The Perfect Shot

by MurderMelody
841
3.56
5

Michael Davis was a simple college student majoring in photography, and tended to be a jack of all trades when it came to his photo topics. He could be a fashion photographer one second, a nature photographer the next. One day he was hiking on a day off, trying to get some good shots for an upcoming project. He took his time getting as many good shots as he could, but none of them stood out to him no matter what techniques he used. It was around sunset when Michael reached the top of the hill he was climbing. He was absolutely amazed at the vivid orange and seemingly endless hues of violet mixing together. It would be the perfect shot for his project. He kept walking forward in an attempt to get an even better shot, only to realize the hill drops off really steeply so that it was a literal cliff. Not only that, the hill must have been higher than he thought based on the drop. Michael approached the ledge but made sure to stay at least a foot away before putting his eye to the viewfinder. The picture came out nice. I could have come out better though. Michael took one step closer to the ledge, not bothering to look out of the viewfinder. It still isn’t prefect though. If he just got a little bit closer…

And then Michael fell.

For him it felt like an eternity of darkness, but it was only a couple of days. Michael woke up in a serene part of the forest on the outskirts of town near a creek. The first thing he did when he realized he had his camera on him was verify that it still works, and to his great relief it still did. Then he set off back to town; It wouldn’t be too difficult to find it because the forest was fairly small and easy to get out of. There were several things he failed to notice though, like his missing finger or the smell of rotting following him.

The first thing her did when he reached town was to go to his college campus. He figured he must have only blacked out for a few hours and that his friends were starting to get worried. Michael didn’t realize that his friends were far beyond worried now. They posted missing person posters everywhere, but no one would have figured he’d been in the forest all this time. When he couldn’t find his friends in their dorms he immediately checked in the café on campus, which was exactly where he found them. He was about to approach them when he saw his long-time crush Emma sitting near him, looking like she smells something foul around her. Ever since he saw her he thought she would make the perfect model, and he got this sudden burst of confidence to ask her about it. Immediately he went over to her and asked her about being his model for a shot. She looked like she saw a ghost, then went back to looking disgusted and said no. Michael got more pushy and Emma was started to get freaked out and ran away. Michael decided that maybe she just needed to see how beautiful she was.

When she was looked Michael took a picture of Emma. He snuck into her room and left the picture and a note. When Emma entered her room and was horrified to find the note and picture. Immediately she went to her friend and her friend suggested calling the cops. Emma decided she’d call the cops tomorrow, as her phone was dead. An awful emotion came over Michael at this, blinding rage. He decided he’ll have his model, whether she liked it or not. In the dead of night when Emma was sleeping Michael snuck into her room to take photos. She was moving too much though due to the nightmares she was having about stalkers. Michael didn’t want her to move. At all.

Quietly Michael took a pillow out from under Emma and smothered her. He didn’t want blood, that would ruin her beauty. Once she stopped breathing Michael took several photos. They all seemed perfect to him. He was wrong before; The sunset wasn’t the perfect shot, she was. Emma lying completely still forever was the perfect shot. Michael decided that her roommates would surely like to have one of the photos and left one on her mirror frame. After that he left, with a bag still with plenty of space left for more photos, ready to find his next model to photograph.

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  • Advice from a pizza

    Initial Thoughts:

    Aside from a few tense changes, and misspellings, the biggest problem this story suffers from was focus. The story starts off with with Michael, a passionate photographer, taking a picture from a cliff and later slipping off. I can’t lie; I was interested. I thought we were going to get a survival, possible mental illness type of story, but then you immediately dropped the ball.

    Plot:

    You decide to breeze through, or rather, disregard what easily was the most interesting part of the story which is when Michael falls and has orient himself. However after waking up you state he smells something rotten (which is never addressed again) and the fact that he lost a finger in the process (which is also never addressed again). Then the story completely switches tones into a stalker-killer story out of nowhere. No joke, it felt like you took different stories, the beginning of one and the ending of another, and just messed them together — which didn’t work at all.

    You had a good premise going: Michael fell off the cliff and woke up with nothing but his camera and, what should have been, confusion on the lapse of time.

    Initially, you stated that the cliff was very high, and yet, he seemed to not break or at least sprain anything when fell over it. I would’ve loved to see where you could’ve taken it had you stuck to this part of the story. Michael could’ve been using the camera’s flash to attract attention to get help, or maybe he could’ve struggled for food, having something sprained or broken, or maybe he could’ve had to fight off coyotes, or some strange creature out there, or maybe Michael’s survival could’ve brought forth his inner demons to allow us, the reader, more insight on who he is as a person or he could’ve gone mad surviving out there alone, or perhaps he didn’t make it and his camera was found with photos of his last moments. Again, a lot of missed opportunity.

    And what was the story behind the rotting smell? Was he dead? Did he have an infection somewhere? Why didn’t he go to hospital once he got back? The guy just arrived back on his campus after falling off a cliff and being unconscious for several days and his first thought is: let me take the picture of my crush?

