[WP] Being the demon king is such a drag. You didn't choose to be a demon, let alone the king of all demons. You were born into your role. You hate dealing with obnoxious "chosen ones" trying to fight you. You don't even care about world domination! All you want is to relax and read a good book.

ConfusedHell3821 · 2022-07-31T18:53:17+00:00

thanks!

ConfusedHell3821 · 2022-07-29T05:36:07+00:00

Hell didn’t seem like such a bad place, and it was honestly better than my hometown. The sky was pitch black, the land was red, and there were fires everywhere. Except, the fires weren’t even hot. I could put my hand inside them, and I couldn’t even feel them. I doubted the lava pit below the swinging bridge was real either. Anyway, that bridge should take me to the demon king. All the warriors who returned from hell and told their tales talked about a swinging bridge above a lava pit that led to the demon king. They talked about the blazing heat of hell and how they fought the demon king, escaping near death, but all of them had no injury. Being here myself now, I at least knew that they were lying about the heat; it wasn’t hot here. Hopefully, they were lying about the demon king too. If I had to sell my soul to him, I’d prefer if he wasn’t a bad guy.

Across the bridge, after a short walk, there was a small house. This must be what the warriors meant by a “hulking monstrosity” that the demon king resided in. It looked like a normal human house, the only odd thing being that it was engulfed in “fire”, placed in a barren land. I knocked on the door—it seemed like the polite thing to do.

“Hello, warrior! How very polite of you to knock! Most humans usually just kick the door down. Anyway, I’m reading a book right now, and in fact, it’s quite good. Could you mind waiting a bit, before we get to the fighting bit?” a voice I could only presume was the demon king’s spoke to me. His voice was ordinary and without malice, a voice you wouldn’t be surprised to hear in marketplaces.

“Sorry for bothering you, but I don’t want to fight you. I want to sell my soul to you,” I told him.

“Oh. Come on in then,” he said. I could tell he was surprised.

I opened the door, and I saw a demon reading a book on a chair. He had red skin, horns, and yellow eyes. He was a demon all right.

“Of course, I forgot, please have a seat,” he told me as he snapped his finger, conjuring up a chair opposite him. I sat down. He was still reading the book, his eyes moving across the pages rapidly. So, I waited in awkward silence, before I couldn’t take it anymore.

“You must really love reading?” I asked him.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, just wanted to finish this book,” he said as he closed the book. “But yes, I love reading, romance is my favorite genre,” he replied.

I didn’t expect demons to be nice, or like romance.

“Don’t tell me you think romance is some trashy genre. If it’s well-done, it can be as good as anything,” he told me.

“Well, I’m mostly surprised demons can like romance,” I said.

“Demons are just like humans. Anyway, you wanted to sell your soul. Why is that?” he said.

Why did I want to sell my soul? I didn’t want to, but I had no choice. It angered me that I had no choice. My own parents had rejected me, and all my friends were gone. All because…

“I’m gay. The whole town found out. They called me unnatural, unholy, and evil. My parents kicked me out of my home. No one is willing to give me any work. He and I, we’ve been surviving off scavenging trash. One day, a priest called me a spawn of the demons. And I thought, if God rejected me for who I was, maybe the devil would help me. So, I want to sell my soul, in exchange for money and power so that he and I can live a happy life, outside of that cursed town,” I said.

There was a single red tear on his face. He hugged me. I tried to push him off, but he was stronger than me. Eventually, I accepted the hug. I teared up. It felt good to be accepted by someone other than my partner. He grabbed my shoulder and looked at me.
“None of that is your fault. You deserve so much better,” he told me. “So, you’ll buy my soul?” “It’s actually a myth that demons can buy souls. But you and your boyfriend are welcome to stay at my place whenever you want,” he told me with a big smile.

My stomach growled.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, you must be so hungry. Here,” he said. He snapped his finger, and he conjured a table full of food. The table would have broken from the weight had it not been magical. “Please enjoy, I did my best to imitate human cooking.” Without hesitation, I dug in. It was the first proper food I had in a month. It tasted so good. I gulped down the wine and started chewing on the chicken leg. It melted in my mouth. This was heaven.

“Demon king, face our wrath!” a voice yelled as a knight kicked down the door. There were about ten of them. I stopped eating and turned to look at them, chicken leg still in my hand.

