I don't know how long this has been up but it appears I am the first to write any sort of critique. I can understand why.

Ask yourself if you really want to be a writer. If the answer is yes, you have to get off this track. I have no idea what you were trying to achieve with this piece, but whatever it was, you have failed abysmally. This is pretty sick apart from being without any characters or character development or plot or pace or grammar or redeeming features whatsoever. Even as an experiment in writing, it is a total loss.

I know you took time and trouble to write this drivel, but this is an exercise in what not to do. If you learn that much, you have learned a lot. There is not a single human creature in your story, nor even one with human characteristics. They are cardboard cutouts that you have moved into situations that have no resemblance to real life. Remember storytelling is holding a mirror up to life. This does not come close.

Please take the time to read short stories by the best like, W. Somerset Maugham, Guy de Maupassant, Saki (H.H. Monroe), Dorothy Parker, O'Henry, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pearl Buck, Damon Runyan and others and you will get the hang of it. Read, read, read and then read some more. The best writers are readers first.

I have written this scathing critique in the hope it will spur you to better things and thus gain the respect of this community of writers.

Go to it!

Well, you got one thing right. This is horror. A horror to read. I agree with everything Whale wrote. I looked at your profile before reading this. With your experience and credentials and age I thought you would have a wealth writing time under your belt and thus be a very talented writer. But I must say this is one of the worst things I have read, and that's a disappointing shame. I sincerely hope this doesn't represent the height of your writing abilities. With only this to go on though, I know I wouldn't, and no one else should, hire you for your ghostwriting.

I suppose you want to know what I found wrong with this piece. Well, for starters, the writing style. That is probably the most glaring instance of ineptitude or misjudgement, of which there are many rampant throughout this piece. The grammar and syntax of just about every sentence would need to be changed for reading this to be enjoyable to most readers. The repetition of one particular phrase, you must surely know which one I mean, throughout grew very grating throughout and I kind of winced every time it appeared. Five times or less might have been alright if it were truly needed, but it was just ridiculous how many times you used it.

Sometimes you make up words, or they are mispelled or typo-ridden to such a degree as to appear not to be real words. Like "veriest" and "posituley". Unless you are using very obscure or archaic words, these most certainly aren't in Webster's dicitonary at least.

There are no real characters. None that represent real people in such a way that we get to know them enough to care about what poorly chosen, strangely phrased things you have to say about them. The are card-board cut-outs and caricatures. You don't give anyone names; that was a mistake. It certainly added to the confusion of your muddled diction.

I'm no going to point out specific grammar errors because there are so many and I'm not going to go through all three pages. Show just about any paragraph to a friend or professional writer and they're likely to find several.

This story is offensive. You're title is offensive. You don't seem to have any sympathy or empathy for disabled people, or have had any encounters where you've gotten to know someone with a disability. The tag "handicapped story" seems to indicate that you think this represents the normal experience a person with a disabiltiy (from experience you should avoid describing someone as being "handicapped"; it's a not a nice thing to label someone as, which you are doing with that term). You're just using the notion of someone with a disability as a cheap manipulation of people stereotypes and prejudices that you think makes for a good story. But this is far from a good story. The parts of the narrative that I could understand weren't nearly as much as should have been present in a story by a supposed professional writer. It was very confusing and convoluted. The ending twist was probably the most ridiculous thing I'd ever read. It wasn't a horror story, it was a horrible story. And that about sums up my opinion of this piece.

I sincerely hope that if you publish again on this site that whatever it is in no way resembles this story or the writing style employed. And if you think this is too harsh, then it should serve as a wake up call to your (lack of) writing ability. If want to be a writer you have to deal with the truth and rejection. I can only hope this critique served as an example of both.

Much as I hate to say it, the previous posters make good points.

1) You harp way too much on "She was pretty."  I tihnk that, by the third time you said this, we had all gotten the idea.

2) Your main character's describing attributes should not include "In a wheelchair".  This wouldn't be offensive by itself, but the fact that you label her as 'helpless' because she's in one makes it very much so.

3)  "fiddling with her vulnerable doohickey"  What the fuck?  Seriously, just what the fuck.

4) The ending was sudden, abrupt, and non-sequitorial.  The rest of it read like bad smut (what with all the 'helpless' 'pretty' and 'rape's, and there wasn't any build-up to the monster part that I could see.

If I hadn't looked at your website, I honestly would have thought that this was a flame post meant to rile people on here up.  Some of your writing samples on there aren't nearly so bad as this, so why?  Why???

I guess you could pass it off as a comedy that's just in kinda bad taste...I think it's just so ridiculous that it goes beyond the point of even being offensive.  but you do need to work on the clarity of at least the description.  I don't understand what even is going on for half of the story.

 I have a LOT to say, so get ready.  I am writing this without reading the other critiques...

First, I wanted to say the idea is good - a disabled girl finally getting her revenge.  I was expecting a sort of a huge paranormal event.  Sorta got it, I guess.   Reminds one of the old 50's stuff where the seemingly demure "victim" was actually the monster.

