Young Writers Society

“So, what are we going to do?” Ted asked Brant.

“Does it really matter?” She shrugged her shoulders.

“Well, yeah,” Ted said. “I mean, when something like that shows up in your backyard claiming to be your mother, you don’t just say, ‘Oh, come on in Momma. Be careful. Don’t let your hooves track in mud.’”

Brant looked out the window into the yard. It was still out there. A trim, pale woman’s body above, a muscular, dark horse’s body below, cast in a strange light by the stars and moon. It was a picture right out of mythology, or poetry even. It took Brant's breath away.

“Why not?” she asked. Ted’s eyes went wide with disbelief.

“Why not? Isn’t it obvious? It shouldn’t even exist!”

“Don’t talk about her like that,” Brant said, rebuking her brother without even a second thought.

“You’re nuts, off your rocker,” Ted said. “I don’t know how you can believe that thing. We’ve got actual birth certificates, we know who our mother is.”

“There isn’t a video though,” Brant said. “We don’t know for sure.”

“Just because Mom’s coming down a little hard on you for that stunt you pulled last week doesn’t give you the right to go saying that she’s not your real mother.”

“All I did was spend the night at the barn,” Brant said. “Lea was foaling, I had to be there. And besides, that has nothing to do with this. That’s not why I’m saying that we should believe her. It’s because she feels like our real mother.”

“There we go again,” Ted said. He shook his head. “You and your feelings. Forget logic, forget rational thought, we’ll go with feminine feelings. That’s sure to help us along.”

“Ted, you’re not helping.”

“Well, neither are you. You’re so caught up with her you can’t see what’s real and what’s not anymore.”

Brant turned to her brother, searching for some explanation of his behavior.

“Caught up?” she asked. “Just how am I caught up?”

“You’re always talking about how you just, ‘feel right,’ when you’re at the barn, when you’re around the horses. You blog about how you feel a kindred spirit with them.”

“You read my blog?” Brant’s eyes went wide with anger. “That’s private!”

“It’s on the internet, total strangers read it, it’s not that private,” Ted replied. “But that’s beside the point. The point is that here’s a chance for you to explain those feelings, hell, to act on them. Here is your dream, and you’re ready to fall head over heels into it based on that. Never mind the facts; it’s appealing, so you’re gonna do it.”

Brant turned away and looked out the window again. The creature in the yard was looking up at the window, up at her. Her eyes spoke of longing, a mother’s longing, Brant thought. No, she didn't think it, she knew it. How could Ted not see it?

“You’re not even listening, are you?” he asked.

“Why does it even matter if she’s our mother?” Brant asked him. “We just keep her fed and tell her our problems. She’ll be all about us. Even you’re not too dense to see how much she cared about us.”

“But in the end, it won’t be just that,” Ted said. “She cares that much, she’s not going to just want a little time with us. It’ll be more and more time, until finally she runs off with us. We don’t need that.”

The creature pawed at the ground. Brant put a hand to the window, letting a slow breath fog up the glass. What Ted said played in her mind like an echo in a canyon. But she couldn’t be sure that what he said was true. Did she really need to stay here? Did she really not need to be carried away? The creature looked up at the window again. Brant smiled down at her, a special smile, one that spoke whole books about her actions. The creature smiled back.

How delightfully odd!

I like this, quite a bit. It’s certainly both interesting and well written. I do have some issues with it, but I’ll start with what I like. ^^

I love the idea, certainly. This half-horse, half-woman thing isn’t used much in contemporary YWS writing, is it? So, that’s awesome work right there. Your description is good, and great for the situation. I thought I’d want more, but as a mainly dialogue based story, I didn’t feel the need. You describe as much as you need, and it feels right.

The dialogue is really good; I particularly enjoyed the parts about blogging. ^^

My main issue, then comes in the beginning which is terribly stagnant, it’s all statements and little flow. You’re fine on the dialogue but the way it’s presented is odd. “Ted asked Brant” “his sister replied” etc, etc. I think you could leave that second at “she shrugged her shoulders” because we understand them as siblings later on anyway.

Later on you have:
“Why not?” she asked. Ted’s eyes went wide with disbelief.
“Why not?” he asked. “Isn’t it obvious? It shouldn’t even exist!”

Which feels staged and unreal. While I realize the story may never feel “real” as such it can feel believable, which the above doesn’t. I’m not sure how to fix that. Perhaps “repeated” for the second? I’m terrible with dialogue, personally.

I think otherwise, you’ve something really good here, watch for your flow and those little bits that don’t seem exactly right when you rear – or say – them. Other than that, lovely work. ^^ I love reading your things, they’re always interesting.

*Hearts* Le Penguin.

Conrad Rice wrote:Comments in red.