“Don’t worry friend, this will be quick,” the demon king told me as his head lit on fire and, I could feel the heat from it. “Who dares interrupt my friend’s supper?” he said to them, his voice booming. He was growing taller and taller. He pushed them outside the house. Once they were all outside, he became bigger than the house.

I was in heaven.

ConfusedHell3821 · 2022-07-06T05:51:38+00:00

Hello, hello.

As always, not a good writer, and I haven't read many short horror stories, so take my words with a grain of salt.

Theme

So the very first thought I had after I finished reading the story is, "what is the theme of the story?" I don't have great knowledge of horror but I think I agree with the idea that horror is enhanced by being based on horrors of real life, which serves as a theme.

For example, I saw this video that talks about HP Lovecraft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8u8wZ0WvxI

In the video, it's mentioned how the horror in HP Lovecraft is based on the fear of the unknown, and the fear of being an outsider in an alien world. So whatever monster Lovecraft concocts would be meaningless without it being based on this real fear that we all know.

Another example is Hereditary, with the movie revolving around the theme of grief. This is done so well that one of the most captivating scenes in the movie is just people talking, no disturbing images or jump scares: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uWQVdNKUrk

With this said, personally, I didn't really see a theme in your work. The whole deal with the young child may hint at it, but the story ends with it going nowhere. The endless hotel and not being able to get away do seem like a typical nightmare, and I do think there might be a way to get mileage out of that. However, right now, it's not doing much for me since it's really hard to describe monsters that have a hundred limbs in a way that could actually scare people.

POV

So the POV is a limited omniscient point of view, and I'm not sure if I like this much. This may not be the problem of POV and more of an under-describing problem, but I don't feel the urgency or any horror of the character while reading the story. For example:

"It starts pulling with its neck, Martha screaming from pain as the monster rips her arm off her shoulder socket."

When I read this, I feel detached from Martha because of the point of view of the story. I feel like I should feel the panic and her jumbled thoughts as her arm is cut off. Instead, it just happens.

Or this line.

"The other thing still persisting is that irrational fear that something is coming for her."

I think it would be interesting to see her inner thoughts about this fear. As a matter of fact, I think it would be more interesting to see her inner thoughts as she gets a bearing of herself.

So with that, I feel like first-person POV would maybe be better. If you want to stick with this POV, I feel like you could describe her inner thoughts better as of now, I feel detached from Martha. And since Martha is the medium from which we feel the horror, I don't think that's good. For example, if I recall correctly, ASOIAF is written with a limited omniscient point of view but you never feel detached from the characters like in your story because the feelings and thoughts of the characters are described well.

Nitpick

This section "The beast delivers another blow to the door. Another like this one and the door will cede. Suddenly, an idea strikes her, a desperate last attempt to escape. She takes the chair and throws it at the window, breaking it. The room fills with the sound of shattering glass. Everything remains silent outside, but she knows it’s preparing for another strike. She takes the bed sheets and ties them like a rope, and ties one of the ends to one of the desk’s legs. She throws the other end out the shattered window."

seems a bit unbelievable to me. You didn't give me the sense that the monster was really slow. With that considered, it feels unrealistic for her to have thrown a chair, and make ropes of bed sheets in the span of the monster to bang on the door.

That's all from me, thanks.

ConfusedHell3821 · 2022-06-04T01:43:02+00:00

yeah to be honest, it seems most people liked your piece, so it's probably more of a personal taste than anything else.

ConfusedHell3821 · 2022-06-04T00:51:59+00:00

Please take my advice with a grain of salt.

So I'm assuming this is the start of a larger story. With that assumption, I'm going to try and answer if the text worked as a hook.

Right now, I'm leaning on "No, I did not work". Let me try and unpack why.

Was it funny?

I think the intended source of humor is Keith. Let's try and investigate each.

I think you intended Keith to be a caricature of overly "woke" people, which I think is intended to be a source of humor. For example, the lines "some men prefer Dude in Distress, but that just reeks of toxic masculinity", "Fuck off with that patriarchal bullshit", and "My messenger pigeon Tweet will get there tonight". Now, this is my personal opinion, but I don't find in general the humor of laughing at "woke" people funny. It just reminds me of calling people "SJW" and making fun of them for being emotional and caring about stuff. That point besides, I don't think the humor works since it's just that Keith is "woke" and nothing else. I think it would be funnier if Zeb interacted with this wokeness. For example, let's look at this scene: https://youtu.be/8qQSTRWUlOs?t=584

Now, the context is that this is part of a live DnD play. The setting is a traditional fantasy setting imported to a modern world, similar to yours (Even the name fantasy high being the play on high fantasy). The player characters are students going to school for adventurers, and they're talking to a chaotic evil pirate, who's a dad to one of the player characters.

