Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-27838637-20161117152206/@comment-28266772-20161122151936

The timber crackled and popped as it burnt, emitting an intoxicating aroma as the smoke wafted into the air. Bright and red, the coals sizzled in the night air, providing light to the small clearing. Smooth round rocks surrounded the campfire, preventing the nearby forest from catching alight. The illumination of the flames quickly faded at the edge of the trees, providing a picturesque image of a classic campfire [this feels a bit like a major ‘signpost’ – I don’t think you need to call it a ‘classic campfire’]. Between the blaze and the forest were a series of logs, particularly placed so that people could sit by the warmth of the coals and flames, cooking sweet marshmallows and enjoying the beautifulness of life and nature. [I think this could be snappier i.e. ‘sitting on logs cooking sweet marshmallows etc.]

But tonight, this fire was going to host a more sinister activity. Not far from the seclusion of this fire was a summer camp and a lake, both of which went by the name of Floodwater. It was a lovely place, really - far and away from the clichéd American summer camps where monsters and serial killers tried their hardest to slaughter the poor souls who happened across it. It was lovely and green, not far from the main road and only a few minutes’ drive from the next town. Sounds like a lovely place, doesn’t it? [major repetition of “lovely place”; whole section feels weird]

You see, all that was about to change. There were other forces at play tonight, ones that wanted to mettle [mettle is not a verb but is a noun referring to someone’s ability to respond to stress/change; shit, just realized you probably meant ‘meddle’]with normality and contradict the laws of reality. This force wanted to tear apart the peaceful nature of Floodwater and transform it into a place of horror and disgust. It just needed the right opportunity to do so…

“This place looks cool!” piped Tommy.

“This looks like the perfect place!” Gary yelled, backing up Tommy’s statement. [there’s an element of redundancy to having both the dialogue and the tag afterwards basically say the same thing]

It was a pretty cool place [repetition], and these four children knew it. They had wandered up from the cabins at the camp, unsatisfied with their short holiday filled with menial activities and over-controlling supervisors whose ultimate goal seemed to be prohibiting the children from having any fun. Well, tonight was their last night at Floodwater and they wanted to make the most of it. Who wouldn’t?

[I’m just not clicking with this style, not to mention it’s about 500 words in and I don’t feel like anything has moved forward]

The four children parked their backsides onto the logs around the campfire. Tommy and Gary were essentially the leaders of the group. These two young boys had ruled the roost at their schools, playing all the sports and getting top grades in most of their tests. In their small gang, here at Floodwater, they called the shots. The other two children were Zac and Maggie. Zac was a plump young child who ate a lot [that feels redundant given the ‘plump young child’ bit] and liked computer games. He didn’t have many friends outside of Floodwater, so when Gary and Tommy picked him for their kayaking team he was over the moon. Since then he had followed them around like a bad smell. Maggie was Gary’s sister. She just stuck around the boys because of Gary, even though she hated some of the things that they said and did. They were rude and rough, and had no manners. But Maggie loved her brother enough to tolerate their boyish behaviour. She was never good at making friends, so if she stayed alongside her brother then at least he could do all the work for her. To be frank, she wasn’t even interested in coming up to the campfire with the boys, but she’d have preferred accompanying them than staying in the cabin herself. [I’m very weary of stories that do these sorts of introductions; I’d much rather see character through action]

Anyway, the children had come up to this campfire to do something that, for some unbeknownst reason, they hadn’t been allowed to do all week.

Tell scary stories.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Maggie asked, still a little nervous and frightened at the idea.

“I think it’s an excellent idea sis!” Gary replied, “What do you think Zac?”

Zac had a stutter, so he didn’t speak much. He just nodded his head in agreement before Tommy switched off his flashlight.

“So… let us begin the annual Floodwater scary story, storytelling…” Tommy stopped for a second to gather his thoughts. He had an idea brewing in his mind for quite some time, but now that it was time to let it out, he didn’t know what to say. ‘This must be what writers block feels like,’ he thought to himself. But nevertheless, he continued his story.