SO.  The beginning was interesting, if not a little strange and rhythmic at the same time.  It was that odd mix that kept me going to the very end - the very very pretty thing.   At the same time, it was a bit of a turnoff because it's so repetitive.  It's like spices in cooking, use it sparingly.

As an aside, I noticed that at the beginning you had "very, very" and then later "very very" with no comma separating the two.  There were a lot of unnecessary short sentences that felt very awkward.  Combine them, make them longer.

THE GIRL.  There was no real conversation that allowed us to get to know the girl.  Hell, she doesn't even have a name.  Why should we care about her?  She's just this vaguely described character without even a description of what she looks like.  She's pretty.  But, is she tall or short?  Classically beautiful or merely pretty?  Blonde, brunette, redhead?  Heavier set or thin-boned?  Short, medium, long hair? Curly or stick-straight, or somewhere in-between?

I have no idea. It was told, not shown to me.

What does she like to do? Is she sassy/funny/whatever to make up for her physical disability to prove that she has a mind and that it's working just fine?  Or does she prefer quiet company to conversation?  Does she like riddles? Games that she can play?  What about food? Romance expectations, despite (or because of) her prior experiences?  We got a glimpse of life-long abuse starting with her dad.  

OK.  That brings me to the next question.  WHY would she hire male caretakers, considering the abuse she's already gone through?  Why not specify women ONLY, with a certain amount of experience?  It might not be hard to care for her, but I see several problems with this, primarily because of my own experiences - I have friends who are in wheelchairs, and not only do they qualify for government assistance (SSI) but also in most cases, they will pay for an in-home nurse to help take care of her so she can maintain some independence.  That's something else - where does she get the money to pay for these caregivers from?  Nothing is mentioned.

Something else that throws me off - she "always" looks twenty.  How old is she, really?  If she is a monster using a fragile beauty trapped in a wheelchair disguise as bait - where are the other mysterious disappearances?  Monsters don't pray to God.  That's just incongruent with what a monster essentially is - something evil personified.  That whole praying to God for something to happen, and all of a sudden she eats him with this huge mouth?  That was a total copout.  It was just a way to wrap up this story.  I read, write, watch and breathe horror, and this was nowhere near what I would consider horror. This story needs a LOT of work before it will meet anyone's standards.

Now on to the more important stuff - every writer HAS to learn this:  SHOW, don't TELL.   The entire story was told instead of shown.  Let me give you an example, using your own writing:

There once was a little girl, in her twenties and in a wheelchair. She was pretty. So very, very pretty. But as she was disabled, young and old, handsome and otherwise men with no prospects in life would apply for the job of taking care of her - and cruelly abuse her. They usually couldn't resist her helplessness and her great beauty. Because she was pretty. So very, very pretty.

Do you really think she was diabolical? No, she was not. She was extremely pretty. And so, she was the nicest, sweetest, goodiest person in the world. And she absolutely positulely, couldn’t ever walk? No, she could not. In fact, she was quite helpless, and unfortunately she was also very attractive. So very pretty.

As I said before, interesting beginning.  But, it was a strong indicator of TELLING instead of SHOWING.  What you are doing here is you are telling what is happening - instead of showing me as it is happening.   I'm rewriting this so that you can see the difference:

Mary-Sue sat limply in her wheelchair as she gazed blankly out the window of her home.  She was pretty in a fragile way, with shoulder-length blonde hair tied loosely at the nape of her neck.  She tried to get her mind off the past abuse she had endured, and tried vainly to pin hopes on this new man she had hired to take care of her.  She felt helpless, completely trapped in a body that was dead to her, forever unresponsive to her signals.  

Men were forever lavishing attention on her, and she hated it.  She knew it was because they thought her pretty, but at the same time she felt they wanted a living and breathing doll to play with and throw away when they tired of her.

See? What I did was SHOWING. The reader now has an idea of who she is, her emotional turmoil and hints to her abusive past.  And the fact she's disabled - all without saying "She's disabled!".  If you are going to be the narrator, DON'T switch points of view - "You" is unacceptable not just because it's a switch in POV from 1st to 2nd person (if I remember right), but also because it breaks the reading flow.

I hope to see a better version of this story soon - and don't hesisate to PM me or leave a note on my Scratchpad if you have any questions.

Ciao!

  Before I go back and re-critique this thing in more depth, I want to address some of your comments.

What was that? Disabled are all goody two shoes! I know them! You don't! You don't know how disabled are ll intelligent, good hearted souls..." and all that lovely Christian drivel you guys spout.

Although I'm an atheist myself (and think it's kind of funny you equate Christian drivel with extreme liberals, for that matter), this is hardly the point of Affirmative Action.  The point is that disabled people by their nature do not have all the opportunities that 100% hale people do.  Hence "Dis-abled".  Also, by the way, this story doesn't exactly paint her as an evil devil.  The whole time you're going on about how pretty and nice and innocent she is (until the end of it).  In any case, just like with racial-based affirmative action, disability stuff is intended to level the playing field somewhat.  Also, it's an attempt to do away with the idea that those with a disability somehow aren't normal people.  The whole idea is to treat everybody equally.  To not make blanket judgements one way or the other.