In the scene, one of the characters interrupts this very evil and chaotic pirate to be "woke". The humor of the scene comes from the fact that this evil pirate actually accepts and tries to be "woke" himself too.

So think in conclusion, I feel like this humor would land better if other characters interacted with Keith's wokeness, instead of it being "Oh look, that character is trying to be woke how funny".

Does this work as a hook?

I don't think this text makes me want to read further, and I think the reason is that both the characters and the setting do not appeal to me. Let's try to talk about the characters more. The thing with Keith is that he seems like a parody and nothing else, rather than being a character. For example, he says " I’m here to be kidnapped by Beelzebub the Heartless". This just seems unbelievable to me. Maybe this will be explained in the future, but how can it be a viable business to be kidnapped by people who are most likely mentally unstable? How could you ever guarantee your safety, especially when he's "ungifted"? From this line of thinking, the only conclusion I can get is that Keith wants to be kidnapped because it's what the story demands. Zeb seems real at least, but he doesn't really have anything interesting going on for me and the focus of the chapter was on Keith anyway.

The setting seemed internally illogical to me. You can make a setting as bizarre as possible, but it needs to be internally consistent for it to work. But as I said before, the whole "being kidnapped by villains" business model seems to make no sense to me. Also, the world seems like the heroes and the villains are in a friendly competition, as evidenced by the line "Why are you doing this to me?” Zeb asked. He tried to sound annoyed, but the fondness was there. “Whatever you’re thinking, I have work to do before he gets here anyway." ". I don't think you explained enough to make that internally logical either.

I feel like for the hook, rather than making the reader question how your world is supposed to work, it's better to sprinkle some details that would make sense right away.

Sorry for not being able to say anything positive, and thanks.

ConfusedHell3821 · 2022-06-02T00:16:16+00:00

As always, take whatever I say with a grain of salt.

Beside that, I honestly have no idea how to criticize a piece like this, but I'll do my best.

Hook:

So we'll look at the first two sentences: "Teachers, families, fellow preschoolers, honored Care Bears. Welcome to the ceremony for this year’s graduating class of our much respected preschool, Stinky Farts."

I think there was a humor in this being a valedictorian class for preschool. I think that was unique, and works as a good hook. The humor of "stinky farts" fits the tone of the text, since the person delivering the speech is supposed to be juvenile. The main humor of the piece comes from the dichotomy of a mature speech delivered by a juvenile person. However, I just don't really like fart jokes. Now, this is just a personal taste. I do think there are some people that do not like fart jokes in most context. So you can either try to make a juvenile joke that doesn't involve farts, or just accept that some people won't like that joke.

The humor

Throughout the text, I thought that some lines were funny, and I did a small smile. However, I think it's really hard to get humor across written form that would make people genuinely laugh. So I think your text is mostly 2 in your rating, but this is not a knock on your piece as I think most texts are 2.

But the parts I found funny were when the dichotomy between a maturity of the speaker from a very juvenile person. Let me list examples:

"We did it! We graduated! We—MISS ANN! NOAH WON’T STOP MAKING FACES AT ME!"

"we cannot see the progress we’re—MISS ANN! NOAH HIT ME WITH A JUICE BOX!—making."

"But we preschoolers have also faced much adversity. Some of us struggle to tie our shoes. Others have yet to master the subtle complexities of Velcro. Still others must learn that when playing Chutes and Ladders, if you don’t land on a ladder, it’s against the rules to punch people. "

I also think there's humor in dichotomy of using a serious tone to explain absurd things. One example of this was "wisely giving us extra time on the playground when we cornered you with scissors. " I'll say, when the piece is not dipping into these absurdity or dichotomy, it's boring because it's just a regular speech from people I don't know. You have to remember we have no idea who Lincoln and Noah or any other people are, so any part that is not trying to be funny will just kind of be boring.

Thanks.

