The man with the red pen and crooked glasses smiles as he beckons you closer, a mad glint in his eye. In the folder on his desk are papers full of writing. Your writing, which you have spent a total of three years, seven months, nineteen hours, seventeen minutes, and three seconds on perfecting one hundred nineteen thousand and twenty-seven words. You counted. And now he stands there with his dark-rimmed glasses, beckoning you even closer.
“We need to talk,” he says, and suddenly your stomach explodes in fifteen million three hundred and two different ways. Your hand twitches and you dare not look at his face. You try to say something, but your throat launches yourself in your mouth and all you can do is to make a grunting sound and nod your head. You sound like a pig, a goddamn pig. You wonder if he hears you, but if he does, he doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, his eyes wander over until they hit the folder. The folder with your writing in it. Automatically, your head throbs. You grit your teeth and try to ignore it.
“Did you read it?”
Your voice sounds strange, and he jumps as he hears you, glancing at your face carefully, as if he is your father, trying to figure out whether he should tell you the truth. “Yes, I did.”
After a moment of silence, you clear your throat. “What do you think?” you say.
“It's crap.”
A pause. “All of it?”
He grunts and then hands you the papers. Your fingers are shaking so badly that it takes forever for you to examine one page. You are surprised when you see it. You expected his red scrawl intertwined with courier new, but it is blank, only filled with your writing. Automatically, you start counting the words. Three hundred and forty-two. You look up at him.
“Did you read this story?” you ask. Your voice sounds calmer than you thought it would.
“Yeah.”
He waits for you to talk, staring expectantly. You pause and flip through the pages. One, two, three...
“No you didn’t,” you finally say. Then, in a stronger voice, you add, “There’s nothing on it. No notes, not a word on it.” Your voice is starting to rise. “Surely, you couldn’t have thought this was that bad. There’s no notes on it. See?”
“Goddamnit, look at all the rest of the pages. Tell me what you see.” Before you can even move, he slams his fist on the papers so that all six hundred thirty-two pages rush out of your hands. He picks one up. “See? No writing. Let’s look at another. No writing again!”
“You didn’t read it.”
“On contrary,” he says, turning to you, his bright face turning purple, “I read all of them. And they were all crap. The only reason why I allowed you to come here was because I wanted to tell you personally that I hoped you had another job lined up. Why the hell would you major in creative writing? You can barely string a sentence together! And then you have the audacity to come by here and ask me personally whether it’s any good? It’s crap!”
“Oh.” You feel like crying.
“The only reason why I didn’t write anything on it is because I don’t want to spend all my time on this piece of shit. I’m sure it would contaminate the other papers in the bin, if I put it there.”
“I see.” Now you are crying.
He looks up and frowns as two tears droplets drip off your nose. “See? That’s what I mean. You can’t even handle yourself. How the hell are you going to handle being a writer?”
“I don’t know, sir,” you say.
“Get out.”
“Wait.” Slowly, you gather the papers in your arms, trying in vain to straighten them. Then you stand and head towards the door, your legs slowly unlocking as you walk faster. “Thanks for reading,” you murmur under your breath.
He only grunts.
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125,021 Literary Works • 672,742 Reviews
[quote="Snoink"]
Your hand twitches and you dare not look at his face.
[quote="Snoink"]
I'd prefer it as, "Your hand twitches and you cannot bring yourself to look at his face."
[quote="Snoink"]
He looks up and frowns as two tears droplets drip off your nose. “See? That’s what I mean. You can’t even handle yourself. How the hell are you going to handle being a writer?”
[quote="Snoink"]
This is absolutely wonderful, exactly what I'd expect his reaction to be.
I personally loved this. Although second person isn't the best, it can be done well; I've seen it before, in Mindstorms or something of the like. I don't think this would work as well in another tense.
) You've made me feel very rejected and pathetic. 
The only critique I can think of that hasn't already been pointed out is that the first sentence bothers me. I would ditch the part about his glasses. It's not needed, and it really messes with the flow.
