Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-29514971-20160821142013/@comment-28266772-20160822133208

I climb out of my bed. Everything is blurry, my thoughts nothing but a mess as I walk towards my bedroom door. I cannot control my movements. I am confused, what am I doing? I walk slowly along the creaking floor of the hallway. The creaks are loud and unwelcome, and the urge to stop moving is immense. But I cannot control myself. '[your order of events here is poorly presented. They walk towards their bedroom door. You state that they cannot control their movements. You then move into the hallway but without ever clarifying that they moved from the bedroom, to their hallway. You state there are creaks, but you do not clarify where they are coming from – you only imply that it is the narrator’s movements creating them. You then repeat that they cannot control themselves. - The sequence of events is not clear, and you rely on repetition (you repeat ‘creak’ twice, and you state that they cannot control themselves twice]'

I must be dreaming.

I continue to walk along the waxed boards that make up the floor of the hallway. Every step is accompanied by a deafening creak [repetition]. The darkness seems to echo the sound, making it sound [repetition] so much worse than it already is [what exactly do these words even mean in this context?]. At the end of the hallway is the door to the kitchen. The sliding door is closed, and it makes a horrible noise '[you place emphasis on the sounds of this story, but your vocabulary leaves a lot to be desired. So far we’ve had ‘horrible’ x 1 and ‘creaked’ x 3 neither of which are original, or even particularly interesting] 'as I slide it across. '[Can I also highlight that the two clauses – “At the end of the hallway is the door to the kitchen. The sliding door is closed,” can be streamlined significantly. E.g. “At the end of the hallway is the sliding door to the kitchen. It makes a horrible noise as I slide it open.” -> In particular there’s no need to state that it is closed when the next sentence describes the person opening it. The ambiguity of its openness is rectified the second the narrator starts to open it]'

I must be dreaming.

I walk towards the utensils draw, and pull out a small, blunt steak knife. It isn’t serrated, so it makes for a clean cut [this makes it sound like it’s cutting something right this very second – also how can a blunt knife make a clean cut?]. What am I doing? Why am I doing this? I can’t stop myself as I slowly walk out of the kitchen, the floor’s creaking getting even louder. I try to stop my legs, to ram the knife into my thigh, something, anything to stop this.

I must be dreaming.

Back in the hallway, I walk towards a closed over door [awkward phrasing]. From inside I can hear quiet snoring. I open the door, brandishing the knife as I walk into the room. My parents sleep peacefully on the bed. My Dad is snuggled up to my Mum [not sure these should be capitalized]. It’s a somewhat beautiful sight. But as I get closer and closer to the pair, I realise what I’m doing. I try to scream, [semicolon] I try to stomp. I try anything to wake them up. But I can’t. My body is not my own.

Please let me be dreaming.

My Mum is first. I run the blunt knife across her neck, cutting deep enough to expose the windpipe. Her eyes open wide in surprise. I look her in the eyes [repetition] as she begins to struggle. I am crying inside, her look not fury [awkward phrasing], but a plea for help. I’m her eldest son and I can’t even help her. And suddenly I ram the knife into her eye. She instantly stops struggling. And through all that, my Dad continues to sleep deeply.

Oh fuck, what have I done?

Please God, please, this has to be a dream. A nightmare. It can’t be real.

I yank the knife out, slowly walking over to the other side of the bed. My Dad continues to snore. I’m screaming in my head, swearing, shouting at Dad to just wake up. But it’s too late. I’ve already run the knife along my Dad’s Adam’s apple. He attempts to scream, but all I can hear is gargling. I can see the blood run down his neck. He writhes in the bed, and I run the blade along his neck again. And again. And again.

I can’t do this. I can’t be doing this. Wake me up. An alarm, the annoying crows, someone. Just please. Wake me up.

I walk out of the room, strangely untouched by any of the blood. '[I think you’ve missed an opportunity here – why is he not covered in blood? Don’t you think it would be freakier to be soaked, head to toe, in your own parents’ blood?]' I can hear my Dad’s last gurgling breaths as I walk away. My sister is in her bedroom, and it’s there I head next. The creaking of the floor no longer bothers me, my head filled with images of my parents’ pleading faces. My Dad actually shed a tear when I was in there, and I died inside. '[it’s best to keep events that are chronologically linked, structurally linked unless you have a good reason not to. i.e. if the Dad cried when his throat was being slit, we should have heard about it from the narrator when the rest of that scene was playing out]'

And I still can’t control my body. The only thing I can hope for is that I kill myself afterwards.

I reach my sister’s room, and she’s quietly asleep. She’s only 9 years old. I walk up next to the bed, the soft glow of her lamp illuminating the room. And I ram the knife into her chest. It doesn’t kill her. She opens her eyes, and looks into mine.

<p class="MsoNormal">And she asks what I’m doing.

<p class="MsoNormal">I can’t even respond. I just grab the knife and stab her again. She doesn’t make a sound. She just stares at me with a horrified look, her eyes begging me to stop, the tears running down her face, never ending.

<p class="MsoNormal">The look on her face made me want to die. It made me want to ram the knife into my own eye and be done with it.