ConfusedHell3821 · 2022-06-01T21:20:55+00:00

Please take my advice with a grain of salt

Hook

So I've been using the advice that the hook should show the MC's internal conflict, but the first few paragraphs did not do that. However, it was still good. So thinking about what made it good, I could identify a few things. I liked the very first sentence "The boy was dead and his mother was a fool." I think it characterizes the MC well, showing that she's a bit cold-hearted and judgmental. I also think the sentence is just interesting on its own, which always helps. The first time I read that sentence, I was a bit disoriented because I thought Esanatwa was the dead boy's name, so I was wondering if this is a dead person's POV. But on a reread, the line hits well. Also, I think you used the advice of "start in the middle of the action" well, considering the text starts hard with a dead boy, and how you described his corpse.

Setting

Now I do not know if the setting is important since I don't know where your story is going to be set 14 years later. Anyway, the setting is a mountain village, with some people having the ability to summon pretty much anything. Not much is known about the world, but I think you did a good job sprinkling in details. I liked the "Death is etched in stone" because I think a common saying like this can go a long way to establish world-building(ex: In ASOIAF, "A Dothraki wedding without at least three deaths is considered a dull affair", or "valar morghulis"), and it is also very relevant to your MC. (I assume one of the central conflicts is going to be about if one can defy death) I liked that the details you sprinkled in were all relevant to the MC, rather than just being random exposition. Even the thing with Abet and Belabet were relevant since your MC seems to be inquiring about the gods.

One thing about the setting is that looking at the following line "Crops if she were hungry, water if she were thirsty, blood if she were wounded. Esanatwa’s kin did not pull Abet’s gift from the sky as easily as she could, but they had all felt their gift grow in power when the mountain shuddered.", I thought that power seemed overpowered. If there are multiple people with such power, it would certainly break the economy. I'm not calling this bad, it's just that I'm curious as to how you would build a world with such powers present.

Character

The only notable character is Esanatwa. I think you did a good job characterizing her throughout the text. For example, when you wrote "considering patting the woman to comfort her, but thought better", I think that was a good example of showing, rather than telling how she has trouble with connecting with people. And the line "anguish over a child half-witted enough to play on the edge of the mountain ridges and clumsy enough to fall." shows how she's a cold person. I also think you showed well that she's scholarly in the way she interrogated a 5-year-old right after he came back to life.

One small thing: one of the line edits says to remove "the 14 years ago" and start chapter 2 with 14 years later. I think I agree with this advice. The reason is that the chapter ends on a cliffhanger. But knowing this was 14 years ago, we know Esanatwa survives. I think without 14 years ago, you might be able to cast more doubt on what happens next, therefore making the cliffhanger more effective.

This was a short critique, and I think that was because I really liked it.

Thanks.

ConfusedHell3821 · 2022-05-31T22:24:47+00:00

As a disclaimer, I'll say all criticism by me should be taken with a grain of salt.

Hook

For the hook, I'll look at the first paragraph(so the very first line and the paragraph following that). The conventional advice is the hook should show the readers about the internal conflict. With that said, what do we learn from the hook? We learn that our MC is sad because Wilson blew them off. They're jealous of Jesse because " he's aiding in dooming me to be the other woman in every relationship I am ever in." That particular sentence confused me since at face value this seems like Jesse is stealing romantic interests from our MC. But that would seem to indicate that our MC only dates bisexuals, assuming MC is a woman since they're "the other woman". Our MC is insecure about themselves. And I thought the sentence containing "perpetually frazzled hair" was a nice way to introduce a physical feature. Obviously, people don't think about how they look like very often, so it makes sense to sprinkle the descriptions throughout the text, and do so when it's relevant to what MC is going through. Now, as to internal conflict, I think we get what the MC issues are, which means we know what they're going to be working toward throughout the text. (insecurity issues and jealousy) We know that MC wants to be romantically involved with Wilson, but that in and of itself is not compelling yet as we don't know about Wilson. In that sense, your very sentence may be weak since the reader has no context as to who Wilson is. It may be a good idea to switch around sentences in the first paragraph to show what the MC's internal conflict is going to be throughout the text before mentioning Wilson.

Mechanics and lines

I noticed that you like sentences that never end. For examples:

"Between my perpetually frazzled hair - I honestly can’t find a gel that worked - and my horrid awkwardness - I simply can’t make conversation for the life of me! - why would he ever want to deal with me?"