“So, what are we going to do?” Ted asked Brant.

“Does it really matter?” She shrugged her shoulders.

“Well, yeah,” Ted said. Okay, you might want to get rid of the little rhyme here. It's distracting. “I mean, when something like that shows up in your backyard claiming to be your mother, you don’t just say, ‘Oh, come on in Momma. Be careful. Don’t let your hooves track in mud.’” Nice hook.

Brant looked out the window into the moonlight yard. It was still out there. A beautiful woman’s body above, a beautiful horse’s body below.

“Why not?” she asked. Ted’s eyes went wide with disbelief.

“Why not? Isn’t it obvious? It shouldn’t even exist!”

“Don’t talk about her like that,” Brant said, rebuking her brother without even a second thought.

“You’re nuts, off your rocker,” Ted said. “I don’t know how you can believe that thing. We’ve got actual birth certificates, we know who our mother is.”

“There isn’t a video though,” Brant said. “We don’t know for sure.”

“Just because Mom’s coming down a little hard on you for that stunt you pulled last week doesn’t give you the right to go saying that she’s not your real mother.”

“All I did was spend the night at the barn,” Brant said. “Lea was foaling, I had to be there. And besides, that has nothing to do with this. That’s not why I’m saying that we should believe her. It’s because she feels like our real mother.”

“There we go again,” Ted said. He shook his head. “You and your feelings. Forget logic, forget rational thought, we’ll go with feminine feelings. That’s sure to help us along.”

“Ted, you’re not helping.”

“Well, neither are you. You’re so caught up with her you can’t see what’s real and what’s not anymore.”

Brant turned to her brother, searching for some explanation of his behavior.

“Caught up?” she asked. “Just how am I caught up?”

“You’re always talking about how you just, ‘feel right,’ when you’re at the barn, when you’re around the horses. You blog about how you feel a kindred spirit with them.”

“You read my blog?” Brant’s eyes went wide with anger. “That’s private!”

“It’s on the internet, total strangers read it, it’s not that private,” Ted replied. “But that’s beside the point. The point is that here’s a chance for you to explain those feelings, hell, to act on them. Here is your dream, and you’re ready to fall head over heels into it based on that. Never mind the facts; it’s appealing, so you’re gonna do it.”

Brant turned away and looked out the window again. The creature in the yard was looking up at her. Her eyes spoke of longing, a mother’s longing, Brant thought. How could Ted not see it?

“You’re not even listening, are you?” he asked.

“Why does it even matter if she’s our mother?” Brant asked him. “We just keep her fed and tell her our problems. She’ll be all about us. Even you’re not too dense to see how much she cared about us.”

“But in the end, it won’t be just that,” Ted said. “She cares that much, she’s not going to just want a little time with us. It’ll be more and more time, until finally she runs off with us. We don’t need that.”

The creature pawed at the ground. Brant put a hand to the window, letting a slow breath fog up the glass. What Ted said played in her mind like an echo in a canyon. But she couldn’t be sure that what he said was true. Did she really need to stay here? Did she really not need to be carried away? The creature looked up at the window again. Brant smiled down at her, a special smile, one that spoke whole books about her actions. The creature smiled back.

Okay, guess I really didn't need to quote that whole thing, but whatever. Anyways...

Now this is a very short piece, so there's much for me to go on, but I'll see what I can do.

The dialogue flows very smoothly. You're characters are talking like a real brother and sister pair, and from what I've read they're thinking the part, too.

I'm sorry my review is so short, but like I said, I don't have much to go on. Notify me when you post more on this and I'll get to it immediately.

Conrad -

So I've made three attempts to critique this and I've been interrupted each and every time. However, this also means I've read the story three times and so I've gotten a good feel of the nuances and the intricacies of this seemingly simple piece. You did a very solid job. Very sturdy and original. You did well with your dialogue as well, something I haven't seen since The Deep [part 1], so kudos for that. I could imagine both characters clearly and their personalities were evident and seperate (something people struggle with sometimes) as well.

When I tried critiquing this for the second time I had a specific comment that I was going to head: [what?]. I don't remember specifically what I was going to address but I think it was going to be along the lines of how strange this concept was and how difficult it was for me to wrap my head around it. Reading it for a third time, however, I really didn't find this to be a problem and I was much more open to the ambiguity of the whole situation. But this may be just because I'm very familiar with the whole concept by now, or maybe I was just in a bad mood the second time around.

One thing: I would suggest adding some more description about the centaur woman. I think it would be fantastic if you could give this a poetic Midsummer Night's Dream atmosphere. It just seemed to me you had the potential to wow us all with some whangbanger description and you settled for "beautiful". Consider elaborating. If your purpose was to make this as sparse and naked as possible - maybe to accentuate the characters and the dialogue - then by all means, keep it the way it is.

