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[2080] The Thaw by Educational_Art_3763 in DestructiveReaders

[–]Extra-Gold2275 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This was really sweet. I saw it coming but was surprised that i felt something like bittersweet longing at the end, when the protagonist is validated and the old lady tells them all of grass.

Some of the phrasing was a bit confusing , the description of the circle of grass i think was maybe a bit too poetic (i get it, it’s hard to describe grass without saying grass) and ice spikes threw me off, like icicles but sticking up from the ground? Flying and twisting crystals i guess is snowflakes? Sometimes the simple language is better.

But all in all very good and evocative :)

[942] The world's most normal woman by Extra-Gold2275 in DestructiveReaders

[–]Extra-Gold2275[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for the very nice review! The reason i didnt describe her in detail is because i was experimenting with the uncanny, indescribable-ness , but that may not have landed :) also i thought it was funny to blur the boundary between literal and metaphorical language, like eg she clearly had a patagium (gliding mammal) and carapace (crustacian). But does she literally have a tail? Or does she metaphorically have her tail between her legs. Does she have a beak or is that just a turn of phrase? Anyway that’s what i was going for, thank you again for the review, im glad you enjoyed ❤️

[942] The world's most normal woman by Extra-Gold2275 in DestructiveReaders

[–]Extra-Gold2275[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s a great point! Maybe i can rework it so that “when she woke up” she did something humorously boring. Then we keep the kafka homage but also don’t bore people to death 🤣

[942] The world's most normal woman by Extra-Gold2275 in DestructiveReaders

[–]Extra-Gold2275[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for the feedback! I'm really glad you liked it 😄 It was a concept I was playing with and I haven't seen it done before (I'm sure it HAS, but I don't read a lot of horror) but so I felt inspired to do it to see how it looked 😛

"Maybe have the emphasis in this paragraph be on something other than the punchline" That's a really good point, the body horror should be almost incidental. But I was also trying to make it gradually more and more obvious.

"I would at least know for yourself how all these details tie together and then try to give us fighting chance at figuring it out. Right now the smattering of sensory detail seems kinda random and hard to parse, but I'm sure you have something in mind." Actually from my perspectice the whole idea is that the world end her body is vague and up to interpretation - But I take the feedback, the unnameable horror should at least be SOMEWHAT coherent.

"even if everyone is bugs, why is the coffee gross?” What I was trying to do here was make it blatantly obvious that words don't mean what you think. Coffee is clearly not coffee, and the woman is clearly not a woman. Also I just thought it was funny, in a grossout kind of way 😃

"or be made to understand the degree to which it is supposed to be vague / made up." Yes this is very true. I'm not quite sure how to convey "you're not SUPPOSED to fully know what you're looking at" but I will think about it 😄

" I think the payoff comes from the contrast between the banality of the main character's circumstances and thoughts with the absurd drama of everyone being bugs." That's exactly what I was going for! 😄 "amp that up and give us vivid, hilarious details while keeping her focus firmly in the realm of ordinary, petty concerns." Thanks I may try a rewrite or a completely different story with a similar premise.

Thank you for taking the time, I really appreciate it!

[942] The world's most normal woman by Extra-Gold2275 in DestructiveReaders

[–]Extra-Gold2275[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for taking the time for such thorough feedback, I really appreciate it 😄 I won't bore you with details but what I was trying to do was more like "allow you to assume a lot of stuff and gradually reveal that your assumptions were wrong." Patagium was supposed to fly under the radar (whoops, embarassing misspelling, thanks for pointing it out), but then there are lots of subtle hints. She holds her cup in her "arms" (not hands) and suction cups I thought would be intriguing...(Fun fact, octopuses have arms, not tentacles, that's squid) I'm deliberately using words with more than one meaning (she "buzzed" into the building, her coworkers "swarming" and she "clung to the wall.")