“It was a lovely day at Floodwater. The sun was shining and the children were laughing. It was just an awesome time for everyone! But there was one supervisor at the camp who wasn’t enjoying himself. No matter what activity everybody was participating in, this man was just miserable. He hated everything, especially the children.”

“Hey! That sounds like all the supervisors here!” Maggie yelled. But Tommy ignored her and continued his story.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Anyway, there was one thing that the camp was doing wrong. The children were having so much fun that they just couldn’t wind down enough to go to sleep. They stayed up all night playing games and telling scary stories, despite the fact their bedtime was 8:30pm! The supervisors used to take shifts in staying up all night to look after the kids, all but one. The miserable man didn’t want to stay up, because he liked to sleep.

<p class="MsoNormal">"But one night, the supervisors were so tired that the miserable man had to stay up to look after the kids. He was so angry about this, that he ordered all the children to go to sleep. They were up past their bedtime, and that was against the rules. The children ignored him though, and kept laughing and having fun. The miserable man tried again and again to calm the kids down and send them to bed, but the more he asked, the more they played and laughed.

<p class="MsoNormal">"The miserable man got so angry, that he used his Swiss Army knife to kill all the children. He cut their necks and took out their tongues for laughing too much. Then he went to sleep. That miserable man was never seen again, but to this day, the supervisors of Floodwater make sure that nobody stays up past their bedtime, and nobody can make jokes or have fun. Because who knows when the Miserable Man will come back?”

<p class="MsoNormal">The three boys burst out laughing. This story was the best thing they had heard all week, and they were glad to be having fun for a change. However, Maggie didn’t find the story funny at all. She was terrified, just like any typical young girl.

<p class="MsoNormal">“T-t-t-that s-story was so funny Tommy!” Zac commended his buddy, clapping his hands and laughing at the ridiculous story. In some way, in their minds, this story was entirely plausible, and provided a perfect explanation as to why the camp had been so lame up until now.

<p class="MsoNormal">The children eyed each other, pondering whose story would be next.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I have a good one,” Gary said, calmly. “In the middle of Floodwater Lake, there lives an ancient and terrifying monster called the Floddlebark!”

<p class="MsoNormal">“The Floddlebark? That’s almost as lame as this camp!” Tommy blurted out. Everyone except Gary found it hilarious.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Shut-up Tommy! Let me finish my story you fool… Anyway, the Floddlebark wasn’t huge, like Godzilla, but just quite a bit bigger than a man, and he had rough scales, like an alligator, and a wide mouth like a snake, but his teeth weren’t like a snake, no, they were like…” He stopped for a moment to catch his breath, or maybe to let his friends try and comprehend what he had just said, on account that he tried to describe the creature in the space of three seconds. “They were like dragons’ teeth. Jagged. Horrible. Smelling of burning flesh! Did I mention the Floddlebark can breathe fire? Well he can!”

<p class="MsoNormal">“This is just silly,” Maggie interrupted. “This isn’t scary. The Floddlebark couldn’t be real or we would have seen it!”

<p class="MsoNormal">Gary thought about it for a second, before telling everybody his answer. “Well, I wouldn’t be so sure about that sis! You see, the Floddlebark only comes out to eat human flesh on a full moon. He burns down the houses of his victims and consumes their entire body in under ten seconds.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Everybody chuckled, before gagging upon trying to picture such an image.

<p class="MsoNormal">"So," Gary continued, "You [not sure this should be capitalised] better watch your ass around Floodwater Lake, because you never know when the Floddlebark will strike!"

<p class="MsoNormal">“That’s rad bro!” Tommy said. “Who’s telling the next story?”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Let my sister go, if she thinks she can do a better story than me!” Gary huffed, pushing his chest out and turning his nose up at his twin. They were always competitive, trying to prove they were better than each other.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I didn’t say I could do better than you,” Maggie blushed, '[would she really blush? And you just said they were competitive; why is she now shying away from a challenge?] 'she knew that she stood no chance at telling a better scary story than her brother did.

<p class="MsoNormal">“It’s OK [okay] Maggie, just tell a story. We are doing it for fun, and nobody cares if it is scary or not.” Tommy reached over and patted Maggie on the back, trying to encourage her to spit a story out.

