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Sun Aug 08, 2010 4:44 pm
blackbird12 says...



deleted, submitting this for something...
Last edited by blackbird12 on Thu Sep 23, 2010 2:09 am, edited 15 times in total.
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I would have risen from the ground.

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Sun Aug 08, 2010 6:47 pm
Abigail_W. says...



Oh, my, Blackbird12, I think this is the best short story I have ever read on YWS. It is so tenderly cold; the descriptions are so brutally lush. Oh, my. I have just two little corrections.

In the first paragraph, you refer to the main character as "the wife." This threw me off a bit, because you used the pronoun "she" the whole time before. I though "the wife" might have been a different person. Either omit "the wife" or find some way to indicate (prior to this reference) that she had been married.

blackbird12 wrote:...as though it would were made of rubber


Cut out the "would," and you should be good to go! Happy writing!

-vAbigail





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Mon Aug 09, 2010 1:28 pm
Lauren2010 says...



Hey Blackbird! Here as requested! :)

This was very good! I really like the emotion in the piece, it's hard to really convey emotion in writing and this was great. I also like how you took the rather familiar and maybe even cliche subject of adultery and suicide and made it a little bit different and fresher.

Anywho, onto my nitpicks.

The wife clamped the cell phone shut and launched it across the room. It clattered against the wall and made a sick little cry as it died.

I have a few problems with this first sentence.
1. It seems that "wife" is the wrong word to describe the woman in the story. At this point, she is no longer a wife anyway but a widow. Perhaps change it to "woman" or "widow". (This one is purely personal preference, really)
2. The cell phone. A cell phone is brought up, and a call of some sort is hinted at (she clamped the cell phone shut) but it is never explained in the rest of the story. As the action that sets the story in motion, I'd like to know a bit more about the call. She threw it rather violently, so that suggests it was a troublesome call and that's important information a reader might like to know a bit about.
Though, if it's not important then maybe change it so she throws something else. Maybe an object lying around nearby? Maybe something her dead husband gave to her, maybe a picture of the two together? Since this action (the action of throwing an object that shatters upon impact) is what starts the story it ought to have more impact than if it were something mentioned at a different point.

Suddenly the ceiling seemed to bend and swoop above her, as though it were made of rubber.

I would cut the suddenly. Somehow, for me at least, the word suddenly makes things seem less sudden. The sudden change in the story will be sudden enough for a reader (so long as it isn't a confusing change, which this is not).

Well that's it! It's a great story, and written well. Great job and definitely keep writing! If you have any questions, feel free to pm me. :)

-Lauren-
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Wed Aug 11, 2010 12:51 am
RacheDrache says...



I think everything I've got comes down to two main points, at least as of now as I type these letters.

The first is that right now, even after reading this over a few times, I couldn't say exactly what happened really. I don't know why she was chucking the cell phone, or why she was more or less lifeless on the bed, or where the flowers came from--if she checked the drawers first and then, in shock, went to lie down on the bed, or if she called her husband's lover, or what.

Close as I can tell, the problem's in your tenses and transitions.

Like here:

She had returned home in the evening to find a bowl of soggy cornflakes stained pink and a ragged red streak on the wall. He lay stiff and hollow on the linoleum like a pinstriped mannequin.


where you switch from past perfect in the first sentence to simple past in the second. Which made my Stephen King-loving self think, at first, that her husband was still on the linoleum eight days later. (If he is on the linoleum still, that's a facet of who this wife is that you should really delve into. But since I don't think that's what you want, switch over to the good ole 'had lain.' Sorry to nitpick.)

Also, here:

But the feeling did not last, for she felt compelled to rifle through his drawers.


For whatever reason, I kept wanting to interpret this sentence as also being in past perfect too despite the fact that it's clearly and obviously not. And so I think this comes to my second comment, and that's that there's a lot of 'telling' going on in this piece.

While I'm not on the "Thou Shalt Show EVERYTHING" bandwagon, and appreciate that you didn't resign every detail to careful show-hood, you have instances like the last quoted sentences where some showing is necessary. Otherwise, your poor main character is just a victim of you needing to advance the plot. She felt compelled... by what? A nagging suspicion? You hint at that later.

You've got loads of those 'telling' words, too--feeling, felt, smelled, found, remembered. I think the degree to which you swap them out for other verbs depends on how much 'the wife' is her own unique character versus how much she's a generic wife in a less-than generic situation. But as I half-said before, I like the narrator telling the reader directly what happened.

Which brings me to a third thing, and that's that if you're going to lean more on the narrator than the main character, measure and weigh all those details you put in carefully; if they're not helping the narrator tell this story, oust them.