If you're in love with the first guy who reviewed me, please note that he mentioned ONLY white male writers in what he gave me to contemplate, skimming over completely someone like me, a femal writer, named Shirley Jackson, who wrote the award winning short horror story, "The Lottery." Instead, I'm supposed to only read his list of white male writers. Huh.

The rest of you except for one guy followed suit on that, pretty much.

This made me laugh.  To quote Whale:

W. Somerset Maugham, Guy de Maupassant, Saki (H.H. Monroe), Dorothy Parker, O'Henry, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pearl Buck, Damon Runyan

I guess he wasn't the only one who was "skimming completely over" things.  Now admittedly, they are all white and most of them are male.  However, I don't think you can really accuse Whale of being a white supremacist, since he's Jewish and all.  Also, the "one guy" who didn't follow suit is a woman!  Also, just because somebody is a white male doesn't mean you should discount their writing as something you don't even want to look at.  Even if you take away his list of names, his point still stands.  Read the stories written by those before you to know what's considered mastery.  If you want to break out of that mould after that, by all means do.  A writer I think you would like, if you haven't already read her, is Flannery O'Connor.  She writes on the darker side in a way I think you were trying to do here.

I just dashed off this story and haven't worked on it hard enough yet,

I hate it when people pull out this excuse.  If you haven't worked on it at all, why are you surprised it's been labeled as poor writing?  Almost nobody writes pullitzer prize-winners for a first draft.  If you don't want negative comments, don't post drafts.  Re-write your story several times and polish it to a sheen before you post it for the world to see.  But for whatever's sake, don't post a first draft and then get all self-righteous and upset when people tell you it's not very good.

So I will work on some of the points you mentioned, but one of the things I defintiely will not do is turn into an eighteenth century white male writer AND GIVE YOU EXACTLY WHAT YOU EXPECT ALL THE TIME. Okay?

Nobody asked you to do that, so chill the fuck out already.  (And the pedant in me would point out that they're all 19th or 20th century)

I think I'm simply too deep to understand

I really really hope this is irony.  Comments like this make me think you're a Troll, even though your site suggests otherwise.

I enjoyed the reviews because apparently my story had you all crawling the walls somewhat, and that is exactly what I had in mind.

Yes, but most of the "horror" came not from the content, but the way in which it was presented.  Which I hope is not what you were going for.

The idea was to bore you somewhat

What?  Again, I hope this is irony.  Why would you want to write a story that bores people?  What purpose would that serve?

In more general terms:

Criticism (though I admit some of them could have been more constructive) is NOT an attack on you, personally.  Please read the "How to take criticism" link the next time you publish a work. 

Admittedly, a lot of what Whale said was in very poor taste (why I said I hated to agree with it).  If you take out all the unnecessary attacks in his critique, though, there's a core of a critique in there I think you should pay attention to.

There is not a single human creature in your story, nor even one with human characteristics. They are cardboard cutouts that you have moved into situations that have no resemblance to real life. Remember storytelling is holding a mirror up to life.

Okay, critique # more-in-depth.

Before I go into a line-by-line analysis, let me focus on the way it's written in general terms.

With the way the story is structured, it reads a tiny bit like some sort of allegorical fire-side tale.  I'm thinking Br'er Rabbit. I certainly have no problem with non-standard grammar and story-telling, but it needs to be obvious that it's being done on purpose or people will think you just can't do it properly.

Characters: The defining attributes of the heroine are "in a wheelchair" and "pretty".  This is a huge problem, as there's pretty much nothing to draw in the reader.  I gather this is supposed to be some kind of heavy-handed allegory, where we're given a set-up and then its message, but it was kind of hard to get past that.  (By the way, an author you should check out is Angela Carter.  She does exactly this kind of thing, but she does it extremely well)  All of the male characters we see in any amount of detail are like horrible caricatures.  Pretty much their only purpose, so far as I can tell, is to come in and rape the woman.  Hardly realistic, but I suppose out comes the old allegory again.

Dialogue:  Very little of this, although what little of it there is runs the gamut from good to "What?"

"Stop...raping me," she sighed, in a very pretty way.

This is fantastic.

“You’re too mentally retarded to know what rape is, my dear. Here, I’ll clean up your bm."

This is "What?"  (and is bm a typo for bum, or what?)

Also I just now realised exactly what part of her turns into a mouth.  Which brings me to a movie I've been told about where the plot (and apparently the characterization, or lack thereof) was really similar to this.  That movie is called TEETH, and it's about this woman who gets raped a lot.  And then eventually she grows teeth (vagina dentata) and chompety-chomp, off come the members.  Have you seen that movie?

Anyway, on to line-by-line-ish.

There once was a little girl, in her twenties and in a wheelchair. She was pretty. So very, very pretty. But as she was disabled, young and old, handsome and otherwise men with no prospects in life would apply for the job of taking care of her - and cruelly abuse her. They usually couldn't resist her helplessness and her great beauty. Because she was pretty. So very, very pretty.