Well, now I'm off to read the comments I have on FanFiction (they only write nice ones, which is why I found this site.
Great job!
~JFW1415
EDIT: I just thought of more things. I loved the dialogue, how short and choppy it is. It shows how rude the editor is, and how upset the author is.
Sorry this review isn't too helpful; it's just too good!
I didn't like the point of view you told the story from, but the rest was okay. I felt bad for the weepy writer and felt the guy's anger. The dialogue was good, too.
Edited slightly. ^^
Snoink, dear, I saved my six hundredth review for you.
I think you should make this a more specific number, to match the specific time. Like one hundred nineteen thousand five hundred and twelve or something. It would imply that counting wasn't an easy task, and the writer is dedicated.
I'm curious to know, what makes them goofy?
This might sound better if there was a beat in between. Maybe a very short sentence, like, "You take a breath."
The word crappiness sounds out of character. Also, my spellcheck is saying it's not a real word... What about the word mediocrity?
I think, "You cry now." would be less repetitive.
This scared me, in a good way. It's a perfect writer's nightmare: harsh rejection. I like how I don't know anything at all about the character, and yet relate with him or her from the first paragraph.
I'd like to see more of the numbers thing through out the story. The writer seems like a mathematical thinker. It would be cool if he or she continued to count things, maybe as a way to stay calm.
Anyway. Awesome.
I thought the professor was quite well done. He's the cat and she is the mouse. And so he plays with her until he is finished with his fun, and lets her go, wounded and dying, but still alive and thinking on the lesson learnt.
I also think you could have played on the numbers a little more, it was a nice touch considering the story is about the persona writing.
"Your voice sounds strange, and he jumps as he hears you, glancing at your face carefully, as if he is your father, trying to figure out whether he should tell you the truth. “Yes, I did.” "
This here. It seems a small truth hidden in a larger picture. The "as if he is your father" seemed to hit out at me, saying "Hey lookie at me, I have meeaaaaning" xD It just seems placed oddly as though it is information we don't know about her but should know. Though I do find it a fantastic touch. ^^
Again, I quite liked this. I think you did the persona well, I ended up hoping she'd just slap him and run. ^^ Nice work.
*Hearts* Le Penguin.
Yeah, I felt like the professor's character wasn't very consistent.
Umm...also, it seems like it ends at a bad place. I can't tell you where to end it, it just feels wrong.
Same as gadi. Maybe it should be "Stand Still As I Stab Your Heart [With A Pen]" or something like that. It just doesn't seem to relate to the story as much.
The first paragraph is completely not your style, Snoink. I like your style better; this was really rather random, especially the first sentence (which is complete telling, by the way), and the number of years and minutes and seconds and all that. I don't like that--though, as always, it completely hooks me and is extremely well-written.
"your legs slowly unlocking as you "
What do you mean here? Unlocking as in starting to walk? I don't like that either.
I like all the "crap, crap, crap". It adds humor to the piece.
"You sound like a pig, a goddamn pig, but he doesn't seem to notice."
Ew. Too many pigs. Away, you goddamn pig! Oink.
Some other problem is that the "you" obstructs...well, in other words--the story feels like it would be cleaner without the second-person, but it wouldn't work any other way, so...
I have to say, it was exceptional writing, probably your best, though it was not too original and repetitive. But it was excellent nonetheless.
EDIT:
Oh and the title--eek. No me gusta. Too formal for this piece, too artistic. This should be a one word or two word quick title. Like "Crap Madness". (Jusr kidding about the crap madness.)
I liked the beginning much better than I liked the end. The use of numbers made it much more whimsical and humorous (in a bitter sort of way) than the end. Have you ever seen the movie Stranger than Fiction or the show Pushing Daisies? Like that.
seemed superfluous.Plot. After the first few exchanges, though, the story becomes predictable. We know exactly how it's going to progress after the goofy-glasses fellow says that the writing was crap. Inititally, he seems a little caustic, but not entirely evil. But as he continues his rant, he becomes much less controlled, which I thought was the wrong way for the story to go.
