto her face and began to shake in fear. The sound came again and she didn’t want to look. She peeked through her fingers. Her face was very close to the spirit’s. The eyes looked into her as if hypnotized. Sierra was unable to speak. The spirit vanished before her.
Sierra waited to see if the worse is to come. She looked down and saw that she is no longer in her own casual wear, but the school uniform. It was tattered and bloody. She screamed and started shaking like a leaf. She felt another presence. She looked up. A different spirit has arisen. But it’s as if she know who she is. She started saying no and shaking her head. The blonde hair spirit raised a thin knife and sliced through the air. Sierra’s scream is blood curdling and lasted through the night…

Answer 1

Not really scary yet but you have a nice command of the language. I think that you are trying to cram too much into your story to fit it on Yahoo Answers.

For instance, if you had more space you could have started:

Around the lake the bullfrogs screeched and the surface of the water was covered with insects looking for a meal. Then the ripples across the top of the lake indicated a presence and everything became silent. Without a sound and as if from a watery grave she began to rise up above the water. She seems...

You have the right stuff just need more imagery to fill out the scene and make it really scary. But as an English teacher I must say I'm impressed.

Answer 2

Sweet pea,
First, I'll admit that I wasn't scared. Part of this, however, is because I don't know the character enough to care about her yet. Think of the way a scary movie sets up. First we have the people we don't know very well killed off, and the killer moves in and in--suspense. Suspense is, in essence, delaying something coming. So to throw us in at the moment of crisis means that many of the answers you get here will probably be less favorable than you expected. (Having put your time, soul, etc into it. I know. I just graduated from college with a Creative Writing degree.) Anyway, I just didn't want you to take everything you heard personally and then stop writing, because you've got a talent, but more important, motivation. Here's an example about getting the verbs to work for you--the thing everyone's mentioning, but kind of vaguely.

"She rises from the lake. The spirit twitches...The eye stares..." Etc.
If I were you I'd keep it in present tense. It's scarier because if someone tells a story in past tense, it's already happened, so we feel safer. The narrator can't die if the story is in past tense--at least that's what the reader thinks. There are exceptions. Anyway, hope you keep going.

Answer 3

It's not Steven King - but it's good.

A few little suggestions. When ever you use the name Sierra - it should always start with a capital letter.

Before you can use a pronoun (she) you must first use the noun it is referring to. You may choose to rewrite the first sentence to have Sierra's name included. Then all the "she"s in the paragraph will fall into place.

And that must have been a very long, curdling scream. The End.

Answer 4

It's good but I am distracted from the interesting scene by the constant switches in tense. In one sentence, the verbs are in the past tense (e.g. looked, was, felt), and in the next they are in the present (looks, is, feels).

The present tense makes something feel immediate, like it is happening NOW, and it's more exciting. If I were you, I would put it all into the present tense!

I used to have this problem all the time. I took writing at university level before I broke the habit!

Answer 5

I like I like. It sounds ok i hope the plot y build around this scene is just as good.I think u should have made it just a little more vivid but aside from that its pretty good i would luv to read the entire story.And who is the next presence?Im in suspence

Answer 6

Plenty scary enough for me! Actually, it's pretty good. You could do a little polishing here and there, especially for grammar. But it's really pretty well written. And I love having a girl named Sierra. Just unusual enough that there is no preconception of her personality.

Answer 7

I think that it is a good ruff draft but you made a lot of grammatical errors and not everything makes sense. The tenses are different, you say "she" way too much, and the mood seems too light to be considered scary. Also, you could try to extend the sentences so they are not so choppy.

Answer 8

I wasn't scared at all. I'm sorry, but it's true. You need to add more imagery, more description, set a darker mood, add more tension. Then, it has all the makings for a great horror story. Right now, it fits more into the genre of "suspenseful fantasy".

Also, do you know the difference between past and present tense? If not, learn. Please, for the sake of everyone trying to read this!

Answer 9

It's good, just make it flow better and use more vivid verbs. A lot of the sentences seem to start with "She". Just try a little more variety.

Answer 10

thats a good scary story!! i hope you get a good grade on that!!