I don't really consider somebody in their twenties to be a "little girl".  That phrase calls to mind somebody far younger, which might be an attempt to heighten her helplessness, I suppose.  But it also makes it harder to get a mental picture of our heroine.  The commas make sentence three do strange things.  Until you get to "men", it reads "But as she was disabled, young and old, handsome and otherwise..." which is confusing.  Since you've already mentioned her handicap, why not just toss out the pre-comma bit?  People will figure it out.  The last part is underlined because it is, as previously mentioned by everybody in great detail, very repetitive.

Do you really think she was diabolical? No, she was not. She was extremely pretty. And so, she was the nicest, sweetest, goodiest person in the world. And she absolutely positulely, couldn’t ever walk? No, she could not. In fact, she was quite helpless, and unfortunately she was also very attractive. So very pretty.

"Do" should be "Did", considering the rest of the section's tense.  Also, why would we think she was diabolical?  You just got finished telling us how helpless and pretty she was.  You haven't mentioned anything about her character at all, so suddenly asking your audience if they "really" thought she was diabolical is out-of-nowhere and doesn't make much sense.  Underlined words aren't words.  Again, why the emphasis on her not being able to walk?  You've already made that abundantly clear in paragraph one, thank you.

That aside, why exactly is she in a wheelchair?  Is she paralyzed from the waist down?  Are her legs atrophied and useless?  Was she born that way or is it recent?  Is she a total vegetable?  Just because somebody's legs don't work wouldn't make her unable to clean her own ass, for god's sake!  She has ARMS, doesn't she!?  Try to give us a clearer view of exactly why she's helpless instead of just forcing it down our throats by repetition.  And yes, we know.  She's very pretty.

So the men would come in to take the job to take care of her. She was very simple care, easy to get along with - and she only had a few of those minor little human impulses that are not so pretty, so very pretty. Hardly any. And some of the men were nice to her, and took care of her. But they had a sad tendency to leave for better jobs and lives of their own. Because the pay was so low, with her.

Do you really think she was faking it and could walk? Good for you, Handsome.

One question I have is why is it always men?  Surely she'd be able to get some kind of female caretaker as well?  (not that they might necessarily be any better, but still).  Also, what's our setting here?  In the modern day I find it hard to believe somebody would hire completely un-qualified caretakers.  Unless it's a monetary issue, which I suppose might be the case.  Also, what about her parents?  Since you mentioned in your comments on this that you feel parents too treat their disabled offspring as though they're mentally as well as physically incapacitated, why is she on her own?

The separate sentence is underlined because it's a little non-sequitorial again.  You already asked us this, and told us she couldn't.  Why re-iterate?  Also, it doesn't really seem to have any bearing on the previous paragraph.

Anyway, one day, her veriest Prince Charming showed up. This old scruffy bearded guy, a chronic longtime boozer, with no income again. There was next to no income in working for her. Do you now sympathize with the guy, oh you Handsome Stud you? Oh how wonderful of you - how very, very wonderful.

"Prince Charming", I'm guessing here, is irony.  You've already mentioned the low-income aspect.  There's no need to keep driving that point home, especially twice in as many sentences!  Also, why would we sympathise?  Since you've described him as basically an out-of-work boozer, what's to sympathise with?  If you're wanting to jerk your male readers around and shatter their expectations of what goes on in life, you're going to have to give them something they actually can sympathise with.  Not an old drunk.

This sort of stuff is, I think, one of the big problems with the work.  You seem to try to get your readers involved, but you're too busy pushing them away, hard, all the time.  You've got to pick one or the other.  Do you want to shock your readers out of their happy work-a-day world or do you want to draw them in and play with their expectations of reality that way?  Trying to do both at once is ineffective, because they're going to be too busy being offended by the shocking things and then confused by the "Are you liking my characters now?  Do they remind you of yourself?" stuff.  Draw them in, and then shock them.  Not the other way around!

She just kept it bottled up inside her a lot because she thought that all women are disabled next to a big ol’ macho man. But she forgot about all those little scrunched up guys who couldn’t get a kid either. She forgot about all of those other people. One strange day. In her very own way, which was of course very pretty.

What?  This whole paragraph needs work to make any sense.  First off, sentence one is just kind of strange.  Is it supposed to be poking at our patriarchal society?  Sentence two: So she wants kids?  Also, you just spent a few paragraphs effectively trying to alienate us from the idea of males as "good".  Now you're doing an about face and saying "Oh, but they're not all bad of course.  Except they still rape people.  THE BASTARDS!"  It's really confusing, and I think you really need to pick one or the other.  "One strange day."  is a sentence fragment, and the sentence after it doesn't really make any sense with or without it, either.  One strange day what?  In her own way what?

Along came a big ol’ macho old drunk man who was kinda scrunched up. He was attractive. But as usual, he was bossy. So he raped her. He very, very cruelly raped her.