<p class="MsoNormal">Again, Maggie blushed. She was a little young for the whole boyfriend/girlfriend game but she had a crush on Tommy, and to be honest he did too [it should be made clear that Tommy reciprocates the crush, and not that he also fancies himself]. “I don’t know Tommy maybe you can help me get started?”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Sure! It was a full-moon, and even in the middle of the night there was light coming down through the clear sky. It was on this particular night that a young girl decided to wander into the woods –“

<p class="MsoNormal">“She was running away from home,” Maggie interrupted. She had a great idea now, and there was no stopping her. “This young girl’s name was Maggie. She was running away from home because her brother was mean and he was crying so loudly because Mum spanked him for being rude!”

<p class="MsoNormal">Tommy and Zac were in stitches, Gary just winced and put his head in his hands, embarrassed.

<p class="MsoNormal">'[I don’t… buy any of these interactions. They just don’t register with me. They feel like a TV version of reality layered through another layer of television; it feels like a parody but is not insightful, nor funny. Just like a bad pastiche.]'

<p class="MsoNormal">Maggie continued. “Eventually this girl came to a clearing. There were colours in the sky like in Alaska. She thought they were so beautiful, and she wished that someone would have been there to see them with her. All of a sudden, there was a deep voice behind her. It said: ‘You are not alone Maggie,’ Maggie turned around to see a unicorn behind her. It looked just like a normal horse, but had a beautiful horn coming from its head. It sparkled like the night sky.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“What kind of story is this Maggie?” Gary laughed. “You are supposed to tell us a scary story, not a little girls' story!”

<p class="MsoNormal">Maggie laughed at her brother. “Fine, Gary. You finish the story.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Fine Maggie. I’ll finish this story off real good! So, the unicorn doesn’t like it when people tread on his flower bed, and silly Maggie, whilst playing with the unicorn, tripped and landed on his flower bed. He was so angry, that he impaled Maggie on his horn and killed her!”

<p class="MsoNormal">The laughter of the children gathered through the forest. They were having a grand time, but unfortunately, as fate would have it be, their fun had to come to an end.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I’m sorry guys, but it’s about time you went to sleep.”

<p class="MsoNormal">The children silenced themselves and drew their attention to the man standing on the footpath. It was one of their supervisors, they could tell by the uniform. He was tall, muscular, and held a flashlight next to his head, so the children couldn’t tell exactly who it was.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Not a chance mister!” Gary yelled. “We are staying up tonight, telling scary stories and having fun! There ain’t nothing you can do to stop us!”

<p class="MsoNormal">The supervisor chuckled to himself and sat down next to Zac. “I’ve heard that before kids. But I can’t stay up all night and look out for you. I like my sleep, and you need to have some sleep too. So come back down to the camp with me, and go back to bed.”

<p class="MsoNormal">The children sat in their places, silently, reluctant to follow this simple order but too cowardly to challenge it.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I’m not going to ask again,” the man said, his voice much more stern.

<p class="MsoNormal">Again, the children did not comply, but sat there silently, eyeing each other, waiting for somebody brave enough to say ‘no’.

<p class="MsoNormal">The supervisor sighed and pulled a little trinket out of his pocket. After fiddling with it for a second, he swung it up into Zac’s throat.

<p class="MsoNormal">For a moment, the children were confused, oblivious to what had happened. But as Zac gargled, and slumped forwards into the campfire, it became very apparent what had happened [repetition; what had happened]. The Man had killed him. He had slit the poor boy's throat with his knife, opening the jugular vein and windpipe in one, quick, effortless movement. [this description should be at the start not at the end like this]

<p class="MsoNormal">“Fuck,” The Man complained as he dragged Zac’s body from the fire. “That’s going to make it hard to take out the tongue.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Tommy didn’t even think, he leaped to his feet and bolted down the path, towards the cabins in the camp. The Man paid no mind to the fleeing child as he began to slice out Zac’s tongue, pulling his hands away from the burnt face of the boy every couple of seconds to shake the scalding skin and blood from his fingers. Gary took his screaming sister by the hand and dragged her away from the horrid scene, running towards the cabins. They stopped twice to vomit, dirtying their pyjamas in acidic chunks of sausage and bacon, tears streaming down their eyes as they continued down the path.