A lot of the details you give are brilliant--the envelope with the money, the locket--but, as another reviewer mentioned, why's the cell phone there in the beginning? And the mentions of the phone constantly ringing and the flower hordes only made me wonder who sent them, who's calling, rather than focus me on the emotional weight.

This piece has a lot of potential, and a lot going for it. And I think what I was trying to say with those horribly confuddled bits up there is that what I think you need to do is make this very, very concise and precise--especially if you want to rely more on the narrator than the wife. Determining if this is wife generic or wife specific will help, too, most likely. And I guess the three ways to go about it would be to make sure your tenses are in order and cut out the details that don't matter. The 'tell/show' thing... that all depends.

Let me know if that doesn't make any sense, if you'd like any explanation or elaboration, if you want something more line-by-line on this piece--and if you have anything else that you'd like reviewed. I love reading your work.

Rach
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Wed Aug 11, 2010 2:48 am
seeminglymeaningless says...



Hey BlackBird, dropping by to review. Repetition, if there is any, in green.

blackbird12 wrote:She stared above at the slow revolving slice of the ceiling fan, imagined her throat bared to its blades, felt the caress of an artificial breeze. A vein trembled in her limp wrist. Outside a wind chime jangled, a melancholy sound like gently breaking glass. The sprinklers hissed on the green-plastic lawns of suburbia.

I liked your first paragraph, it set the scene well, and it was very descriptive. The only things I noticed in this paragraph were the two highlighted parts. At the moment, the first highlighted part reads awkwardly, I think it'd make more sense as, "She stared above at the slow revolving slice of the ceiling fan, felt the caress of an artificial breeze; imagined her throat bare to the blades." With regards to the "green-plastic lawns", I can't help but actually visualize plastic green lawns being watered, and it looks bad in my head. I think you were going for the image of perfect lawns, each yard identical to the next.

Eight days since her husband had promptly dressed himself for work and then, equally promptly, whipped out his father’s antique pistol and shot himself through the mouth. She had returned home in the evening to find a bowl of soggy cornflakes stained pink and a ragged red streak on the wall. He lay stiff and hollow on the linoleum like a pinstriped mannequin.

The word "whipped" here conveys the sense of an unplanned action, and from reading onwards, it seems as if that wasn't the case, as if the suicide was planned. If it wasn't suicide, and it was murder, then "whipped" would be fine, but it would only work if, "The blonde man whipped out an automatic hand gun, and pulled the trigger." But you don't want that here, because how would the woman know? And it also, of course, gives away the surprise at the end. The story is being told from the point of view of the widow, so she wouldn't know if her husband had been prompt, or had whipped out a gun. As Rachael pointed out, "He lay", after past tense of the first sentence, insinuates that he was still laying on the floor eight days later, and she had somehow made her way to the kitchen to look at him still on the floor. Which would certainly be a fantastic twist, by the way, if the woman had been so shocked at her husband's death that she just left him there, ignored his body on the floor, but threw out the cornflakes and washed the dishes. That would be creepy and awesome. The other thing I noticed was the word "hollow". Here I think you mean for it to sound as if his life force and soul was gone, leaving his body empty, but in the text you've written it in, I take it to mean that his body has been hollowed out, and I'm sure you didn't mean that.

The air in the bedroom was rich.

Earlier you said the room reeked of the stench of flowers. Is this a contradiction, or a continuation?

It settled in her lungs and numbed her whole form like an anesthetic anaesthetic. She liked the feel of indifference. She imagined this was how her husband had often felt, melting into his reclining leather chair, falling asleep before his head hit the pillow. Hearing the hollow click of the trigger a split-second before his eyes filmed in black.

I find that transition weird. Either a) he has a pillow on his reclining chair, or b) you're trying to link falling asleep with his chair. It just doesn't work.

Buried beneath all else was a photo, made limp and whitened from constant cherishing. In the photo was a man she had never seen, broad-chested, towheaded, white t-shirt straining against his torso. He seemed caught unawares by the photographer, big teeth jutting out in a blocky grin.

Small thing, but you've already explained the size of this man's chest, did you need to do it again in another way? "In the photo was a man she had never seen, tall, towheaded, white t-shirt straining against his broad-chested torso."

Suddenly the ceiling seemed to bend and swoop above her, as though it were made of rubber. Bile rose in her throat and thin spasms ran through her fingers. She rarely drank alcohol but now she felt incredibly inebriated. She was drunk on revelation, flailing in limbo, slave to some great wild thing. She could almost taste the bitter tang of gunmetal in her own mouth, and she asked herself: whose name was written on the bullet that severed her husband’s spine? Hers, or his lover’s?