Is this the same macho drunk man as before?  It's not particularly clear.  The underlined stuff is really out-there.  Of course, bossy people rape every girl they see!  Goddamn bossy males.  Etc., etc.  Also, I don't think it's possible to rape somebody and not be "very very cruel" about it.  So that can go.

He kept saying that he loved her. That he really really loved her. And he plunked her down on the bed and began fiddling with her vulnerable doohickey and made her wonder about that. 

The "I love you" rape thing is probably the only bit of actual characterisation in the piece.  It shows him as a flawed individual instead of some kind of rape-machine.  More like that would improve the piece considerably.  As it is, it's hard to relate to anybody as they show no real human feeling at all, or anything at all people can even remotely relate to.

"Vulnerable doohickey"?  Oh boy.  Okay, either make this as gruesomely realistic as possible to shock people that way, or cut out the description and just mention that it happened.  Words like "doohickey" are laughable, which detracts from the horror of the scene.  For example, compare:

He shoved her onto the bed, tearing off her clothing with a cruel hand.  She tried to protest, but he slapped her head to one side and forced her legs apart, his touch leaving bruises where she struggled.  Ignoring her screams, he spat on his hand and shoved his fingers inside of her, sneering at the slick feel of her under his hand.  The blood--she was a virgin--mixed with his spit as he forced his fingers into her again and again.

He shoved her onto the bed, tearing off her clothing with a cruel hand.  She tried to protest, but he slapped her head to one side and forced her legs apart, his touch leaving bruises where she struggled.  Ignoring her screams, he shoved his fingers inside of her vulnerable doohickey, sneering at the slick feel of her under his hand.  The blood--she was a virgin--mixed with his spit as he forced his fingers into her nether regions again and again.

Notice how those words make that visceral scene (Which I'm not entirely proud to have been able to write) seem absurd by comparison?  So if you're aiming to shock, you definitely need to cut out absurd euphemisms like "Vulnerable doohickey"!!!

That wasn’t the right guy, though. This old guy finally drank himself to death, and died, right in the middle of the pretty girl needing him to take care of her.

Moving on:  If he wasn't the right guy, why have we been talking about him so much?  Let alone describing him as her "prince charming"?  The last part is bolded, italicised, and underlined because it's way too ridiculous.  It's laughably ridiculous and takes away a lot from the fact that she's in a terrible situation.

The real guy who got her undivided attention in this shows up later, you see. He’s very handsome, and even young. But he has no income whatsoever, and he really thinks he needs to show off at someone who's worse off than he is. He somehow knows he’s got some other broad somewhere, somewhere in his upstairs, who’s blonde and pretty and is his total mommy. In fact, maybe it was his mommy, his mental picture of her anyway. He really thinks he deserves that perfect woman, and he never went to look for anyone else. He seems really normal to everyone else. He’s been around. He married someone, and she split after years of pain and suffering and hardship. So it goes.

Freudian analysis, whee!  Again with the "no income" heavy-handedness.  How does he "somehow know"?  That should be rephrased or maybe just cut.  "Maybe it was" is strange for similar reasons.  As a third-person omniscient-type narrator, you should know if it was or wasn't.  It's obvious it's just his mental picture of her, he clearly doesn't have his real mother in his head.  Never went to look for anybody else is either mis-written (never wanted, maybe?) or just vague.  If he's looking for his ideal woman, why is he here with this disabled chick?  I liked "So it goes.", possibly just because it reminded me of Vonnegut.

But she was pretty, so very very pretty. The girl in the wheelchair, that is. She was even prettier than his wife had been. But you see, he couldn’t get the woman in his head out of his mind. It was his mental picture of how subservient to him his mother was supposed to be. She was supposed to be all “blondey and blued eyed” - you know, eye die could become the next big thing, and really blind people - and he couldn’t accept anything less out of life. She was supposed to be all perfectly able bodied and able to bear sixty thousand live young. Every day. Of the week. To fend off his imaginary enemies.

Because she was pretty. So very very, well - beautiful. Gorgeous. Attractive. Voluptuous. Curvy. Obviously, always twenty and always able to bear live young in droves. Without ever getting pregnant and having that siren wail fill the air. It needs food. Food costs money. M’man in this didn’t have any such money, just a little. Not enough.

The fact that you have to say "The girl in the wheelchair, that is" should tell you that section needs a re-write.  It should be immediately clear who you're referring to or it needs a re-write.  The "subservient" thing is way too heavy-handed.  Let your reader figure that out for themselves!  It should be obvious from how he acts without you having to say "Oh and he's like this because of X Y and Z."  The "eye dye" thing is silly, and doesn't make sense anyway.  "and really blind people"?  Huh?  Cut it!  Sixty-thousand live young made me giggle.

I'm not sure BECAUSE is the right word here.  She could fend off his enemies because she was pretty?  Kind of nonsequitorial (my word for the day, clearly).  I like the different words for beautiful and pretty!  Finally, some change.  You already mentioned the live young thing, so no need to do it again.  What is "IT"?  There's nothing clear about what it's supposed to be, so it just confuses.  Again, we know he has no income.  Stop talking about it already.

