Fucking drop bears. I shoulda made my story about them.
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NeoGAF Creative Writing Challenge #161 - "Horror"
- Thread starter Metaphoreus
- Start date
- Status
Blargonaut
Banned
Carlisle - Grief
Nice twist. Believable, natural dialogue an especial strength.
Chainsawkitten - Pen Pal
Unique take on the prompt. You do a good job illustrating your protagonist's ideology. He is evil, but we understand why. I am not clear on who he is writing to. Am I supposed to be?
Cyan - Janie and the Fairies
Charming, as always. Great proximity in your PoV, gets us right into Janie's head. Do you do this for a living?
FlowersisBritish - My Grandfather's Mirror
Your protag's a real ass, ain't he? No wonder his granddad didn't like him. Your description of the chaos embodied by the mirror is a little vague, but maybe that's the point; either way, the Scrooge-like MC seems to have got what's been coming to him.
IceDoesntHelp - It's My Time to Leave
I don't recall seeing poems in past creative writing threads, but I have not followed them closely. I am glad to see one here, and would not have thought of submitting one if not for this. I read it as a metaphor for coming to terms with one's own death.
izunadono - The Boy and the Light
I liked this, but I am not fully convinced by the connection between the voices saying something that is not-quite-a-name. The preface could be axed, as the story is strong enough without it. Yours is more seated in reality than most of the other entries, but you mentioned earlier we may not "get" it, and I'm afraid I don't. Its intended meaning may become clearer in a second revision, without a limit on the word count.
Mike M - Skitter
Last year I read through an anthology of horror-themed comics titled The Sleep of Reason. It featured stories similar to Skitter: all fairly original, many about creatures hidden in nature. You provide a good ending to cap things off, and the mystery of the forest-things is best left as it is. You show good reserve in keeping them back from us, and the story is better for it.
Nezumi - Depth
Good sense of place and conflict within a short space.
Rock And Roll - Greatest Fear
You've Joshed a couple of Karls.
I appreciated this one, nice take on the theme. Led on by our predictions, we are surprised and glad to arrive at the ending you've given.
Tangent - "Rush Hour"
Imaginative, tense, coherent, interesting... You build your setting impressively fast, which lets us quickly arrive at the meat of the action. I would've liked more of Hazel's internal conflict. Despite her concern, she doesn't question which Ross is Ross, and at one point even seems excited to have two of them at her disposal (itself an idea that might sustain a story).
Ward - Lurking in the Dark Shadows
I was interested in the whispers and the eye in the dark, but their promise is not quite delivered on. The protagonist meets a bad end, yet it seems undeserved. I want to know more about what is in the dark shadows, and what it wants, and why this particular narrator is so drawn to it or deserves to be restrained by it.
Ashes - The Curse of Gold
There's a lot to take in with this one. It's far more sprawling than the other entries and seems choked by the word count. It's clear there is a philosophical intent, but I don't fully grasp it. You do a good job providing the politics of this region in a short space (to the extent that the story feels as if it is playing on a larger field than 2000 words), but it is still not enough to give the appropriate breathing space.
An aside: Rasgoul sounds Tolkieny, and I kept reading Lord of the Rasgouls as Lord of the Rings.
1. Tangent - Rush Hour
2. Cyan - Janie and the Fairies
3. Carlisle - Grief
Nice twist. Believable, natural dialogue an especial strength.
Chainsawkitten - Pen Pal
Unique take on the prompt. You do a good job illustrating your protagonist's ideology. He is evil, but we understand why. I am not clear on who he is writing to. Am I supposed to be?
Cyan - Janie and the Fairies
Charming, as always. Great proximity in your PoV, gets us right into Janie's head. Do you do this for a living?
FlowersisBritish - My Grandfather's Mirror
Your protag's a real ass, ain't he? No wonder his granddad didn't like him. Your description of the chaos embodied by the mirror is a little vague, but maybe that's the point; either way, the Scrooge-like MC seems to have got what's been coming to him.
IceDoesntHelp - It's My Time to Leave
I don't recall seeing poems in past creative writing threads, but I have not followed them closely. I am glad to see one here, and would not have thought of submitting one if not for this. I read it as a metaphor for coming to terms with one's own death.
izunadono - The Boy and the Light
I liked this, but I am not fully convinced by the connection between the voices saying something that is not-quite-a-name. The preface could be axed, as the story is strong enough without it. Yours is more seated in reality than most of the other entries, but you mentioned earlier we may not "get" it, and I'm afraid I don't. Its intended meaning may become clearer in a second revision, without a limit on the word count.
Mike M - Skitter
Last year I read through an anthology of horror-themed comics titled The Sleep of Reason. It featured stories similar to Skitter: all fairly original, many about creatures hidden in nature. You provide a good ending to cap things off, and the mystery of the forest-things is best left as it is. You show good reserve in keeping them back from us, and the story is better for it.
Nezumi - Depth
Good sense of place and conflict within a short space.
Rock And Roll - Greatest Fear
You've Joshed a couple of Karls.
I appreciated this one, nice take on the theme. Led on by our predictions, we are surprised and glad to arrive at the ending you've given.
Tangent - "Rush Hour"
Imaginative, tense, coherent, interesting... You build your setting impressively fast, which lets us quickly arrive at the meat of the action. I would've liked more of Hazel's internal conflict. Despite her concern, she doesn't question which Ross is Ross, and at one point even seems excited to have two of them at her disposal (itself an idea that might sustain a story).
Ward - Lurking in the Dark Shadows
I was interested in the whispers and the eye in the dark, but their promise is not quite delivered on. The protagonist meets a bad end, yet it seems undeserved. I want to know more about what is in the dark shadows, and what it wants, and why this particular narrator is so drawn to it or deserves to be restrained by it.
