May 13th- Trizee- Remember My Life- [V]

[Trizee]

Here's a short story I've written- tell me what you think about it!

 

And if you could help me identify its genre that would be helpful...

[Syme]

The story flows along nicely and was a pleasant read. The ending was a bit disappointing. There was no resolution as to why the son was tortured and killed or who the murderer was. It also didn't have much emotional impact for me.

 

I like the scene with Anja. She comes across as a vivid and interesting character.

 

What confused my about the story was the time of day between when Sarah gets the message and she and Bob arrive at the graveyard. I had the impression that the first was in the morning (since Sarah had just got up) and the other in the evening. However, that doesn't match the flow of time described between those events, unless it takes them most of the day to get to the graveyard.

 

I would put the genre as urban fantasy.

[cjhuitt]

The story [...] was a pleasant read.

I have to disagree with Syme a bit here... I didn't think it was pleasant, but that was more due to the nature of the story, and you should take that as a compliment to your writing rather than being critical of it, because I thought the prose was well-done.  I just didn't exactly end with warm-fuzzies when the story was done.

 

I would also suggest the genre of urban fantasy, or possibly literary fantasy (which I'm not completely sure is a genre, but it works for me, so...).

 

One of the small problems I had with the story was that I didn't know when in time to place it, nor what genre to place it in, so I was confused on the overall picture at the start of the story.  References to mirrors (very large historical scope), lacerations (a modern-sounding word, but is that intended?), sledgehammers (kind of modern), and bronze gongs (makes me think of older china, not modern-day) had me kind of inclined to think the setting was modern, but I really didn't know until the gun at his temple was mentioned.  A few other hints would probably firm it up... things like the type of clothing he's wearing, or how he's bound, or even where he is (if Rick knows).

 

The gap between the first sentence ("Any last words?") and the next spoken words ("Better say them quick...") is large enough, and filled with description not directly related to that concept, that I had to double-back and see what he had to say quick.  In fact, in combination with the description of what appeared to be the results of torture, I switched over to thinking that he was being tortured to get some information, and really had to do a mental adjust back to last-words instead.

 

Rick seems preternaturally self-aware and philosophical, in particular his thoughts about not mourning the monster's death, but the death of Rick that it represents, and his final words.  I don't know that you can remove that and still have the story you do, though, so it may be something to be aware of rather than actually change anything about.

 

His last words are interesting, but as the story progressed, I found it hard to see quite how they could be distorted the way his mother does.  I don't know if you could make them a touch more ambiguous or something, but it might be worth thinking about.

 

The POV from the murderer's perspective is disturbing, and thankfully short, but even so this is where I'd expect to see some more description.  Especially since the murderer appears (to me) to be a serial killer who enjoys all the details of those last moments.  His focus should be on the details at that point, and so his POV should focus there also.

 

Normally I would suggest avoiding extra names when you don't have to, but perhaps a few extra words and a couple of named relatives when all the aunts and uncles come to help with the grief, along with one or two concrete details about those named?  The reason I suggest this is that it would allow for the "introduction" of Aunt Anja ("the witch") then, so her later appearance isn't quite so sudden and transitory.

 

I didn't start to get a feel for the fact that there might be fantastic elements of the story until about 950 words in (or about halfway).  For me, that's a little late to see without any other clues... which is another reason why mentioning the aunt earlier might be beneficial.  Like the time-period I mentioned earlier, the sooner this can be established (in general), the better.

 

I thought the last section, while necessary to give the story the closure it needs, was a little-bit off.  I think part of it was that I didn't know how much time had passed.  Obviously Sarah and Bob are coping with Rick being gone via the birthday celebration, but I would expect more of a feeling of melancholy, of something lost that can never be entirely regained despite the setting, and I don't get that from the section.  Instead, Sarah is grinning and thinks the cake is delicious, and Bob is inciting the kids to sing loudly... and I get no sense of their internal feelings, which is where I'd expect the melancholy to come from, or even how they feel about it at all.

 

Finally, a note about formatting (or possibly about computer document translations), there were a couple of times that I would have expected italics or underlines to denote current thoughts.  Like hinted at, I didn't open this in word, so perhaps the formatting is there in the original, but when I read it I saw at least one "I" and one "me" in the text, formatted just like the rest of the text, and it threw me off.

