(Monthly) Short Story Writing Prompts Submission Thread

I am actually attaching all the reviews to the original text, so I can use it for future reference. Don't know if it's a good idea, but it seems that it will be quite helpful latter on. Maybe you guys could do the same too. Just some random thoughts of mine...

Spoiler

*Writing this while crying for ignoring my better judgement and adding that unnecessary part to the end of the story

 

Oh, this actually sounds rather good. Then other people won't need to dig through the comments to find a piece.... I'll do that as well (though only one review is there)

And damn man, just do a sneaky edit, no one will (not) notice.

 

Spoiler

*Looks to right.
*Looks to the left.
* Edits the text when no one is watching

 

You forgot to change the word count mate

 

@Aca1814ina I'm rather confused at your critique of my work.

You like how the conversation actually feels like a conversation between two people, but you dislike how the conversation is flowing along, without stopping at all.
And you want there to be exposition on how a looter met someone who came back to life. I roughly interpret this as "Why didn't you start the story early, when they met instead of when they started talking?"
Well, I have my reasons, mainly being I'm absolutely horrid at writing a mix of narrative and dialogue, but I want to write a conversation, a story of someone telling a story. I don't want to write about what they do, I want to write about the characters themselves; I want to express the characters through their words, instead of their bland and obvious actions. I mean, you can tell that the person who was resurrected is rather mature and nihilistic, while the other party is kinda young and naive, filled with a bit of curiosity.
If you can't, well then I fucked up.

 

I liked this very much. But I have to agree with Aca1814ina to some extent when she says about asking all the right question. I say this because, although it is a short story, and it does have a start, a middle and an end, I would like to see more. It was basically exposition dialogue. A very well written exposition dialogue. There were some jabs here and there and some lines that didn't affect the overall point of the conversation that I enjoyed very much. Personally, I enjoy more when characters are just talking about irrelevant things to the original story because they tend to be developed in these kinds of dialogues. So, in short, I felt that this story lacked a bit of characterization. It hooked me from the start, so that's why I felt this way when I finished it. I would like to see more. Maybe throw some more personal questions from a character to another and have then answer it in a way we can get a glimpse of who they are and you will have a better story, in my opinion.

 

Uh... well, I guess I fucked up at the end, huh?
Did it feel like it was forced near the end? Or that the story felt like it barely managed to trickle on once the dude finished his recount on death?

...Yeah, I need to add more swearing to the end. Then proceeds to not edit it.

 

I wouldn't say you fucked up the end, but I do see a great chance there to have some dialogue between the characters that leads to the end. As I see, the

Spoiler

“Because of ‘hope’ and ‘desperation’, that’s why.”

line is a great place to start some meaningful dialogue between the duo, that would eventually lead to

Spoiler

“My bad then. I guess you’ll be going now?”

line and to the end of the story.

 

I know it's a great place to insert some really damned cliche lines, but for the love of god, I just can't think of a line that doesn't sound like I'm repeating shit. I mean, he already said that hope and desperation will get him killed, and so I added quotation marks on them to emphasis the earlier point he said about a minute before hand.

halp

 

Liked the prose. Very, very much. But I do think the end was rushed. I mean, for what we saw about Yánxù Ren, we had very little time accompanying his change of heart. You spent a great deal of time describing his violence and his pain, but was too brief in describing his changes from that, which, in my opinion, should have been harder. And I think the start, although very good, ended up being unnecessary. Yeah, we really got to get into Yánxù Ren's state of mind, but that just makes it harder to accept the way things turned out so fast. If you balance things out, I would say people would really buy what you are selling.
I liked the overall message too, but maybe you could go a little deeper into that.

 

Well, first you have to know, what are your thoughts on hope and despair? Would you give up hope to avoid despair? Then what you the first man (the one who avoids hope and despair) think about that? And the other man? You could start from there, you know. You can have a discussion with yourself about this, and express it through the characters. In most cases it is good to have a conclusion. In others, an open end. Balance is important. Give it some thought, and write away. Or write while you are thinking, sometimes it works great, although it generally needs editing later.