<p class="MsoNormal">But what frightened the children more than what they had just seen was the context in which it happened. It might have seemed ridiculous, but Zac was killed the exact same way as Tommy had described in his story, by the same horrid man that his mind had conjured up. Could it be possible? It was as if the campfire story had come true. [I’m not sure this signposting of the story’s hook helps much]

<p class="MsoNormal">Gary and Maggie eventually arrived at the cabins, or rather, where the cabins used to be. What now stood in the place of those cabins was ash, smoke and charred timber. The flames had long since died down, but the carnage was visible thanks to the full-moon that shone brightly overhead. The empty shell of the cars and buses lay flaking in the parking lot. The timber cabins had been razed to the ground, and remnants of the corrugated roofing and bedframes could be seen buried under the dirt and ash.

<p class="MsoNormal">The three children reunited in the centre of the camp, where the main bonfire used to be. Tommy wandered through the mess, shivering with fear, panting like a thirsty dog and whimpering like one too. Gary and Maggie were in a similar state, but they knew that they had to keep moving. They had to escape the camp. If The Man came back, they would surely meet the same fate as poor Zac.

<p class="MsoNormal">Sure enough, a whistle blew through the clearing, confirming that the sick human was still on the hunt. “Now that you don’t have a bed to go to, I suppose I’ll have to put you to sleep myself!” The Man called from afar as he wandered through the wreckage, scanning the area for the children. The kids were small enough to stay hidden in the rubble and move unseen towards the main road, provided that they didn’t do anything stupid to give away their location.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Of course you’d want to put us to bed you stupid fucking paedophile!” Tommy screamed at The Man. Now it was too late, the young boy's temper had gotten the better of him, and their location had been given away.

<p class="MsoNormal">Tommy was the fastest runner, so when he made a run for it Gary and Maggie followed suit, despite the fact Tommy was running in the opposite direction to the main road. They didn’t want to split up. Or maybe they were too afeared [afraid] to think straight. Who knows? The Man followed behind, his long muscular legs making more ground than the children could ever hope to achieve. Gary knew that his sister was the slowest out of the three of them, and when The Man caught up to them she would be the easiest target. Gary thought to himself, maybe if he lagged behind, he could buy Maggie and Tommy some time to escape. He purposely tripped and fell to his stomach, trying to sacrifice himself so that his sister could have a better chance at survival. But instead of running past, Maggie stopped to help her brother up.

<p class="MsoNormal">“No Maggie! Run!” Gary screamed, begging his sister to save herself. Tommy took notice of the dilemma and turned back to help his friends, but by the time he arrived, The Man was only meters away.

<p class="MsoNormal">He was walking now, laughing manically at the defeated children. The long grass blew in the wind, the smell of burning timber and flesh filled the air. The Man spoke once more, his voice drowning out the sound of the heavy wind and the lapping water of the nearby lake. “You little shits didn’t stand a chance.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Neither did you,” a voice from behind The Man growled. It resonated in a strange way, with a reverb that didn’t sound human.

<p class="MsoNormal">It wasn’t.

<p class="MsoNormal">A massive green figure stood behind The Man, covered in rough, jagged scales that covered its body like some crude medieval armor; similar to a crocodile. It stood a few feet taller than The Man, and was most certainly a few feet wider. Its serpentine face bore golden eyes that shone brightly in the moonlight, as it licked its monstrous teeth with a forked tongue.The '[tongue. The] 'Man turned his attention towards the creature, and the children got back to their feet and high tailed it into the forest just as the reptilian sea-monster got its grasp around the man.