<p class="MsoNormal">But there was still my younger brother. '[Right here – this is the moment I started to lose the will to read on. Bear that in mind because it’s around about here that the gimmick of this story wears thin and it feels like it should start wrapping up] 'I walk out to the lounge, knife in hand. My brother likes to sleep on the couch for some reason. I can’t think anymore. I just want it over with. I want control of my body so that I may kill myself. So that I can join them in where ever it is we go when we die. Whether it’s the ground or a heaven above. I don’t care.

<p class="MsoNormal">Just let this nightmare end.

<p class="MsoNormal">I slit my brother’s throat, but for some reason I don’t cut it hard enough. I can only partially see a puncture in the windpipe. [Slitting someone’s throat doesn’t kill them via suffocation – it kills them via blood loss] Yet I walk away to put the knife back. And suddenly I hear it. I [A] raspy, gurgling voice.

<p class="MsoNormal">“No… nonononono…”

<p class="MsoNormal">I walk back and see him. He’s awake, feeling his neck, covered in his own blood. How is he alive? I notice he’s slowly suffocating. And he’s pleading with his eyes, but he’s not pleading for me to save his life.

<p class="MsoNormal">He’s pleading for me to end it.

<p class="MsoNormal">And then I say the first words to leave my mouth since I’ve woken up.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Want me to put you out of your misery?” [why can he suddenly talk?]

<p class="MsoNormal">“Y-Yes.” He replies. [“Y-yes,” he replies.]

<p class="MsoNormal">I go back into the kitchen, and suddenly I have control of my body again. '[eh? This plot point is conceited as fuck] 'And it’s a horrible feeling. He wants me to end his life, and I don’t think I can. But I grab the sharp bread knife. It’s the biggest knife we have. I go back, and I smile at him as I place the knife in a position where I can impale his heart. [holy shit there are easier ways to kill someone, also takes an enormous amount of effort to pierce the sternum] So that he doesn’t have to suffer more than he should. He shouldn’t be suffering at all.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I love you.” [“I love you,”] I sob out to him.

<p class="MsoNormal">He reaches out and places his hand on my shoulder, “I love you too.” [Sentimental overload]

<p class="MsoNormal">He winces slightly, and then goes limp as I ram the knife into his heart. I collapse onto the ground. My hands are now covered with blood. I look at my brother’s face. He’s smiling. He died with a smile on his face. '[What the fuck? Why?] 'He looks so tranquil.

<p class="MsoNormal">I start crying harder than I’ve ever cried before, and I pull the knife out of my younger brother. He was only 12. [twelve]

<p class="MsoNormal">I decide it’s time to end this nightmare. I place the sharp knife against my throat. But before I can end my own life just as I did my family’s, [awkward and clunky] I wake up.

<p class="MsoNormal">I’m laying in my bed. I have no blood on me. I check the clock, and it says it’s 9:00am. I shed a tear of joy, thankful that the dream is not real. I walk out to the kitchen, put one coffee and four sugars '[Holy shit four sugars? That’s rancid. Absolutely rancid.]' into a cup, before flicking the switch to boil the kettle.

<p class="MsoNormal">I start to think rationally.

<p class="MsoNormal">What an absurd dream. Killing my family?

<p class="MsoNormal">You can’t kill what is already dead. '[Excuse me while I go pick up my eyeballs. They seem to have rolled out of my head]'

<p class="MsoNormal">-

<p class="MsoNormal">1) Mechanical issues – not many as far as I can tell but you have a major bad habit of incorrectly formatting speech. It’s “Holy shit,” Tom cried. Not “Holy shit.” Tom cried. So just bear that in mind for the future. Oh and you need to be careful with the structure of your sentences. Your prone to redundancy and awkward repetition.

<p class="MsoNormal">2) Style issues – Your style is pretty good at parts. The imagery is functional but it could use a lot of work too. Your vocabulary feels limited and you rely on repetition. I do like that you frequently bring sound into the fold. It’s an often missed touch in stories and it helps give your story a strong atmosphere and mood.

<p class="MsoNormal">3) Plot issues – so for the most part this is an interesting idea. Not all stories need to be about twists and I like the idea of just having a story where the horror is in every word, and not waiting to jump out. It’s there. It’s gross and unpleasant. And it’s unrelenting. You do a good job of this but the structure is a bit sloppy. The mercy killing just feels over the top and unnecessary and there’s not enough room for it and the twist at the end. Furthermore that twist also kind of sucked. It needs some basic explanation to make any sense. I would personally recommend you have three murders and get rid of the twist. This story relies on the gimmick of first person murder and I wouldn’t let it overstay its welcome. Two parents and a kid is more than enough to do what this story can do. As it is it just rolls on and on and on and on and on (e.g. I killed my Mum. Then my Dad. Then my Nan. Then my Aunt. Then my Aunt’s Dog. Then my brother. Then my brother’s pet stick insect. Then my brother’s second pet stick insect…)

<p class="MsoNormal">Overall – I liked this story, you write at a functional level but I think you’d benefit from reading more horror and improving your vocabulary. Other than that I enjoyed this story and I’d like to see more of your work in the future.

<p class="MsoNormal">Oh and one last thing - ''four fucking sugars!? ''Is this kid turning into a fly!?