Beast

It’s eating me.
I'm sitting on the couch. As I sink deeper, I wrap my pudgy hands around the remote, glaring at the screen. I contemplate the monster. Sweat sticks my hair to my head as the fan whirs above; click, click, clicking as it goes round, dragged down by turgid air. The monster is an insidious little fucker; already got its grubby little paws in me, trying to get my heart but I won’t let it.
An ad comes on showing some tacky new takeaway, all tassels and bells and won’t you come down and try our specials? Buy one meal, get one free! Pure grease, no doubt. But it does the trick. I smack my lips, as saliva wells up. This is how the monster works, changes things in you, only slightly – ever so slightly at first – like a master craftsman tinkering with his product, but it’s just the beginning. My hair straggles down my back in wet clumps – that at least, isn’t the monster’s fault. That credit belongs to the goddamn doubly damned heat, the constant never-ending reminder of just how close we are to hell. My feet tingle and I can almost see the flames licking at my gross little toes.
I can’t reach them anymore, not with this belly.
It isn’t just the sun, I think, glancing at the clock with its tiny, almost missed ticking – click, tick, click, tick it goes, as the clock and fan dance lazy circles around my head – its Bill too. He makes me want to scream nine times out of ten and that sole other time, I mostly want him dead. But I can’t do shit and he knows that, he’s got the monster see, and now I’m trapped. It’s nearly 5’o’clock. Slimy bastard will be here soon. I turn back to the TV. I haven’t been watching for more than a minute before my bladder pulses, impossibly full so soon after I’d just been, and I hadn’t even had a drink yet. Shit. I ignore it for now, focusing instead on the cartoon.
Outside, the sun blazes a sadistic gold, turning the world into a furnace. The occasional car grunts pass. Though I keep my eyes on Bugs Bunny, my ears are perked up and I listen, just waiting for what I know is coming, any minute now; as inevitable and indomitable as the heat
The clicking and ticking somehow seem slower and thicker for each minute that passes.
A dog barks once, twice, in a running chorus.
I squirm, beads of sweat sliding down my thighs. I really need to pee and I’m breathing hard and fast. The heat presses down, ironing my soul. My breath rattles out from behind peeling, pink lips. The house, with its brown paper walls seems so thin, like it could blow down at any minute and it pulses with harshly panted breaths, set to explode with the pressure of it all.
I twitch.
‘Will someone shut that damn dog up!’ I scream. ‘Goddamnit, you can never get any peace round here!’ I lurch to my feet, ungainly body awkwardly balanced, and charge over to the window. My heart stops as I see it coming down the road, that low, awfully familiar hum preceding it. Bill’s brand new Ute is a polished, dark red that seems to drink in the light and get darker, until it’s near black. How something so huge and dark and mean looking can glide so smoothly, like death itself in a slow moving tide of blood-metal yet sing so sweetly, I don’t know.
All I know is that it scares the hell out of me.

ii.

He lays on the bed beside me. Smells like grease and smoke and old sex. Rise and fall of his gut, patchy skin. I listen to him breathe. It sets a rhythm. I lay there with my hands on my stomach and I feel the tiny, fish-hook fists under my belly jab and beat. A fragile knocking. Purple, blind bastard. Doctor showed me pictures of it today. Martian-eyed, spine curled up like a scorpion's blistered sting. All the tubes and the crap inside of me. Winding around like tapeworms, white and slurping. The little pink nubs and the filamented fingers. It's a boy, he said. It's gonna be a beautiful baby boy. Just look at how healthy he is. Just look at how active he is already! Be a helluva athlete, I'm sure!
Bill smiled.
I smiled, too. But godssakes, all I wanted to do then was drag it out of my stomach by all those cords and pipes and stuff it down Bill's throat.
I can't get to sleep.
He breathes in. A wet, stringy sound. I close my eyes. The dark comes across me, tucking me in, a quiet, marble comfort. The moon stares empty and bruised, like a lobotomy patient. Absolute stillness; I can hear it. Not only the kicks and the soft fists. Thin words. Hisses, full of tongue and throat. So soft, it’s almost missed. Comes up through my fingers in slight, tiny transmissions. I listen real close, focusing in on it until it’s the only sound in the whole room. Words as small as fleas. Those parted, unformed lips, spelling out the first, gnawing words.
–momma–
I jerk my hands away. The words stop. My hands are sweating. They're always sweating, but now more than ever. The heat from the summer night sticks to my skin like a postage stamp. That word hangs there, an unspoken secret. Licking sweat, all up and down my body, and the trembling, swallowing navel. It's talking, dear god in heaven, it's talking to me. In that skinny, perverse devil voice.
Something wrong here.
I can taste it.
Feel it.
The sweat and the stink. The sticky toes, like cold grubs.
He breathes. He breathes as the fists knock. Looking for room, scrabbling for space –it consumes. I feel my thoughts floating, suspended in the muck of my head, like specimens in formaldehyde. I can't think anymore. I can't move. And it's getting louder. His mouth isn't even moving, I bet. Just coming out. Like voice-boxes in those toy dolls. The electronic, tinny words. Through the lips, the lips. There is a small smile. Lidded eyes, gills and webs.
Something wrong.
Misplaced.
–momma. momma wont you smile please? wont you hold me please? –
I grit my teeth, hold the screams inside. Keep em shut, latched.
I listen to Bill breathe all night long.

iii.