[Mandamon]

I tend to agree with Cjhuitt, but I'll post my own take on it.

 

It starts with a mirror scene.  You're not using this in the usual way, but what possible reason is there for him to be in front of a mirror?  He could see all his wounds and describe them, except for the ones on his face, which he could feel.  Are his hands tied?  If not, he could feel his broken jaw.

 

I got the feeling in the first part that Rick was a grown up from his thoughts and actions.  They sound like a 20+ year old.  The murderer refers to him as a boy.  Also, the murderer refers to himself as a murderer?  I get the idea for secrecy, but it doesn't sit right.  Plus you never reveal anything else about him, so there's no point in concealing anything about him.  He's only there to shoot Rick and move things along.

 

Birthday/death date:
I don't understand why only living people would have their birthdays celebrated. I take note at least of my favorite relatives who have since passed on.  I would think him saying not to curse the day of his death is a much bigger tip-off. 

 

Aunt Anja seems very convenient; almost a Deus-ex machina.  So far the story has not had any fantastic elements except for a magical witch showing up out of the blue.  I think it's more that your setting is very current-time, which doesn't work with calling up an aunt who is known to be a witch.

 

I had to flip between before and after the Anja's visit to figure out what was going on.  At first I though the parents didn't think Rick was dead, but that couldn't be right.  I think you need a better trigger for them calling Anja than seeing the note.  Or if you keep that, it needs to be clearer that you're suddenly going to throw in magic.

 

And the ending was pretty much what I was expecting.  The parents brought Rick back, when he was only telling them to enjoy life, and then everyone's happy.  At first I thought Bob would trade his life for Rick's or something like that, but nothing happened and the ending sort of fell flat.  The story starts with a very violent picture of Rick, then inside the head of a murder, and then ends with a sort of goofy morality tale on life.  Rick's parents come over as sort of one-dimensional and melodramatic.  The best character, both in description and action, was Aunt Anja, but she was only there for a page or so.  The genre would probably be an urban fantasy (guns and magic) but I think it needs some more work and thought before it can go anywhere.

 

I think my main issue with this is that the story doesn't know what it is.  You say this yourself because you can't tell what genre it is.  I would suggest to pick one element and focus the story on that point.  You'll get better characters and and more cohesive whole:
1) Rick's death (how, why, where, when)
2) the murderer killing Rick (not really pleasant)
3) How Aunt Anja uses magic and what the cost is
4) How Rick's parent react and/or get over it
5) Rick's parent's sacrifice to bring Rick back
6)...

 

All these are in the story, and for something this short, there's not enough time to properly explore any of them.

To me, Aunt Anja's magic is the only difference between this being "based on a true story" and a fantasy.  If you're looking to write a fantasy, you need to have a focus on that in the story.

[Kuiper]

If you're trying to classify this work, it feels like magical realism to me.  Overall, interesting story idea, I had fun reading it.

 

The opening is, on its own, effective at conveying an idea, but in the context of the story it seems out of place. Fundamentally, my view on storytelling is that it is about making and fulfilling promises.  The content and themes implied by the opening aren't delivered, and the story that is delivered feels disconnected from the introduction.  This is especially true in short fiction, where there is no room to have a setup in chapter 1 that will pay off in chapter 10.  The opening of the story left me with lots of questions regarding the circumstances of Rick's death--who was killing him, and why?  Why were the grisly details of his death so important?  The graphic nature of Rick's horrifying end suggests that the torture he experienced was somehow significant, yet after reading the story I feel as though the story's central plot would not have changed at all if his death had been due to disease or accident.  I don't feel that the story's main plot was serviced by this opening, and it seemed like it took a long time for us to get to the point.  It wasn't until page 4 of 9 that I felt I had an understanding of what kind of story I was reading.

 

I disliked the "happy" ending, which almost felt like a non-sequitor.  We open with a young man who is pondering his own mutilated flesh, and end with children singing silly birthday songs.  This is not in and of itself a problem, but there's no transition between the despair and happiness.  We go directly from a mother lamenting the fact that she's failed to fulfill her son's dying wish, and then immediately we jump to her grinning as she eats chocolate cake.  It doesn't feel like Sarah develops; she just suddenly transitions from "before" to "after" with not a word of explanation given in between.
 

