[September Contest] The Beautiful Mortician.

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From the Story Theme Generator -> "Your story is about a mortician in the jungles of Peru creating random poems."
(:



The beautiful mortician they call me. I weave the toe of my shoe into the Peruvian dirt. Trees conceal me, everywhere I turn a wall of trees closes me in. I cannot be beautiful if no one can see me.
My obsession with death had started young, I lived in a world where my parents were everything, they filled up my young life like water fills a fishbowl. Yet, a second later, kissed with cancer, they were gone, leaving two empty shells to dispose of in some glorified landfill.
My eyelids sprouted rigid wrinkles as I clenched them, recalling those pearly white cheeks stretched hollowly against curious cheekbones.
backpedaling through time
when translucent membranes
replaced yesterday’s smile lines

I had been advised to convert feelings into words. A friend had once told me poetry was like vomiting your emotions. I needed my emotions out, but I was hardly regurgitating them. They snaked laboriously and contemptuously from my fingers.
generations passed
too many flies on the ground
effervescence beat out of them
swiftly, cursedly

I was the constant in a succession of death. Perhaps I was the catalyst, perhaps I was the curse.
I pressed down into the fleshy base of which my thumb grows from, barely detecting the steady chant of life singing from my veins with my pointer and middle fingers. I then remembered a boyfriend, a link in a chain that could stretch to the moon and back. This boy was one of the better ones. He’d held my small South American body into the curve of his own and quietly shared his seventeen year old wisdom.
“while your heart still beats, you shouldn’t concern yourself with death
you are amazing
you are not a curse.”
sentiments sweet, like cotton candy
luscious pink taste that disappeared faster than he did

Here I sat, on some glorified tree root crushing a ballpoint pen between my fingers. I was back home in the jungles of Peru, back into the jungles of the mind, toying with emotions as if I controlled them. As if.
first my parents, a friend, a beloved goldfish,
a boyfriend, a teacher, two grandparents
they all fell.
One after the other after the other.

I absolutely festered in the thick, soupy air. My hair had fused itself to my neck through the adherent of my own sweat. Death is a funny thing, I realized, sometimes devastating, horrible, shocking, sometimes commonplace, natural, the circle of life. Death weaves its black cord regardless and blind, twisting itself through the abundance of life.
I seem to wear the curse of death like a pair of gloves.
yet it will always be alluring to me, romantic, mysterious
beautiful, it will always be beautiful
seems fitting, for I am the beautiful mortician.
We revel in the unabashed glory of the mind meeting a page.




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Very interesting take on the word "mortician." I dig it.

The tone of the piece is noteworthy. Very world weary, ponderous, yet almost proud.

I cannot be beautiful if no one can see me.

I like it.

My eyelids sprouted rigid wrinkles as I clenched them, recalling those pearly white cheeks stretched hollowly against curious cheekbones.

This sentence is crazy chockfull of adjectives. Perhaps cut back.

smile lines

a weak way to say it.

They snaked laboriously and contemptuously from my fingers.

A good line, but the adverbs are holding it back. I'm having trouble agreeing with "snaked laboriously." Perhaps you could use a different verb than "snaked" that has an inherent "laborious" quality to it.

effervescence beat out of them

I like this line, too. A juxtaposition of a typically calm, savored word with some rougher words.

the fleshy base of which my thumb grows from, barely detecting the steady chant of life singing from my veins with my pointer and middle fingers

I like the second part. But the first part is just...grotesque-sounding and overly vague. Just go with wrist. You can only put so many vague synonyms for something into one sentence without making a sentence seem like it's trying too hard.

the Peruvian dirt...my small South American body...home in the jungles of Peru

Considering the short length, you seem to go out of your way too much to make the point that we're in a foreign world. Granted, it's only three times, but in such a short length, it becomes very noticeable.

the adherent of my own sweat

Typo? Adherence, you mean?

beautiful, it will always be beautiful

I think you could stand to show us how death is beautiful. You started talking about it in the previous paragraph, but only so much to say that it has two natures: the unnatural and the natural. You might could throw a sentence in there that emphasizes why the narrator believes it beautiful and romantic.

I think you could also make a point at some point in the story what kind of special role the narrator believes she may have played in these people's deaths. So far, it just so happens that she knew these people, and that's it. Kinda coincidental, but not entirely remarkable. For example, you make a point to say that death is both natural and unnatural. Perhaps you could give us a glimpse of a particularly unnatural death of someone she knew, since we already got the natural, ho-hum cancer death.

But all in all, pretty good. Lemme know if you have any questions!




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Hi Jade! I'm SporkPunk, and I'll be reviewing this today.

I cannot be beautiful if no one can see me.

I like this!

My eyelids sprouted rigid wrinkles as I clenched them, recalling those pearly white cheeks stretched hollowly against curious cheekbones.