The TV blares. Anything to fill the emptiness. It’s just me and the beast now, 9-to-5, like a regular job and mine is to sit still and not pay attention; keep staring at the screen, the pretty colours. I sit and watch cartoons all day – don’t deal with the fucking white elephant in the room they say, look away, but what if you are the damn thing? There’s no escape. Cartoon Network always helps, sending soothing waves through my skin, in my blood and down, down into the creature’s gullet. My eyes widen at that thought. Could be that the monster likes this stuff, that its even now switching little levers, running insensitive, cunning hands all through my body; fixing me to its pleasure and now I’m drunk on this silliness and all it can do is giggle and laugh and have a mighty fine time of it. Inside me.
I tremble.
My fingers clench tight on the remote. Above and about, the clock and fan continue their constant love affair, clicktickclicktickclickticking all the damn time. The sun is sullen today; hiding behind banks of gray but the heat is worse, smothering and thick like a wet blanket sluicing onto the skin. The house breathes with me, but it seems so small, the walls so close and I want to push out, to punch and to kick at it. The remote shakes. A lone fly buzzes madly in the air, twisting about in a dizzying schizophrenic choreography. What’s it got to be so happy about anyway? The room is spinning to the beat.
I change the channel.
Nothing. Don’t breathe, don’t blink, don’t even think – absolute stillness. Click, tick, buzz, breathe. I struggle for air. So thick and warm and moist, like custard and I’m just another maggot-mouth sucking and slurping hard at it. Do you need an air conditioner? It gets awfully hot here in this, the sunniest state of all and by god all but the righteous will fry, why haven’t you heard the word? The good Word? The salesman is wearing a brown suit, and an old fashioned cowboy hat; his head is tilted to the side, eyes staring right at me as his smile splits open his face, pushing the cracks in his skin wider and wider, until it’s a wonder there’s any skin left to show. His gold tooth sparkles. If you haven’t, friend, well I’ll tell you what it’s saying right now - It’s saying to get your behind here right now and buy yourself a brand spanking new, delightful channel.
The man stops, frowns. You know, ah, you got to – he doesn’t look so confident anymore, sweat glistens down his cheek and he looks to the side, out of the screen. His mouth opens gold and white teeth sparkling, pink tongue peeking out on the brink – change the channel, love, he says. He comes close to the screen, eyes so black and small, with a little spittle flecked on his lips. Change the fucking channel! he screams.
A kick in the gut knocks me out of a daze and I look up, the clock swinging in and out of my vision. Click, tick, click, tick, buzz. I’m gonna kill that fly; smash its little head to pulp. Just once I get up. My eyes flicker. There’s a news program on. Another hooker dead. Another kick in the gut; this one pushes a moan out with it. I clutch my stomach and now, it really goes for it – punching and kicking and I’m doubled over, remote spinning out of my hands to clatter on the floor – the moans are constant, a running susurrus of pain. A metallic copper taste spoils my tastebuds and I fall to my knees. Scrabbling for the remote, choking on my own blood. Temples throbbing with the pounding rhythm of pain. No air to breathe, only the red, sticky kind. I spit, flinging a hand out onto the remote in a desperate bid for survival. My palm slams onto the remote and the TV switches off. I get one look at my own gaping, bloody mouth before darkness crashes in.

Hi, Jayandkay.

The style and intensity of this story is undeniable. It's unique and vibrant. What it lacked was the ability to hold my attention beyond the first three sections. Through the first paragraph of the fourth I had trouble focusing on it, had to keep myself from skipping phrases, sentences. The descriptions are very vivid, the emotion is tangible. But the fragmented sentences, the absence of action to balance out the description, the repetition in some places, and the abstract language all contributed to a long paragraph that did little to move the story along and was difficult to get through.

There are other minor examples of that problem throughout the piece, fragmented sentences that sound good, but examine them for solid content and make sure that they are essential to, not just the tone and theme of the piece, but the plot as well. They don't have to be concrete, they just have to be necessary.

All in all, this was well-written; ambiguous in some ways, yes, but that was generally effective.

If you have any questions, let me know xD


_Nam

Hey Adna!

Sorry you couldn't get through it! We know it's not exactly easy to get through - some of what we've tried is a bit out there - experimental - in terms of sentence structure; things of that nature, fragmented imagery, repetition - we're all deliberate, as manifestations of her growing madness.

The repetition is probably the most important feature in the story, something that needed to be emphasised as strongly as possible - the most tangible, concurrent elements in her world; the soundscape of her world, are actually the things brokered/made feverish by her madness. We - well, I, Jay - thought that was a sort of clever double-play. XD. Apparently not.

Thanks very much for the review though.

Peace

Hey there JayandKay.

You had a very interesting first paragraph that managed to hook my attention and made me want to read on. However, as I continued reading this, I realized that you were pretty much using the same stylistic conventions and type of language/diction throughout. The same way in which you structure your sentences also made it difficult for me to maintain my interest with this piece. Ultimately, it seems so dragged and so bland because of how firstly, the story never moves, and secondly, because it never actually changes.

I think you need to re-structure this story so that it actually moves forward instead of being bogged down by redundant descriptions. You might also want to be more prudent when it comes to using stylistic conventions and language in creating effect. Having the same sort of stylistic conventions and language simply overpowers the effects to the point that it actually weakens the strength of the effect that you are creating due to how redundant it is and how readers would find it difficult to digest your piece.