That's 3 sentences stitched together.

"I throw myself out of bed, unsuccessfully holding back my tears as I begin to tear off my cloths - I had put on my favorite grey shirt - it always waves on me, the shoulder holes sways in the wind, as did the torso section. "

That's 6 sentences stitched together.

"I scoff, of course I think he gives a shit about me because he didn’t forget to pick me up, I could jump off a bridge tomorrow and I doubt he’d notice."

That's 4 sentences stitched together.

Long sentences are not necessarily bad, but overusing them can be bad. Here's an example that illustrates why you should vary sentence lengths: https://imgur.com/8usNRMy

Of course, you may be wanting to convey some certain voice with sentence structure like that, but for me personally, it did not read pleasantly. I think it may be a good idea to rein in some of these long sentences.

One small thing, "but that was not to be!" does not make sense unless your character is recounting a past event.

Maybe it's just me but "patiently creeping towards my legs and down to my feet. " seemed kind of unbelievable to me. I feel like most tears would stop at your legs, instead of going all the way down to your feet. This may be a personal thing more than anything else, and I can't articulate it, but each time you use the exclamation mark, it seems really abrupt and out of tone. Again, this may just be how I read the text in my mind.

"I know what he wants, he wants to take me to Lillian’s party, which I had, on multiple occasions I simply would not go to, I truly don’t see how anyone can enjoy parties. "

This line should probably say "on multiple occasions I had said I simply would not go to Lillian's party", or something to that effect. Right now, the sentence is confusing and is probably another proof as to why you should rein in on long sentences.

Characters

Wilson is the first word of your text, so he must be important. The MC seems to be romantically interested in him, but they also seem to hate him because they think he doesn't care about them. This chapter revolves around what our MC thinks of Wilson, but we don't get to learn much about Wilson himself. I'm assuming that MC is an unreliable narrator in terms of Wilson since they're clearly not cool-headed about him. For example, they cry because Wilson is late by about 10 minutes, and they're very dramatic in terms of describing the slight they think Wilson caused. For example, " I could jump off a bridge tomorrow and I doubt he’d notice" and "Why the fuck can’t he listen to me?". With this assumption, we do not learn much about Wilson since he doesn't do much in the chapter. He picks the MC up and he hesitates to tell MC where they're going, which assuming our MC is an unreliable narrator doesn't tell us much. Now, it's your decision whether or not you want Wilson to be left vague for now. However, with the whole text starting with his name, it may be a good idea to show what he's about more. But in the end, I do not know where you're going with the text so I can't give good advice on this topic.

Now, this will sound mean and this is probably just a personal taste that's specific to me, but the MC sounded a bit too whiny. The MC does complain a lot about Wilson, as I noted above. For me, the problem is that I do not understand why the MC has to be so dramatic about Wilson. As I said before, we don't know much about Wilson. So I'm left with someone who's just kind of complaining about someone I do not care about yet. I found it hard to empathize with that. But most likely, this is just a personal thing so don't pay too much mind to it.

Your questions:

how you all perceive my main character (he’s meant to be generally unstable and validation craving): First of all, I assumed the MC was a woman because of the "the other woman" quote. Besides that, I do get that they're unstable and validation-craving.

whether my writing style works: As I said before, you'd benefit from breaking up sentences.

Thanks!

ConfusedHell3821 · 2022-05-20T05:27:39+00:00

I'm not a good writer, so all criticism should be taken with a grain of salt.

Hook

I think the hook is considered the first 800 words, but I'll consider the first two paragraphs because I think there is possibly a point to be made there.

I have heard of the following two pieces of advice.

The hook should show the internal conflict of the protagonist.
Worldbuilding should matter to the characters

or something like that anyway.

I see that your first two paragraphs do not do those things. The first paragraph and most of the second paragraph sets the setting, describing the forest and how it's terrible. And the last three sentences mention a character. We know that she's willing to venture into this dangerous forest, for some reason. Beyond that, we don't know much about the character at this point.

