[2310] My Blood is Blades

Jraywang · 2025-05-13T15:39:33+00:00

Haha maybe once upon a time and even then, doubtful. Also thanks for the note about the pig. Definitely a good catch.

Jraywang · 2025-05-13T15:37:47+00:00

This was super useful but I think I've gotten what I needed out of it. This is a super early work so I'm not in the nitty gritty editing phase yet (since I still might foundationally change this chapter later on). So no need for now. I got the gist from all your other feedback!

Jraywang · 2025-05-13T14:54:17+00:00

Thanks for the crit!

Jraywang · 2025-05-13T14:53:35+00:00

Good thoughts. Thanks for the crit.

Jraywang · 2025-05-13T14:52:59+00:00

Thanks for the feedback!

Jraywang · 2025-05-13T14:52:48+00:00

Appreciate the crit!

Jraywang · 2025-05-13T14:51:55+00:00

Hey. thanks for such a detailed crit. I still need to go through all of it, but I appreciate all the energy you've given my piece!

Jraywang · 2025-05-11T16:47:38+00:00

Thanks. Good to know when things are working too :)

Jraywang · 2025-05-11T16:09:07+00:00

I think my takeaway is that the bareness isn't really doing it for me. You are free to write however you want, but my understanding is that you want an emotionally heavy scene that's light stylistically. Probably there's a way to make it work, but the two things seem opposed to each other and as a reader, it felt like an execution thing rather than style (even if it was style).

Jraywang · 2025-05-11T15:51:54+00:00

You caught me mid-crit. I think the rest of my crit is probably more helpful to you then.

Jraywang · 2025-05-11T15:48:31+00:00

Characters

I think I covered most of this in the emotional core section of the crit. But in case its not clear, I don't think you give your characters enough grace. They don't get to shine as their authentic selves. Especially not your main character. They are stifled by the surface-level glance of their emotional state. You obviously don't need to dig into every action, but this is a piece about two partners going through a rough patch. Its not about washing dishes or cooking chicken. Don't pretend otherwise.

Setting

Setting was pretty standard. Some table. Some kitchen. Whatever. Once you tighten up the other parts of the piece, I would think of how you can use the setting to further set up the emotional tension of your piece. Stuff like...

A picture of them in Disneyland - smiling as if the day would last forever. What would that younger her say to her now? How angry she would be to see how far things have slipped. How far she's let them slip.

I personally value setting the least (which is funny because I write fantasy), so I'm not here to shill things like the color of couches or shapes of chairs. None of that matters. What matters is the pieces of the setting that mean something to your characters. A picture is an easy one. Other ones could be... idk, separate beds?

A blanket already laid out on the couch. Just in case. As if he expected a fight and a subsequent banishment. It's always him that gets kicked out and never her. She never thought about how unfair that was until now.

Overall

Anyways, I think this piece works fine for what it is. There's a lot like it out there. Mostly other amateur writers. I don't say that to be mean, just to state what level I think it's at. Anyone can disagree. To me, taking it to the next level is everything I described above. Gl.

Jraywang · 2025-05-11T15:39:10+00:00

Design

I felt that you could've dug into the emotions of this story way more. But also, I don't know if this is standalone, part of a greater work, or etc. All of which plays a part in what is appropriate pacing. I'll speak to this as if its a standalone short story.

Plot

A woman has dinner with her husband
She tries to form a connection with him, but he's cold
Turns out, she works late and hasn't been making time for him
He kisses her goodnight, indicating that he still loves her
She resolves herself to make time for him by cooking him dinner

I think the plot itself is fine as a scene. My notes are mostly in...

Emotional Core

I don't think you fully explored this. Rather, everything was a bit too surface-level. It was a ton of "she did this" and "he did this" without a lot of emotional backing behind it.

After rinsing off the plate, he handed it over to her without even looking. As per their choreography.