You might also want to be more clear about who the MC is and the conflict at hand. Your overuse of stylistic conventions makes it more difficult for me to pinpoint this.

Andy.

Hey there JayandKay!

I like your username, by the way.

Whoa!

Ok, I don't think people know who you two are. But style-wise, I could tell when each of you wrote, seeing as though I've read a fair share of work from both of you and I can kind of pin-point the pacing. So I disagree with Squall when he talks about how y'all used the same stylistic diction.

My thing is, that sometimes it gets a little tedious. In the sense that, one moment you're in the MC's head and they're thinking really slow and then everything speeds up. One thing you two should work on is trying to use the same pacing.

Really, I didn't know she was a girl until you mentioned her name was Chloe. She didn't come off as a girl in the beginning. Maybe in the second part, I saw that she was a girl but yall confirmed it later on. I don't know if that was the plan, but maybe you could display her gender a little more.

I liked all of the descriptions and metaphors and such but it got to be a bit much here and there. To talk about this piece as a whole, I thought it flowed nicely save for the pacing and some of the figurative language. This was a really good read. What makes it even better is that these two totally different styles actually compliment each other.

Now, I want to make sure I got the story right. Because I kinda got that she was a little crazy. A good way to show that is to repeat things over and over again, which you guys did do but it wasn't overbearing.

I think that she's pregnant and she's referring to the child inside of her as a beast. Bill is her boyfriend or husband or whatever, and he's a drug dealer.

I'm not going to go through a whole run-down or anything, but did I hit the nail on the head, at least?

All in all, I enjoyed reading this. If yall were to do another collab, I think it would be great.

Keep writing,

~Angel

Hey Angel!

I had a feeling you might recognise who wrote what. XD. Okay, we'll have to go over it and see about lightening the load here and there, see if that works. Could you really not tell it was about a crazy pregnant chick? I mean, really? Haha, I thought it was the most obvious thing evar. But then, I guess I would aye.

If I were to think of the pacing, I would say imagine a heart monitor -- sharp blips, quick rises. That's what I was after. Did it not come across well?

Thanks for the thoughtful crit, dear, as always.

-Jay

EDIT: ah crap. Didn't realise I was in this profile. *Head/Desk*

The reason why people probably didn't finish it is this:

It is dull and self-absorbed.

I tried to read it, but I really wanted to stop after reading this much:

It’s eating me.

I sit on the couch, fat ass slowly sinking deeper and deeper and wrap my pudgy hands around the remote, glaring at the screen. I contemplate the monster. Sweat slicks my hair to my head as the fan whirs above; click, click, clicking as it goes round and round, seemingly slower each time, dragged down by the turgid air --

At this point, I sort of wanted to lie down and die. After all, better that than the purple prose killing me. Seriously. Let's summarize what has happened so far:

A couch is eating a fat man who is watching TV and sweating.

OH MY GOSH. BE STILL MY HEART. I TOTALLY WANT TO READ THIS STORY.

This wouldn't be so bad except that it appears that the author wants to make it sound more exciting than it actually is. There is no conflict--only conflict that revolves in the main character being so self-absorbed that he has to heighten the normal things happening to such a level that it becomes ridiculous. Which is what self-absorbed narcissists do. And really, why should I care about a self-absorbed narcissist who is only going to heighten imagined conflict to a ridiculous level when I could read another story with actual conflict?

Sorry.

And yes, I know that the monster is probably not the couch. But, seeing as the narrator would rather describe how sluggish he is rather than the monster, I figure that the narrator thinks that the monster doesn't matter, not compared to himself, and really, if that's the case, why should I worry about the monster either? So much for the hook of the first sentence. What a disappointment.

As I read further, I was similarly disappointed. But I will not repeat myself further.

Cut the fat off this. If the character is totally self-absorbed and narcissistic, you either have to make the character seem less so in the beginning or focus on the conflict more and the narrator less so that there is a sense of conflict and purpose to the story. Otherwise, it's simply drivel that is a little more coherent than usual.

Snoink --

Thank you for the critique. Though perhaps things would make more sense to you if you actually bothered to spend any effort reading the story. It appears as if you read the first paragraph, found it below your standards, skipped ahead, read a few other paragraphs, and then judged the piece entire. This is a story which requires, I believe, a big-picture perspective.

I suppose that the wording in the first paragraph is somewhat decieving, and may lead a reader to think that the couch is the "monster", and this I will change. I also hate to dispute a critique, because I know that the advice you've offered me is intended to encourage growth and maturation. However, I find it strange that you would judge an entire story based on it's first paragraph. This is a character driven story. The "monster" is a part of the character and the monster is something, at the moment, relatively intangible. Therefore, descriptions will be based on the main character. The main character is selfish and narcisstic. Very much so. We're not trying to paint a picture of a likable person here. You have every right to hate this person, despise them completely. And, for your information, the character is a pregnant woman, and the "monster" is her unborn child. Perhaps, if this is causing confusion, I should spell things out more simply.

I appreciate the effort you went to to help. I will split this piece into two parts, so that the length is also less intimidating. I think that it is only polite, though, to provide a critique on the entire story, rather than a critique of the first paragraph.