He finally got into taking care of her, but she was either anti-Semitic, anti-black, anti-white, this or that, up or down or sideways, even though she was never anything but polite about all other people, and about him.

Skipping on a bit.  What does this even mean?  Is it how he perceives her?  She deserves to be raped because she's anti-X or Y or Z?  She actually is anti-X Y or Z?  Which one is she anyway?  Again, as an omniscient narrator you should know.  Make it clear it's how he thinks about her or explicitly that she actually is that way.

She wasn’t oh my gosh his mom. So he started raping her like that on a daily basis. Because she was pretty and out of reach. They couldn’t have sex at all.

Obviously some logical inconsistencies here.  If he's raping her, how can you say she's out of reach?  Does he feel emasculated by her prettiness?  Is he just pissed because she doesn't meet his ideal of womanhood?  What's going on?  It's obvious the guy's fucked in the head, but I'd like a little more explanation of why in a little more explicit terms he starts to rape her.

he was so Daddy, so very very Daddy, that he kept trying to tell her to get up out of the wheelchair and walk. It always sounded to her like the utmost in cruelty. He couldn’t get it, the simp.

 

Because he was thinking it would be more fun to torment her with her inability to walk, he would dance her around the room, then lie her down on the bed and rape her with his fingers before raping her with other unspeakable means.

First off, he obviously could actually tell her, so that "trying" is out of place.  I would think that the, you know, rape, would be more cruel than telling her to walk.  The last sentence is strange, especially considering that you state right below it he knows she can't walk and that he's being cruel.  So what isn't he getting?

"lie her down" is way too calm an action for the circumstances.  "Rape her with his fingers" is bolded because it's explicit enough to upset.  "other unspeakable means" falls victim again to the curse of the "Vulnerable Doohickey".

And she was always, all through it, so pretty, so very very…aw, I’ll shut up. You know. She stayed that way. Nearly forever, even though he had been hurting her emotionally and physically for years. She finally prayed to God to help her. And then one day, she looked at her helper cum rapist, saying, “Please stop it.”

God makes an appearance, albeit a strange one.  Is she religious?  Is the moral here religious?  He isn't really her helper, so I'd just cut that.  Unless you want to make the moral more explicitly religious, I'd cut out the God stuff too. 

He cleaned around her perineal area and her anus, but not with a washcloth. He did it with his finger, so very very slowly, without really getting around to cleaning her. She was getting infected again, from the poor care she was receiving. But it was hard, so very very hard, to find a new attendant. They were always men, and cruel to her.

Perineal area?  Oooh boy.  Now instead of silly Doohickeyan euphemisms, we're resorting to medical terminology.  If you want to shock, be raw about it.  Again, why is she in that wheelchair?  Is she totally incapable of any kind of physical activity, to the point that she gets infected?  Seems like it, but it's never made clear.  The last two sentences are very heavy-handed with it, again.  We understand that part already, thanks.

I can't decide how you want us to feel about the man and his ex-wife.  Is it his fault he left?  Is it hers?  Are you just trying to tell us that everybody in this story is a mental fuck-up with more problems than the US Government?

They’re twenty in their heads, and they keep thinking disabled people are space fools. Apparently. And that they can have their way with them. Even the guys…I mean, they think that about the guys, too. That they are their kids. So it goes. They think they can correct their “rude behavior” of not going to the bathroom properly or whatever. In gay couples, yet. And they even think they can rape them, both the men and the women, and get clean away with it.

Here we break out of allegory and into very heavy-handed bludgeoning.  Please don't resort to this kind of stuff.  If you can't tell it in a story, re-write it until it does.  this kind of stuff brings us out of the action and is basically insulting your readers by telling them you think them too stupid to understand what you're getting at in the story.  Cut it all.

One day, he stooped down to put his face in it and eat her. Mommy saved him, okay? You know what she did? Do you guess what Mommy there did? God musta loved her. He finally smiled on her. She grew a big old whomper red fanged mouth, ten feet tall and twelve feet wide, the size of Manhattan Island, yes, she most certainly did, and her handsome prince there backed off a little. He looked at her, went totally gaga and pranced around a little while locked completely in place by his own mortal terror. Having taken His time, God had finally, finally answered her prayers. He'd merely given the rapist time to feel sorry for what he had done, which had not happened.

This was probably why I was so confused about this the first time through.  It's not even remotely clear what's going on in sentence one, so it took me a while to figure out where that mouth came from.  Whooops!  Make it more clear.  "put his face in it and eat her" left me utterly confused as to what was going on until I read it for the third or fourth time. 

The rest of the opening is underlined because it isn't clear what's happening to whom or how it's happening.  Who is "him", how did Mommy save him?  Who did God love?  Mommy or the disabled girl?  With all the he him her she hises in there it's easy to get lost.  In this story: God being a complete jerk!  Also, if he had a reason for waiting, he hadn't exactly "taken his time", which implies he was just kind of kicking back with a cold one and thinking "Eh, I'll do it next Sunday."  "Which had not happened" is so obvious as to not be necessary.  We can tell pretty clearly it hasn't happened.

