Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-29969337-20161104130817/@comment-30402176-20161106004829

Alright, well in that case I'll try once more. I may not be an admin, but I am a fellow writer, so I'll try to help you out as best as I can.

MisterStuff, you are certainly right to think of this as divisive. It's certainly a very graphic and violent story. Let me first digress for a moment to explain my stance on the use of gore in entertainment.

Many people have this mistaken idea that more gore means more of a fright, when in reality - this is not true. Good spooky stories should also rely on elements of terror, and suspense. There are many examples of horror films I've seen, along with stories which abuse this element with such impunity, that it detracts from the overall quality of the story, and only results in sickening the audience rather than frightening them. Let me give you an example:

When I was in my late teens, my cousins and I were bored so we all decided to go on Netflix to see a horror film. It was a little tradition we had to spend our time together in the holidays, when we couldn't sleep. And on one particular evening, we watched VHS, and it's sequel, VHS 2. Both films were utter crap. We'd seen far too many horror films, and though I never admitted this openly with them - I was really dissapointed because I felt like I'd wasted my entire evening. Aside from the film's incredibly banal premise: consisting of poorly-linked story segments with amateur acting, nudity, and trite supernatural bugaboo that are supposed to piece together to form a story about a haunted videocassette collection or something, I felt that gore were the main selling points of both movies. Until that point, I never thought of myself as a film or story critic - but watching those terrible movies seemed to have awakened something in me. Something else is needed in a good horror film/story to make it truly stand out from the rest. The entire SAW franchise was more vomit-inducing than scary. Now - what was the best horror film I ever saw? Sinister. Now many people might sneer and look down on me, but the reason I found it really frightening was because I thought it was both unsettling, creepy, and cleverly done. Sinister exhibits a large amount of "terror" - that is: fear of something unknown and pervasive. Ironically, the film's plot is not really that different to VHS - a young filmmaker discovers a box of Super 8 video film in the attic, which contain snuff films depicting the previous house owners dying in cruel ways. What I especially like is how the old-fashioned grain and poor quality of the Super 8 film is actually used as an asset, to enhance the creepy atmosphere of the home movies. And the mythology surrounding the demon god Bagul who is secretly responsible for the victims and their deaths.

Anyways, to summarise everything - gore is like red wine. You don't want too much in your pasta.

Now, onto your story's plot.

The main protagonist's motives for committing this sadistic torture to the victim are perplexing and dubious. The story indicates that she was formerly pregnant, until she lost her baby. But there appear to be two conflicting accounts as to how that happened. Firstly, early on, our protagonist accuses her torture victim of having "killed" her baby, which might explain to a degree why she chooses to inflict such savage retribution on her. However, this is contradicted later, when she retrospectively describes her "abortion". The word "abortion" implies that the baby was killed voluntarily, and under legal circumstances on the main character's part. Now, judging by your dialect spelling and use of language, I sense that you are British. You should be aware that abortion in the UK can only be sanctioned by law if the mother approves of the procedure. That's a thing to bear in mind - because it means that the baby could not have been terminated unless the main character agreed to it, which undermines the motive behind her actions.

Or... was there another story behind how she lost her baby? Was it done in an underhanded, secret way without her knowledge? Or, maybe the main character did indeed choose to legally terminate her unborn, and, filled with anger and regret, chose this victim to be her scapegoat? Whichever it is - I feel that we are not given enough information to understand the truth. Also - what's the story behind Jason? What exactly happened between Jason and the protagonist that made them break up, that resulted in her abortion, and where does the other character come into this? Why does Jason not recognise the main character anymore, and what could she mean, when she talks about her own "betrayal"? Whatever the case this, only you can explain it. Scary stories don't work, when the audience is too confused to know what's going on. Good descriptions are always helpful.

You know, I got the impression, given how our main character slanders her prey with insults such as "bitch", "cow", "whore" and "slut", that the other female character in the story was actually her love rival, who had actually been meeting up with Jason in secret, and had some kind of influence over him. If I'm right, then this would explain the protagonist's hatred towards her. But even so, we need to ask ourselves - is that really enough of a reason to motivate anyone to surgically remove a person's eyeball and mess around with it in a grotesque, self-righteous apoplexy of bloodthirsty retribution? It's too over-the-top, if you ask me. The only kind of people I imagine who would not hesitate to inflict such cruelty would be first the truly sick and depraved (serial killers/people who were abused in their childhood by a killing) or those possessed by demons, or evil spirits. Not women who were distraught after having lost a boyfriend and a child. Anyone who has never committed murder before will find the very act in and of itself unnatural and chilling - regardless of how they felt about the victim.

Now that I've dealt with the plot, here's a couple more things for future reference:

1.) - I reccommend that you avoid the use of ALL CAPS, especially in written dialogue. I understand you are trying convey extreme anger, but this is not the best way to go about doing it. The exclamation mark alone will suffice. Also, I like what you did in this passage here: ‘Keep. Your. Eyes. Open.’   By breaking her lines into one word sentences, this does a good job in illustrating the utter contempt she feels for her prey. But don't use ALL CAPS. The only appropriate time this would be suitable, would be if you were writing a headline of some kind, or a title in boldface.

2.) - A major flaw in this story - is that we rarely hear from this other character. Even though she is being most brutally and horrifically tortured, no kind of scream, nor wail, or protest from her ever seems to be acknowledged throughout the story. In fact, given the way you rather confusingly depicted her "hateful face", you've implied that she seems to feel an unnatural level of tolerance to the pain and mutilation she's currently undergoing, since all she can do in response is maintain a "hateful" look in her eyes at her captor. Totally unrealistic. Just think how you would feel if somebody carved into your face with a scalpel, then dislodged your own eyeball in front of you. You'd probably at the very least say "ouch".

3.) - Just a minor point here, but your story would be organised better if it were either arranged into neat paragraphs, or broken further into smaller, more digestible passages of 2 or 3 sentences. Now, I'm still quite new to the source editor, but this html code " " means a break into the next line. It's a useful thing to remember when editing html text.

In conclusion, I believe that your story would be more effective if you first limited the use of gore (That "aqueous humour" passage... just; come on - that's completely unneccessary, I almost wanted to throw up at that) and second, cleared up the ambiguous nature of the character's backstory. Since I didn't write your story, I cannot know the true reason behind why this character chose to commit this awful act of violence - but you do. So, maybe once you do, the ending could have a greater effect.

But take heart, and I hope you can find useful information from what I've said. Also, I apologise if I've misinterpreted your story.