I know you mean how the bullet passed through the back of the man's throat and into the spine, but the way it reads is that he was shot in the back, because that's what most people think when they read spine; the back. Perhaps, "whose name was written on the bullet that severed cleanly two vertebrae of his spine."

This was very well written, and a nice read, but I felt that it didn't end. It was as if this could become a full-blown novel revolving around the widow finding out who her husband's lover had been, and uncovering a whole side to her husband that she never knew existed. Maybe when she tracked down the other man, he too was married and even had children. Upon confrontation, perhaps the man reacts unfavourably, and commits suicide, or goes into hiding, leaving his wife and children to deal with the situation themselves. The two wives could bond over this and become friends.

etc etc etc.

I just think this story has the potential to go much further. In the end you make the reader question whether her husband committed suicide or if he was murdered. I think you owe it to the reader to extrapolate upon this seed of doubt that you have planted, and watch it grow into fruition.

Good luck with future endeavours.

- Jai
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Wed Aug 11, 2010 12:39 pm
Hecate says...



Well blackbird, I must say that you have produced yet another absolutely magical piece ;)


blackbird12 wrote:The wife clamped the cell phone shut and launched it across the room. It clattered against the wall and made a sick little cry as it died. She lay sprawled across the bed, her nightgown a soiled and crumpled pool about her, brazen in the broad daylight. She stared above at the slow revolving slice of the ceiling fan, imagined her throat bared to its blades, felt the caress of an artificial breeze Another suicidal character :smt003 but don't get me wrong, it's still an awesome piece. . A vein trembled in her limp wrist. Outside a wind chime jangled, a melancholy sound like gently breaking glass. The sprinklers hissed on the green-plastic lawns of suburbia.

Eight days. Eight days since the hordes of flowers had sickened the air with a sweet stench, since the shriek of the telephone had become a daily chant rather than a daily disturbance. Eight days since her husband had promptly dressed himself for work and then, equally promptly, whipped out his father’s antique pistol and shot himself through the mouth.I love the way you introduce what happened by using the eight days time frame. It also makes this part very powerful as you begin by talking about flowers, and phones and then you tell us what actually happened, gradually. She had returned home in the evening to find a bowl of soggy cornflakes stained pink and a ragged red streak on the wall. He lay stiff and hollow on the linoleum like a pinstriped mannequin.

The air in the bedroom was rich.Why was it rich? What was it rich with? It settled in her lungs and numbed her whole form like an anesthetic. She liked the feel of indifference. She imagined this was how her husband had often felt, melting into his reclining leather chair, falling asleep before his head hit the pillow,hearing the hollow click of the trigger a split-second before his eyes filmed in black.

But the feeling did not last, for she felt compelled to rifle through his drawers. She told herself it was no more than a practical task, but it was personal. Her hands sifted through the folds of his faded linen shirts, the ones that glued to his skin on scalding summer days. He loved wearing those shirts; she hated washing them. Now she wished she could wash them one final time. Pressing his boxers to her nose, she smelled detergent and the faint musk of urine. She found a yellowing envelope stuffed with cash, a rusted teardrop locket that belonged to his mother. A brief smile split her lips. A man’s drawers were his secret place.

Buried beneath all else was a photo, made limp and whitened from constant cherishing. In the photo was a man she had never seen, broad-chested, towheaded, white t-shirt straining against his torso. He seemed caught unawares by the photographer, big teeth jutting out in a blocky grin.

Suddenly she remembered the pale Sunday morning months ago when she had found a foreign hair in their bed, blonde and tightly coiled. She chose to ignore it then. She could not now.

Her husband had a lover. It raised more questions than it answered. But it explained why intercourse with him in the last months had given her little more satisfaction than masturbation. It explained why certain nights he stumbled home with bloodshot eyes and a frenetic grin. She wondered if it also explained his death.

She imagined the two men making love, violent caresses, bodies doused in sweat, intoxicated with beer and the scent of each other. Hands stroking faces, hot salt in their mouths, groans and sighs the only communication needed. The thought made her feel both starved and aroused.

It was not a lewd photo, but she knew what it meant. The man depicted was not naked, body contorted in a lascivious pose, eyes lacquered with lust. She wished it were like that--purely sexual, it would have meant less to her husband. But no, she could see him fingering the photo, smiling with the sheer luck of it all--a love that fulfills him and a marriage that keeps him safe. A pain shot through her chest, swift and searing like the release of a tense bowstring.I noticed this in your previous piece, too. You really know how to use a simile properly. The reader is able to picture the pain that your character feels. It wasn’t fair. Good, in this case mixing short and longer sentences had a great effect. It emphasized her feelings. Especially that last sentence.