Ashes - The Curse of Gold
There's a lot to take in with this one. It's far more sprawling than the other entries and seems choked by the word count. It's clear there is a philosophical intent, but I don't fully grasp it. You do a good job providing the politics of this region in a short space (to the extent that the story feels as if it is playing on a larger field than 2000 words), but it is still not enough to give the appropriate breathing space.
An aside: Rasgoul sounds Tolkieny, and I kept reading Lord of the Rasgouls as Lord of the Rings.
1. Tangent - Rush Hour
2. Cyan - Janie and the Fairies
3. Carlisle - Grief
Chainsawkitten
Member
1. FlowersisBritish
2. Mike M
3. Cyan
2. Mike M
3. Cyan
The word count had me removing a couple of hints really.
I'll explain
No one in the whole village is ever called by name, except when the boy refers to girls who might be playing a prank on him. It's just meant to make you think who the narrator might be in the story, but it's just a small thing there to show a loop. Also the narrator knows what people call him, but the boy doesn't, it's literal word play I guess, you're not supposed to know the real reason behind it. The boy knows it isn't, as in he doesn't know it is.
- The number of stones in his final memory is 60, the same number of the villagers.
- The first paragraph is in past tense (why I mentioned tense issues but it's sorted now)
And also, originally there was another hint where the village was described more to entirely isolated to the rest of the world. And finally, a short mention of the stepping stones being made for adults.
So anyway, what is happening in the first part of the story is either one or two things, depending on if you had noticed the looping or not.
1: The boy inspects the garden on a Friday night, there are (6 / 60) stones he doesn't remember, drowns. Wakes up NOT on Saturday because there is no school on Saturday, time moves by immediately fast -- break time is 3 minutes instead of 30 etc. And gets so see a drowned version of himself. He returns back again before he had slammed the table, and tries something even more crazy to get people's attention. --> this causes him to remember the night as it should be, 60 stones and all.
Or, if nothing is noticed (the boy's reasoning):
2: He has a dream of leaving outside, and we know it is a dream because he couldn't have opened the window and it's closed the next morning. Confirms everything was a dream since there weren't any stones. Feels that time is moving faster than usual, but this is just his imagination, has a dream in class, and freaks out in the Principles room.
-----
The purpose being that the boy is adopted. He talks and moves differently because he is struggling to get outside of a loop. The first paragraph mentions "during a certain period", which is a night he can't get out of. The Goosebumps part that isn't really explained is how he is ever able to get out of the window during that Friday night. The only mention of Friday evening (where the moon light is so strong it is casting shadows in the classroom) is his vision of seeing himself. He lives on the top of a bunk bed but is never mentioned to have a sibling, etc.
- The number of stones in his final memory is 60, the same number of the villagers.
- The first paragraph is in past tense (why I mentioned tense issues but it's sorted now)
And also, originally there was another hint where the village was described more to entirely isolated to the rest of the world. And finally, a short mention of the stepping stones being made for adults.
So anyway, what is happening in the first part of the story is either one or two things, depending on if you had noticed the looping or not.
1: The boy inspects the garden on a Friday night, there are (6 / 60) stones he doesn't remember, drowns. Wakes up NOT on Saturday because there is no school on Saturday, time moves by immediately fast -- break time is 3 minutes instead of 30 etc. And gets so see a drowned version of himself. He returns back again before he had slammed the table, and tries something even more crazy to get people's attention. --> this causes him to remember the night as it should be, 60 stones and all.
Or, if nothing is noticed (the boy's reasoning):
2: He has a dream of leaving outside, and we know it is a dream because he couldn't have opened the window and it's closed the next morning. Confirms everything was a dream since there weren't any stones. Feels that time is moving faster than usual, but this is just his imagination, has a dream in class, and freaks out in the Principles room.
-----
The purpose being that the boy is adopted. He talks and moves differently because he is struggling to get outside of a loop. The first paragraph mentions "during a certain period", which is a night he can't get out of. The Goosebumps part that isn't really explained is how he is ever able to get out of the window during that Friday night. The only mention of Friday evening (where the moon light is so strong it is casting shadows in the classroom) is his vision of seeing himself. He lives on the top of a bunk bed but is never mentioned to have a sibling, etc.
Anyway it's not so much horror going through the first time and the word count stopped me from making the reader confused about certain things, but it doesn't work if skimmed through anyway. ��
I'm reading everyone else's posts a second time so I can vote properly.
FlowersisBritish
fleurs n'est pas britannique
Doing these response all in one go, so sorry for any grammar mistakes/unclearness...
Carlisle- Grief- You're opening scene is very good, and you play up Roland's thoughts well enough for the twist to work. And the twist does work!
ChainsawKitten- Pen pal- You have a fantastic opening, and the crazy delusions mixed with some great descriptions makes for a good story. I also really like the idea of the penpal.
Crunched- Latchstring- I love the part where you describe the intruder breaking in. There's a bunch of great descriptions like that(your use of shadows at the end are great). I feel the torturing at the end is a little sudden? For the most part they seemed normalish to me, although i could see how they might be a little unhinged? I'd find the end better if you showed them a little more 'off.'
Cyan- Jannie and the Fairies- You really capture a child like narrator, that persists even when the fairies are torturing Jan. Also great ending, the simplicity of the line really makes it creepy.
IceDoesntHelp- It's my time to leave- The poem really captures the fear of death in a very physical and awful way.
Izmando- Boy and the Light- this was weird and i like that. I really like how it skips through time, and I also really like how the boy is reacting to these skips. The use of the counting is also really good at the end. Although the bigger mystery is very confusing. maybe with more words it be clearer? But I read your explanation and even then I was confused by it. Making that bigger mystery clearer and more concise would definitely help the stories future clarity in the long run.
