Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-35711173-20190725084302/@comment-5733573-20190728024550

I'm afraid this story just isn't clear enough to keep the reader invested. I saw an earlier comment where you explain the context, but a story really shouldn't require explanation for the reader to enjoy it. What keeps it from being readable is that there is no "other side" to what we're experiencing. We're only seeing the point of view of the damaged mind, with nothing else to give us a hint to what's really going on. Something that might help with this is a conversation between the protagonist and a "normal" person. That would ground at least part of the story in our reality and help us to see what's gone wrong and how. Without this, however, the reader has no way to tell where this is all going, or if it's even going anywhere and that always leads to disappointment.

Clearer visuals would also help. The minimal description you've given really makes it difficult to envision the story, especially where so much of it is so far outside the scope of normal thinking and experience. We need very clear and tangible locations. We need to clearly see what that body looks like with no room for uncertainty, and so forth.

The emotional shifts are very abrupt in your story. It seems to begin in such a positive, hopeful way, which made it very surprising and jarring when she suddenly started sobbing after not being able to eat. This isn't the only jarring shift in your story. Take us along for the emotional ride more.

There's also far too much repetition of "worthless slave," especially where it doesn't really come back or amount to anything significant in the end. You could do without about half as many repetitions and it would still have the effect you want. I would recommend one "worthless slave" per paragraph.

Finally, and perhaps more importantly than anything else, it's really just not scary. This could be because it's not clear enough or rooted in reality enough to really reach out and affect the reader, but there's really nothing here to fear without the backstory. And since we're not getting the backstory, and it's pretty clear from the getgo that things are not as they normally are, there's just nothing at stake for the reader and they have no reason to be afraid.

I really want to see what draft 2 looks like, so I hope you'll take this back and work on it. Thanks for sharing.