She could feel her father’s gruff voice scratching against her ear. Daddy had always told her to marry the best man, the nicest man. A man who would respect her and treat her right. The doe-eyed little girl had soaked up each word of her father’s platitudes. Somehow she had found a man like that, and thus she married him. At first she considered herself lucky. Marriage wasn’t what she expected, but she always believed hers was normal. She was dead-wrong, and so was Daddy. He was no longer infallible.

She wanted to destroy the photo, destroy the betrayal and the humiliation, that even someone of her gender was not good enough for him. She could tear it apart easily. It was already so frail that she could rend it in half with barely a tug. So frail, like him.

Suddenly the ceiling seemed to bend and swoop above her, as though it were made of rubber. Bile rose in her throat and thin spasms ran through her fingers. She rarely drank alcohol but now she felt incredibly inebriated. She was drunk on revelation, flailing in limbo, slave to some great wild thing. She could almost taste the bitter tang of gunmetal in her own mouth, and she asked herself: whose name was written on the bullet that severed her husband’s spine? Hers, or his lover’s? Beautiful.

The dizziness subsided in a moment. She dropped the photo back into its proper place in the drawer and closed it; she could think of nothing else to do. Turning to the window, she stared out at the lonesome sun dipping beneath the houses, dark outlines stamped against a bleeding sky. The ceiling fan hummed above her. She felt sick but the sensation was not new. She prayed that tomorrow would be easier to understand.

Marriage had been suffocatingly simple. Widowhood was painfully complex.I love your last sentence, the message of your story.



Plot


I loved it. Once again, there is that tragedy that you seem to be so fond of ;) . However, I found it absolutely beautiful. I do agree with the previous reader, you can't just leave it like that. We have to know what happened and why he comitted suicide. It's beautiful, don't get me wrong, the way you described this woman's pain and the revelations that she made about her husband and how that made her feel. You seem to be great at writing about people's feelings and describing how they feel about everything at the given moment. But, at this point, it's not enough. We need a bit more action. Perhaps, driven by near madness, she could go searching for her husband's lover and she could find those much needed answers. Maybe, the reason why he comitted suicide lies elsewhere. But we need to know. Otherwise, the plot is great so far.

The Wife


She's already nearly mad with grief, at the beginning of the passage she's thinking about suicide. I just feel that her finding out that her husband has been cheating on her with a man should push her even further into madness, and perhaps an attempted suicide. However, she prefers to get drunk. Again, these are just my observations. Other than that, I loved how vividly you showed us everything that she was feeling. Your use of language techniques and appropriate vocabulary helped create a very realistic character. I could picture her depressed, nearly driven to suicide, and I could picture her humiliation when she found out that the man she loved, because there were certain indications that she did love him, did not love her back. I found her a great tragic character. If you continue this, perhaps you could give her a happy ending, yet in this case, a tragic ending may be best, as it would be much more realistic. I leave that up to you, though.

Overall


It was absolutely beautiful. Once again, I felt like I was pulled into the world of your character and I felt what she felt. I have to applaud you on your excellent use of language once again. The final message was also beautiful. It was left to many interpertations, such as, we're never satisfied, no matter what we have. I love that. I love being able to think about the message of a passage. You seem to be able to deliver very philosophic messages, while using poetic language.
I want to congratulate you on being such a great writer. I've read some ''best sellers' that were absolute crap compared to your writing. Well done! Tell me as soon as you have another passage. Oh, and just as a challenge, try and write something a bit happier next time ;)

- Stela





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Wed Aug 11, 2010 7:45 pm
RacheDrache says...



You're getting closer! Transitions and the like are still irking me a bit, but it's mainly nitpicking time.

The main one is still here:

She lay sprawled across the bed, her nightgown a crumpled pool about her, brazen in the broad daylight. Pretending that everything was all right wore her out.


I can't tell if she lies down after throwing the necklace, or if she throws the necklace while lying down. Same with the next sentence, which implies that she pretended one time that everything was all right and that the one time wore her out. A guess that's just a roundabout way of suggesting that you use past progressive ("She was lying") and then probably past perfect ("had worn her out"). But that's still confusing in a way, because if she's really so spent, where did the energy come from the throw the necklace across the room?

And the other main complaint I have is still when she goes from the bed to the drawers. You don't move her from one place to another--suddenly she's just there. (Same applies to above, I guess, were she goes from one action to another and the reader doesn't know how she gets there.) So, maybe if you just describe how she pulls herself up out of the bed and goes to the drawers?