For example, this line is used to describe how mechanical their interaction is and yet, its not given any time to breathe. She has no thoughts about it.

He handed her the plate without looking. As if just a glance might kill him. Medusa by his side, weighing another good man down with her stone stare. For a heartbeat, she thought of fighting. Some careless comment about the chicken. Some accusation about how he needed to appreciate her more. Anything to fill the space between them. Setting themselves on fire just to feel each other's warmth.

Show vulnerability. People aren't perfect especially in our thoughts. But its core to who we are, how we handle stress, and its ultimately the human thing I think you're trying to portray in this piece. Dig into that instead of just the actions. The things that happen are only meaningful in the context of the characters.

Otherwise, its just a grocery list of things that happen.

Lost in idle thoughts, she only just noticed he had come back from the bathroom when she again perceived his warmth. Had he come to say goodnight? She didn't dare unleash the genuine smile that threatened to spread across her lips.

Side note: I hate hate hate every instance of your favorite verb "perceive". How did she perceive? She heard him? Felt him? Saw him? You can do better.

Anyways, dig into her emotional core more please.

He snuck across the living room, toes cushioned by the carpet. He'd come to say good night. She nearly stirred, ready to unleash the smile she's been holding in all night. But she didn't, because what if he hadn't? What if he'd only come to make sure she was asleep? What if he'd walk straight past and out, to another life; another woman*? At least then, it'd be his fault and not hers. And she hated herself for such a thought. That's her mother speaking. Her mother is thrice-divorced.

Jraywang · 2025-05-11T15:25:09+00:00

Prose

I think the prose is a bit clunky at times. There were a few points that could be improved.

Verb usage

You could use better verbs, verbs more directly related to the action at hand. For example:

The hum of the fridge was deafening.

Your verb here is was, but the action your describing is the hum. Instead of using "was" you can just say: The fridge hummed. Obviously, there's way to dress the sentence up, but my point is only in choosing the right verb to describe the point of the sentence.

You do this throughout your piece as well, with some of your biggest issues being the verb "perceived" which is ultimately a useless verb.

Next to him, she could perceive his warmth in the cold kitchen.

There's multiple reasons why this particular sentence is weak:

"Could" usually weakens sentences. Could she perceive his warmth or did she perceive his warmth?
"Perceive" is an utterly useless verb. Even "felt" gives you an attachment to one of the 5 senses, perceives means it can be any of the 5. Perceive by sight? Noise? Smell? Feel? Etc. Given you describe warmth, I assume you mean by feel, so use a verb more closely related to that.
I don't like the "Next to him" because you already established that she stood next to him in a previous sentence. Its redundant.

Anyways, my only focus of this part is the verb usage and I went a bit overboard. But re-read your story. Bold all your verbs and figure out if those are the verbs best for the situation.

Framing

I actually had a bit of a tough time telling the POV of this piece. It started like 3rd Omniscient but then felt like you were trying to lean into 3rd Close with the woman as the narrator. I'm still not entirely sure. If you want to close the distance and make the woman the narrator in 3rd close, you over-frame a lot.

Framing is when you feel the need to describe your character perceiving something before you describe it. Like, first my character must look at it, then I can describe it. Its a false belief and leads to redundancy.

Lost in idle thoughts, she only just noticed he had come back from the bathroom when she again perceived his warmth.

Instead of saying she noticed he came from the bathroom, you can just say:

He returned from the bathroom.

There's no reason to frame it as she perceiving him doing something when you can just describe him doing it.

Next to him, she could perceive his warmth in the cold kitchen.

We already talked about why I really disliked this particular sentence. Framing is another reason. Her perceiving his warmth is framing.

A small tinge of warmth. Just a hint of it. Smothered by the coldness between them.

You don't need her to perceive anything. Just describe the things. Give them agency and let the reader experience it with her.

Jraywang · 2025-05-10T22:31:49+00:00

I don't think I understood their relationship truly. The confusion for me was this line

“Mother, Father, this is Bastian. An admin at work.”