    Closing Thoughts:

    This story had potential to take a chance and try something refreshing, especially with all the murdering-for-no-reason clones this site already gets flooded with, but it didn’t. The story was very rushed too, breezing over scenes instead fleshing them out. You also disregard certain aspects: missing fingers, rotten smells, injuries after missing for days. You don’t want to introduce things and not address it later. Every piece of information is an investment for the reader in hopes they’ll get an answer later if it isn’t immediately addressed. However, when you don’t, it comes off as “plot holes”, laziness, and it wastes the reader’s time which is something you NEVER want to do.

    I think you should revisit this story and try to mend it with some of the thoughts I presented above. It’ll not only challenge you, but it’ll help you stand-out among multitude of stories that seem to take the “easy way” out and do a quick normal-person-turns-killer type of story. Either that or remove the parts where he falls off the cliff because it doesn’t add to the story by any means — just stick to him stalking his crush. The story needs focus and needs to pick a direction and stick with it.

    Hope to see more from you in the future.

    • Thank you for your input! In retrospect the making of the story was a lot more spur of the moment and not nearly as fleshed out than it should have been. I’ll take in your input the next time I get a chance to edit this story!

  • Daniel Di Benedetto

    Well that went from 0-100 real quick. The whole beginning portion of that story was useless to the plot… I wonder why you added it. I think you were trying to make the story seem it was going one way and then dramatically flip it around a different way, but I still can’t figure out why he was missing a finger and what inspired his sudden violent transformation into the Michael at the end of the story. It just didn’t make that much sense.

    • To be honest, the idea for the story was very spur of the moment and not very well executed. I’m rewriting it completely at the moment, but it will take a while for me to finish it as I have school occupying a majority of my time. But the point is, I’m trying to make this story in particular better, and thanks for your feedback!

  • Advice from a pizza

    (NOTE: Somehow my comment was flagged as spam and disappeared. I hope you know I’m not attacking you I’m trying to help you by providing constructive criticism. If this gets removed again (like all my all other comments on other stories apparently, then fine, so be it.)

    Initial Thoughts:

    Aside from a few tense changes, and misspellings, the biggest problem this story suffers from was focus. The story starts off with with Michael, a passionate photographer, taking a picture from a cliff and later slipping off. I can’t lie; I was interested. I thought we were going to get a survival, possible mental illness type of story, but then you immediately dropped the ball.

    Plot:

    You decide to breeze through, or rather, disregard what easily was the most interesting part of the story which is when Michael falls and has to orient himself. However, after waking up, you state he smells something rotten (which is never addressed again) and the fact that he lost a finger in the process (which is also never addressed again). Then the story completely switches tones into a stalker-killer story out of nowhere. No joke, it felt like you took two different stories, the beginning of one and the ending of another, and just messed them together — which didn’t work at all.

    You had a good premise going: Michael fell off the cliff and woke up with nothing but his camera.

    Initially, you stated that the cliff was very high, and yet, he seemed to not break or at least sprain anything when he fell over it. I would’ve loved to see where you could’ve taken it had you stuck to this part of the story. Michael could’ve been using the camera’s flash to attract attention to get help, or maybe he could’ve struggled for food, having something sprained or broken, or maybe he could’ve had to fight off coyotes, or some strange creature out there, or maybe Michael’s survival could’ve brought forth his inner demons to allow us, the reader, more insight on who he is as a person or he could’ve gone mad surviving out there alone, or perhaps he didn’t make it and his camera was found with photos of his last moments. Again, a lot of missed opportunities.

    And what was the story behind the rotting smell? Was he dead? Did he have an infection somewhere? Why didn’t he go to hospital once he got back? The guy just arrived back on his campus after falling off a cliff and being unconscious for several days and his first thought is: let me take the picture of my crush?

    Closing Thoughts:

    This story had potential to take a chance and try something refreshing, especially with all the murdering-for-no-reason clones this site already gets flooded with, but it didn’t. The story was very rushed too, breezing over scenes instead fleshing them out. You also disregard certain aspects: missing fingers, rotten smells, injuries after missing for days. You don’t want to introduce things and not address it later. Every piece of information is an investment for the reader in hopes they’ll get an answer later if it isn’t immediately addressed. However, when you don’t, it comes off as “plot holes”, laziness, and it wastes the reader’s time which is something you NEVER want to do.

    I think you should revisit this story and try to mend it with some of the thoughts I presented above. It’ll not only challenge you, but it’ll help you stand-out among the multitude of stories that seem to take the “easy way” out and do a quick normal-person-turns-killer type of story. Either that or remove the parts where he falls off the cliff because it doesn’t add to the story by any means — just stick to him stalking his crush. The story needs focus and needs to pick a direction and stick with it.

    Hope to see more from you in the future.