Mike M- Skitter- This was the most straightforward and I like that. This was the story I was coming in hoping to see! Anyway you have some good lead up and your usual good dialogue. When she's talking about the skittering and how she thinks its rats and how it's stressing her is great. I wished there was some more of that, but I'll return to that in a second. You're ending line is great; it's creepy, ironic, and brings everything full circle. I just wish there was more creepiness as lead up for the big scare. We see her getting stressed and unnerved, but it could go a lot farther. A big part of horror is a general decent into terror. For the most part you have the slope down, there just needs to be a little more darkness right before we reach the bottom.
Nezumi- Depths- I think this is a great description! It portrays the act of drowning, the tiredness of swimming, all so well! You give just enough that the reader can construct a pretty basic story, carried by your great descriptions.
Rock and Roll- Greatest Fear- You have a Josh on the first and second page. Just so you know. Anyway the constant flirtatious back and forth is pretty great. It carries the story really well. Between the title and the set up for the cabin, your ending is a pretty great and funny twist. It plays well on the reader's expectation for some straightforward fear, but tonal this was just a couple walking through the woods. The more I thought about the ending, the more it works.
Tangent- Rush Hour- So a little aside; they say those that get scared easily make the scariest stories. So when you were talking about your heebie jeebies, I was getting hyped. When you went to bed to finish your story in daylight, I got even more excited! Good news! You lived up to my expectations! I really love this story. It starts off normal, but the gradual transition into weird with Hazel's response, to the reveal of the duplicate are perfect. The subtle interactions between Ross and the duplicate are great, especially after the dark yet subtle reveal happens. I have two major criticisms First, i feel this needs three hundred more words at the end, not much but just a little bit more. Second you split the narrator between Ross and the duplicate at the end, and I really don't think that works. Up to this point it's been following Ross, even when the duplicate was present, it's been following Ross. You've already established they act the same, so you don't need to split the narrator to show the duplicate plotting to murder too. The vague implication is more than enough. It be so much creepier if it just kept on Ross and the ambiguous question of "is the duplicate doing the same?"
Ward- Lurkin in the Shadows- Good descriptions all around. Although, why did the character go into the vent? For a shoe? That is a just a terrible and baffling decision for anyone, although you description of him being stuck is really good. That in itself is a problem. You narration is first person past, and that really doesn't work for this kind of story because it means he must be alive to narrate it. If you switched to either first present, or third past, than you can have your creepy trapped in darkness ending.
Ashes- Curse of the gold- This was really interesting, i found myself really curious about the plot thanks to unclear motivations all around. You're dialogue all around is very strong, and definitely carries the story well. I also really love you're little bit about values at the end. I don't think leaving off on an ambiguous ending about the name works though? Especially since you spelled out your central themes. The removal of ambiguity followed by the ambiguous ending didn't really work for me.
Good job all around. These were a lot of fun stories!
My votes:
1. Tangent
2. Mike
3. Ashes
Carlisle- Grief- You're opening scene is very good, and you play up Roland's thoughts well enough for the twist to work. And the twist does work!
ChainsawKitten- Pen pal- You have a fantastic opening, and the crazy delusions mixed with some great descriptions makes for a good story. I also really like the idea of the penpal.
Crunched- Latchstring- I love the part where you describe the intruder breaking in. There's a bunch of great descriptions like that(your use of shadows at the end are great). I feel the torturing at the end is a little sudden? For the most part they seemed normalish to me, although i could see how they might be a little unhinged? I'd find the end better if you showed them a little more 'off.'
Cyan- Jannie and the Fairies- You really capture a child like narrator, that persists even when the fairies are torturing Jan. Also great ending, the simplicity of the line really makes it creepy.
IceDoesntHelp- It's my time to leave- The poem really captures the fear of death in a very physical and awful way.
Izmando- Boy and the Light- this was weird and i like that. I really like how it skips through time, and I also really like how the boy is reacting to these skips. The use of the counting is also really good at the end. Although the bigger mystery is very confusing. maybe with more words it be clearer? But I read your explanation and even then I was confused by it. Making that bigger mystery clearer and more concise would definitely help the stories future clarity in the long run.
Mike M- Skitter- This was the most straightforward and I like that. This was the story I was coming in hoping to see! Anyway you have some good lead up and your usual good dialogue. When she's talking about the skittering and how she thinks its rats and how it's stressing her is great. I wished there was some more of that, but I'll return to that in a second. You're ending line is great; it's creepy, ironic, and brings everything full circle. I just wish there was more creepiness as lead up for the big scare. We see her getting stressed and unnerved, but it could go a lot farther. A big part of horror is a general decent into terror. For the most part you have the slope down, there just needs to be a little more darkness right before we reach the bottom.
Nezumi- Depths- I think this is a great description! It portrays the act of drowning, the tiredness of swimming, all so well! You give just enough that the reader can construct a pretty basic story, carried by your great descriptions.
Rock and Roll- Greatest Fear- You have a Josh on the first and second page. Just so you know. Anyway the constant flirtatious back and forth is pretty great. It carries the story really well. Between the title and the set up for the cabin, your ending is a pretty great and funny twist. It plays well on the reader's expectation for some straightforward fear, but tonal this was just a couple walking through the woods. The more I thought about the ending, the more it works.
Tangent- Rush Hour- So a little aside; they say those that get scared easily make the scariest stories. So when you were talking about your heebie jeebies, I was getting hyped. When you went to bed to finish your story in daylight, I got even more excited! Good news! You lived up to my expectations! I really love this story. It starts off normal, but the gradual transition into weird with Hazel's response, to the reveal of the duplicate are perfect. The subtle interactions between Ross and the duplicate are great, especially after the dark yet subtle reveal happens. I have two major criticisms First, i feel this needs three hundred more words at the end, not much but just a little bit more. Second you split the narrator between Ross and the duplicate at the end, and I really don't think that works. Up to this point it's been following Ross, even when the duplicate was present, it's been following Ross. You've already established they act the same, so you don't need to split the narrator to show the duplicate plotting to murder too. The vague implication is more than enough. It be so much creepier if it just kept on Ross and the ambiguous question of "is the duplicate doing the same?"