The one scrap of macho dignity left to her obscene rapist was that he couldn’t scream or say stuff high “like a woman.” He did get that, at least, if you like him so much. Then, she ate him, chewing him painfully first, and then swallowing him alive in one big noisy, slurpy and not so pretty - GULP!

Say stuff high "like a woman"?  I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean at all.  Chewing and swallowing in one go are a little contradictory.

Death, it’s pretty abrupt, don’t you think? Her mouth went back to normal size. The next day, she hired a nice young girl who answered her newspaper ad to work for her, and it's been working out ever since. But maybe it's only because she warned the new girl about her mouth. How it could get a little big sometimes, if she wasn't very careful and very nice to her.

This underlined part might be to blame for my not getting what was going on with the "mouth" growing out of her vagina earlier.  By saying her "mouth went back to normal size" you pull us up her body to the head, where her actual mouth is. 

The next day is rather sudden. When did she put this ad out?  Yesterday she still had mr Macho Rapist "taking care" of her, so she got her ad answered pretty much instantly if she got a response that quick.

She would probably never feel sorry about it. And thanks to her big mouth, the new and very, very pretty girl will perhaps never, ever leave. But she does pray to God sometimes. For answers, and for His help.

Because she is pretty. So very, very pretty...

Here we veer wildly into religion again.  Why?  Also, who is "she"?  The new girl or the wheelchaired one? It's a little vague, considering.

So there you have it, hopefully.  A critique that looks at the actual work, doesn't tell you to go be a white male (I even mentioned a FEMALE *gasp* author), and that hopefully will give you something to work with when re-writing this.  Because make no mistake, it does need re-writing.  As it stands now, very very few of your potential readers are going to get past the blanket-statement stereotyping you engage in with the men and the wheelchaired one to read into the actual meat of the story.  Cut down on blanket statements like "And all the men raped her" and try to be a little less heavy-handed with your allegory, and I think you'll be in much better shape.

1)  Anyone who explains his/her writing is makng an admission of failure. The writing should stand on its own.

2) Why would anyone want to attack the critic? If the story is there for criticism, then all you need do is read the critique and either take the advice or not take the advice.

3) As Stewart pointed out, there were 2 women in my list of short story writers. I did not chose them for their sex but for their expertise in writing this genre. If you don't want to read short stories by white males, please choose short stories by black, green, yellow or blue females as long as they have proved themselves successful. From this short story, you have much to learn.

4. I would like to second the motion brought up by Stewart: that a first second or third draft should not be put up for criticsim.

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I hate it when people pull out this excuse.  If you haven't worked on it at all, why are you surprised it's been labeled as poor writing?  Almost nobody writes pullitzer prize-winners for a first draft.  If you don't want negative comments, don't post drafts.  Re-write your story several times and polish it to a sheen before you post it for the world to see.  But for whatever's sake, don't post a first draft and then get all self-righteous and upset when people tell you it's not very good.

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Apart from the above, it is bad strategy. The critic points out what is obvious because the writer has not taken the trouble to self-edit and hone the writing till it is the best he thinks he can do. So he misses out on the more subtle critiques that help him in those areas that escaped him (or her, of course). What you get is what you could have found yourself and you lose out.

To defend yourself, you jumped to the attack over things that were not even implied. 

...one of the things I defintiely will not do is turn into an eighteenth century white male writer AND GIVE YOU EXACTLY WHAT YOU EXPECT ALL THE TIME.

All but one were twentith century writers and that one was a 19th century writer. None was an 18th century writer.

I am all for experiment, but before you can experiment in writing, you have to know the conventions. This seems to be the excuse of every writer who produces a sub-standard work. The critic is too obtuse to see the bold experimentation in the writing - Hah! It's like a person who composes a piece of music without ever learning the scales and defends his cacophony by saying it is a brilliant experiment. 

I am sorry to hear you are disabled, but even disabled people should write well or accept the fact that the critics do not like what they write. Far from thinking all disabled people are nice, I am aware there are also nasty people with Downs Syndrome and there are monster children as well. The problem was not that, but you failed to make any of your characters anything but puppets - lifeless pawns that you moved around at will. We did not object to your creation of a nasty disabled person; we objected to the fact that the girl was not a living, breathing creation we could believe in.

Again, I am not doing this to defend my critique. I am hoping you have the good sense to realize that you need to move on and learn from this what you should not do. If you are unable to follow that path, still all will not have been in vain. At least, I have gained a point....

 Just wanted to comment.  Karen, you're not the ONLY "disabled" wench on this site.  I'm profoundly Deaf, have been since birth and though I'm toying with an idea of showing what it's like to be Deaf in a story (and see if anyone notices), I don't use it as a crutch.   I have some serious medical problems that I'm amazed isn't complicating my pregnancy, though it isn't obvious.  I have plenty of friends who are in wheelchairs AND are deaf, and they're some of the coolest dudes I know.  One is the son of a pastor, and he has severe cerebal palsy in addition to deafness, and then 3 weeks after we graduated from high school, he was struck with complete blindness.  He is AWESOME.  Has an incredible outlook, and I admire him.

