[Summer Writing Contest 2012] Standing on the Grave

She looks into my eyes, our own game of chicken begins. She wants to know my secrets, not out of curiosity, but I think she just finds it sexy. I'm hesitant; my thoughts are swirling in my head, mocking me, taunting me on whether or not I should tell her. What she wants to know boils down to how the scar on my chest came to pass.

My eyes break contact with hers. I’ve lost. Her lips curve mischievously as this game is hers now. She motions to the edge of my bed, no doubt knowing the weight my story carries. As I sit down next to her my cracked lips slowly open and I begin to tell my tale…

“The rain fell on me as I cried. My father was an army general, a comedian, the hope of the Purists, and above all a great man. None of that mattered, though, when they told me he was dead. All I cared about was that I had lost my dad. My sobs were drowned out in the thundering clouds. I fell to my knees and screamed, punching the muddy ground. I still remember my dad telling me his war stories and the dark cloud in his eyes when he told them. He was always eager to cheer people up and make them laugh.

Oh how I wished he would come back and tell me his death was all a big prank.

I remember my sister trying to talk to me and her warm hand rubbing my back to console me. Exhaustion from the crying and screaming took a toll on me. I slowly passed out from the exhaustion. After that I never really slept soundly again.” As I finish Rachel places her palms on my chest.

“Will, you know I love you right? Tell me how you got it, your scar I mean,” her fingers lightly brushing against the scar. "You still haven't explained that to me."
“No… but it did signify the start of it all: the systemic genocide of the Purists on this side of the Blue Forest, my family falling apart, and this scar- the constant reminder of what I’ve lost.” I try to brush off her fingers but she places her hands on my face.

"Don't brush me off, Will, I truly care about you. Never forget that!" I sigh and scratch my head.

"I need some alone time Rachel." Tears begin to form in my eyes again, I'm still not over it... Before she can stop me I grab my coat and head out of the house. Jeremiah's passed out drunk so he won't care. The orchid field slowly passes me by as I slowly walk. I completely stop in front one of the trees. The initials WV and RM carved into the wood inside a big heart. I brush my fingers against it and smile. William Vale, and Rachel Morana initialed under the dark cloudy night... Not a single star to be seen anywhere.

Slaves aren't allowed last names so I was hesitant when I first carved it. It was only at Rachel's prompting that I carved it down. She never did care about the fact I was technically her property. She always respects my privacy and need for space at times. The fact that she was interested in me was never hidden, she always took an opportunity to talk to me, tease me, make me feel human. And when Jeremiah beat me because he was drunk and bored, she would stick up for me. Little by little my heart opened up to her, which is why I told her about my father. He really was a great man. I sniff and wipe away the last of the tears in my eyes and face and sit down.

I do something that I haven't done in years, pray to the old gods. Technically what I'm doing is illegal, but my relationship with Rachel isn't exactly allowed either. On this side of the Blue Forest most of the Purists were slaughtered, including my mother and sister. In a desperate act of wanting me to live she sold me to slavery. I've hated that woman since.

Eventually I went back to Rachel's room and kissed her. It feels right to be with her, even if I may not be the best of guys. We slowly take each other's clothes off lie in bed, arms wrapped around one another. This is what it means for me to be alive, for me to feel the joy of being wanted, to be loved. We embrace as the night begins to end.




When morning came it seemed… surreal. Almost like last night didn’t happen. That anyone could care for me, could love me at all seemed impossible. I turn my head to find Rachel sleeping, arms wrapped around mine. Her gentle breathing captivates me and I vow to protect this girl, even if it means my death. Her eyes begin to flutter open and her smile really grabs my heart. She yawns and stretches her arms.

“Morning sleepy head,” I grin at her. She pretends to pout and puffs her cheeks. I kiss the top of her head, the tip of her nose, and finally on her lips. I hear light footsteps downstairs. I pay no attention to it.

"You sleep good Will?" she stares into my eyes.

"It's sleep well, and yes I did." I beam at her. Now the footsteps slowly begin to get louder. Something inside my head begins to click. Jeremiah always woke me in the morning and he always checked up on Rachel. If he finds me here like this, he’ll kill me! "It's your dad! I think he's coming up!" I panic and the intoxicated look in her eyes quickly gives way to fear.

I frantically put on my clothes and get out of bed and just as I’m about to put on my shirt he walks in.

“Rachel how’s my little angel do…ing…?” he pauses that question as he finally notices that I’m there putting on my clothing and that Rachel is naked. “Tell me I’m imagining things. And that my fucking daughter hasn’t slept WITH MY FUCKING SLAVE!!!!” He explodes and he pulls up his shirt to undo his belt. In one swift pull the belt snaked around him is fully out like a whip. He goes to strike Rachel and something inside me snaps. Instead of letting him do what he wants like I always do, I punch him clean in the jaw.

“DON’T YOU FUCKING HIT MY GIRL, YOU FUCKING WASTE OF HUMAN LIFE. IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH ME YOU FUCKING DEAL WITH ME! YOU GOT THAT!” My fists continually pound on his face, his face a tomato. Rachel comes to stop me and in my frenzied rage is struck. Coming out of my stupor I realize what I’ve done.