Ward- Lurkin in the Shadows- Good descriptions all around. Although, why did the character go into the vent? For a shoe? That is a just a terrible and baffling decision for anyone, although you description of him being stuck is really good. That in itself is a problem. You narration is first person past, and that really doesn't work for this kind of story because it means he must be alive to narrate it. If you switched to either first present, or third past, than you can have your creepy trapped in darkness ending.
Ashes- Curse of the gold- This was really interesting, i found myself really curious about the plot thanks to unclear motivations all around. You're dialogue all around is very strong, and definitely carries the story well. I also really love you're little bit about values at the end. I don't think leaving off on an ambiguous ending about the name works though? Especially since you spelled out your central themes. The removal of ambiguity followed by the ambiguous ending didn't really work for me.
Good job all around. These were a lot of fun stories!
My votes:
1. Tangent
2. Mike
3. Ashes
Man, horror is hard. I know we were talking some time ago about the difficulties in writing comedic material, but I think horror is objectively harder to do. Even if you fail to stick the landing on a comedy piece, there might still be the opportunity for jokes that get a laugh in isolation from the rest of the material, but horror? Horror stories seem to be an all or nothing proposition, and god damn is it hard to stick the ending. Just look at Stephen Kinghes the most prolific horror author around, and he cant seem to end his stories in a satisfactory manner to save his life : P And thats not even getting into the fact that once you start invoking supernatural elements you need to codify the rules that govern their interaction with the mundane worlds, which threatens to spiral off into time travel-level messes to keep track of if youre not careful. I really like horror, but the overwhelmingly vast amount of it that I actually read/watch/play leaves me feeling unsatisfied, often in ways that I am unable to articulate or specify exactly why I didnt think it was satisfying. Dont mistake this for me claiming to be an aficionado or expert on the genre, however.
For point of reference, I think my single most favorite piece of horror fiction ever is the one-two punch of Dead Space Extraction and Dead Space. Eldritch body horror causing descent into madness in space? Oh god, yes. I cant think of a franchise that squandered its potential and mythos as thoroughly as Dead Space, and it breaks my cold, unfeeling heart.
Moving on
Carlisle: Ah, the Victorian Ghost Story, a perennial classic. I really liked the high-level summary of this, that being old man believes he is haunted by his dead wife, but the twist is that hes just crazy and that shes actually still alive. Thats a good premise the breathes life into what would otherwise be an old chestnut indeed. I think I would have liked to have seen more clues as to the truth of what was happening, though I wanted to highlight the stew as a particularly good bit: At first I was thinking well, thats actually kind of silly that the ghost is making his favorite stew and no one comments, but then in retrospect it became the best evidence that she was still alive. I would have liked to have seen more evidence like that rather than a fight scene. We kind of got a whiff of it with the Valets comments, but not enough for my taste. I was left unsure if the apothecarys blue vial had anything to do with Rolands visions or not.
Chainsawkitten: The motivation of the narrator that drove him to the commit the crimes that he did is wondrous. Not a lot of time was spent dwelling on it, but the time we did have with it was succinct, to the point, and yet still laid out a terrifying psychological landscape that we now know that this guy operates in. The logic is perverse, but not alien; the guy acknowledges that what he does is evil, and agrees that he deserves to pay for what hes done. Its not a comfortable worldview to share, but he does make a fair point that if we accept these things to be true, then what hes done is Well, not admirable, but it does seem hes found a loophole in a theological argument. What was missing for me was the identity of this other individual with whom he had been trading notes, why they had failed to respond, and what was in the contents of those notes. It made me unsure if there was ever even supposed to be a second prisoner who shared their philosophy, or if he was just crazy.
Crunched: Structurally sound and well-written, but I was left a little unclear about the husbands motivations. From my reading it seemed as though he did not take the loss of the pregnancy very well, but at the same time his wife didnt seem to have much emotional investment in the matter. That disparity seemed strange to me. The fact that he would bludgeon an older man who had broken into their house and knock him down a flight of stairs was believable enough, but then he full on tortures and butchers the guy? Without comment, protest, or really any meaningful reaction from the wife? I would surmise that the trauma of losing the baby has done some psychological damage, but these events seem well beyond the pale without there having been some underlying psychopathy that we were not privy to. I never got to know these characters well enough for this train of thought to be justified to me.
Cyan: Gyah, not kids, man. Not kids. Being a dad has ruined me : / This one kind of reminded me of something out of a childrens horror stories anthology I read many moons ago that was compiled and edited by R.L. Stine (though not written by him). I dont know if they would be quite so unsettling as they were back then if I were to read them today, but OMFG there was some fucked up shit in those books that gave me the heebie jeebies well after I had put the book down. Like those books, nothing in your story is particularly graphic, but you have a relatively helpless protagonist and a mountain of hinted implications looming somewhere behind the reader that cast a shadow on what theyre reading. Plus you harken back to an era where fairies were understood to be sinister creatures, which is always nice to see. I would like to have known what exactly it was they wanted with Janie, however. I wasnt certain if they were simply satisfied to make her dance, or if the dancing in and of itself was supposed to be part of some ritual or have some other purpose.