That'd also help explain why she begins going through the drawers. As it is, it's unclear. One minute she's throwing the necklace, the next she's immobile, the next she's trying to be practical. Almost seems like three separate days--the anger, the depression, the attempt to rationalize and get over it--but it could very well be within the space of three minutes. You just need to add the in-between stages so the reader can follow her logic or lack thereof.

And... that's it for now!

Rach





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Thu Aug 12, 2010 1:43 am
Razzker says...



Hi, blackbird! Here as requested.

Interesting story. I really like your writing style! I'm not going to nitpick, since I actually let myself enjoy the story. :P

Plot: 9/10
The plot was very tense and very gripping. I liked how you progressed the story with the woman's emotions and feelings. Maybe you could have expanded the paragraph about how the woman found out that her husband was cheating.
Characters: 9/10
Very good characterization, especially with the wife. Even with absence of the husband's presence, I could see what he would have been like. I would have suggested to give more description about the husband, but since this is written in the woman's point of view, I'll let it slide.
Syntax, word choice and punctuation: 10/10
I did not have trouble reading this piece at all. I had no problems with the tenses (or maybe that's just because I'm not nitpicking) and your choice of words is impeccable. Very descriptive.
Theme: 10/10
Like one of the reviewers above me had mentioned, a cliched theme of adultery and then suicide, but it was very effective in this story. The way the woman reacted to the entire thing was very interesting although I wondered why she wouldn't have thrown this fit of anger earlier. Maybe she just needed those eight days to process the thoughts. Maybe. That's just a personal thing for me anyway.

Total: 38/40
Average: 9.5/10

This is very interesting. You're a good writer! : )
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Thu Aug 12, 2010 5:28 am
seeminglymeaningless says...



Hey again, I see you've changed things :P Here to review :)

blackbird12 wrote:The diamond necklace was like broken glass in her hands, exuding some harsh innate gleam. Once it had been her prized possession, two years ago when her husband had presented it to her, teeth sawing into his lips, mouth tortured with anxiety and glee. Immediately she had gushed to about the beauty of the thing, had found herself drawn to him like never before in their marriage. Think of me when you wear it, he had said, clamping her face in his hands with the fierce, possessive love that stroked her ego. Think of us.

I like the new beginning :) I think the very first sentence doesn't quite make sense though. Why was it like broken glass? (because it was as worthless as a smashed wine bottle?) And "exuding some harsh innate gleam" is a description that is a tad hard to swallow.

She rent the necklace in half and launched it across the room. There was a soft ripping sound and then nothing, like the hush of reverential horror when something holy is defaced. The diamonds scattered in the air, displaced fragments of light plummeting to the carpet, lost.

I think you've mixed up the order of the first two sentences. In the first sentence you've already ripped the necklace up and thrown it away, and in the second you're describing the sound of the first action when it has already happened. I think you need to rearrange/merge the two sentences together, so you don't end up with this sort of discontinuity. When I go back and read it, I see that the third sentence is also pertaining to the second half of the first sentence, so it needs to be there instead of after.

So something like:

"There was a soft ripping sound and then nothing, like the hush of reverential horror when something holy is defaced, as she rent the necklace in half.The diamonds scattered in the air as she launched it across the room; displaced fragments of light plummeting to the carpet, lost."

The sudden fury wore her out.

"Wore her out" sounds out of sorts with the rest of your writing style. Perhaps, "tired her", or "left her drained of energy", even "made her weary".

He had fallen to the linoleum like a pinstriped mannequin, crimson crater hollowing his face.

Fantastic imagery.

It had been a closed-casket ceremony. The funeral was tame compared to the death.

The air was thick. It settled in her lungs and numbed her whole form like an anesthetic. If only she could lie here for another moment, motionless as the memory ebbed out of her, leaving her raw and clean--

The sudden transition from the description of the funeral to present day in her room is... well, too sudden and jarring. There was no connection between the two paragraph ideas and the reader is left confused.

It did not last. Regret at her impulsive action tugged at her neck, set her teeth on edge. Because of her, the necklace was irretrievable, like him. Her fingers twitched to hold it once more, to hold him once more. To be complete again.


Telling herself it was no more than a practical task, she dragged herself from the bed to the bureau and begin rifling through his drawers.

Practical task to do what? To clean out his belongings? To set fire to his stuff? :P

Months ago, on a Sunday morning pale with frost, she had found a hair in their bed, blonde and tightly coiled. She had chosen to ignore it then, but she had never forgotten. No longer could she feign ignorance. Her husband had a lover.

I can't quite remember the original paragraph, but for some reason this edit isn't as good, isn't as final and hard-hitting.