<p class="MsoNormal">The children may have imagined the way in which the sea-monster devoured its victims in less than ten seconds, but luckily for them, they never got to see the real thing. With minimal effort, the creature crushed The Man between its hands, intestines spewing from both the mouth and anus of its victim. Bones snapped and crunched easily under the immense pressure. Eyes popped from the skull as sounds of blood and gas escaping the body drowned out the sound of the cool breeze through the grass. The creature then held its victim by the legs and torso, and twisted it like you would with a wet tea-towel, draining it of all liquid, before opening its mouth wider than you could even comprehend. In one swift action, the creature swallowed The Man whole.

<p class="MsoNormal">And yes, this happened in less than ten seconds.

<p class="MsoNormal">Anyway, let’s get back to the children. [I’m still not clicking with this style of narration]

<p class="MsoNormal">They had run for what seemed like hours, but in reality it would have been about 30 minutes. In fact, they had retreated so deep into the forest that they had no way of finding their way out.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Can’t explorers find their way out of the wilderness by looking at the stars?” Tommy asked.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Yes, but we aren’t explorers Tommy,” Gary moaned.

<p class="MsoNormal">Right as Gary may have been, the children decided it was worth a try anyway. After searching for some time, the children found a clearing. It was spacious, and a beautiful luscious green as if it was more of a rainforest. A crystal clear stream ran through centre, with rabbits and deer drinking from the water. It was like a scene from a Disney movie. [This just feels like an effortless attempt to conjure up an image] When the children looked up at the stars, they realized that there were none. What they seen [saw] was much more remarkable.

<p class="MsoNormal">The Northern Lights.

<p class="MsoNormal">Yes. I know that you know where this is going, but hang in there. This unicorn part is excellent. [I hate this sort of elbow nudge in storytelling]

<p class="MsoNormal">“You are not alone out here you know,” a deep voice said. Tommy looked beside him to see a massive unicorn standing adjacent to him. It looked like a normal horse, but the horn protruding from its skull was nothing like he had ever seen. This was not a beautiful ornament, but instead a monstrosity. A horrid, crude formidable weapon used to skewer its foes like a fucking kebab [fucking kebab.; again this narrator is all over the place]

<p class="MsoNormal">Tommy knew this from the story Maggie and Gary had told, so he ran.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Hey there little fella! This horn is just for looks, I know it’s a bit intimidating but don’t get scared! I’m really a harmless fellow!” The unicorn laughed and shook its head. But Tommy kept running. He didn’t even look where he was going, which means he didn’t see the beautiful flower bed in front of him.

<p class="MsoNormal">As soon as Tommy laid foot on the flower bed, the unicorn stopped laughing, instead, he galloped at full pelt towards Tommy, lowering his head so that the horn stuck out horizontally like a jousting sword. A sharp, bone, jousting sword.

<p class="MsoNormal">Tommy didn’t make so much as a peep when the horn tore through him. Piercing both his spine and heart, it ended his life instantly.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Oh my God. That’s enough!” Peter yelled. “That story started off alright but that ending part was just ridiculous. What the fuck?”

<p class="MsoNormal">The five of us sat around the campfire at Floodwater. We were on our last year of summer camp together and wanted to spend our final night telling horror stories around the campfire. We had each written a massive story weeks ago, but tonight was the night we got to tell them.

<p class="MsoNormal">Richard had told his story first. He thought it might have been funny, with all the child deaths and the fucking killer unicorns. I’ll admit, I laughed a little, but it got a bit beyond a joke in the end. I mean, the children were talking a bit sophisticated, there were a couple of plot holes, and there were a lot of clichés. But that’s just Richard for you.

<p class="MsoNormal">We still had four more stories left when our worst fear came true - a camp supervisor wandered up to our fire. Everybody groaned in disappointment. It was our last night here, and we wanted to have a few beers and stay up all night telling scary stories, but the supervisors in the camp were not exactly the sentimental type. They would want us in bed no matter what excuse we had.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I’m sorry guys, but it’s getting quite late. I think you should head down to the cabins and get some sleep,” the supervisor said.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Get fucked! It’s our last night here and we are going to enjoy it!” Richard yelled. He spoke for all of us - we didn’t want to go to bed yet. It was only 11:00pm.