FlowersisBritish: I think there was a bit of a continuity error where the narrator states that he had the mirror placed in his study, but then he awakes and there are scratches in the floor as though the mirror has been moving toward his bed and back at night? Is his bed in his study? Haunted mirrors are usually a thing that works well for me, as it gives you a wide berth to play with the notion of reality being what you perceive it to be and exploring what happens if something deceives your perceptions completely (Mirrors and Oculus are both serviceable, if not particularly great horror movies in this regard). That said, nothing in this story necessitated that the haunted object be a mirror (practically any object would probably have sufficed), which was something of a disappointment to me. Most of the terror experienced by the main character was the content of the nightmares he witnessed each night, which was not particularly mirror-themed, reliant on mirrors, or playing with the notion of perception as I mentioned above. Its not a bad thing so much as a missed opportunity.
IceDoesntHelp: Bah, dont let not liking what you have keep you from submitting something (though granted, in this case you had something else that you liked more, in which case by all means submit that). Ive had some real stinkers in the past involving terrestrial squids and interdimensional tour buses Poetry isnt my thing, though, so Im not really able to offer any meaningful critique about it. Maybe our Poetry GAF crossover members can be more illuminating than me : )
izunadono: Im afraid Im among those that must number themselves in the didnt get it column, even after reading your explanation as to the events that were occurring. Knowing that there was something to get colored my reading a little bit, and left me guessing if every oddity that I noted was an intentional clue or simply a mistake. Some of it (i.e. the alteration to once upon a time) purports to be a clue, but most of the rest (describing the village as being on an island to the left of the Japanese mainland, the jump in tense from the first paragraph to the rest of the piece) did not. Even with the benefit of knowing what you were going for, I still feel left out in the cold. I dont know what the deal was with going out the window and having the exterior of the house be wrong. I dont get the significance to the number of stepping stones correlating to the number of people that lived in the village. I dont get the significance of nobody being named except for the possible prank suspects. All I know is that you were going for something where hes trapped in a time loop or something where the speed of time is variable, but I didnt ever actually see the loop. He hears whispering, he goes out of his window, he drowns, he hears the voice and the light. He wakes up, he goes to school, he stays afterwards, interacts with his drowned self, wakes up again, then gets examined with a penlight that mirrors the end of the first dream. Where does it circle back on itself?
Mike M: This story had its genesis in a drive through a forest somewhere out here in the PNW where I saw a similar clearing of dead trees on the side of the road, only instead of the weird structures in the story, there were rocks on top of the broken tree trunks. It immediately set to mind a little forest gremlin who wont stand to have its art questioned or defaced who takes vengeance upon an unwitting vandal, so this is actually a story thats been rattling around in my head for a while. My initial conception was to have it be told from the creatures point of view and for the final structure to actually be composed of limbs and a head rather than sticks and a stone, but I decided against much of that. I dont know what was in the forest any more than any of you do at this point : P I fully agree it needed another scene at least (I would have liked to have addressed where those final branches and stone come from), but word counts gonna word count. Im actually mostly pleased with the way it turned out regardless, and while I dont think its an absolute law of horror, the things that you can imagine are behind events are very frequently more compelling than what can be explicitly stated on page.
Nezumi: Not really a story in and of itself, but a nice snippet of emotion, description, and imagery. Reminds me of that drowning simulator from a few months back where you had to keep scrolling your mouse wheel to stay alive, but the longer you did, the more crazy shit got.
Rock and Roll: The scenario of a pair of sexually active teens walking through a fog-cloaked forest and coming across a creepy abandoned cabin in the dead of night is a familiar trope, but kudos for turning it on its head. With the talk of the Thriller video and talking about greatest fears, I feel like you did kind of a double fake-out; At first it seems like youre setting us up for a Scream/Cabin in the Woods tongue-in-cheek rendition of the genre where it is very self-aware of what it is and plays on those expectations, you twisted our perception again and we ended up someplace else entirely at the end with a relatively mundane and decidedly non-horror story for comedic effect. The dialogue between the two was great, though I felt that they were affecting voices and mannerisms perhaps a little too frequently for me to buy it fully, but I dont think the ending was quiiiiiite deserved. While everything that came before was charming, it wasnt particularly funny to me, and the punch line drops into my lap and the story ends before I even realize its supposed to be a punch line. The passing mention that he didnt really have a fear without much further elaboration wasnt strong enough to carry the reveal on its own to me.
Tangent: Didnt Blargonaut and I just write this story? : P I think the greatest failing of this one is that it came across to me as less horror than dark comedy. No, I take that back, the greatest failing is that you have this story where you set up and establish a conflict where the reader builds an expectation that the two Rosses (Rossi?) are going to engage in a surreptitious battle to the death in order to establish themselves as the One True Ross, but then theres no resolution to the conflict. Only that each of them resolves that they must eliminate the other and the knowledge that the other is thinking the exact same thought at the exact same time. This was all the framing story for the conflict, I want to see the farcical Spy vs. Spy fight that I imagine must follow!
Ward: Seemed kind of a mish mash of parts of a different ideas that I didnt mesh into a whole for me. In particular, theres that paragraph about how his grandfather died that doesnt seem to have anything to do with the rest of the story, save for a mention about expecting to find animated shoes walking about and then he finds a shoe later in the vent. It seems that theres a connection there, but the shape of it eludes me. Putting aside the strange decision to crawl into a vent to retrieve a shoe (why would anyone do that), the nature of the supernatural threat seemed muddled. On the one hand, we seem to have an alleyway that can change its dimensions and characteristics, growing longer and darker as needed, and tightening the pipe around the narrator in the end there. But then theres also some other person/creature in play who is whispering, looking out pipes, maybe leaving shoes (?) as bait. One or the other is threatening in its own right, but both together is overkill for me. On a final note, a first person past tense story where it presumably ends with the narrator dying begs the question of to whom he is addressing it.