Regards,

-Jay & Kay

No problem. ^^ I know at least three people who absolutely couldn't get through the beginning of this story because of various reasons (mostly because of the dullness) but they didn't want to critique because they couldn't actually get halfway through the story. So I'm glad you could get out of something out of my critique. ^_^ The more solid this story is in the beginning, the better it is going to be as a final product.

By the way, the description is such that the word choice and everything hint that the narrator "I" is a male. Women would never dwell on their "fat asses" without some measure of self-abhorrence, even if they were pregnant--it would be humiliating, especially in the society we live in today. I don't know if this place is based on our society--maybe it is--but you have failed to communicate to the reader on what exactly you're talking about because of your description. To make it more clear that she is indeed a pregnant woman and not just a fat man, study what happens to pregnant women, both in psychology and physiology. Even if you mentioned that the monster took away your blood, made you sick, and now was kicking you, it would be a lot more obvious than the whole, "I have an evil monster inside of me... mwhahha, see how many weird metaphors I can use to describe the monster that make absolutely no sense to you!"

So basically, you need to research what is actually happening to your character. That way, you can focus less on purple prose, which simply bores and confuses your readers and more on the actual character development.

Good luck!

This is getting silly XD.

Without some degree of self-abhorrence, eh? I mean really, if you'd read the piece or put any effort into your review at all, you would know that every word and every sentence is filled with self-loathing. You really expect me to believe that its not obvious what this story is about? Seriously, you cannot possibly be that stupid. I know you're not. Rather, its another sign you didn't finish the story or put much effort into it at all:

Doctor showed me pictures of it today. Martian-eyed, spine curled up like a scorpion's blistered sting. Mouth parted, lazy. All the tubes and the crap inside of me. Winding around like tapeworms, white and slurping. The little pink nubs and the filamented fingers. It's a boy, he said. It's gonna be a beautiful baby boy. Just look at how healthy he is. Just look at how active he is already! Be a helluva athlete, I'm sure!

That's the first paragraph of section two. Now, perhaps I'm wrong but it pretty much states in bold that we are dealing with a pregnant woman.

Now, its obvious that some things will need to be changed. Too many people are complaining of not understanding, although this is probably because they are skimming rather than sitting down and thoroughly reading the story, for there not to be accessibility issues inherent in the writing. This is meant to be a really overwrought story - overwrought character; every line and the style in which its written is meant to reflect her madness. Does that not make sense? Simply saying you found the beginning dull because you read the read first paragraph and jumped to your own wild, bland assumptions about the nature of the story at hand, has to less to say about the writing and more to say about you XD.

I think we'll have to consider re-writing this to lighten the load, so to speak. It's a shame no one is really giving the piece a shot, though. I guess if we fail to keep the attention of the reader engaged without, then the fault is ours. We'll have to do something about that. If you have any further issues to raise or points to make, please PM us.

`Jay & Kay

O.o Snoink was just trying to help, y'know...I'm sure that she put quite a lot of effort into that review. She's just trying to help you improve your writing; we're all trying to help you.

Anywayz, here's my view on it.

Mood - Hmm...I like the intensity of it, but I really don't like the way the story fluctuates. The first couple of lines demonstrate the pain and self-loathing of the individual rather well. However, you lose this quality near the middle of the story. I think this is why most people couldn't finish the story; the mood becomes rather apathetic. In fact, I think it occurs right around the ii. The mood was the best in the beginning when she's self-confident that it won't get her. It begins to fade around the fifth paragraph ("I can't reach them anymore."). However, I don't mind this lapse into apathy because it works well. If she's pregnant, I rather like the way that she's beginning to give up, even though it seems rather unintentional. However, I would change the second part of the story. Quite a bit. The entire first paragraph you're telling us what's happening, what the doctor says etc. However, telling really ruins a story. It seems to me like you're giving us a list of all the things she knows. ^^ I'd much rather have you show this to us in someway. Maybe she feels him kicking and thinks that he'd make a great athlete? Maybe she pictures the diagram the doctor showed her and remembers what she was thinking? You don't have to use my suggestions if you don't want to; I feel like it might change your style of writing. However, I would like to have your MC feel a little as she is thinking. This feeling, whether it's regret, anger, or vengeance, will help to keep the story moving and the reader will remain interested.
"He breathes. He breathes as the fists knock. Looking for room, scrabbling for space –It consumes. Is it claustrophobic, is terror even now crawling through its skin, is that why it feeds so frantically? I feel my thoughts floating, suspended in the muck of my head, like specimens in formaldehyde. I can't think anymore. I can't move. And it's getting louder. His mouth isn't even moving, I bet. Just coming out. Like voice-boxes in those toy dolls. The electronic, tinny words. Through the lips, the lips. There is a small smile. Lidded eyes, gills and webs."
This paragraph bothers me quite a bit. So far, you've managed to create an image of the baby in a mommy's womb. Now you're just word-stuffing. You basically tell us all these things and it just ends up confusing us. "Like specimens in formaldehyde" would be one of these extraneous phrases. Honestly, it doesn't add anything to the story, the simile's confusing, and it just makes the sentence wordier. Delete it, please? For the same reasons, I would delete the parts about the voiceboxes, smiles, and lidded eyes. If you're just trying to describe the baby, it's already done by the description in the first paragraph of part ii. You're repeating the same things with awkward similes. If I were you, I'd only keep the first three sentences in this paragraph (until muck of my head).