<p class="MsoNormal">The supervisor sighed and took a seat next to Peter. “I know that you want to stay up and enjoy your last night here, but I have a duty of care over you and I just can’t let that happen. I can’t even go to bed until you people do, and I like my sleep. I'm sorry, but I have to ask you again; I think it's about time you went to sleep.”

<p class="MsoNormal">We all looked at him in disbelief. Was this cunt serious?

<p class="MsoNormal">Again, the supervisor sighed. “I’m not going to ask you again.”

<p class="MsoNormal">-

<p class="MsoNormal">I don’t think it’s a surprise to say I didn’t like this. I suggested you engage with Ice or a different story for a reason. I find ‘fourth wall’ breaking stories particularly weak and I don’t enjoy ‘narratives within narratives’ which makes it hard for me to give any objective advice when really the only advice I want to give is “Don’t bother. Just write a normal story.”

<p class="MsoNormal">As it is I might have let it go if this was an anthology but you just can’t cram this sort of material into less than 5000 words. It’s just not possible. This is the point where you need to broach discipline and force yourself to only develop stories that actually benefit from the short format while putting a pin in your more ambitious ideas so that they might be developed into novellas/novels at a later stage. As it is you need to be able to identify ideas that cannot flourish in a word count less than 20000 words and a story with three narratives cycled twice within one larger narrative which is in itself embedded within another narrative including four separate characters and three unique villains absolutely fucking counts as a story too ambitious for less than 5000 words. To pull this off you'd need to be an unbelievably good writer.

<p class="MsoNormal">Nonetheless I’ll go through a longer list of grievances below.

<p class="MsoNormal">Gary and Maggie? Stereotyped as fuck and for no real reason. It doesn’t feel like a callback to some long-standing trope it just felt like a cheap way to differentiate between what will inevitably be cannon fodder. Which one died? The fat one. Even then you fail to differentiate between two of them with Zac and Thomas being absolutely identical so this signposting doesn’t even work all the time. Which one died? The jock one who’s in charge of everything…. Oh wait…

<p class="MsoNormal">The second you identify the story’s hook you tell the audience everything that is going to happen. No mystery, no confusion, no tension, no atmosphere; nothing. Nudging them and saying, “hold on it’ll get better” is not an appropriate solution to this problem. Audience interest is not a token based system.

<p class="MsoNormal">The nature of the narrative oscillates between normal third person narrative to weird informal almost chatty style without it being clear why. Without it being clear I assumed that many of the narrative's weirder choices were instead reflections of you the author being a weirdo.

<p class="MsoNormal">The character interactions are weak (already stated) and the justification that it’s a story within a story doesn’t make it any easier to suffer through.

<p class="MsoNormal">I didn’t feel as though the comedy or the horror blended well considering I didn’t feel like either worked particularly strongly.

<p class="MsoNormal">I will say that The Miserable Man was an interesting antagonist and his behaviour was genuinely frightening. The imagery of the unicorn was interesting and the description of the guy getting eaten was also interesting. The extremity of the gore meant that this didn’t quite work out so well in the long run given the jovial style of storytelling but for what it’s worth it was disgusting and enjoyable. I would love to see The Miserable Man be given breathing room to fuck shit up.

<p class="MsoNormal">The dialogue and interactions at the end also feel interesting and genuine. (For what it’s worth I would completely rewrite this story starting from the end. I’d much rather have a story that says “campfire stories come true” but which never tell us what those stories actually are. Instead we only get minor hints while having to see the characters navigate the world while struggling to accurately recall their drunken campfire tails and the possible life-saving details that’ll let them make it through the ordeal. I feel as though this angle has a shit load more potential for fun and humour than making us actually experience the same story in multiple cycles).

<p class="MsoNormal">So yeah. Take my criticism with a healthy dose of scepticism. I just can’t bring myself to embrace a story structure that I fundamentally cannot enjoy so I feel as though my usual analysis would be, frankly, skewed. I’d much rather be upfront with my biases so you can parse through them a bit more easily and take away from it what you will. For what it is worth your descriptions are once again spot on and the language used is effective and imaginative.