“Rachel… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s alright Will, it’s alright.” She begins to sob from the pain. As my back is turned, Jeremiah stabs me in the back of the gut. At first I feel a sharp prick into my back, but then it builds like fire and I scream. I fall to the floor my strength leaving me, I see Jeremiah move towards Rachel about to strike her.

“NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!” I bellow and run after him, current plan to choke the living daylights out of him, as it takes all of my strength just to stand. I bring my curling hand to his throat. At the last minute he grabs Rachel and brings her in front of him. I look at my hand, stop, it keeps going, stop…, it grabs her throat and squeezes, STOP! Before my eyes her skin quickly ages and wrinkles. She dies before I can do anything.

“YOU! YOU COWARDLY PIECE OF SHIT! FAKKU!” I scream at Jeremiah, my rage festering, growing. Kill. Destroy. Blood flowing. Scream.

When I finally calm down tears form in my eyes as I look at what I’ve done. I place my hands on the cut in my back and the sliced skin begins to reform itself, almost as if I never had the wound in the first place. I stare at my hands as I bring them in front of my face. What is this power, this curse? That it killed the woman I love… the woman I cared about… I hate Jeremiah for thrusting this upon me, for thrusting her death upon me. I dreamed of freedom, I dreamed of escaping this pathetic slave life. But the slave master’s daughter broke through my icy heart. she gave me hope and gave me love when I had none. Now I have my freedom… but was it worth it?

"I... I need to leave." I mutter to myself. I stagger out of the house, thoughts of what just happened weighing on my mind and body. I wander aimlessly, unsure of what to do...

Tightening up what I've currently written and getting rid of/improving the weak language I've used.

Edit- Reviews and critiques are welcome and encouraged

Overall I'm confused at the start but as it picks up I'm able to connect with the protagonist and that makes it all much more smoother and natural.

Added Day Two to the Entry. Enjoy.

Okay then GD, since you want something a bit step up for the comment, let me give you something from the viewpoint of a novice reader who doesn't have high language literacy~

Oh yeah, just tell me if there's some of the parts that offend ya~

So, Grace. Whatcha gonna do now?

What do you mean?

What do you want it to mean?

Edited the Story A little. Simplified Day One and make the the descriptions a little more clear. Add more dialogue and more detail to Day Two. Still in the process of working out the bugs in the story.

Edit-I also added a day seven.

Hopefully final revisions I've made. Enjoy the story.

I will not be providing a review for this. Upon reading the first few paragraphs and reading what you've said in my thread as far as I'm concerned you have grown as much with your writing as you have with your capacity to review. There's nothing I can say here I haven't already said to you.

What does that even mean Jericho? Aside from saying that I haven't even improved one bit since we've last spoken. I thought I could get some honest critiques from you, that I could work on my writing to, I don't know, improve my writing. But I guess this is all I deserve after I pretty much pestered you for a review. Though I will continue to write, I enjoy it very much and it has a way of describing sights, smells, sound, and feelings you yourself cannot even begin to put to words. Though I am disappointed that you chose to insult instead of help. I still consider you a friend regardless of the fact we haven't spoken in ages, and I just realized that all the points that I need to make I've already made. Take from this what you will.

Calm down. Don't take things so negatively.

All this aside, let the thread return to its intended focus. Goodbye.

Yo!

I like it... overall story is, actually, pretty good - it's explained well, although there are a few grammar errors - eg: 'a' instead of 'an' where appropriate, as irrelevant as that sounds!!!
I've also noticed that you're getting the tense mixed up a little - for example, starting the paragraph in the past "I remember my sister trying-", then, without a break, switching it to the future "I slowly passed out from the exhaustion." then returning to the past, while explaining a single event that was meant to happen at the same time (Sorry if it's hard to understand, I'm not all that great at explaining things.)
Couple of commas where there shouldn't be too - but, overall, for a story, it's a shocker when he's revealed to be a slave - and, with that sudden turn of events, I have to say - I like it! :D

I think the story was… hmmm…unrealistic? Well, of course it was, since it†˜s a fiction. But even fictions have a slice of reality in them, in some points. Your story, and its build-up, is kind of awkward.

On Day one, you tell the protagonist’s history, which doesn’t really help the story progress. It doesn’t even help the character define itself. The day two doesn’t connect with the day one’s history telling (and the protagonist having powers is absurd). Day three is just the same. No relation with the first two days given.

And also, what is Fakku chicken game? Did you used that to just have a reference for the site? It's just...

Well, I know you’re trying to give us that world-is-unfair, or you’re-so-sad atmosphere; you want us to fell the character’s sadness. But you gave us a mix of banana, strawberry, and mangos all in the same plate. What I am saying is that this is a short story, and a short story limits and focuses itself from a certain theme.

I have a felling that you are good with guns, right? So why make up a story filled with action, and some slice of summer and romance? That would be fun, coming from a writer knowledgeable with that stuff.