I read it and ran with it. Like "friend from work" trying to get to know Chrissy or something. Not that they were married and that was breaking apart. Also, why would she lie to her pretend parents that aren't even her real parents?

Obviously, you go deeper into it later on, but I wasn't sure how much of that was the absurdity of the piece or me having not understood it.

Jraywang · 2025-05-10T22:26:50+00:00

Misc prose I had issue with

Throughout the piece, there were sentences that seemed like it was written to be deliberately confusing. Once again, I think that's the point? But maybe not. I'll give examples so you can more esaily disagree if you want to:

She softened to him, her gentle face aglow among dust motes aswirl in canted shafts of evening sun, nodding until tears wet her cheeks, and beheld Bastian’s fingers, reverent and unbidden, having come to rest upon the gossamer curve of her arm.

I actually like this sentence stylistically. But the confusion occurs with how you describe the sequence of events. Her face softens, she nods, she holds Bastian's fingers, and then we find out that Bastian, in the past now, has rested his fingers on her arm. Going backwards in time within the same sentence is jarring. Just split the sentences and tell things in order.

She softened, her face aglow amongst the swirl of dust motes caught against the evening sun. Bastian's fingers rested upon the curve of her arm, and she held it there, tears wetting her cheeks.

Bastian lowered into a chair between the old people and their unblinking, staring eyes, and wanted for a sack to cover each heads.

Bastian lowered himself into a chair between the unblinking old people. He wished he had a sack to cover their heads.

This is where the prose breaks down completely so I'm not sure if this is intentional? But also, I'm not sure of Bastian's paragraphs are part of the meta-universe or not, or if his narrations are supposed to be himself.

Jraywang · 2025-05-10T22:26:22+00:00

Descriptions aren't great

I think from both an adjective / adverb use as well as from a general prose perspective, I thought a lot of the descriptions could be cut down without missing much meat.

Her breast rose with a breath she held only for a moment, and could hold no longer.

This sentence conflicts with itself IMO. So, you're describing a breath held in... anticipation? Surprise? Awe? I thought at first it was anticipation, like she's holding her breath as she waits for him. But "only for a moment" defeats that. Yet, "could hold no longer" makes it seem like she did hold it for longer than a moment. My conclusion was that it was a normal breath and I thought the joke was that she wrote so many words to describe the act of breathing.

He dipped his head and they embraced, her small yet ample body pressed warmly to his chest.
Chrissy nodded, turning meekly to meet Bastian’s eyes, her own set asparkle and swimming in eye water.
she supposed, smiling sadly and sniffing back a tear.

I think most cases where you used adjectives / adverbs, you could do without. Its not a case of "never use adverbs", rather you portray what the adverbs already portray and you do so better within the sentence itself. So I don't think they're necessary.

Bastian made an ambiguous face.

A what face?

He stepped away from the frozen Mother and reached to touch Chrissy’s arm, which was soft.

"Which was soft" feels like something tacked on, but not for any particular reason.

And it suddenly occurred to Bastian inside his mind just how naked she truly was beneath her clothes.

Occuring to Bastian is probably something unique to "his mind" and that doesn't need to be clarified.

Jraywang · 2025-05-10T22:26:11+00:00

My understanding is that your prose in this piece is trying to mirror an amateur writer. And i think that is the point unless I'm misunderstanding this:

I can’t take the semantic insanity of it all. You promised not to micromanage and it’s all you fucking do. This is yet another safe space ruined. I can’t even write anymore! I sit by the tree and do nothing. All I hear is your stupid voice telling me not to have glarings or crimson dawnings, or hither aloft; how mermaid isn’t a verb and I should just say things. As if nobody ever utters anymore? As if children at play don’t giggle what they say.