Pace - Please, please, please, please, PLEASE speed it up. This is another reason for the readers to lose interest. Nothing really happened until the very end of part iii. I completely understand your need for description and that you want to set up a good basis for the story. But, this is simply too long and too little occurs. ^^ If I were you, I'd add a lot more events, and delete what Snoink referred to as purple prose. I have to say that I completely agree with her on this. There's simply too many flowery words and metaphors; they're great to bulk up the story, but it's rather overdone here. I mean, I showed you one of the paragraphs in the last bullet. There are quite a few of these. In the entire parts i. and ii. all that happened is that she lay on the sofa, watched T.V. and Bill came over...O.o You see what I mean? That's a lot of prose to describe those two events.
"I sit on the couch, fat ass slowly sinking deeper and deeper and wrap my pudgy hands around the remote, glaring at the screen. I contemplate the monster. Sweat slicks my hair to my head as the fan whirs above; click, click, clicking as it goes round and round, seemingly slower each time, dragged down by the turgid air it’s trying to stir. The monster is an insidious little fucker; already got its grubby little paws in me, trying to get my heart but I won’t let it. I locked up that treasure long ago, put it somewhere safe and secret so the world couldn’t hurt it anymore."
^^ You stop describing the baby and start talking about her heart. Personally, I don't think the two go together at all. In fact, the monster, if it's a baby has nothing to do with "getting" her heart. "Getting her heart" is simply an awkward phrase. I would delete the entire part about the baby trying to get her heart.
"An ad comes on showing some tacky new takeaway, all tassels and bells and won’t you come down and try our specials? Buy one meal, get one free! Pure grease, no doubt. But it does the trick. I smack my lips, as saliva wells up. This is how the monster works, changes things in you, only slightly – ever so slightly at first – like a master craftsman tinkering with his product, but it’s just the beginning, I know. Before it all turns to shit. I slick some stray hairs back; my hair straggles down my back in wet clumps – that at least, isn’t the monster’s fault. That credit belongs to the goddamn doubly damned heat, the constant never-ending reminder of just how close we are to hell. My feet tingle, tickled by the memory and I can almost see the flames licking at my gross little toes. "
^^ This has absolutely nothing to do with anything. You're simply adding flowery words and metaphors because you can. It sounds fine, but there's just too many of them! The pace is slowed down extremely by these. Delete this entire paragraph.
"The TV blares. Anything to fill the emptiness. It’s just me and the beast now, 9 to 5, like a regular job and mine is to sit still and not pay attention; keep staring at the screen, the pretty colours. I sit and watch cartoons all day – don’t deal with the fucking white elephant in the room they say, look away, but what if you are the damn thing? There’s no escape. Cartoon Network always helps, sending soothing waves through my skin, in my blood and down, down into the creature’s gullet. My eyes widen at that thought. Could be that the monster likes this stuff, that its even now switching little levers, running insensitive, cunning hands all through my body; changing, adjusting, fixing to its pleasure and now I’m drunk on this silliness and all it can do is giggle and laugh and have a mighty fine time of it. Inside me."
^^ Exact same thing as the last paragraph. Delete it?

Overall - There are some minor problems that this story has that I didn't cover. I figured that you should attack the major ones first. The story is simply too long, and there aren't enough events that occur. The intensity of the story, which is what keeps the reader reading, is lost around part ii., or maybe even earlier. Thanks for using my thread and I hope my review will help you fix up this story. It's a really good base. I have to commend you on the metaphors you had; I wish I could write like that. I simply adored the symbolism. However, there are just too many. Delete some? Anywayz, good job on this!

Hi guys!

I’m just stopping by with a critique or two. ^^ Nice work on actually developing a co-auth, it’s difficult to do in any continual capacity, so kudos for that.

The text itself is a little bit of an issue? I didn’t particularly like your narrative here. There was one, but it’s obviously a one shot story rather than an actual narrative. I read the whole thing, don’t get me wrong, and it’s clear that it’s a pregnant woman when you get further into the text. That’s not the real problem; it’s a mixture of style and technique, and the narrative itself. The difference between the styles is pretty clear, and I can say that I definitely liked the end more than I liked the start.

The narrative is slow, there’s little real action and there’s a variety of confusions. The situation is blurry and I’m not sure you have the pregnant woman down completely. Especially in your first lines, there’s no real self-loathing there. She hates the child, but she doesn’t hate herself, which she should if she’s talking about her fat ass and pudgy hands. < How fat is she? Did the baby make her fat? Often women are still quite beautiful when pregnant, you mention the heat, but that doesn’t explain her weight.

Obviously, we’re not meant to like the woman at all – she’s disgusting in most ways, physically and in her mind. Probably small minded and having some pre-natal depression or whatever it is. She resents the thing growing inside her, that much is clear, but her insanity isn’t actually explained in anyway. I’m not sure we need her insanity explained, but I’d like to know more about how she was before – are there pictures on the wall, is the house nice? It doesn’t sound like it is, it feels like the house is small and poor, dark and cramped, yet Bill has a new ute. Is there a reason for this? Is he spending all the money on himself and none on her? It sounds like she’s only with him because of the child – why? Why is that important, she doesn’t need a man to sustain her, couldn’t she be with family? Coupled with all of this, is the child itself. I feel nothing for it at all, no sadness, pity, joy. It’s merely a tool here, it seems. And not just because we’re only getting her point of view, I don’t even see it as a monster. So what is it? Shouldn’t I feel more when reading the text? Because all I get is disgust. I’m just curious about a lot of things that your short text never explains.