Ashes: This was quite the change of pace for you, and I very much enjoyed reading it. The formatting was a pain in the butt to read, however, without line breaks or indentations to indicate when new paragraphs begin. But still, nicely layered political intrigue and reveals, Id like to see a version of this where you conformed to the tyranny of copy editors and manuscript format : P
Grimlock: Who the doesnt see the dentist for the first time until theyre 14? Kinda ruined the joke, even outside of the fact that I immediately saw where it was going : P
The Votening:
1. Ashes
2. Cyan
3. Chainsawkitten
For point of reference, I think my single most favorite piece of horror fiction ever is the one-two punch of Dead Space Extraction and Dead Space. Eldritch body horror causing descent into madness in space? Oh god, yes. I cant think of a franchise that squandered its potential and mythos as thoroughly as Dead Space, and it breaks my cold, unfeeling heart.
Moving on
Carlisle: Ah, the Victorian Ghost Story, a perennial classic. I really liked the high-level summary of this, that being old man believes he is haunted by his dead wife, but the twist is that hes just crazy and that shes actually still alive. Thats a good premise the breathes life into what would otherwise be an old chestnut indeed. I think I would have liked to have seen more clues as to the truth of what was happening, though I wanted to highlight the stew as a particularly good bit: At first I was thinking well, thats actually kind of silly that the ghost is making his favorite stew and no one comments, but then in retrospect it became the best evidence that she was still alive. I would have liked to have seen more evidence like that rather than a fight scene. We kind of got a whiff of it with the Valets comments, but not enough for my taste. I was left unsure if the apothecarys blue vial had anything to do with Rolands visions or not.
Chainsawkitten: The motivation of the narrator that drove him to the commit the crimes that he did is wondrous. Not a lot of time was spent dwelling on it, but the time we did have with it was succinct, to the point, and yet still laid out a terrifying psychological landscape that we now know that this guy operates in. The logic is perverse, but not alien; the guy acknowledges that what he does is evil, and agrees that he deserves to pay for what hes done. Its not a comfortable worldview to share, but he does make a fair point that if we accept these things to be true, then what hes done is Well, not admirable, but it does seem hes found a loophole in a theological argument. What was missing for me was the identity of this other individual with whom he had been trading notes, why they had failed to respond, and what was in the contents of those notes. It made me unsure if there was ever even supposed to be a second prisoner who shared their philosophy, or if he was just crazy.
Crunched: Structurally sound and well-written, but I was left a little unclear about the husbands motivations. From my reading it seemed as though he did not take the loss of the pregnancy very well, but at the same time his wife didnt seem to have much emotional investment in the matter. That disparity seemed strange to me. The fact that he would bludgeon an older man who had broken into their house and knock him down a flight of stairs was believable enough, but then he full on tortures and butchers the guy? Without comment, protest, or really any meaningful reaction from the wife? I would surmise that the trauma of losing the baby has done some psychological damage, but these events seem well beyond the pale without there having been some underlying psychopathy that we were not privy to. I never got to know these characters well enough for this train of thought to be justified to me.
Cyan: Gyah, not kids, man. Not kids. Being a dad has ruined me : / This one kind of reminded me of something out of a childrens horror stories anthology I read many moons ago that was compiled and edited by R.L. Stine (though not written by him). I dont know if they would be quite so unsettling as they were back then if I were to read them today, but OMFG there was some fucked up shit in those books that gave me the heebie jeebies well after I had put the book down. Like those books, nothing in your story is particularly graphic, but you have a relatively helpless protagonist and a mountain of hinted implications looming somewhere behind the reader that cast a shadow on what theyre reading. Plus you harken back to an era where fairies were understood to be sinister creatures, which is always nice to see. I would like to have known what exactly it was they wanted with Janie, however. I wasnt certain if they were simply satisfied to make her dance, or if the dancing in and of itself was supposed to be part of some ritual or have some other purpose.
FlowersisBritish: I think there was a bit of a continuity error where the narrator states that he had the mirror placed in his study, but then he awakes and there are scratches in the floor as though the mirror has been moving toward his bed and back at night? Is his bed in his study? Haunted mirrors are usually a thing that works well for me, as it gives you a wide berth to play with the notion of reality being what you perceive it to be and exploring what happens if something deceives your perceptions completely (Mirrors and Oculus are both serviceable, if not particularly great horror movies in this regard). That said, nothing in this story necessitated that the haunted object be a mirror (practically any object would probably have sufficed), which was something of a disappointment to me. Most of the terror experienced by the main character was the content of the nightmares he witnessed each night, which was not particularly mirror-themed, reliant on mirrors, or playing with the notion of perception as I mentioned above. Its not a bad thing so much as a missed opportunity.
IceDoesntHelp: Bah, dont let not liking what you have keep you from submitting something (though granted, in this case you had something else that you liked more, in which case by all means submit that). Ive had some real stinkers in the past involving terrestrial squids and interdimensional tour buses Poetry isnt my thing, though, so Im not really able to offer any meaningful critique about it. Maybe our Poetry GAF crossover members can be more illuminating than me : )
izunadono: Im afraid Im among those that must number themselves in the didnt get it column, even after reading your explanation as to the events that were occurring. Knowing that there was something to get colored my reading a little bit, and left me guessing if every oddity that I noted was an intentional clue or simply a mistake. Some of it (i.e. the alteration to once upon a time) purports to be a clue, but most of the rest (describing the village as being on an island to the left of the Japanese mainland, the jump in tense from the first paragraph to the rest of the piece) did not. Even with the benefit of knowing what you were going for, I still feel left out in the cold. I dont know what the deal was with going out the window and having the exterior of the house be wrong. I dont get the significance to the number of stepping stones correlating to the number of people that lived in the village. I dont get the significance of nobody being named except for the possible prank suspects. All I know is that you were going for something where hes trapped in a time loop or something where the speed of time is variable, but I didnt ever actually see the loop. He hears whispering, he goes out of his window, he drowns, he hears the voice and the light. He wakes up, he goes to school, he stays afterwards, interacts with his drowned self, wakes up again, then gets examined with a penlight that mirrors the end of the first dream. Where does it circle back on itself?
