User blog:Squidmanescape/Did You Know EmmanC.?

Hey, have you read Etherbot's latest post? I've got to admit the guy's been working really hard to lift people up without people looking at smaller authors. I'd like to start.

So I admit that I have different priorities in mind with these showcases. I probably won't talk about people who make really good stories, instead deciding to focus on people who get no traction because they don't make any stories so awful that they deserve deletion (which, you have to admit, is how people sometimes get traction). Why help when they seem to have basic writing all figured out?

That said, allow me to present EmmanC., a user's who's written two works, but who seems to lack criticism. They say on their first story "I do think it can use some improvement, after all." So I will deliver on this thesis with all my power.

And I beg you: read these two stories before reading my critique. Perhaps I am nitpicking this person's stories just to find places of improvement, and posting a comment will help provide an unbiased view of what may be very good stories.

Both
This story satisfies many basic tenets of a good story. Also, I like how the paragraph structure is noticeably different from a lot of other stories; I really didn't understand Etherbot's complaint until I read this. In fact, it's so good that I feel like it can be critiqued mostly on somewhat subjective thematic elements. The first of these, I will begrudgingly state, is that I don't feel the story's main theme is the best with this story.

The basic thread of the story is that a woman and her lover (who is the main character in a first-person story) are trapped inside a strange hell. One part of this is a white room which causes no pain, and the other part is a dark room filled with invisible flames which cause great agony. They are segregated, one to each room, and they can only switch when both of them will it. The lover is put, by random chance, into the room filled with flames, and though the woman accepts a switch, the lover is is loath to return once outside of the black room, and the woman is trapped in agony. Her screams stop her lover from sleeping, and eventually, she attempts to escape by saying that she found a way out. It doesn't work, but the story ends with the implication that the woman is on the verge of convincing him through sheer force of repetition.

The problem I have with this story is that it's made clear that the lover is spiteful and cowardly, starting from the very second paragraph, but this is never expressly talked about within the story. Sure, the woman addresses it, but we are trapped in the point of view of the main character. That would be fine if an indignant thought about how "[the Devil] is only interested in seeing us suffer, and will only answer to me once I tell him that I will go back to that inferno" is challenged by someone pointing out that as he says this, he is trapping his girlfriend inside a raging inferno, but without some other point of view, the message falls flat, because we don't get the validation of knowing whether or not how he's acting is unreasonable. This can be fixed by making the story in third person, so the audience can understand when he's being unreliable, because I don't get the feeling that an unreliable narrator is optimal in this situation.

Also, another thing is that there are italicized lines throughout the story, and I believe they might form a poem. However, only the last four lines at the very end actually rhyme. I guess that's fine, but i Also, the last line of the poem implies that only one of the rooms is hell while the other room is something else, and while that could be an interesting twist - one of them goes to heaven while the other goes to hell - it would have been better suited by either leaning into one interpretation or not. After all, is heaven really best expressed by an empty white room?

I get the feeling that I'm probably messing up the themes. If EmmanC. is in the audience, could you please tell me if I'm wrong or not?

Regardless, I must say that at the very end, the idea that there was never really a choice - that either choosing to trap one's partner or choosing to risk the flames would yield the same outcome by the end - is a really cool idea. Really, what I'd have liked to know is why they got this punishment exactly. Does it have something to do with what they had done in their life?

If EmmanC. would like my feedback, my opinion can be summarized by the only other comment: "that was amazing it was a really good first one". It hints at even greater heights to come while being a decent and creative story in and of itself.

ReLive
I don't think I've seen the idea of this story here before. There are a lot of future dystopias, but not too many stories about a utopia, or at the very least a society where people can exert godly power in the vein of Coyote from Gunnerkrigg Court.

This story is similar to the first in that it doesn't outright state its themes. However, the main character here is reliable, so it doesn't matter as much. The story on its own isn't scary, necessarily, and the idea that people like to have a purpose isn't superbly revolutionary. However, the story is in second person. At first, I was confused, but then I realized that the story is trying to imply that we could be the main character, that we could have simply forgotten our godliness. That may or may not be scary, depending on how you feel about being controlled, but that's not a bad thing at all. It kind of reminds me of An Egg in that way, but the plot is different.

There are a few moments where something is worded a bit awkwardly. The fragment "knowing that you would rather be doing this than going through Niflheim like a god, with all of your memories of being a god, excruciatingly" is probably the worst, but there's also "you had already done everything that you wanted to in the universe where you lived as a god who always got what he wanted. A god who ran out of things that he wanted." That one also uses the pronoun "he", which I'm pretty sure would force any women out of the immersion. I think if the sentence ended with the first "god", it wouldn't be as repetitive and it would still convey that idea.

If EmmanC. would like my feedback, I'd say this was an improvement, but they shouldn't be afraid to make another story like "Both", because that story wasn't too shabby either.

Overall
If EmmanC. were to keep writing like this, I think they would be on a trajectory to success. Of course, they've been cursed by no one critiquing their work and telling them how they could improve, but I think their habits are already pretty good. Heck, they even posted ReLive in Writer's Workshop, even though nobody responded. I hope EmmanC. is inspired to write more after this. I'd like to see what they produce next.