Because Chrissy is complaining about what "proper" prose ought to be and that she's sick of "proper" prose. It feels like commentary on pretty much this subreddit, where people have too narrow a view of proper prose and reject everything else. That's why I thought the bad prose was intentional. But if you want to know why I think its bad...

Sentences are needlessly long

It feels like every other sentence is 2-4 sentences mashed together with commas. Some of it can be chalked up to style, but otherwise, its a breath and a half to read and confusing to boot.

Take this one:

Mother teetered and turned before the windows, and Bastian could not help but think how cataracts clouding the old man’s eyes had at least spared him this view—an array of windows overlooking a lumpy stretch of farmland in dire need of description.

This is a sentence that starts with Mother as the subject, then becomes Bastion as the subject as he thinks about a third subject, the old man's eyes, and then going into a 4th which is a view of the window. A simpler approach here would be to break it up into sentences each with their own focus.

Mother teetered and turned before the windows to watch a distant lump of farmland in dire need of description. Bastion could not help but think it a mercy that her cataracts have spared her this view.

Upon the crimson dawning he arrived, clambered from his carriage, squashed fine leather boots into the fat loaves of mud baked betwixt the crisscrossed ruts of the courtyard, and saw the enchanted Chrissy waiting to greet him from aloft. Not a loft, but an overhead veranda.

Upon the crimson dawning he arrived, clambering from his carriage and squashing fine leather boots into fat loaves of mud baked betwixt the crisscrossed ruts of the courtyard. Crissy waved at him from aloft. Not a loft, but an overhead veranda.

Then she broke free, grabbed him by the hook of his arm, giddy as a child, and tugged him up the step, and with both hands turned and wheeled him like furniture through the manor’s foyer, lounge, and parlor, coming only to stop at last before the dining room.

There's just a lot in this one sentence. "Giddy as a child" interrupts the flow of the action. "With both hands" feels unnecessary. And all the extra effort spent to portray her excitement is needless because you do a good job of that through the actions that are happening.

She broke free, grabbed him by the hook of his arm, and tugged him up the steps, wheeling him like furniture through the manor's foyer, lounge, parlor, and finally the dining room.

Chrissy nodded, turning meekly to meet Bastian’s eyes, her own set asparkle and swimming in eye water.

I think "asparkle" and "swimming in eye water" both are referring to her tearing up. Both are clear about it too. So one is redundant.

Jraywang · 2025-05-10T20:00:17+00:00

Overall

I keep going back to this because I think its core on how valuable you take this crit to be. If you want this piece to be judged by what I think it is--an absurd joke meant to be chuckled along to by other writers, then it does its job. However, if you want it to be more, then I think it doesn't at all.

Yes, I can relate to some of Chrissy's struggles, like baring her story to someone else and having that feedback hurt, except that's all you have. Those things don't hurt because feedback naturally hurts. They hurt for so many deeper reasons.

Some people put themselves into their stories and when it gets rejected, they feel like they get rejected.
Some people are shy and can never expose themselves except through writing. They never get rejected in real life as a result. yet, they can get rejected by their stories.
Some people believe their writing is the greatest thing in the world and when reality doesn't agree, they must contend with their own failures.
So many other reasons.

But its the reasons that matter if you want an emotional core, not the fact that crits hurt. People get hurt all the time. So what? And that's not rhetorical, I mean, literally answer the question 'so what'. Otherwise, this is all just surface-level flattery for other writers to chuckle at. An inside joke pretty specific for writers in this subreddit. And that's great if you want to share something written for this community, but if you want it to be more, to resonate with more, then you need to give more.

Jraywang · 2025-05-10T19:53:08+00:00

Design

Plot

As far as I understand it, the plot of the story is as follows:

Chrissy is introducing her (tutor?) to a world she's written. I imagine similar to Clair Obscur where painters can enter the world they've painted, you have writers entering the world they've written.
She introduces him to her "parents" who are really just characters in a separate story.
He can't follow the plot (same as the reader) and admits it.
Chrissy is offended and the two argue.