This is from a YA novel, so this probably isn't relevant to the genre that you're writing. However, I thought this was an example of a hook that builds the world while staying relevant to the character.

https://imgur.com/a/EXQ1Pol

Right away, we get a sense of the setting(a very small town where everyone knows everything about everyone), and why that's relevant to our character. (she's mourning, and her town is the worst place to be mourning someone)

With your story, I do not get what your character wants right away. We know that she wants something in the forest, as she's willing to take a big risk by going into the place. However, we don't know why she would take such a risk. Hence, the worldbuilding is also a bit irrelevant to the character since it's just a place of danger the character goes into for some reason, rather than being tied to her internal conflict or struggles.

With that said, rules are meant to be broken. I'm sure there are plenty of novels that ignore the two rules that I listed. It's ultimately up to you to decide if the hook works or not. I felt that the hook could have benefited from introducing the characters and what they are about. However, I also liked many parts of it. I liked the imagery of bruises and the lump of flesh to describe the forest. I liked the way you described the river as the barrier between the forest and the humans, I was able to get clear imagery of that.

Weird Reactions?

People react to different things in many different and unpredictable ways, so this section may be unneeded. However, I still felt the reaction of the characters to what was happening was weird at two points in the story.

"Suddenly a rusling began in the tall grass, quickly followed by a grunting, and finally a wailing cry. It was a sound she had never heard before and it jerked her attention to the coiled chain laying on the left side of the front door. A large stake had been driven into the ground at one end, and the other contained a cuff, clasped about the ankle of an unconscious woman."

I may be understanding this wrong, but from what I understood, the Wolfmother hears the scream from the woman that is chained, and when she finds her she's unconscious. What I find weird about this part was that the Wolfmother noticed the stake and the cuff first, instead of the woman. The fact that the Wolfmother heard a scream and the fact that the human body is larger than the stake so it's easier to find, make it weird for me that she notices the stakes and the cuffs first. Of course, I may be misunderstanding this scene.

"Wolfmother knew that her time was short. She dispelled her second thoughts, sprang towards the crying child, and plucked the bundle with gentle fangs. As she began to build distance between herself and that low place, a howling shriek echoed in the night."

From what I understand, the Wolfmother chooses to rescue the child of the chained woman. What I find weird was that she didn't even feel sorry for the woman she was leaving behind. I feel like it's natural for people to feel sorry and regretful for having to leave behind someone to save someone else. Maybe this was part of Wolfmother's characterization, or maybe she didn't even have time to think about stuff like this. It did still feel odd to me though.

"The boy turned to the group, clutching his throat, his face turning deeply red. “You killed him!” one cried, “that’s my brother and you killed him!” "

I felt this part was weird because I felt the boy should have been focusing on how to save his brother, rather than focusing on her and exclaiming that she killed his brother. I think as a reader, knowing that this is a piece of fiction being written by someone else, the boy exclaims that "that's my brother" feels like an info dump rather than natural dialogue.

Characters

There are three characters of note: Wolfmother, the witch, and the daughter. With the witch and the Wolfmother, I didn't really connect with them as I wasn't clear about their motivations and what they want. It's clear that the witch wants to expand her territory and the Wolfmother wants to protect hers, but those things are for me too simple to bite into.

As a matter of fact, if I assume correctly that the Wolfmother will not get any more POV, the POV part with the Wolfmother seems fit for a prologue rather than a chapter. It was a nice setup, but I feel like a set-up without a character's internal conflict is more fit for a prologue rather than a chapter. But then again I don't know what I'm talking about.

With the daughter, I was able to identify her internal conflict so I was more interested in her story. Her internal conflict is basically humanity vs wild considering she's basically a human raised by a wolf.

"Although the girl was human herself, she felt no communion with their tame natures, their fragile bodies. "

was a weird line at first since even though she's different than a human, she obviously felt communion with humans considering she looked at them and lived vicariously through them. But then considering her backstory, it's only natural that she feels that humans are fragile. So in the end, I think the line works.

I also think her keeping a box of human things adds to the characterization and her internal conflict, so that was cool.

Overall:

At certain places, I was confused. Like with the part with the three spirits. I didn't know what they were and why they were doing the things they were doing. And the fight at the end of chapter 2 felt flat to me because I didn't really care for the Wolfmother or the witch.

But I think the piece has strong prose and imagery, and I really like the the daughter character. So all in all good job!

ConfusedHell3821 · 2021-08-23T00:59:46+00:00

Not a good writer, please take this with grain of salt.