Yeah, you're right, some people do give up after being told that because they're this, they can't be that.  If I were there to talk to them, I'd tell them to quit their whining & do stuff not just mope over their "disability".

The only real disability is how one sees oneself.  That's the way I see it, and it's been proven time and again in my experience.  As for your physical problems, they're physical.  Yes, makes things tougher especially since you know what being "normal" is like.  It doesn't affect your mind, only how you do things.

As for the writings, I'm leaving that to others to critique more in-depth, since I've already done so.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - feel free to contact me anytime.

P.S., I'm guilty of always posting my very first drafts...

I have nothing to say that hasn't already been said except that theses critiques have been extremely entertaining.

If only we spent so much effort critiquing some of the better pieces around here!

 Well said, Bob.

 Okay, these are the critiques that I hate to write. You know the type: saying how bad the story was, and what you can do to improve. Let me just say that nothing I am about to say is meant to come off as a snide remark, or anything derogatory really.

First, let me start off by making mention to the fact that we get it already. She was a very beautiful woman. I think we got it the first five times you said it. Maybe you thought it was a good idea to have solid repetition in your story. That concept is a good one, but when put into context, it is really just a cheap way to make it lengthier. It almost seems as though you wrote the entire story, then turned around and placed that she was pretty in the most random places you could find. The fact that you kept saying how pretty she was made me not want to read past the first page. However, I found it entertaining in that sick sort of way. You know, the kind of way that you end up laughing at something and end up looking sardonic and cocky? Yeah, that kind of way.

Now back to the actual subject; Your sentence structure needs a lot of work. In one paragraph you will have too many simple sentences and in the next paragraph you have sentences that are way too long. Something that might help you is if you would take this story back into your word processor and edit it for a few hours (or judging by how you clearly thought this was good enough to be in a contest, maybe spend a few days on it if it helps).

You need to keep a smooth flow in this story. Right now it is very choppy. It's as if you couldn't keep on one track of mind and you just kept jumping from place to place. A little bit of rearanging could help you with that one. But along with the flow, the sentence structure is in there too. If the sentences don't seem to roll off of your tongue and into the next sentence, then you should reword it. Might I suggest a few transition words (meanwhile, likewise, however, although, ect.). Transition words in general help the flow of the story a lot. It's like when the seasons have recently changed and you're taking that first dip into the lake. You don't just jump right in and face the cold. You have to work your way in gradually. Both your ideas and sentences should be like a person walking into the lake right at the turn of summer.

I'm not a big fan of the form you wrote this in. You're telling the story about a girl - a tragic story at that. For you to ask your audience a question seems almost innapropriate. When I was in tenth grade, my English teacher taught me that the word "you" is to be considered a dead word. When writting a story, unless said by a character, the word "you" should never be used. It distracts the reader from what is going on. When you're writting, you should have the reader so captivated that they can't stop reading to realize that their bladder is swelling.

Now I ask you, where is the character development? You said yourself that you wrote this to force emotions through every person who reads it. Let me just say that it is very hard to make us feel upset for a person from the story if we have no way to connect with them. Not every person in the world has been either raped or disabled. Maybe if you threw something in there about how the love of her life left her, then some of the people could connect emotionally with her.

Also, what does she look like? Straight or curly hair? Black, blonde or brown hair? High cheekbones and a square jaw, or perhaps more rounded features. You said many times that she was pretty, but you never allowed us to paint a picture in our minds.

I'm going to do you a favor and avoid rating this story. If I did, it would probably earn one star for effort. I think that the story was a great idea! How fantastic it was! Seeing a disabled woman, so beautiful and helpless. Most people think that the beautiful girls have it all and you showed a different side to that. So congratulations on that. It is just the writting itself that needs some major work.

 I will tell you first that I am a new member and this is my first critque of a written work. I have to say that I like your general idea and where I think you are going with it. I believe your point was to be a little shocking and sarcastic. I read in your reply that it was partially your intention to bore people. Tell me,why o why would your intention ever be to bore someone? You want to keep them so interested that they cannot wait to turn the page. I think that you have the potential to be a fabulous writer. There are just a few points you need to address first:

1) I would like to know much more about the girl in the wheelchair other than she is pretty. There are more suble ways that you can say she is pretty with actually saying it.  People wil get the idea but will be able to visualize it for themselves rather than wanting to scream due to the words "very" and "pretty" used 100 times.

2) The guys that worked for her are confusing. You jump from one guy to the next so fast without ever giving them a real identity. And for the guy we hear about most, we also need more information about him. So he is somewhat obessed with girls that look like his mother, but why? Did the girl in the wheelchair look like his mother? Is that why he raped her?

3) You need more transition in your story. You jump around so much that it gets confusing. Maybe you could give more background on all of the characters so we grasp a better understanding of each of their personalities. We need more antagonism and protagnism. We get that the girl is a victim but your characters cannot be called characters really because they have no dynamic.