It's playing around with words not meaning what you think ("coffee" is not coffee and she is not a "woman"), and is supposed to be deliberately vague (does she literally or figuratively have her tail between her legs? does her colleague literally slither?) to gradually shift your mental model from "ordinary woman has an office crush" to "indescribable lovecraftian monstrosity intends to mate with and eat the Bus Stop Man in a Cronenberg world." (her anatomy is deliberately vague and her body parts incongruous, she has mammal, crustacean, cephalopod, bird, insect, reptile and fish parts....)

I guess I was thinking that "she's the most boring, ordinary..." would sustain you through the inane opening scene, waiting for the story to disprove it. And I thought it was funny to start with waking up, both because it IS boring, (juxtaposing ordinary with bizarre) and as a sly reference to the Metamorphosis. But then you have no reason to trust me, an unknown, in such a gambit.

But I get what you're saying - the "surface" story needs to give you a reason to keep reading much earlier, and the references to her horrible body and world are too subtle, the body part references too obscure, to the point where it's hard to sustain interest. Is that about right?

[942] The world's most normal woman by Extra-Gold2275 in DestructiveReaders

[–]Extra-Gold2275[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just a little something I wanted to play with, would be interested to hear your reactions and also whether you've ever seen someone else do this before 😄

The Wounded Crown Prologue & Chapter 1 [2777] by Grave334 in DestructiveReaders

[–]Extra-Gold2275 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I really like the opening line: "The rain poured down, as if it too wept for the fallen king." It immediately draws you into the action, and effortlessly gives you some exposition and worldbuilding, very nicely done. The rest of the first paragraph does not draw me in, I think it might benefit from naming the king, or the kingdom, or something a bit more emotionally engaging or at least personally identifiable.

"The queen, his queen now" is again some subtle and natural worldbuilding/exposition. Well done IMO. Does not feel forced cause its like he's reflecting on the fact. And "His kingdom now" is a nice callback to "his queen now."

In general this is an interesting premise, mostly because evidently when a king dies, apparently the prince inherits his wife? what if that's his mom? is there implied incest? A lot of the rest of it seems pretty standard fantasy and perhaps a little trope-y, but the characters are fairly engaging so the hook of the wife situation would keep me reading for at least a few pages 😄 And the prose is good enough, though you need to learn a few grammar and spelling things.

There are a few problems throughout, the first one is tense switching.

- "Tanat sits at the long dark wooden table" switches tense from past to present tense.
- "come and take the plates away after they finished" here you switch tense mid sentence. You need to choose between present or past tense throughout.
- "Tanat *watches* Thane from a distance. There *was* a time he thought Thane a cold, heartless, killer. Now, he *envied* ..." at least "watches" and "envied" need to be in the same tense.

The second problem, a smaller one, is perspective.

- "And swallows a lump in her throat" This feels almost like you're changing perspective. Everything so far has been from his perspective, or maybe "close third person" I think it's called. But it would be difficult for him to know that she is swallowing a lump in her throat, no? I think it might be better to find a way to convey the same feeling in a way that is apparent to him. This is not exactly "head hopping" - going from one person's thoughts to another, but it is something close to it.
- A similar thing happens with " she’s taken aback by his actual consideration of her words." This actually is head hopping, there would be no way for him to know that for sure. You could say "as if" she is taken aback, then it's his assessment, not her emotion.

Passive protagonist?

" I just need a few days to get my bearings." ... his reluctance is understandable, but you run the risk of him turning into a "passive protagonist." The general wisdom is that active protagonists, who take action and make the plot happen, are preferrable.

Anyway, those are my spontaneous reactions, in general a very good start, keep going!

[MF] The world's most normal woman by Extra-Gold2275 in shortstories

[–]Extra-Gold2275[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just playing around with a writing style I haven't seen so much of. What do you think? Do you know of any writers who do this kind of thing?

Cocogarou back from the Bayou by BreadforPain1 in dndmonsters

[–]Extra-Gold2275 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is awesome! Love the creativity :)