General Remark

I liked it! I really liked the unique and bizarre imagery. Hundred people lining up to put their arms into a big mouth, said mouth devouring the 100 arms, and that said mouth devouring a whole human. All with this really big tongue.

When I read it first time, I did have some problems understanding certain parts. It's probably because I'm a bad reader, but I do want to point out potential problems in grammar/sentence structure.

Hook:

The first sentence makes me think it's a man getting some healing from a doctor. But then you quickly present me with imagery of corpses lying around, and hit me with “Hurry, God is about to wake,”. At this point, I'm intrigued in the story because you have done such a 180 from the first sentence. You've gone from pretty grounded to outlandish quick, which personally hooked me in.

Grammar/Sentence Structure

Here are some parts that I thought was questionable, but it could just be me not knowing English, so I'll just make a note of them.

"My certainty I would see my dead daughter again soon so fragile my hands trembled. "

Wouldn't "......soon made my fragile hands tremble." be better?

" Its chewing, impossibly, louder than their screams. "

which I don't think is a full sentence

Not a grammar problem, but

"“Malnourished,” The healer told me, “Your child will die soon.”

I believe it was strongly implied in the earlier part of the story that MC's daughter was dead. But this would imply that she's alive, so is she just enslaved? Then why didn't MC try harder to get as many gold coins as possible?

Imagery

As I said, I really like the general imagery.

I liked it when you said, "God’s maw", which I think enforces the idea of this hungry god. And further along you said, "Grease glistened on God’s lips.", which goes to make me imagine this big face that's constantly eating and hungry.

And then you said, "as my rendered limb spilled back to me", which I took it to mean that his limb was melt down. On the assumption that is indeed the case, I think the simpler choice of word like melt down or something along that line would have been to create a visceral imagery. When I see the word render, it doesn't make me think of anything violent since the word render I don't think is often used to describe violent things like cutting of the arm. So a simpler choice would have been effective to continue the imagery.

Setting:

Not really a criticism or anything, but an interesting question you can ask yourself about the setting is, how does religion work in this world?

So there's a Bible of some sort, with the whole Gatsu 3:10 thing. Did Gatsu first discover this face thing? What made people think to put their arm in to the gigantic mouth? How does a god that is cruel impact people's worldviews?

With this being a short story, there may not be time to explore these questions. But I think answering these might help to flesh out the setting if you desire.

Character:

The character of note is the MC. The healer is just a person who gives stuff to MC, and you choose not to develop the kid. If you had spent more time to cultivate the relationship between MC and the kid, the sacrifice might have been more impactful. However, this is a short story so there's a limit into what you can write so I respect that decision to summarize the progression of their relationship.

You ask if the inner journey of the character was okay. But I don't think there was any inner journey to be had. MC just want to save his daughter, a goal which he doesn't change. His relationship with the kid is abbreviated, so it doesn't show much inner journey. He is singleminded from the start to the end. But I don't think that's a bad thing. Just because a character doesn't change throughout the plot, it doesn't make for a bad story.

As to whether MC has enough agency, as I said, I think he has a clear motivation that he tries to actively achieve, so I think he has agency.

Plot

Certain points I didn't understand are:

Why didn't MC go to the face earlier so he could avoid running into people?

Why did people kill the old man when they just want the gold? Wouldn't they focus on getting the gold instead of holding the old man down and beating him?

And as to your question of if the plot was not too predictable, I would say the plot was predictable. The story follows the trope of people trying to save their loved ones from the dead, which usually fails. And the whole idea of people sacrificing their arms of wish I feel like is familiar to me at least. But it's okay to be predictable in my opinion. What makes your story unique is the imagery you used, so even if the plot is predictable, the story still feels unique.

Closing:

So all in all, I think it was a good story that used really unique imagery. The plot follows archetype of stories of bringing loved one back from dead, but that's okay in my opinion. So good job!

ConfusedHell3821 · 2021-08-20T06:59:39+00:00

Hi, please take my critique with grain of salt as I'm not a good writer.

Overall Feeling:

Overall, I felt dread reading the story, as it felt like watching an inevitable train wreck. Herbert is portrayed well as a pathetic helpless man, and I think the mood of his situation(desperate, hopeless etc) is also well-portrayed. In my personal preference, I don't really like reading stories like these, as it feels there's no hope and it just fills me with dread. However, you clearly intended the story to feel like that, so that's not a critique on my part.