One thing that was a bit unclear to me is that Rick's after-death appearance is described as "as she’d last seen him."  This doesn't really paint a picture in my mind, because I don't know what Rick looked like the last time his mother saw him.  I presume that she saw him as a healthy-looking young man, just as he would have appeared on any ordinary day, but the possibility also crossed my mind that she might have been aware of some of the conditions of his disappearance and seen his rent flesh.  I find it problematic to rely on description which eludes to events outside the scope of the narrative: I as a reader was never shown the last interaction between Sarah and Rick, and consequently cannot use this as a reference point.

 

====

 

I'm not sure how experienced you are with short fiction as a format, but I feel obliged to remark a bit on this since I have quite a bit of experience with writing short fiction, much moreso than longer fiction.  (All of the writing classes I've taken have focused on short fiction exclusively, and I been in writing groups that focused on nothing but short fiction.)

 

The first two pages of the story read like a prologue that might preceed a larger work.  One of the fundamental reasons that longer-form fiction will sometimes begin with a scene that does not smoothly transition into the events that follow is that it is a promise of things to come.  For example, if you are writing a 400-word fantasy epic filled with massive military campaigns, it is fair to begin with a prologue that focuses on the tactical perspective on the war, even your viewpoint character for the first few chapters of the book is an unassuming and reluctant footsoldier who does not underestand the conflict at a high level.  The opening prologue is a promise of things to come.

 

In short fiction, you don't really get to do this.  A few thousand words is usually only enough space to convey one idea effectively, so the impression that I get from the opening of the story should be what carries me through to the end.  Obviously, there are exceptions and effective ways to subvert this, but when an entire story is only 9 pages long, it is reasonable for me to expect to know what the story is about before I reach the end of the first page.  I didn't feel like the opening "prologue" of your story justified its existence, mainly for the reasons explained at the beginning of this post.

 

I hope you find this feedback to be useful.  I enjoyed reading your story, and everything I've said is with the intent of helping you to identify things which may need improvement.

[Halcyon]

I agree with Syme and Mandamon. Your prose is well done and the story has very nice flow but I was a bit disappointed in the ending. I was expecting more conflict, but it ended abruptly, there was no consequence to anyone for bringing Rick back. I was also expecting to find out more about the murderer, why Rick was captured, tortured and murdered, and why he was placed in front of the mirror. It would have been nice to see more from the murderer or maybe Rick's POV when his parent's try to bring him back.

 

In terms of dialogue, this seems like a modern day setting, but at the graveyard Sarah keeps referring Rick as 'my son', which seems kind of awkward and I never really hear anyone call there kids that.

 

I really liked the use of description at the beginning, it set the story up nicely. But that seemed to fade as the story went along and it made the story seemed rushed. Also, when Rick was referring to himself as a monster, I thought for a while something had happened to him or been done to him to make him into a monster. Maybe because I was reading it has urban fantasy. I was a bit disappointed when I realized he was just being vain and that wasn't the case.

 

Also why wasn't Rick scared? I'd be pretty terrified if I had been beaten and tortured and had a gun to my head. Was he expecting this or was he accustomed to having his life threatened? Even answering those questions could give us some nice clues to Rick's backstory.

 

I do think this has the potential to be great with some rework and by increasing the conflict. Hope that helped.

 

Cheers!

[akoebel]

Pretty much everything has been said and I agree with the others about the ending and the promises made by introducing the killer. I was expecting the raised dead to stay and do all kinds of bad things because really, the dead should stay dead.

 

All I can add is about the description in the first scene : it reads as if the narrator isn't really experiencing it and each time he describes another injury, he fails to mention the next one. If I sum up the scene, he says : "My eye really hurt me in this way... but the eye was nothing when compared with my broken arm which felt this way ... but the worst was my foot." To begin with, someone hurt would have started with the worst and not the lightest and maybe mentioned the other. Also, when someone is damaged this much, pain tends to blend and you aren't really able to distinguish between aching parts.