Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-24996913-20140929054012/@comment-24996913-20140929065714

Banningk1979 wrote: My uncle comes around sometimes too. Usually though he just sits down, brags about his kids, drinks too much, and stares at my wife's chest. This time he dropped off a review, so here it is.

What went right:

-Uncles and aunts can be weird relatives, even when they aren't cannibals. I mean, you've got this adult figure that isn't quite a parent and isn't quite an older sibling or cousin. To some people, an uncle or aunt can just be this mysterious adult that shows up once or twice a year. I had a rather strained relationship with my own uncle. He was my mom's brother, but they didn't get along very well, which meant he never really cared too much for me. He was a naturally sarcastic man with a loud voice and an attention demanding personality. I remember when he would come in for visits, I was kind of scared of him. He would sit across from me, and I would want to look at him, sort of try and figure him out, but at the same time, I was always a little scared to make eye contact with him.

With that childhood memory still strong within, this story translated beautifully as I read it. Sure, my uncle wasn't a cannibal, but I do remember being afraid or him and a bit unnerved when he came into town. You did a brilliant job in selecting the uncle role for this character, like I said before, uncles aren't quite parents, not quite siblings...

-The writing here was done well as always. You kept this one short, but you used your timing well and really created that sense of dread and wrongness before the true nature of the uncle was even revealed. You did an excellent job of painting him as a menacing figure, without actually spoiling the surprise at the end. Well done.

-Your use of scene and setting were on point. I could picture the dinner table, the tension, the bloody kitchen and that horrid soup. You really pushed out the feelings that were going through the girl's mind as she was sitting at the table. It was really easy to imagine myself there, suffering the visit from the uncle.

-The ending was disturbing in all the right ways. Who and what the uncle really is was kept a mystery, but there was enough story telling around the uncle to give me a fairly good idea of what was going on there. The subtle mention of the brother that attempted to resist the uncle was timed just right to give me a little chill. Excellent job all around.

I don't really have much in the way of corrections or suggestions for this one. It was well written, and is a good, chilling story concept. If anything, it left me want more, more of a backstory, more of the family's plight...just more in general.

Excellent pasta.

Thank you for reviewing this. As always, I love reading you're thoughts about what I felt wasn't good enough to post. I'm happy that you picked up on the fact that the uncle is a confusing character aka it's hard to determine what he is. That's exactly what I wanted, something that could be translated differently by the reader. I did, however, make him out to appear to be a physical being when he was actually a figment of the protagonist's guilt personified if that makes sense. I also want to add that the late brother was in fact stronger than the main character, hence why he stood up for what he believed in and died of starvation rather than eating one of his friends. Thanks again for the feedback!