That aside, this was so horrible to get through. It’s thick and hard to keep concentrating on it, like someone’s shoved you into quicksand mud and told you to walk. It’s a mixture of density and style conflicts. The narrative you want to tell isn’t fitting in what you’ve given us – the inclusion of some of the elements above will help that a lot. Mainly telling us what she used to be like. The style thing is a combination of the styles themselves and their mixture. As I said to start with, the styles are easy to see here, and I seem to like Kylans more than I do Jigs. Kylan has some better pacing and spacing here, it feels less dense and easier to wade through – although not as easy as perhaps it should be for such a short, simple piece.

Both styles, however, are too much for the work. The abundance of description – while I love description with all my being – is too much. We’re overloading on the different images until we can’t think one thing because the others get in the way. It is as though you wanted to shove as much of your own writing in as possible, completely thrust your style down our throats to swallow. But it isn’t working; it’s too much for your reader to handle. I’d suggest thinning this out by a lot, there’s too much in here in too little space, if you thin it out, even by making the piece longer, that’d really help the overall piece.

In the end, this didn’t really grab, or keep, my attention so well. I kind of dislike it, really. But, I think if you work at it you can make it much better. Again, congrats on actually developing a co-auth, that’s not an easy thing to do.

*Hearts* Le Penguin.

Hey Guys,

Now, its obvious that some things will need to be changed. Too many people are complaining of not understanding, although this is probably because they are skimming rather than sitting down and thoroughly reading the story, for there not to be accessibility issues inherent in the writing. This is meant to be a really overwrought story - overwrought character; every line and the style in which its written is meant to reflect her madness. Does that not make sense? Simply saying you found the beginning dull because you read the read first paragraph and jumped to your own wild, bland assumptions about the nature of the story at hand, has to less to say about the writing and more to say about you XD.

I think we'll have to consider re-writing this to lighten the load, so to speak. It's a shame no one is really giving the piece a shot, though. I guess if we fail to keep the attention of the reader engaged without, then the fault is ours. We'll have to do something about that. If you have any further issues to raise or points to make, please PM us.

I always unfortunately skim reviews before I read the story, and was disappointed to see you responding to a critique in this way. I can understand the frustration with both of you not receiving undulating praise as is the norm, but wasn't that the point of posting under a pseudonym? [Only kidding.]

Anyway, since you don't think anybody is giving this their full treatment, I'll reward you with a full-on super-sized big-mac-and-cheese critique of epicness.

[I promise I read it all the way through. Right to the end. Every little sentence. Don't worry.]

I sit on the couch, fat ass slowly sinking deeper and deeper and wrap my pudgy hands around the remote, glaring at the screen.

Apart from the issues I have with the content of this sentence anyway, I think it's structure is pretty messy. It doesn't read well. I suggest some sort of remodelling because right now I feel like I'm sinking into something deep and languid when I try and read it myself. I'm also wondering to myself whether it should actually be "I'm sitting on the couch" rather than "I sit."

A possible reconstruction: "I'm sitting on the couch glaring at the screen. My fat ass sinks slowly deeper and deeper as I wrap my pudgy hands around the remote."

See how much easier that is to read, understand and move on? Since so many reviewers seem to have had issues with the prose, I think you need to comb through and make a lot of your sentences tighter and simpler. Right now a lot of them are overloaded and confusing.

As for the content: I can see why Snoink interprets (initially at least) the couch as the monster. Your first line -- "It's eating me" -- and then an explicit reference to the narrator sinking deeper into a couch does lead the human mind immediately to the natural conclusion that some sort of obese character is being (not literally but figuratively) consumed by a sofa because of their weight.

I think "fat ass" isn't great writing. It's lazy description. I was actually pretty disappointed by the regular and casual swearing in this piece. It's not that I'm offended by it -- not at all. Don't get me wrong. A good swear is fine. But dialogue is the place for it. Not in description. It's lazy writing to try and make things more intense by saying "fucking" and such. "Fat ass" isn't such an issue: I just don't really like that imagery, I think with your writing abilities you can have something other than "fat ass" in the second sentence, something that can instantly turn away readers from your story.

I mean come on. You don't exactly roll out the welcome mat.

Sweat slicks my hair to my head as the fan whirs above; click, click, clicking as it goes round and round, seemingly slower each time, dragged down by the turgid air it’s trying to stir.

This is another badly-constructed sentence. It's mostly dragged down by "seemingly slower each time" which is a poor phrase to be using. I would re-word this as: "Sweat slicks my hair to my head as the fan whirs above: click, click, clicking as it goes round and round. In my head it slows each time, dragged down by the turgid air it's trying to stir." Obviously this is a quickly-written example. But I think splitting the ideas makes it easier to read.

And should slicks be sticks? I think so.

Oh, and "goes round and round" is a disappointing verb usage. Try "spins" or something else. Goes sucks.

Plus: this click, clicking clickity clickity whickity business gets old fast.