This reads almost awkwardly. It doesn't match the style of the rest of the piece. I think sargsauce was right when he mentioned the overload of adjectives.

luscious pink taste that disappeared faster than he did

Also a good line.

Overall, I really liked this. I think it was a neat twist on "mortician." Great!

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

REVIEWS FOR YOU | | Uprising (coming soon!)




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Hi there FRAYEDjade!

Glad I stumbled across this story! I'm WD, and it's lovely to meet you! So, you have an interesting story. That theme you got from the generator is pretty nifty, and I'm glad you took up the challenge of writing about it! Very cool! So, you have the beginnings of a lovely style here--I can see that you really pay attention to the rhythm of words and the way they sound, and that is fantastic.

However, I feel like your first person narrator is telling us everything in this piece. And, while sometimes first person narrators can pull this off, it's not really working right now. Why? First, because the narrative voice is trying so hard to be distinct that it sounds awkward. Second, because we never see the narrator in action--she just tells us everything and doesn't give us enough details that we can really get to know her. So, let me address these points individually:

I. The crazy, abstract narrative voice

The beautiful mortician they call me. I weave the toe of my shoe into the Peruvian dirt. Trees conceal me, everywhere I turn a wall of trees closes me in. I cannot be beautiful if no one can see me.


From the very beginning--weaving her toe in the Peruvian dirt? That sounds painful. And outright telling us that she cannot be beautiful if no one sees her. I don't see how your narrator arrived at that thought--there is no real thought process to get me there, which makes it seem out of the blue! From the very first few sentences--I don't really understand your narrator!

My obsession with death had started young, I lived in a world where my parents were everything, they filled up my young life like water fills a fishbowl. Yet, a second later, kissed with cancer, they were gone, leaving two empty shells to dispose of in some glorified landfill.
My eyelids sprouted rigid wrinkles as I clenched them, recalling those pearly white cheeks stretched hollowly against curious cheekbones.


Like water filling a fishbowl? Who thinks like that? Your narrator can, but we have to have more thought process--when first person narrators make these claims out of nowhere with no context, they're confusing. And then, her eyes sprouted wrinkles? She clenched her eyelids? Very strange image here--I feel like you are trying really hard to give your narrator an abstract voice, but you're trying TOO hard. Throughout the piece, she talks like this so much with so little context that it leads me to attribute the odd voice to the author and the not the narrator.

So, my suggestion? Don't go in with a preconceived notion about how your narrator is going to sound. Just start writing for that narrator, and if your narrator starts going into abstract phrases and weird words, explain her thought process. Get into her head and pry out all of the trains of thought, putting them down on the page. Maybe she thinks of fishbowls because she had fish when she was little. Maybe she feels like she has to be seen because she has a history of NOT being seen. These are perfectly feasible contexts, but no such context is laid out in the story, and I think the story could really benefit from some. ;)

II. Telling

Your narrator tells us everything here--we never see your character in action. I get that this is just a small section of the character's thought process--her explaining herself. But, even then, we need more detail. I like that your narrator is recalling events in her past--but why don't we get more of those events? Why don't we get brief little flashes where she remembers a specific moment?

Maybe she was standing at the funeral and she was staring at the casket and playing with her nails and wondering what morticians do the the bodies of those deceased and she thought that death was like leaving an empty shell, like an empty fishbowl. Maybe she was talking with her friend about how she should get her emotions out in poetry and you could go into her growth as a poet, how bad she was at first and how hard it was. Maybe we can get a scene with the South American boy in which we can really get a feel for who your narrator is. What is her usual demeanor at funerals? What kind of poetry does she like to write? What does she do when she's frustrated? These are all details that can really pump the life back into your character. Right now I see her telling me things, but I don't actually see her, and I really want to, because she seems like she might be interesting.

So, what this story needs is more character. We have lots of telling, some nice language, an interesting poetntial character. But we get very little detail and very little honest narrative voice, which makes it very hard for me to gauge who your narrator is. When revising this, really think about digging into the brain of your narrator and pulling out the thought process and really think about letting the reader see your narrator in action--whether she be walking while she's thinking this or she recalls some detailed event from her past. I think that will really help your narrator come to life and really get you down the road of thinking about the poetry aspect you seem eager to explore.

I hope this helps! Nice start and keep writing! If you have any questions, feel free to PM me!
~ WD
If you desire a review from WD, post here

"All I know, all I'm saying, is that a story finds a storyteller. Not the other way around." ~Neverwas




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Wow, this was fantastic! I really liked how you used lines of poetry to tell parts of the story, it really helped the story flow smoothly. You used figurative language very effectively and it enriched the work quite nicely. The narration was uniqe and helped me get to know the main character. Keep up the good work! You are an awesome writer and I can't wait till you post some more works =).
-Makar7



I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good... then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor - such is my idea of happiness.
— Leo Tolstoy