It raised more questions than it answered, but it explained why intercourse with him in the last months had given her little more satisfaction than masturbation. It explained why certain nights he stumbled home with bloodshot eyes and a frenetic grin. She wondered if it also explained his death.

I think this part should be later on in the story, or rewritten elsewhere, as it leads the reader off in a different tangent into thinking about the man's death - right before you write a paragraph about her becoming aroused. It's a weird link.

The ceiling seemed to bend and swoop above her, as though it were made of rubber. Bile rose in her throat and thin spasms ran through her fingers.

How can spasms be thin?

I like the new version, it's more in-depth than the original, but I still think this story is only the beginning; it's begging to be extrapolated upon :)

Keep up the great work!

- Jai
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Fri Aug 20, 2010 10:41 am
thegirlandthepen says...



Hey there blackbird! First of all; I am so, so sorry that this review is so late. I've had a lot on recently and haven't been on much, I'm going to give this my all in the hope that I make up for my extreme lateness. And secondly; thank you very much for being the first person to ask me for a review, woo. Okay, enough of that. On with the show!

Red - Mistakes
Green Corrections
Pink - Suggestions
Purple - Bits I Liked

blackbird12 wrote:The diamond necklace was like broken glass in her hands, exuding some harsh innate gleam. Once it had been her prized possession, two years ago when her husband had presented it to her, teeth sawing into his lips, mouth tortured with anxiety and glee. Immediately she had gushed to the beauty of the thing, had found herself drawn to him like never before in their marriage. Think of me when you wear it, he had said, clamping her face in his hands with the fierce, possessive love that stroked her ego. Think of us.

Beautiful and concise imagery to start off the scene, and everything feels so clear in my head, excellent.

She rent/bent the necklace in half and launched it across the room. There was a soft ripping sound and then nothing, like the hush of reverential horror when something holy is defaced. The diamonds scattered in the air, displaced fragments of light plummeting to the carpet, lost.

The sudden fury wore her out. She threw herself onto the bed, her nightgown a crumpled pool about her, brazen in the broad daylight. She stared above at the slow revolving slice of the ceiling fan, imagined her throat bared to its blades. Outside a wind chime jangled, a melancholy sound like gently breaking glass. A sprinkler hissed on the lawn next door.

Eight days. Eight days since the hordes of funeral flowers had sickened the air with a sweet stench, since the shriek of the telephone had become a daily incantation. Eight days since her husband had promptly dressed himself for work and then, equally promptly, pulled out his father’s pistol and shot himself through the mouth. She had returned home several hours later to find a bowl of soggy cornflakes stained pink and a ragged red streak on the wall. He had fallen to the linoleum like a pinstriped mannequin, crimson crater hollowing his face.

It had been a closed-casket ceremony. The funeral was tame compared to the death.

The air was thick. It settled in her lungs and numbed her whole form like an anesthetic. If only she could lie here for another moment, motionless as the memory ebbed out of her, leaving her raw and clean--

It did not last. Regret at her impulsive action tugged at her neck, set her teeth on edge. Because of her the necklace was irretrievable, like him. Her fingers twitched to hold it once more, to hold him once more. To be complete again.

Death was unfamiliar to her. She could not understand why her mind wavered so dramatically, why the anger bled into the numbness bled into the sorrow. She had never been a fickle person. Perhaps she no longer was the same person.

Telling herself it was no more than a practical task, she dragged herself from the bed to the bureau and begin rifling through his drawers. Her hands sifted through the folds of his fading linen shirts, the ones that clung to his skin on summer days. He loved wearing those shirts; she hated washing them. Now she wished she could wash them one final time. Pressing his boxers to her nose, she smelled detergent and the musk of dried urine. One corner of a yellowed envelope peeked from beneath his socks; it was stuffed with cash. She noticed a dull glint: a teardrop locket, coarse with rust, that belonged to his mother. As she fingered its crusting metal surface, a smile split her lips. A man’s drawers were his secret place.

Buried beneath all else was a photo, made limp and whitened from constant cherishing. In the photo was a man she had never seen, broad-chested, towheaded, white t-shirt straining against his torso. He seemed caught unawares by the photographer, big teeth jutting out in a blocky grin.

Months ago, on a Sunday morning pale with frost, she had found a hair in their bed, blonde and tightly coiled. She had chosen to ignore it then, but she had never forgotten. No longer could she feign ignorance. Her husband had a lover.

It raised more questions than it answered, but it explained why intercourse with him in the last months had given her little more satisfaction than masturbation. It explained why certain nights he stumbled home with bloodshot eyes and a frenetic grin. She wondered if it also explained his death.