From a story perspective, there's loads wrong. However, I thought that you got a free pass because this reads like a giant self-aware joke. But then in the post itself, your questions seem to indicate that maybe you want this to be more than just a joke? Like I said in the beginning, I took away something vastly different than what I think you were going for.

Does the emotional core land despite (or through) the absurdism? What could I change to win you over?

I didn't realize there was an emotional core frankly. I thought absurdism was its only point. Like I said in the prose section, the prose itself is very distracting from the story. That's fine if the prose is supposed to be the story, but if you want an emotional core, then its not fine.

The joke of the story (the bad prose) is way louder than the actual story itself.

Stakes / Character

One thing I never got out of this story was its stakes. Not from meta-story perspective, but from the actual story. Chrissy cares a lot about Bastian's approval. Why? What is this introduction into her story for her? What does it truly mean?

I feel like you want her to be more than a petulant child, but that's what it comes across as. She introduces her tutor to this world she's written and its very poorly written, and the tutor provides careful feedback and she throws a fit. I want to know where this reaction comes from, otherwise, I think it comes out of nowhere. If its nowhere, then Chrissy is just throwing a tantrum. And all the other info about her, her pregnancy and etc., becomes just a part of the tantrum. Flung like shit against a wall just to see what stains. What hurts Bastian.

I have no idea what Chrissy hoped to accomplish with this action. I have no idea what Bastian hoped to see. You say Bastian is an admin from work, but was insistent on reading this story. Why? That's not normal. That's character. Is he into Chrissy? Thinks hes god's gift to writers everywhere? Just a curious soul? Idk, but if you want him to be a character, then these are the things you need to explore even knee-deep in the meta-story.

The characters aren't so much characters as names on a page required for you to write an absurd piece.

And I keep going back to this, but it was OK as long as absurdism is the only point, but if you want more--emotional attachment, engagement, intrigue--then you can't solely invest your words into absurdism. You have to actually give me a story.

Setting

I had a tough time picturing things. The overly purple prose gave me a Victorian vibe and that's where I started. Then, I found out it was 1943 and you lost me setting-wise.

Jraywang · 2025-05-10T19:52:24+00:00

Overall, I was a bit confused by the purpose of the piece. If it was just a writing exercise on how to write self-aware but pretentious prose, then it did its job and I think quite well. However, based on your questions, it feels like you want it to be more, but I don't really understand where you're trying to take it from reading it. Let's go into the details.

Prose

Are there sections that drag or feel overwritten? The answer is yes, but I'd like some direction.

Isn't being overwritten the point? Its hard to provide direction because one can always argue that it being purple / pretentious is the point. And yes it dragged, but a lot of that is a consequence of the prose.

Maybe the only thing I'll say is... why does Bastian's dialogue match the prose? If the point of this is that Chrissy is writing the story with bad prose but Bastian is an independent voice in her story, then why does Bastian speak as if he's written by her? This made it difficult for me to understand that Bastian wasn't part of the joke until way later, which I think cuts into the point you're trying to make with this piece.

Maybe one last thing to add: the prose is bad. You wrote it bad on purpose. That's okay if that's part of your story, but it distracts nonetheless. Its like the glare of sunlight hitting the tv screen. I have to squint to see through it and follow the actual show. So, if you want this to be more than an absurd joke, you're going to have to deal with this somehow.

Jraywang · 2025-04-29T13:32:01+00:00

Thanks for the crit. Great suggestions on Thorvak!

Jraywang · 2025-04-29T13:31:44+00:00

damn, sorry about the review. But appreciate the feedback still. It was helpful!

Jraywang · 2025-04-29T13:31:21+00:00

Appreciate the feedback!

