Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-30692969-20170109134934/@comment-28266772-20170110144702

My mind tends to race, coming up with ideas that would make me out to be a criminal had they actually fermented enough to become a reality '[this is quite clumsily worded; stylistically it doesn’t pay off i.e. ‘make me out to be a criminal’ implies that the thoughts would effortfully make you appear as a criminal even though you aren’t, which suggests agency. Also ‘fermented enough to become reality’ just feels… weird]'. Sometimes, these things do tend to make it out of my mouth, reaching the ears of people who I usually don’t see again. I drive these people away because of my wild imagination, my dark fantasies that only really build up over time, the pressure growing and growing until eventually, I have to get them out, until I need to have them heard [a lot of commas which could be culled]. I’ve tried going to therapists, but they all tell me the same thing; Get more sleep. You see, I go to bed late and wake up really early. I only get around 3 hours of sleep a night, but it doesn’t really bother me. I deal with it.

Recently, they’ve been trying to prescribe me meds to put me to sleep. They say that I’m consistently fading in and out of consciousness, blurring the lines between reality and my dreams. They tell me that if I don’t sleep, I could become dangerous. They now beg me to take the meds, even trying to bribe me before something more [more; this is an awkward word to use] happens. I thanked them and left, dropping the prescription in a trash can right outside of the building. I returned home and sat down on my couch, staring at the ceiling. I contemplated my life, remembering the horrid thoughts I often had.

I slipped into the darkness.

I awoke to see a bright, fluorescent light shining in my eyes. A hand reached over and rest itself on my chest. The head of a man followed, staring me in the eyes. It looked back, the hand reaching back to grab something. It returned with a scalpel, the head turning to me, his gaze turning to my chest. I exhaled. It lowered the scalpel into my skin and pulled towards my stomach. It glided through my skin. I felt no pain as my chest opened to reveal my ribcage. The head turned again and returned with a surgical saw. It lowered the saw into the large, bloody cavity, dragging it back and forth on the bone. Minutes later, the head pulled out the front of my ribcage, exposing my innards to the cool air. It disappeared from beside me. My chest began to burn, the effects of whatever anesthetic he probably put me under fading. The man returned, his face now covered with a bear mask. The man held a drill, the bit being nearly 2 inches long. He lowered it into the cavity and rest [rested] it on my heart. The burning turned to stinging, turned back to burning. He pulled the small trigger on the drill, the bit spinning faster and faster on my lungs. I lost my breath, the drill spitting blood out of my chest. The pain disappeared. I let my head fall back onto the pillow behind me. I closed my eyes.

'[this is an interesting passage. But it feels a bit dry, there’s not much of an image being painted. Other than that though it’s still functional, I just think you’re at a stage where you can start using more creative language]'

I opened them, my ceiling greeting my stare. I’d slept. I looked down at my chest and let out a sigh of relief as I realized that it was a dream. I stood up and looked around, realizing the only difference was the dark red stain leading to the basement door. I crept over and opened the door, darkness greeting my eyes. I flicked the switch to see fluorescent light fill the cavernous abyss [cavernous abyss is a good example of ‘creative language’]. I slowly trudged down the steps, trying not to step in the blood. I made it to the bottom of the stairs to be greeted by a door. I tried to open it, but the knob wouldn’t budge. I reached into my pocket, for some reason feeling an eerie force telling me to try my keys, feeling compelled to find out what remained behind the locked door.

I tried all of my keys, only two fitting in the hole and only one actually unlocking the door. I slowly turned the knob and opened the door. I peered in, staring into the darkness, slight moonlight lighting up a table against one of the walls. I reached in, trying to find a lightswitch, and felt something sharp grab my hand. I screamed as I pulled back, stumbling for the stairs. I felt the sharp thing wrap around my ankle, pulling me towards the room. It stood me up, facing me into the room. I tried to make a break for the door, but the thing shut it before I could get out. A light turned on, the shape of the thing becoming apparent. It was a metallic, humanoid figure, its fingers bent into sharp, dagger-like nails.

“I will not kill you,” a voice came from the thing. It was a dark, deep, metallic voice filling the room. “Now, do what I say and nothing happens. Look at the bed in the middle of the room. Do you recognize it?”

I couldn’t get my words out, fear filling my body. My legs trembled and my mind began to race again. I pushed the thoughts out and looked at the thing.

“If you stay with me, your fantasies, your thoughts could become a reality. Now that bed, it was in your dream.”

Suddenly, I remembered. A man was tied down to the bed, unconscious. My stomach dropped as the thing told me the contents of my dream in vivid detail. He told me about the scalpel, the man’s face, the bed. He told me to think about the face and see if I recognized it. He told me that dreams are made of memories, things we’ve already seen. The people in the dreams are people you’ve seen on the streets, at work, in school. I remembered the face. I thought, trying to figure out who it was. I thought long and hard, but nothing came to mind. I was stumped.

“I don’t know who it is.”

He showed me a reflective piece of metal on his arm. “Does this help?”

It was me. I knew what I had to do. I walked over, and rested my hand on the man’s chest. HE was awake now. I looked him in the eyes. I turned around and picked up a scalpel off a table standing behind me. I turned back and opened his chest. He didn’t scream. I picked up a saw and took out the front of his ribcage. I dropped it on the ground and turned to the table. I saw a mask. I knew the mask. It was that of a bear, it’s brown fur matted to the plastic shaping it. I put it on and picked up the drill, the bit being about 2 inches long. I turned and drilled into his lungs. They stopped moving. He stopped moving. I stopped moving. I pulled out the drill and put it down on the table.

“I’m done.”

“I see,” the thing told me. “You’re ready.”

Police sirens sounded right outside of my school. I looked around, the thing disappearing. Giving up, I sat down against the wall. Heavy footsteps sounded throughout the house. A set of footsteps came down the stairs. A light was shone into my eyes. I squinted at the pain, the man behind the flashlight bending down and putting my hands behind my back. He dropped the light and handcuffed me. I closed my eyes.

<p class="MsoNormal">I fell asleep.

<p class="MsoNormal">-

<p class="MsoNormal">Mechanical issues – None as far as I could see, though I’m hardly a professional editor.

<p class="MsoNormal">Style issues – this is a bit dry. The prose is functional but you’d benefit from studying how writers make their descriptive passages stand out. Some of the best writers on this wikia are MikeMacDee, BanningK, Jay ten, Empy and Levi Salvos. Starting with them is a good idea.

<p class="MsoNormal">Plot issues – I’m not sure, really. It’s hard to put a finger on why stories like this don’t always work. Saying ‘they don’t make sense’ is stupid because obviously that’s part of the point, and lots of stories don’t make sense but are still enjoyable and cohesive. So it’s not as simple as that. I liked the idea of a cycle forming, where he experiences torture and then discovers he has to repeat the torture on himself, making him both victim and perpetrator. That was quite interesting. I didn’t like the metal monster’s sudden, inexplicable and pointless, appearance. And I didn’t like that this guys fucked up fantasies weren’t given any room to breathe i.e. we never see what makes him so fucked up. We only ever see the bit where he removes some guys ribcage, which again, doesn’t feel too dark because it’s presented in a way that feels removed and strange. It never feels real, so it’s not very scary.