Mike M: This story had its genesis in a drive through a forest somewhere out here in the PNW where I saw a similar clearing of dead trees on the side of the road, only instead of the weird structures in the story, there were rocks on top of the broken tree trunks. It immediately set to mind a little forest gremlin who wont stand to have its art questioned or defaced who takes vengeance upon an unwitting vandal, so this is actually a story thats been rattling around in my head for a while. My initial conception was to have it be told from the creatures point of view and for the final structure to actually be composed of limbs and a head rather than sticks and a stone, but I decided against much of that. I dont know what was in the forest any more than any of you do at this point : P I fully agree it needed another scene at least (I would have liked to have addressed where those final branches and stone come from), but word counts gonna word count. Im actually mostly pleased with the way it turned out regardless, and while I dont think its an absolute law of horror, the things that you can imagine are behind events are very frequently more compelling than what can be explicitly stated on page.
Nezumi: Not really a story in and of itself, but a nice snippet of emotion, description, and imagery. Reminds me of that drowning simulator from a few months back where you had to keep scrolling your mouse wheel to stay alive, but the longer you did, the more crazy shit got.
Rock and Roll: The scenario of a pair of sexually active teens walking through a fog-cloaked forest and coming across a creepy abandoned cabin in the dead of night is a familiar trope, but kudos for turning it on its head. With the talk of the Thriller video and talking about greatest fears, I feel like you did kind of a double fake-out; At first it seems like youre setting us up for a Scream/Cabin in the Woods tongue-in-cheek rendition of the genre where it is very self-aware of what it is and plays on those expectations, you twisted our perception again and we ended up someplace else entirely at the end with a relatively mundane and decidedly non-horror story for comedic effect. The dialogue between the two was great, though I felt that they were affecting voices and mannerisms perhaps a little too frequently for me to buy it fully, but I dont think the ending was quiiiiiite deserved. While everything that came before was charming, it wasnt particularly funny to me, and the punch line drops into my lap and the story ends before I even realize its supposed to be a punch line. The passing mention that he didnt really have a fear without much further elaboration wasnt strong enough to carry the reveal on its own to me.
Tangent: Didnt Blargonaut and I just write this story? : P I think the greatest failing of this one is that it came across to me as less horror than dark comedy. No, I take that back, the greatest failing is that you have this story where you set up and establish a conflict where the reader builds an expectation that the two Rosses (Rossi?) are going to engage in a surreptitious battle to the death in order to establish themselves as the One True Ross, but then theres no resolution to the conflict. Only that each of them resolves that they must eliminate the other and the knowledge that the other is thinking the exact same thought at the exact same time. This was all the framing story for the conflict, I want to see the farcical Spy vs. Spy fight that I imagine must follow!
Ward: Seemed kind of a mish mash of parts of a different ideas that I didnt mesh into a whole for me. In particular, theres that paragraph about how his grandfather died that doesnt seem to have anything to do with the rest of the story, save for a mention about expecting to find animated shoes walking about and then he finds a shoe later in the vent. It seems that theres a connection there, but the shape of it eludes me. Putting aside the strange decision to crawl into a vent to retrieve a shoe (why would anyone do that), the nature of the supernatural threat seemed muddled. On the one hand, we seem to have an alleyway that can change its dimensions and characteristics, growing longer and darker as needed, and tightening the pipe around the narrator in the end there. But then theres also some other person/creature in play who is whispering, looking out pipes, maybe leaving shoes (?) as bait. One or the other is threatening in its own right, but both together is overkill for me. On a final note, a first person past tense story where it presumably ends with the narrator dying begs the question of to whom he is addressing it.
Ashes: This was quite the change of pace for you, and I very much enjoyed reading it. The formatting was a pain in the butt to read, however, without line breaks or indentations to indicate when new paragraphs begin. But still, nicely layered political intrigue and reveals, Id like to see a version of this where you conformed to the tyranny of copy editors and manuscript format : P
Grimlock: Who the doesnt see the dentist for the first time until theyre 14? Kinda ruined the joke, even outside of the fact that I immediately saw where it was going : P
The Votening:
1. Ashes
2. Cyan
3. Chainsawkitten
Chainsawkitten
Member
It's not a loophole. It is the theological argument. When considering the genocides in the Bible there are only three available positions:
- God is not good (1)
- The Bible is fallible (partially or wholly) (2)
- Genocide is morally permissible (3)
William Lane Craig said:
And he's far from the only one. All I did was put that idea into someone who actually believed it rather than someone who's just being intellectually dishonest and doesn't actually believe in the bullshit they're spouting (at least I hope that's true about Craig and company).
izunadono: I’m afraid I’m among those that must number themselves in the “didn’t get it” column, even after reading your explanation as to the events that were occurring. Knowing that there was something to “get” colored my reading a little bit, and left me guessing if every oddity that I noted was an intentional clue or simply a mistake. Some of it (i.e. the alteration to “once upon a time”purports to be a clue, but most of the rest (describing the village as being on an island to the “left” of the Japanese mainland, the jump in tense from the first paragraph to the rest of the piece) did not. Even with the benefit of knowing what you were going for, I still feel left out in the cold. I don’t know what the deal was with going out the window and having the exterior of the house be wrong. I don’t get the significance to the number of stepping stones correlating to the number of people that lived in the village. I don’t get the significance of nobody being named except for the possible prank suspects. All I know is that you were going for something where he’s trapped in a time loop or something where the speed of time is variable, but I didn’t ever actually see the loop. He hears whispering, he goes out of his window, he drowns, he hears the voice and the light. He wakes up, he goes to school, he stays afterwards, interacts with his drowned self, wakes up again, then gets examined with a penlight that mirrors the end of the first dream. Where does it circle back on itself?