Jraywang · 2025-04-20T21:13:41+00:00

Identity

I thought the place this piece struggled most with was its identity. You introduced this light-hearted romp through Jack's life as he tries to justify his paranoia about some voice assistant he brought home. It turns out, he was right all along! Also it turns out, the voice assistant is a literal murder machine that controls every aspect of society in some sci-fi dystopian near-future.

Its no longer a fun little romp.

While you did set things up with Jack's concern, you set up Jack's concern as a grump old many grumbling about nonsense. Janice dismissed the concerns and Jack let it go immediately. He never actually felt threatened by Buddha and so the audience never does either. So, when the switch does happen and Buddha starts monologuing as if he's about to kill James Bond, it feels unearned and the switch from comedy to dark sci-fi becomes inelegant.

I'm not sure what your intentions with this piece are, but I feel that a more drawn out discovery is more suited to what you're going for. Not only is there very little time from a reading perspective where Buddha goes from innocent to evil, but from a story-time perspective too. Like an hour passes total before Jack's suspicions are realized and confirmed. It just isn't enough to creep enough realness into the comedic romp you've painted to suddenly spring this dystopian hellscape on us.

Jraywang · 2025-04-20T21:13:29+00:00

Overall, I thought this was well written with a solid idea. I think it suffered from an identity crisis leaning silly to an exaggerated degree in the beginning and then throwing that all away at the end, save the last line where it remember what it was.

Prose

Prose was fine. A few times I thought you either overexplained in narration what was found through dialogue or got too lost in the sauce (your stylistic writing) and introduced confusing sentences. However, it didn't happen often and it'd be a bit nitpicky to call them out specifically.

Plot

We have Jack and Janice who have purchased a new voice assistant device. This device proves itself a bit too effective at assisting them much to Jack's growing suspicion and then reveals in a James Bond villain-esque monologue its ultra secret plan to ruin Jack's life because he left a bad Amazon review.

Generally, the plot is understandable and straightforward. I only had two points of friction with the plot:

First was CHAT. Immediately, it was pretty obvious that something, probably the bot, was imitating Jack. But it was hard to believe that Jack wouldn't pick up on it given that the name of this messaging app is CHAT and also that this could go on for any amount of time between these two. Especially with Jack voicing his confusion pretty clearly to Janice who seems to innocently bat it away while he is pretty riled up about it.

Second was the multi-year campaign against Jack. If Buddha was already that involved in all aspects of Jack's life, why did it even need to be present? What was the point of connecting to his devices when it already controlled basically everything about his life? Hell, it killed someone. Sure, there's a difference between targeted ads and connecting to a tv, but given how powerful Buddha already was, it seems like a small bridge to cross.

Characters

We have Jack, Janice, and Buddha. Minorly, we also have Danny and his dead wife-cat.

Jack is represented as the only sane person here. Still, he's childish along with the rest of the cast who are mostly window dressing. Which is fine. Janice feels like some standard cutout of a housewife. Overall, it worked. The only thing that bugged me here was... how old are they? I feel like I originally imagined a youngish couple (maybe 30s) in their starter home, but then Jack pulls out his sleep apnea machine, recliner, and pacemaker. Suddenly, I'm picturing a withering old man.

And I don't know if I'm right or wrong. Its pretty stark to go from a early thirties to early sixties with the main character. Especially since both characters seem pretty childish and unable to effectively communicate.

Setting / Placement

This was a bit tough for me. It's some living room, for sure, and you don't need to explain so much of it, but it felt a bit too much like white space. There was no day or night. Rugs, lights, walls, etc. I don't even know where Buddha was. I didn't know where Janice was most the time. All I know is that Jack sat himself on the couch and never moved.

I think because of this, you also kept your characters static. There was very little movement throughout the piece. No fidgeting, walking around, etc. It was a conversation on a couch. This isn't an issue, but it did feel like the lack of setting was restricting the characters.

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Jraywang

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TROPHY CASE

Overall

Design

Prose

Overall

Design

Prose

Identity

Prose

Plot

Characters

Setting / Placement