She imagined the two men making love, violent caresses, bodies doused in sweat, intoxicated with beer and the scent of each other. Hands stroking faces, salt scalding their mouths. Groans and sighs the only communication needed. The thought both hungered and aroused her.

Love this twist! Forgive me if I'm being a little too obvious, but of course I assumed, and did not expect this.

It was not a lewd photo, but she knew what it meant. The man depicted was not naked, body contorted in a lascivious pose, eyes lacquered with lust. That would have been easier for her--purely sexual, it would have meant less to him. But no, she could see him fingering the photo, smiling with the sheer luck of it all: a love that fulfills him and a marriage that keeps him safe. Yet even that was not enough for him. A pain shot through her chest, sharp and quick like the release of a bowstring. It was not fair.

Her father’s gruff voice scratched against her ear, blaring even in remembrance. Daddy had always told her to marry the best man, the nicest man. A man who would respect her and treat her right. The doe-eyed little girl had soaked up each word of her father’s platitudes. Somehow she had found that man, at first considering herself lucky. Marriage was not what she expected, but she always believed hers was normal. She was dead-wrong, and so was Daddy. He was no longer infallible.

She wanted to destroy the photo, destroy the betrayal and the humiliation, that even someone of her gender was not good enough for him. It would be easy. It was already so frail that she could tear it in half with barely a tug. So frail, like him. He was the lucky one, to have escaped all this, while she was left to collect the pieces.

The ceiling seemed to bend and swoop above her, as though it were made of rubber. Bile rose in her throat and thin spasms ran through her fingers. She was drunk on revelation, flailing in limbo, slave to some great wild thing. She could almost taste the bitter tang of gunmetal in her own mouth, and she asked herself: whose name was written on the bullet that severed her husband’s spine? Hers, or his lover’s?

The dizziness subsided in a moment. She returned the photo to its original place and closed the drawer; she could think of nothing else to do.

Turning to the window, she watched the lonesome sun dipping beneath the houses, dark outlines stamped against a bleeding sky. The fan blades hummed above her. Nausea swept over her in little waves but the sensation was not new. She prayed that tomorrow would be easier to understand.

Marriage had been suffocatingly simple. Widowhood was painfully complex.

Brilliant ending line.

That was simply amazing, for lack of a better word; not only is your vocabularly wide and impressive. It also seemed very effortless, and like I said before it painted a clear image in my head. It was pretty much word perfect, spelling and grammar was too except for one typo which I'm not even sure I corrected right.

OVERALL.
'Sensory overload.'
The only bit of critcism I can give you was that at times it did seem a little too much, it was a complete sensory overload, and don't get me wrong it wasn't bad. But perhaps in some parts it could be toned down just a little, of course I may be wrong. This is only my opinion, perhaps an overwhelment of the senses was exactly what you were going for, and in that case it worked undoubtedly. But I can't help but think that at times your precise and meticulous detailing and description was a little OTT, I'm not saying you need to make it boring, but having a little bit of variety is always good.

I'm sorry I can't offer much more, it seems that its been edited a thousand times and doesn't need much work at all. Keep at it, I'd be really interested to see more of your work.

PM me if you have any questions :) xo
"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut." - Stephen King.

EDDiE. :]

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Fri Aug 27, 2010 9:13 pm
Lethero says...



exuding some harsh, innate gleam.

First off, comma after harsh. Secondly, the wording on this is weird to me.Try changing the wording.

Immediately, she had gushed to the beauty of the thing,

Comma after immediately.

She rent the necklace in half and launched it across the room.

Rent just sounds weird there. Maybe tore, but it's up to you.

crimson crater hollowing his face. [/quote
Didn't he shoot himself through the mouth? If so the exit wound would be in the back of the head.

It had been a closed-casket ceremony.

Normally, they would be able to fix or hide such a bullet hole.

Overall: Decent story, good description, and the grammar wasn't terrible. In my opinion though, you could use more emotion, put more sadness behind the words. Other than that, this story is fine. If you have any questions or need another review, feel free to PM me on YWS.

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*Lethero*





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Thu Sep 02, 2010 11:38 pm
SporkPunk says...



Hi there, blackbird! Here as requested.

Grammar:

The diamond necklace was like broken glass in her hands, exuding some harsh innate gleam.

I think a comma after harsh would be best.

gushed to the beauty of the thing,

This was very awkward to me. I don't think you can really "gush to" an abstract thing, such as beauty. "About" rather than "to" makes much more sense.

She rent the necklace in half and launched it across the room.

Unlike your other reviewers, I genuinely love the use of "rent" here. Not many people actually use rent in that sense. I dunno, it just struck me as unique and I liked it.