The monster is an insidious little fucker

Another point on the unneccessary language. I know what you're trying to do and what you'll probably argue to me -- that it's inner dialogue, that this is her brain, that this is how she thinks and therefore it's okay to write "insidious little fucker" and in a way I can accept that. Once or twice is okay, but the frequent and casual use of swearing really puts a downer on the story for me.

The monster is an insidious little fucker; already got its grubby little paws in me, trying to get my heart but I won’t let it

You've already tried to use a semi-colon in this paragraph already and I really think you don't need it. It's breaking up your sentences into difficult-to-read snippets. Try for smoother transitions. "The monster, the insidious little fucker, already has its grubby little paws in me, trying to get to my heart. I won't let it."

I locked up that treasure long ago, put it somewhere safe and secret so the world couldn’t hurt it anymore.

Not a fan of this ending sentence -- it's sort of lame. I think just "I won't let it" gets the idea across that the narrator is protecting her heart. "Put it somewhere safe and secret" sounds like you were trying to write the inside of a Valentine's card.

An ad comes on showing some tacky new takeaway, all tassels and bells and won’t you come down and try our specials? Buy one meal, get one free! Pure grease, no doubt. But it does the trick. I smack my lips, as saliva wells up.

I really loved this. The "won't you come down and try our specials?" ending to a sentence was really quite cool. No need for the comma in the final sentence though, I don't think. "I smack my lips" is nice imagery.

This is how the monster works, changes things in you, only slightly – ever so slightly at first – like a master craftsman tinkering with his product, but it’s just the beginning, I know. Before it all turns to shit.

ARTICLE A in the prosecution of THESE AUTHORS for UNNECESSARY USE OF SWEARING when the point has already been made and writing "before it all turns to shit" doesn't add to the intensity or meaning of the piece.

You've already made the point in an excellent preceding sentence. Don't write "before it all turns to shit." It's colloquial and not very good writing. You can do better.

I slick some stray hairs back; my hair straggles down my back in wet clumps – that at least, isn’t the monster’s fault. That credit belongs to the goddamn doubly damned heat, the constant never-ending reminder of just how close we are to hell. My feet tingle, tickled by the memory and I can almost see the flames licking at my gross little toes.

I'm going to move on to another point I disliked about this story. Before I critique this specific section, I'm going to tell you how depressing and sweaty and disgusting the prose makes me feel. In one way, that means you've got your point across. You've shown the reader how the character feels. But the problem with all this is, I just feel sort of sick reading all the imagery. It doesn't make me enjoy the prose at all. I just feel sort of turned away from the story. All this gross talk doesn't make a good story.

Anyway. "goddamn doubly-damned" (I've hyphenated that for you) is silly. Needless "goddamn" that makes a repetition of damn. Tingle and tickle seem odd so close together, too. Like almost the same verb. That's how I read it anyway.

It isn’t just the sun, I think, glancing at the clock with its tiny, almost missed ticking – click, tick, click, tick it goes, as the clock and fan dance lazy circles around my head – its Bill too.

Seriously, the clicking ticking business? It's not that great. I found it irritating. I know how a clock sounds, after all. You can do better as a writer to tell me how this is annoying the character than by just typing "click, tick, click, tick". It's lazy, like the swearing -- you're relying on a poor device to show the reader what's going on.

I haven’t been watching for more than a minute before my bladder pulses, impossibly full so soon after I’d just been, and I hadn’t even had a drink yet. Shit. I ignore it for now, focusing instead on the cartoon.

ARTICLE B! No need for the "Shit" sentence here.

The occasional car grunts passed

Pass, not passed. [Maybe pass by?]

Click, tick, click, tick, click.

No.

A dog barks once, twice, in a running chorus.

See what you did here? You described the annoying sound of the dog. You didn't write "Bark. Bark. Woof woof bark. Bark bark bark woof." And it's wayyy better for it.

I squirm, beads of sweat sliding down my thighs. I really need to pee and I’m breathing hard and fast. The heat presses down, ironing my soul. My breath rattles out from behind peeling, pink lips. The house, with its brown paper walls seems so thin, like it could blow down at any minute and it pulses with harshly panted breaths, set to explode with the pressure of it all.

My problem here is with the movement of the story. It's gone essentially nowhere since the beginning. This could be the starting paragraph all over again for all I know. A story has to go somewhere -- it has to flow. And I don't think anything really starts going on until Bill gets there. Maybe you should think about restructuring the story so it begins with conflict, rather than paragraphs of gross description.

I actually agree with Snoink here -- the character and the purple prose are suffocating the story. I can't see the conflict and I can't see an actual plot.

Click, tick, click, tick - always fucking clicking. I twitch.

You're telling me. I've been twitching about the damn clicking already.

All I know is that it scares the hell out of me.

Best line so far.

Oooh, a second section. Could this in fact be a thinly-veiled transition into a different author?? [Sorry. I am trying to joke mostly in this critique.]

He lays on the bed beside me. Smells like grease and smoke and old sex. Rise and fall of his gut, patchy skin. I listen to him breathe. It sets a rhythm. I lay there with my hands on my stomach and I listen to him breathe and I feel the tiny, fish-hook fists under my belly jab and beat. A fragile knocking. Purple, blind bastard. Doctor showed me pictures of it today. Martian-eyed, spine curled up like a scorpion's blistered sting. Mouth parted, lazy. All the tubes and the crap inside of me. Winding around like tapeworms, white and slurping. The little pink nubs and the filamented fingers. It's a boy, he said. It's gonna be a beautiful baby boy. Just look at how healthy he is. Just look at how active he is already! Be a helluva athlete, I'm sure!

