Sam, Chapter 1: January 1, 2006
sam
Published on:
August 5, 4:10pmWord Count:
1498Work Description
These are the discovered journals of accidental murder.
Chapter Description
"I'm going to kill someone."
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Discussion
I liked this, it was very intense and over-the-top insane, but I get the idea you were going for that effect. I do think that it still needs a little more shaping though. You have many options, but I just thought of a couple and I thought I'd share. Okay, the first thing that comes to mind is that you have kind of a modern day Poe kind of character here. That's a good thing. You can run with that and if you decide to do so, I think you should probably give the guy a little more consistency as far as his expression...However, the opposite idea seems more interesting to me. I think you should play up the difference between his interludes of lucidity and his breaks with reality. I mean, when he's lucid, give him a really solid moment of lucidity where he's telling himself he's an idiot or just remembering that hissing sound....Make that cold, detached, all that...then when he's freaking out, play it up maybe even a little more, then make the transitions between the two phases, make the tone for the transitions about the same as the whole thing is right now. And make the transitions brief. The guy's snapping back and forth here in rapid and violent bursts. During his lucid spells maybe tag the speech, like he doesn't swear that much, then when he goes into Mr. Hyde mode, have him swear up a storm. I mean, the tourettes-ish thing is pretty freaky, but I think you could make the guy even more deranged by giving him a touch of bi-polar too.
Oh, and yeah there's no writing until page 3 for some reason. It's probably just a glitch, but you should fix it so that people don't get confused and leave without reading it.
So a dip into the steak filled bathtub for a moment, hm? There's definetely a long loving look at psychopathy here, but I'm not sure to what end.
If this is some kind of stream of consciousness, please have that looked at. While killing someone sounds cathartic, it actually involves a lot of work, and actually time off from work in most cases which few people can afford. Truly, there are very benefits to that type of career.
Reading through the piece it was difficult to tell exactly what it was that was the one stand out cause for murder and mayhem, unless it was just a case of good old American Postalism. In all, the ranting was a put off for me, in that it didn't clarify itself well enough, or coalesce into something concrete.
That being said, and despite the fact that for me, the piece was a hard read, the last segment was actually very effectively done. I'd never truly thought about the real moment of dying, the one without the Hollywood lighting. Despite myself, I have to say that this was an involving piece, just for that last scene, and I'm glad I hung around to read through it.
J.A.T
Hi Monsterbox.
As you've probably read a few times, there's nothing on the fist two pages. There's a chance you did that on purpose, but more likely it's a mistake; either way it should be fixed. As a literary device, it's useless and either way it's confusing. If it was a sense of confusion you were trying to give the reader, try typing a few random words on the first few pages, then get into the meat of his confession. Then there'll be no question that it wasn't a mistake on your part.
I found a few things I wanted to talk about. I think this is a good story idea. I'm a fan of tours through the deranged mind-I've written a few of these types of stories before as well. A particularly good critique I received once on a story like this was that it was too 'in your face'. That's how I felt throughout this piece. I liked what Josiah had to say about alternating between lucidity and insanity. Such pacing would give the reader a chance to catch their breath, making the story less 'in your face'.
I noticed a few spelling errors, but I think they were intentional. That can be a great way to show depth of your characters, but you also have to be very careful as to how it's done. Unless it's an obvious error, with something pointing out the error, it will appear like a rookie mistake. Consider this:
I’m doing this because I do not want to make any noise. I am typing so that I can talk without making and fucking noise, you know?
Two things here: 'and' should be any, and use a contraction for do not.
I'm not at all a sensitive person... not at all. But I think the repetitive swearing was unnecessary. I know you're trying to amp up the emotion and vulgarity, but this would be just as captivating and horrifying with half the 'fucks' and a bit more descriptive threads.
I did like this, but think it could be much better with a few refinements. Thanks for sharing.




Dude, there's nothing written. Don't publish it until you've written something, ok?