If anything, the over-ambiguity was deliberate. There are a number of ways to interpret what's happening (which was the intention) and knowing that something was amiss is what is hinted in the first paragraph anyway.
I think the main issue is that I didn't put emphasis on the clues. The windows needing to be unlocked from the outside prove the boy that it must have been a dream, but the ending was to make you feel as if it really had happened. That fact that windows are locked from the outside was suppose to bring about the question of... why? And if it were real, who opened it and when?
The looping was almost completely hidden, if you assume there is no Saturday school. The boy has an unreliable memory, indicated by the fact that he unlocked the wrong window in the first place, but that was one of the few things the boy actually remembered correctly. He goes a bit insane because he can't make sense of it.
The light, which I put in the title, probably is the biggest culprit for none of the hints working. The first time it happens in the story, he is remembering a previous time it happened, a memory that doesn't make sense in the timeline he is experiencing. So basically.
First time = starts to drown, remembers the nurse shining the light
Second time = nurse shines the light, remembers... not drowning
Perhaps it would have been better if I made it more clear that the other boy is actually real, and in that instance, was the one who slept on the bottom bunk (if you could say it was the previous boy).
It sucks to explicity say it and this is my first time writing this sort of thing, but the other boy being real (alluding to who opened the taller window) and that Friday happened twice were the two things I wanted some readers to notice. The other was more to do with perhaps the villagers trying to keep the boy orderly by never treating him different, his mother not questioning anything (I had to cut her dialogue).
It wasn't supposed to mean anything, but I wanted some people to try and draw a connection between -- approximately 60 people in the village, -- hop to get to three, and the other boy drowning.
I think I could have written it to be different, but if anything the length is what really stopped me from having more things clear. It was whipped up quickly but I am glad it was fun and confusing. Perhaps I expected people to try and "figure it out" and come up with their own theories, but that's asking for too much.
But yeah it was more a of Goosebumps sort of "oh shi, wtf?" thing that I was going for. All in good fun for the reader to try and find explanations.
Not a loop as you would think, but that he is repeating the same day and different things go wrong. Maybe I could have shown a third Friday happening, but explaining the mechanics of the world isn't interesting once it makes sense, at least to me anyway.
Rock And Roll
Member
Oh dear, how embarrassing. The perils of naming your characters after friends. Horror is really hard for me to write as I'm fairly unimaginative and rooted too deeply in realism.
Carlisle - Enjoyable ghost story with a twist. You built a really good atmosphere.
Chainsawkitten - Interesting take on horror, I would have loved to know a bit more though about how the characters got into that situation, but not knowing is just as scary. I also liked how you achieved the secondary.
Crunched - Good pace and the tension was built nicely.
Cyan - Loved the take on fairies for this one. It started off innocently and quickly took a turn. The ending was great and without a word count I bet you could continue the story without it getting old. Fantastic work!
FlowersisBritish - Cool premise, for some reason mirrors can freak me out. Liked the word selection too.
IceDoesntHelp - I think you could have made a great story with the idea of being thrown into hell. If you expanded on your idea you could have made a solid story out of it.
izunadono - I could tell there's something interesting going on but I wasn't able to piece it together. The explanation helped a bit but it would probably work better without a word limit. Also, principal, not principle
Mike M - Great dialogue as usual. I thought the mystery unraveled at a good pace and
the ending was cool, although the real horrifying element here is we both made a Scouts motto reference.
Nezumi - Drowning is pretty terrifying. Short and sweet with great descriptions, I can't elaborate much unfortunately.
Tangent - Good take on the classic doppelganger story.
Ward - I liked how you kept going back to the alley in an attempt to overcome fear. Gives a human feeling to the story.
Ashes - I like the fantasy setting on this one and the dialogue was good. Didn't quite understand it all though.
1) Cyan
2) Flowers
3) Mike M
HM: Chainsawkitten
Great work everyone!
"Loophole" was a malapropism on my part. I guess my mind went in search of a way to say "the main character carries the theological argument to its endpoint, and while it is abhorrent, it is justifiable within the internal logic of that theology," in a succinct manner, but came up empty.
Somewhat related: I recently read one of the more interesting answers to the problem of evil that I've yet seen: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/03/15/answer-to-job/
Tangent axed me to post this:
I dunno what happened after waffles 10 hrs after deadline on Friday, a whirlwind of a weekend is what but that's no excuse! I meant to post up the stories. Ashes, thank you for doing so for me and also welcome back!
These were HORRIFIC! Well done! Sooooo hard to vote that I just tossed them into a list at random pretty much. Sorry I have no feedback and on that note, uh... thank you for the feedback that I received. Super helpful. I felt like a doofus trying to write horror but it was refreshing to see that there are concrete ways I can improve upon it.
Votes:
1. Chainsaw
2. Flowers
3. Nezumi
hm Cyan, MikeM, Ashes
These were HORRIFIC! Well done! Sooooo hard to vote that I just tossed them into a list at random pretty much. Sorry I have no feedback and on that note, uh... thank you for the feedback that I received.
Super helpful. I felt like a doofus trying to write horror but it was refreshing to see that there are concrete ways I can improve upon it.Votes:
1. Chainsaw
2. Flowers
3. Nezumi
hm Cyan, MikeM, Ashes
FlowersisBritish
fleurs n'est pas britannique
Well this was pretty close.
Winner:
1st Cyan- 12 points
2nd Mike: 11
3rd Tangent: 9
Congratulations Cyan! And well done everybody! This was a pretty great round of stories!
Winner:
1st Cyan- 12 points
2nd Mike: 11
3rd Tangent: 9
Congratulations Cyan! And well done everybody! This was a pretty great round of stories!
- Status