Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-24077689-20140321204230/@comment-24077689-20140328164215

Snydrex wrote: Ahh, no matter how many times I read this, it never gets old.

The best detail about this story, I think, is the speculation. I mean, is there REALLY a ghost? Or is that just the first step into a spiral of madness?

But anyway, review time.

Still an immersive and beautiful read. The asterick separators really help with the overall readability, and most of my complaints about the original are just nonexistant. There's just that "My baby don't love me no more." that kiiinda puts me off. A bit. But there's a chance that could be a reference to a song of the same name by the DeJohn sisters, so there's depth behind that, too. Really, that's good.

And the descriptions still go a long way, but they still help me to imagine the grotesque details behind this story. So they aren't that much of a problem.

The coarse language is still present, but because of scarcity, It now sounds like more of a personification tool for the narrator, which is nice.

And, foreshadowing symbolic sexual innuendo. It exists now. Amazing job on that.

And the result:

...Have you ever considered writing a book?

9.8/10. Well done.

EDIT: Oh, and thanks for directing me here. It really CAN get better, huh? I really love ambiguity in stories, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I wanted to reflect in parts an inner dialogue, which is why I cuss in parts, and I wanted to reflect a certain dialect with the "baby don't love me no more". I feel like it gets lost the fact that this is a southern story, it deals with southern people. I feel like that's an important aspect of the story.

In fact, I hadn't heard that song until I just looked it up on Spotify. This isn't exactly the style nor era I was calling back to. Primarily as far as music goes, the songs I was listening to a lot while writing were Hello, Trouble by Buck Owens, Drivin' Nails in my Coffin by Ernest Tubb, and the album Mule Variations by Tom Waits. A lot of old time country, folk, and blues.

I really appreciate the review. I'm really glad you enjoyed the story!