Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26007602-20150201230613/@comment-26007602-20150202211631

Ahhh. I thank you, Unersame, for taking the time to read through the whole thing. I will definitely look over those grammatical errors and take your other thoughts into consideration.

I want to explain the story a bit, as it is obvious to me, but apparently not so to my readers (Which is the part that matters).

First off: the ending. I wrote this in a journalistic way so that you would think you're reading a journal. The sort of "meta-twist" would be that you are not; you're listening to a conversation between this girl and her therapist. The last few lines reveal that the main character is instead talking to a therapist of sorts, and that this whole world she describes is a manifestation/exaggeration of reality. I used no dialogue marks because I wanted it to be in the same style as the rest of the story, signifying that it's all been one conversation. I hoped it would be clear enough to work, but I should definitely change it if the reader doesn't understand it.

You see, I was wondering how obvious the symbolism here would be. Each monster my protagonist faces represents a different form of suicide: The Hanger represents hanging oneself, The Burned represents drinking bleach or other chemicals, Carmen represents jumping to one's death, and the mirror represents slicing your wrists. Was that obvious in the story? The main character deals with each of these situations (save the last one where she decides to get help instead) by cutting her arms or hurting herself in some way; she's driving these thoughts away. She says justifications at the very end because the monsters are supposed to represent reasons for cutting herself. I believe this makes the ending clearer, but if you didn't pick up on it, then yeah, it makes no freaking sense.

I used the word sloth multiple times because I think in my original version, there were seven monsters, each monster would representing a different sin along with suicide (The mirror-sloth, The Burned- gluttony, Carmen- lust, etc.). I nixed them because the story felt a bit too packed and repetitive. But you're right, in the current context, it makes little sense.

You mentioned that you thought the character was a guy for the first bit. That was intentional. Now, I ask if it is detrimental to the story or a nice twist?

Finally, I will admit that the Binding of Isaac was one of my main inspirations (Nice job picking up on that!). The other was Dogscape.

Thank you very much for showing me how potentially confusing the story is. I hope my elaborations make sense and give more context to the story. Please, if there's anything you're still stuck on, let me know and I'll try to fix it in the next draft.