She had returned home several hours later to find a bowl of soggy cornflakes stained pink and a ragged red streak on the wall. He had fallen to the linoleum like a pinstriped mannequin, crimson crater hollowing his face.

Wonderful imagery, though...depending on where he shot himself, the exit wound could be in different places.

She had never been a fickle person. Perhaps she no longer was the same person.

I don't like the repetition of person. Try different ways to word this.

Plot:
I loved this. Blackbird, you're a great writer. Your imagery is always vivid, and your characters are compelling. I've only read one other work of yours, and the MC of that was also suicidal, which is okay because you make it work. That said, I think you could improve on your writing skills by stepping out of your comfort zone. Though, I'm sure you have, and if so, then disregard my comment. xD Oh, speaking of your MC...I do have one tiny plot related nitpick. She's at least fleetingly suicidal in the beginning, and then she discovers her husband had a lover. Her reaction was fairly reasonable, given the subject matter, though if she were suicidal, wouldn't her reaction to the evidence be a bit more...possibly violent?


Overall:
Great piece, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Other than what I pointed out for grammar, it was great. For your plot, it was mostly fantastic, even with the reaction of your MC that I mentioned.

Keep Writing! Also, if you have any questions, feel free to PM me. Also, if you ever need a review, head on over to my WRFF thread or write on my wall or something.

~Sporks
Grasped by the throat, grasped by the throat. That's how I feel about love. That it's not worth it.

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Mon Sep 06, 2010 6:00 am
Shearwater says...



Hi there! Pink here, as requested ;)
So I don't have many nitpicks, those have already been picked out so I don't really have much to address.
Now, with that being said, this is a wonderful yet cold story and I think it's really good. Usually, I find myself reading short stories that hardly ever catch my attention but you did a fabulous job, I have a hard time finding good stories like this one.
In the beginning however, there was a bit of confusion as to why she was angry, was it because he shot himself? I find myself asking many questions to why he did it or even be crying for an entire year rather than be frustrated with him but, that is based on character and I'm different than her so I won't really comment much on that.
Plot wise, it was a major twist. I though there was money problems or something but I can't believe he shot himself because of that reason. I almost find a bit unbelievable at a point but we don't know what happened between the two that would make him take such a decision such as suicide so it would have been nice if you explained it more clearly. Even if he was gay, I don't think it was very valid reason to end your life unless something terrible had happened between the two, etc.
Overall, I still liked reading this. your descriptions and wording were just amazing and the flow was crisp and easy to follow. I didn't have much problem with your grammar or the way you constructed your sentences either, everyone has their style of writing. Wow, you already have so many reviews, hopefully I didn't repeat anything that was already mentioned...
Anyways, good job!
*like*

~Shear
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Thu Sep 16, 2010 8:59 pm
Carlito says...



blackbird12 wrote:Once it had been her prized possession, two years ago when her husband had presented it to her, teeth sawing into his lips, hands wringing together like rags.

There's too much happening in the sentence and there are too many commas. I'd rephrase it a little and maybe break it up some. The 'once' is bothering me. I think 'At one time it was her prized possession' would sound better and I think you could make that its own sentence and then start a new sentence with 'Her husband gave it to her two years ago' or something like that. I don't really understand the descriptions in the second half and how they apply to what's already been said.

blackbird12 wrote:fierce, possessive love that stroked her ego.

"stroked her ego" sounds odd to me. Like she feels good that she's in love and has this person in her life and he inflates her ego by being with her? I think you could easily end the sentence with "possessive love".

blackbird12 wrote:The diamonds scattered in the air, displaced fragments of light plummeting to the carpet, lost.

I love this image here and the description.

blackbird12 wrote:Eight days. Eight days since the hordes of funeral flowers had sickened the air with a sweet stench, since the shriek of the telephone had become a daily incantation.

Okay this is disgustingly nit-picky. I don't know if you intended to have all these words that start with 's' but it's a little excessive in my opinion. Especially since they're all so close together. So maybe try to think of some different words.

blackbird12 wrote:A funeral was tame compared to a death.

Looove this line! :)

I really, really liked this. You have a wonderful style of writing and I love your use of imagery. Even though I don't know these characters very well at all because this is such a short piece, that didn't matter because I still felt for them. It was still captivating to me. I felt bad for the woman who had just become a widow and I even felt for her husband who was just trying to be happy and feel fulfilled. I loved that he didn't have an affair with another woman and instead it was a man. You don't read stories like that very often and it raises so many more questions. Did he kill himself because something happened with this other man or because of something relating to his relationship with this other man? I liked how you started with this necklace and then returned to it later in the piece. And I liked how you described how she felt.

-Carly
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