I was disappointed to see no interaction between the character and Bill. That would have been interesting. Instead we seem to skip the only bit I was looking forward to it and go straight to another description about how awful and sweaty and hot and smelly and bad-looking everything is. I craved for some dialogue and conflict but no! Damn you guys. You skipped the best bit.

"Listen to him breathe" is repeated here. Take one of them out. Also, I like fragmented things like "Purple, blind bastard" but only when they are used sporadically. Not repeatedly. The trick doesn't work if you saturate the description with it. "Mouth parted, lazy" doesn't work as well. Unfortunately too much of this paragraph is fragmented sentences. You need some sort of coherence -- some sort of flow. Otherwise all I'm getting is a lot of disjointed images that I have to navigate and piece together myself -- the writer isn't helping me sort them at all.

That said, I love the last bit. "Helluva athlete" and such.

The fragmentary difficulties persist until the end (of section ii) although I did like the interaction between the kid and the mother. I thought that was well-written. I got a bit bored of how many times Bill breathing is mentioned, though. Do I really care?

The TV blares. Anything to fill the emptiness. It’s just me and the beast now, 9 to 5, like a regular job and mine is to sit still and not pay attention; keep staring at the screen, the pretty colours. I sit and watch cartoons all day – don’t deal with the fucking white elephant in the room they say, look away, but what if you are the damn thing? There’s no escape. Cartoon Network always helps, sending soothing waves through my skin, in my blood and down, down into the creature’s gullet. My eyes widen at that thought. Could be that the monster likes this stuff, that its even now switching little levers, running insensitive, cunning hands all through my body; changing, adjusting, fixing to its pleasure and now I’m drunk on this silliness and all it can do is giggle and laugh and have a mighty fine time of it. Inside me.

When did she get back in front on the TV? I'm confused. The structure of the sections is odd -- so she's watching the TV all sweaty, then she's lying in the bed, then she's watching TV again? Where's the movement, the progress?

I'd write 9 to 5 as 9-to-5. You've got the problems of confusing and littered sentences again. You throw semi-colons in there when it's probably a better idea to start a new sentence. It's got a lot of confusing punctuation that doesn't ease the reader's understanding. It just complicates it (I actually think this is part of the reason people have had trouble with this piece.)

The issues I have with the last section sort of echo what I was saying about section one, really, so I won't repeat myself.

Overall?

I didn't think it was that great. I'm not sure what I'm really reading. Is it a small description of a suffering pregnant woman who hates what is growing inside her? If so, it doesn't really get anywhere. It's not really a story. I hate that there's no interaction between her and Bill. I dislike that it's mostly a piece where the two writers just want to flash their descriptive abilities (which, unfortunately, are drowned in the languid scenes and gross language and the stationary plot, and the misuse of punctuation and grammar).

It hasn't really worked -- this isn't a successful short story. I think you've done well to write together, but instead of actually trying to put your writing together, there's an obvious split with the sections. I don't understand why section 3 goes back to watching the TV. I don't really understand why you've plotted it the way you have at all really.

I think if you guys really want to realise your potential together, you need to be more ambitious. This was a small, suffocating piece for your actual talents. Work on something that develops and has more interesting characters and has an actual plot. Otherwise, like the woman in this piece, you're going to sink into quagmires. [Okay, that was a lame attempt to end this critique.]

And there we go.

LOL!

Jack, you're amazing. About the responding to other critiques - it wasn't because this wasn't being praised, it was because I didn't agree with the reasoning provided. Everything that was mentioned as a fault, we intended. I think you pointed out some specific, great points though, that need fixing. I'm going to fix this, definitely. And, much as I hate to say it, the whole feeling disgusted and sticky and not wanting to read on - yeah, intentional. But the drowning in language, the stilted flow, those weren't. I also thinks there needs to be more interaction between her and Bill.

Just one thing I want to ask you - did you end here or at the end of the story in Beast 0.5? You know I split it into two so it was easier to read? It's just that you mentioned iii as the last section when V is? I don't know, but in terms of it being a successful short story structure wise, maybe it would seem more complete if you read the other bit? XD. Probably the things I appreciated the most was the comment about semi-colons and such, I did feel I was overdoing that so its good to have that confirmed so I can work on it.

Thanks so much for going to the effort - I know how you feel about super epic reviews lol. You and Penguin and Flute all, thanks a bunch for the comments. ^^

Cheers guys.
-Jay & Kay

Hey guys, I've reviewed stories by the both of you before, and thought I would drop in to give my two cents.

I thought I could see places where I could tell who wrote what, though I wasn't for sure. I would always see inklings of one when I was sure it was the other, so I was never quite positive. So, I don't think it's all that jarring in that respect, if you know what I mean.

Your vocabulary and whatnot seems very good, though I expect that from the both of you. What I'm having a hard time with is actually caring about this person. She's just sitting around, watching TV and listening to someone breath. You almost had me sympathizing with her when she was thinking about her man, but it came off as just simple complaining and overall whininess.

We as readers need to be able to relate to this character, to like her even though she's crazy and on the verge of death. Until you can fix that, we're just going to skim over this and not really get into her head.

Good job, and good luck.

-Conrad