This part in particular:
I feel as though it should go somewhere, but it doesn't, really, except that the writer, "you," says "Thanks for reading." So I like it, but it seems incomplete.
Point of View. I like the second person perspective. It's very personal, but without the actual person. It sort of lingers in between, and I think it's effective for short pieces like this.
Diction. As I said before, I love the use of numbers in the beginning. Maybe you could bring that out more.
This seemed out of place; this kind of criticism belongs more in first person narrative. Leaving out "a goddamn pig" might help it, but I think the sentence as a whole could be cut out. Yes, Snoink, the pigs must go! *gasp*
"Automatically" could go. It doesn't seem appropriate for a body's unavoidable response to stress.
Stop calling me Shirley! Okay, Airplane references aside, who actually says "surely" in conversation?
The contraction "you're" seems better suited to this narrative.
Futilely is a really awkward word. Creating funny adverbs is a silly practice, and must end.
Good job!
-Colleen
When I first read the description of the man with the goofy glasses, the red pen, and the smile, beckoning 'you' closer I believed he had a sadistic evil about him as if he was going to enjoy telling you how much he hated your novel.
But as you read further, his character becomes blunt and the type where he's like, "Why did you even waste my time?" Which works fine, but I was hoping he was going to be more like my preconception and manipulate the protagonist along into believing it was good and then sadistically, and intelligently insult them till there is nothing left to insult. I wanted something better than just him saying, "It was crap." But that's just me.
It was well-written. Not very original. But good. A pleasant read
I really enjoyed this piece. It was definitely true. I've gotten reviews like that on other sites and I've wanted to rip someone's brains out, but then I always remind myself that everyone is entitled to their opinion.
I didn't see any grammatical errors that hadn't been pointed out, so I'll let other people say something if they see it.
But yeah, it was pretty dang good. You don't always find something like this, because in what I mostly read it's all, "oh, you're amazing, it's going to be a hit." I'm glad you wrote this.
I would've liked to know if "my" writing was actually as bad as the editor said it was.
Though I'm not sure if that would've worked in the story. Still, curiosity. Those nagging questions!
Prokaryote
Ah... I don't know. I never like things written in second-person narration because they never feel like they're really happening. They always feel like a possibility, like something that can, perhanps, occur in the future but never something that's real. Yeah, you're probably wondering, what the heck is he talking about? Well, I can't really explain. Just read anything written in this kind of perspective, and you'll... Kind of realise that it lacks the things that really make you lose yourself inside stories, because they almost feel dream-like.
Also, I don't know if it's the best of ideas to make us, your reader, your audience, your God, the protagonists of this story. I mean, I guess you'll argue that you wanted us to feel the rejection, and really feel the resentment towards this guy, but in the end... Like I said, it's written in such a way that we feel completely alienated from what's happening, yet still feel depressed because it's us that are being screamed at. Am I making any sense?
Let's see. This style make us feel the insults enough to make us a bit depressed, but doesn't really make us embody the "Crappy Writer".
Other than that, the narration sometimes feels a bit abrupt. Bumpy. It doesn't flow very well. The dialogue doesn't feel really authentic. It's hard to picture someone being that mean, and blunt. It would've been better if the story would've been smarter about the meaness. That is, make it subtle, and more piercing. There's something about saying: "It's crap", that makes it less hurtful than someone calmly saying something full of sarcasm, and irony.
But there's some really good descriptions, like the one about how we (the "Crappy Writer") feel after the meany says: "We need to talk."
Other than that, it's a pretty ordinary piece of writing, that would've worked much better from another perspective. It would've been depressing too, no doubt, but it would've been depressing as in heartbreaking, poor guy, that sucks for him, as opposed to: This guy's right. My life sucks.
Eep! Those typos are fixed.
And... what did you mean in that last part?
I would replace "in" with "by," personally.
I'm assuming the second "on" is supposed to be "one."
So was my writing good or bad? You address me directly, make me feel horrible, and then don't do the polite thing and let me know what I wrote?
Meany.
Prokaryote