Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-24714617-20140512023110/@comment-24714617-20140517021018

Noothgrush wrote: First, I’d like to praise you on correctly using dashes. It’s so uncommon for me to see something written well like this that it makes me want to tear up a little.

It’s a bit unclear from the very start whether the demon is literal or metaphorical. Either way you choose to go, make it concrete. Right now, it’s unclear and while I very much enjoy the writing of this story, I feel like it could be so much more.

While it is a lovely mental image, bound to rocks beneath the sea, I feel like you could do better than that. So I’m going to clarify this: is this in reference to something specific? Or is this just a lovely turn of phrase? I feel like that would be an excellent time to allude to something more.

Again, you could take this material much further. You mention how the demon leaves him because he “Draws the line at murdering his family”, you could make mention of how the demon was controlling him. Where did this demon come from? Why was this demon doing this?

You don’t make mention of the demon being real, like a physical entity like The Yattering until the very end of the story. And while, this new ending is a massive improvement, I think you kind of do yourself a disservice by not matching it up. Who exactly is narrating this? It’s unclear whether the imp is literal or a clever metaphor for a mental disorder until the very end.

Great job on this story, some tweaking and I think it’ll be ready for main.

First of all, thanks. It's very nice to hear that I've done a "great job" on this pasta.

The "demon" is very literal, though not a hellish one but one of these "lost souls" the spiritualists talk about. I think that the confusion partly stems from my use of "it" rather than "him" to refer to the creature.

"Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth:" Deuteronomy 5:8

That's where the "waters beneath the earth/sea" imagery comes from.

Anyway, I think I addressed most of the issues that you've mentioned. Version 4.0 is here!

Imaginary Friends

 That wretched thing would watch the poor boy with intent, as he made his siblings’ lives miserable. Many times I’ve tried to counsel the kid but he’d pay no heed. I knew that he could hear me –as all children can- but he chose not to. I warned him that keeping demons for company would bring about his ruin. I warned him that one day, he might become the ultimate slave, bound to the rocks in the murky waters below the sea without even noticing. Yes, for so is the twisted nature of the unholy communion that strips children of their minds, leaving witless creatures whose only instinct is indulgence in sinful passions.

 The boy tinkered with the alarm clock; making it display frightful messages, physically restrained his younger brothers in awkward positions, forced them to watch horror movies, and threatened his siblings with even harsher torture should they complain. Healthy children are known to be cruel sometimes, but something compelled him to make sadism a way of life at so young an age. A lost soul, trying to lure children away from all that is sacred and wholesome.

 It kept fueling the boy’s dark passions and praising every new act of mischief he brought upon his terrified brothers. This inspired pride in the boy, who traded his siblings’ mental and physical welfare for false promises of unearthly powers. But it realized that he couldn’t get much more from its plaything, as the boy drew the line at murdering his family, so it left to seek vengeance against him who defied its authority.

 Or rather, it didn’t leave at all. As the boy grew quieter and tamer with each passing day his wronged siblings lost all fear of him and arranged to punish the boy for his misdeeds. I have no influence over any children that weren’t assigned to my care, but the wretch could freely work its way into the heads of the boy’s vengeful siblings. Frightened, the boy accepted my protection but I could only shelter him from further mental anguish as his once timid brothers turned into things of the dark.

 At first, they simply called him names. Then, in a matter of months none of them did flinch at the sight of one of their kind painfully hanging from his feet meters above them. The imp rejoiced, but his thirst for misery hadn’t been quenched. Finally, they wanted the boy dead. I shed countless tears, but the boy had atoned for his sins. Though he had suffered twice the evil he had wrought in the past few years, he was at peace. And so he didn’t object to being thrown into the pool to drown by the merciless flesh shells that once were his brothers.