Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28428152-20181208094813/@comment-9041013-20181208205207

Banned In CP wrote: Hm, I've heard that chemo thing somewhere... should probably fact check it.... Okay, it is a thing in about 41% of chemo patients. Phon Chanthavong will just have to be that 41% then.

There is a bit of foreshadowing in the first part of this chapter, though it's very subtle. But that scene at their dad's will become relevent again in Volume III.

Funny thing is, I didn't plan that dream sequence at all. The scene at Jan's was originally meant to be much different and less intense, though it does contain some important plot points, so it'll just have to wait until next chapter. But hey, can't have the Nameless do the same shit all the time. I've gotta spice it up a bit. And while I have been around dead pigs, I have not been around rotting pig parts, but I thought it would be interesting to make thematic connections with Lord of the Flies (if you haven't read it, it's about a group of boys stranded on an island and they have the struggle between being civilized and being savages. The dead pig head is from that, as well as a few of the things the Nameless says in the dream, such as "Kill the pig! Cut her throat! Spill her blood!"; "What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?"; and the final phrase of the nameless is a slightly tweaked quote from the book as well.) Also, if by the all caps your referring to when the Nameless screams "I AM!" It's because that's a reference to the short story "I have No Mouth, and I Must Scream," in which the antagonists' name is AM in all caps. Him saying he's the Adaptive Manipulator and the Aggressive Menace is also a reference to that story. The parallel I'm drawing here with that is that in I Have No Mouth the antagonist, AM, is a supercomputer whose circuitry spans the entire globe and has wiped out all but five people on Earth, and is basically their god, and eternally tortures them. However, there is a flip side to what the Nameless says, which wouldn't be what he intended, but is intentional on my part. It's a good read, I'd definitely recommend it. I'll post a link to a pdf of the story below all this

And yeah, fuck rapists. That's the main point of this second volume, fuck rapists. I was originally going to be sexually graphic in this whole thing, but if I've already got a giant, spitting, slithering penis, I m ight as well be. I don't think it would make sense for a horror story that's trying to make a point about rape to sugar-coat. Seeing as this is, you know, supposed to be horror after all.

Also, it was like 4 in the morning when I got done with the manual proofread, and I still had to fix the inevitable formatting issues the workshop has whenever you paste something here, and I just wanted to go to bed. I'll worry about running this chapter through Grammarly when I'm revising it in a later draft, haha

Forgot to mention, its funny you mentioned it being slower, because I was worried about it feeling a little rushed. Glad it didn't. But when Dan is thinking back to the day before he goes to his dad's does it feel awkward at all where I chose to jump back and forth? Or is it ok?

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream Yeah I noticed the references to The Lord Of Flies, you also mentioned the book itself, so regardless it was there.

No, you didn't make it come off awkward, it went smoothly for me.