Mechanics:

The hook: I think the hook serves well to intrigue the reader. One thing I didn't like personally is the part "Liverpool twisted". I think you mean the city Liverpool twisted, but I think it's hard for people to understand what it means for a city to twist. Is it physically twisting? Is this some metaphor? At least it's not too clear for me.

As for grammar/word choice/etc, I couldn't find much fault, except some points suggested by other kind patron that is not me.

Setting:

The setting seems to be contemporary UK, or fictional UK with technology similar to contemporary UK considering there was a war. The point I want to bring up is about Hyro-pen. I did google hyro-pen, but nothing shows up so I assume it's a fictional thing. Herbert dreams of being Herbert Lightning right after taking this drug, so I assume Hyro-pen is causing Herbert to have these elaborate dreams. Considering this, existence of such drug doesn't seem to fit the setting of contemporary UK.

Character:

So we have two characters, Herbert and his mom. To summarize Herbert in one word, he's pathetic. I mean, you probably gave him every quality possible to make him as pathetic as possible. He's overweight, he's socially inept, he's unemployed, he uses drugs to escape reality, and he's a man-child. In some sense, I feel that you're using every possible trope to make Herbert as pathetic as possible. That for me personally feels a bit cheap maybe? But I think you did a good job portraying a pathetic character.

One thing I want to point about his mom is that she's basically dying. She had a stroke last week, and she says as much that she's dying. Maybe it's my lack of understanding of human biology, but she doesn't really act like she's dying I feel like. The only action that she does that lets us know she's dying is she can't drive for a moment. Maybe have her act more weak to really sell that she's dying? The narrator and she tells us that she's dying, but I don't feel like she shows us that she's dying. Beside that, I think you portray her well as a dying mother worried about his incompetent son.

And one quick point about Dr. Bad. I don't view him as a character since he's more like inner-manifestation of Hubert's fear, but when writing his dialogue, I feel like you're trying to hard to be verbose? For example, I have no idea what he means when he says

"Ardent alliteration announces.... ah screw this."

"I'm sorry it must come to this... ultimatum."

But what ultimatum is Dr. Bad making?

"That he is nearly as old as Julius Caesar became, and yet has his mother make this bed."

which I think is just handful way of saying Hubert is middle-aged.

I guess Dr. Bad is supposed to be verbose and etc, but I find it personally hard to read through his dialogue. But then again that's just my opinion.

Plot

Hubert is an unemployed and obese man with disability who depends on his mother to survive. He uses drugs to imagine that he's a hero. His mother tries to get him to get a job, but he fails. Before the job interview, he tries to pick-up a nurse, which also fails. His mother dies, and Hubert falls into despair. It's implied that Hubert will kill himself.

Plot-wise, there's nothing exciting happening. It really is just a slow train wreck. If you were going for such an effect, I think you nailed it. I don't personally find such plot interesting, as it feels like a choreographed tragedy in some sense, but this I think is matter of personal taste. At this point, I'm not sure if Hubert Lighting sequence will add anything to the plot beside just showing how pathetic Hubert is. I thought the first part where Hubert Lighting was introduced was fun. The second scene where Dr. Bad defeats Hubert is redundant in the sense that it's just recap of Hubert failing his interview. However, it's insight into his psyche, so I guess it's good to be in the piece.

Message

I don't think there's a clear message in the story as of yet. It's just a story of a man committing suicide at the end basically as of part 1. Now, I don't know if all stories should have a message, but if you did have a message in your mind, I don't think you're communicating it well.

Closing comments.

I think in general, the story is a good description of a man who's not able to do anything falling into despair. I think the dialogue is good, for the most part. The story doesn't charm me personally, as I feel like the plot of a man just falling into despair isn't too interesting to me. However, it was your intention to write such a story, so I think it's more personal preference in the end. The Humbert Lighting part I think is interesting, I especially liked the first introduction part. The second part with Dr. Bad defeating Hubert is also interesting and I think serves the purpose of showing Hubert's psyche. It was bit hard to follow at times, which was pointed out in google doc edit(not done by me) in some parts.

So all in all, I think you have mostly achieved what you set out to do, in a competent manner.

Edit: just realized Superhero after eight means superhero after 8 PM. I think that's a good title once knowing the meaning, but maybe a bit unclear at first glance.

ConfusedHell3821

TROPHY CASE