Spoiler

It's 7am here and I've pulled an all nighter. I will get some sleep. If you need any more help, I'll only be able to do it in some hours

 

LOL Gold, A+ for spotting it, I missed that...

@NZPIEFACE
Just throwing ideas around, wouldn't it be interesting if we get to see how the MC gets his hopes up, despairs and dies of desperations?

Wouldn't it also be interesting if the person the MC is talking to is really a demon sent to keep making him die over and over, but the MC never realized it

anyway, just saying..., if you make it an ongoing story, it could be him realizing every time he died was and elaborate setup

Cool story bro..

 

Resurrected Dude: He tries to avoid all thought on that topic, because it'll lead him to either despair at life and living at all, or give him hope, which will lead to death. Therefore, he thinks these topics are rather useless, and would speak as little about the subject of hope.

The looter dude: He's young and all, so he's rather filled with hope. But upon hearing the other dude's condition for dying again, he's not going to just say "Hey, it's going to get better". He also knows it won't.

 

No, honestly, that wouldn't fit the current tone of the story, and also, would require narrative. I mean, how the hell do you want me to describe someone getting their hopes up and dying through dialogue? ("Hey, that's a pretty good ide- URHSGAISUDH")
Also, it doesn't fit the character I made for the dude who resurrected. He's been through this many many times already, he won't just get killed because he talked to some dude.

Though honestly, it would be interesting to write about something as fucking sadistic as that.

And what do you "elaborate setup"? It would be pretty hard to give someone hope...


These can all be ideas, roughly the same plot, that can all be different stories.

Also, how the Devil kills the guy is rather simple. He just changes the world. He won't send a Demon to kill him, he'll just let him slip and fall off a cliff or something. Then let him hang onto a branch for that last struggle, then drop him into a ravine, with just a tiny river at the bottom. Hardly surviving, he can't move because most of his bones are broken, so he dies from drowning in a 10cm deep stream.

 

*Shrug*
@NZPIEFACE
I am not very good at this...
just trying to get my head around it
So if he hopes he dies? so he wants to live... but to do that he lives in despair.
but he doesn't die tho? So he hopes then dies, and hope that he doesn't die again and dies, but lives and by living he hopes and dies...
lol, am i getting this right?

Does he hope that he'd stop dying?
Doesn't in living in despair is living thru the hope that in despair he doesn't have to die?

???
I am so confused...
Help...
I am gonna go read it again...

 

Hope = Death
Despair = Shitty life

 

SO this guy, his punishment was live a shitty life. If good things happened or he looked forward to anything a cliff opens up, he falls to his death or some other kinds of death.
then he resurrects, in other words, he is not dying but suffers thru the pain of death?

Close?

BTW

Still the best thing ever!!! I am still grinning at that...

 

No, he full on dies, and how he can die can range from a vase falling from the third floor all the way to chocking on some food. He goes to Hell again, gets walked down that corridor, then meets the Devil.
After being ridiculed for dying so many times, the Devil will punish him again, always using the same one for him, which is to be resurrected.
He's basically good as new when he wakes up, but he doesn't start where he died, just somewhere random.

And thanks mate, just the encouragement I nee-ARGHADSOF

 

@NZPIEFACE
OK, I going to bed now, and I think your story is great...
But
all I can think about right now is some guy, who keeps getting good things happen to him and whenever he gets slightly happy some freak accident happens and he dies.

Bumps into a pretty girl and she smiles at him. he falls into a pit
finds a dollar in his pants he didn't know he had, anvil lands on him
at some point, he goes "no! no more", eats a sandwich and finds it delicious and a bear appears and maws him to death

G.nigh man

 

Lol? It's not going to be like that. Well, interpret it how you will.

And good night