Hmmm...actually, after reading this story, I'm still trying to wrap my head around what was going on. As the previous review stated, you seem to be jumping all over the place instead of focusing on one central element. It's a bit jarring reading each of these days when they seem to have almost no connection to each other. Also, the build-up of events in Day 2 just seems...unnatural. I get that you're trying to create a tragedy here, but it is a bit unrealistic, even for a fictional work, to have a father who acts loving at one moment and then homicidal towards his own daughter the next. I'll understand a beating, and I might even understand trying to kill the main character, but by having the father kill his own daughter out of the blue like that just doesn't make sense. To accomplish something like that, it takes a good amount of build-up into such a deed.

Secondly, this power your main character has just doesn't seem appropriate in the setting you've placed it. I understand it's fictional, but it's just so out of the blue and also incredibly vague. If the main character understands guns and comes from a military background, why not just use that as his source of strength or main skill? I'm not saying that he can't have some super power, but be reasonable about it. Super powers, when unchecked, just become incredible and frankly, boring. This is why I don't like Superman, for example.

I don't know if you have room to add another day in your story, but maybe it's best that you try and fix the central issues plaguing your work. I am in no way insulting your work and I believe the other reviewers here are trying to better your writing, considering that you asked for feedback.

Review #17

Note: A good writer will always change his style according to the reviews. If something isn't working, change it. I respect Jericho a great deal, so please don't assume that he owes you anything. In fact, you're lucky that he does review your stuff time and time again.

The Good: The very first part seeemed to grab the reader. Not only does the female character want to know more, but in essence, we are Rachel. We want to know more about this protagonist's dark past. We're left with questions such as, "who is this man?" or "who are the Purists?" or "what happened?" From here, we understand that he use to be an esteemed boy as his father was that hope of the Purists. Afterwards, things get a little dicy.

The OK: Jarring. Though my own form of writing is very much similar to yours: stream-of-thought, dictation style (the way we read it is the way we wanted to say it. This method of writing is very akin to theater or acting in general. Every comma/hyphen represents a dramatic pause or a list that tells the reader to take his/her time with it or speed through it. That said, there is an issue in that the reader has no idea which one to do). If this isn't the case, then please disregard. Nevertheless, I found this to be jarring in that, the way the stream-of-thought progressed seemed to be random. Though I personally can tell where you wanted me to pause, speed, dramatically feel, etc, I worry for anyone else. This way of writing is not a bad way as long as you give key hints as to what you want the reader to physically do. I personally like this style and enjoyed the story.

The Bad: You created this lore behind the character- and then never deliver. What about the scar? Nope, not telling... Ok, then what happened in the past? Nope, not telling... What on earth are the Purists? Nope, not telling... Do you see the issue here? A good story answers every question the reader has in the beginning and only raises more either if they, in of itself, will answer the first questions or all the previous questions were already answered. Granted there is that mythos/throughline that the reader follows throughout the story, but it's those little questions that make us continue reading.

Now that Blaze is my reviewer-in-arms, I agree with him. You've given his attributes as a son of a great general- thus either smart, has connections, or trained in some form of combat. Beating the shit out of a random guy is not a form of combat. I agree that if he has this background, then he should use it.

My senses are telling me you wanted to create the story of the tragic hero. The tragedy in a tragic hero is that no matter what he does, it all falls on top of him. His greatest strengths become his greatest weaknesses. In Oedipus Rex, he is a high-borne, intelligent, and morally righteous person. Because he killed his own father, since Oedipus was in the right, his quest to solve the plague only leads him to himself. That is the tragedy. That as great of a person as he is, his one mistake turned his world upside down.

Regardless of my previous review, I still think that Grace's done a good job even with all the things noted~



Not really, what if the style suggested were not comfortable to the writer at all and he actually hated it? And if he's already had something he's accustomed to writing, why not letting him develop his own unique style which he's comfortable with instead?

Whether a style appeals differs according to the reader, if you don't like a peculiar style that doesn't always mean they're fundamentally bad~



While I agreed that the story needs to be understandable to some extent, on being able to excite the reader. Not every mystery has to be answered explicitly by the writing itself~

And no, it doesn't totally define a good story. It just shows that the wording in this one is 'lucid', not 'great'. An actual definition of 'good' will differ with each person, in other words, subjective~



I continue reading it because I start to enjoy the story, no more no less, whether it's a no-conflict slice of life or a suspense thriller it's all good and the way the author presents the excitement is up to themselves~

Just my two-cents, but a story doesn't have to completely make sense in order to be great. As long it's made by heart, you can understand it even more when you can feel the words itself~

Anyway try not to take heed of my words too much, I'm just an ordinary reader~

I wouldn't say style. Just the way of writing. But if a style does has it's flaws. The readers may not like it. And that could be potentially a huge problem.

Note: You may be assuming that he wrote for the fun of it (while he probably had some as he wrote it). But Gracey wants to win, and if he really does, he should be willing to make improvements for the sake of that goal, for the sake of betterment.

Also, I'm speaking while assuming that his style particularly has too many flaws as I'm making a response regarding this issue, caused by CoffeePrince. I'm not revealing any of my actual views regarding the entry's story/writing itself.