Anyway, sorry this so late and that I couldn't have been of more help to you. Good job here.

-Kylan

Hey Conrad, this is for the NZ contest since you were the winner of it

It was a picture right out of mythology, or poetry even. It took Brant's breath away.

This is a good point that you might want to work on to characterise Brant further. I want to know why it took Brant's breath away. Does he work at an old library where he would normally read fantasy/tomes and be amazed at how glorious and majestic they look? Is he envious of their glorified existence compared to his? Integrating this idea more into the piece would be quite beneficial.

All I did was spend the night at the barn,” Brant said.

Interesting. So Brant has some experience of farm life. It's a good link to the woman/horse hybrid creature that is portrayed as their "mother".

Overall impressions:

Seriously, this is quite a difficult piece to critique due to the strangeness of it. I had to reread it a couple of times to make sure that I haven't missed anything out. I quite like the ideas and the characters in this, but I have some issues with it.

Firstly, is this an actual woman/horse hybrid (Centaur) that Brant thinks is his mother or is it figurative? I think you need to make make it clearer for the reader, though judging from the absence of figurative language, I can assume that it's literal. However, if this woman/horse hybrid is literal in meaning, then you need to account for realism into the equation. Such a creature doesn't exist in real life so it is highly likely that it will stir some controversy.

With that said, I'm just surprised that they don't seem shocked or startled to see such a creature.

I think you should characterize Brant a bit more. The piece doesn't really show much as to why Brant thinks its his mother. I can kind of assume the reason why, but I prefer a more concrete answer. You could also characterise Ted more to show contrast and the reasons as to why there is a difference in beliefs and their point of view regarding the woman/horse.

You might also want to add in another theme or idea into the piece. You did well in expressing the idea of how a male's fantasy of women can have a strong influence in the way they think (and to a lesser extent, a son's responsibility to his mother) I think a more mythological focus would be approrpriate. Right now, I think you can pretty much achieve the same ideas if the horse/woman was just a normal pretty woman. Think a bit more as to why you should choose a horse/woman for this piece.

Overall, I quite enjoyed this piece. Good work man. I really want to give you a gold star, but it doesn't have as much depth as I would had hoped for such a unique idea.

I hope this critique has helped you Connie. I wish you luck man.

Andy.

Hey Con! Well, I typically avoid critiquing something after Kylan, just since there's not much I can ever add, but I need to get back into the habit of critiquing and I read this a while ago so I'm writing a critique.

Nit-Picks

“You’re always talking about how you just, ‘feel right,’ when you’re at the barn, when you’re around the horses. You blog about how you feel a kindred spirit with them.”

“You read my blog?” Brant’s eyes went wide with anger. “That’s private!”

“It’s on the internet, total strangers read it, it’s not that private,” Ted replied. “But that’s beside the point. The point is that here’s a chance for you to explain those feelings, hell, to act on them. Here is your dream, and you’re ready to fall head over heels into it based on that. Never mind the facts; it’s appealing, so you’re gonna do it.”

Honestly, I have no idea why you put that in there. What was the point? It really stuck out like a sore thumb – just random mumbling about blogs. Like, you decided the story wasn't long enough and slipped it in. There's no point to it, you don't use it again, and it doesn't help the story progress – I'd ditch it.

Even you’re not too dense to see how much she [s]cared [/s]cares about us.”

Overall Comments

Two things really bothered me in this piece. One I mentioned before, but it was just verbally on the phone, and I think it's important enough to repeat: Description. Yes, you give us a decent description of outside, and of the horse – although that could be expanded on – and the dialogue gives me the perfect image of the kids. But what about the house?

I think that's why the blogging bothered me so much. Yes, it's unnecessary, but it also just doesn't fit. I have no idea what type of lives they live. Are they rich? From the 1900s? In a shack? I need something here. Yes, the blogging says it's current, but 1. Kids aren't very likely to accept a fact like this nowadays, and 2. I have nothing else to make me feel that way. So maybe try slipping that in? When they look inside after looking at the creature would be a perfect time. Just let us get a feeling for what time/status we're dealing with.

The other thing was just believability. Kylan mentioned this himself – he doesn't really buy into this – but surprisingly I didn't have a problem with it. But what I do have a problem with is why the kids don't have a problem with it. Why aren't they freaking out? Why aren't they running away? Why aren't they even the slightest bit cautious?

The question shouldn't be 'are we gonna keep this as our mother?' The question should be 'how is this thing even real???'

Oh, another thing – the kids have talked to this creature, yes? Which is how she said she was their mother and all. So… why are they now in their room?

Still, I did like it. Wonderful dialogue.

PM me for anything!

~JFW1415