"You're not a psychologist."
Something in this statement triggered Al. Who was this man to tell him what he was and wasn't? He took a deep breath.
"Why don't we talk about you? I'm assuming something is troubling you and that's why you're here." Al asked patiently. This profession he was in required a lot of that. In some cases, it was more difficult than others.
"I only want to talk to a real doctor, not a fake like you." The man spat out his words.
"Okay, just take a look at the wall behind me. Tell me what you see. "
Al gestured toward his degrees and achievements. He had been trying to get the man to talk for almost an hour, but all in vain. Clearly, it was time for a different approach.
"What exactly am I supposed to see? There's nothing."
Al turned around confused. The wall was bare except for some cracks here and there. He stood up and looked around, but nothing much held his attention. Was this room always this empty? Something melancholy tried to make its way to the front of his mind, but he shrugged off the thought with a more reasonable one. Perhaps it was one of those cleaning days, Al made a mental note to enquire about it later.
All the while, the man kept muttering the words "You're fake." over and over again. Eventually, Al's patience ran out.
"Fine, then leave. Go see a real doctor. You clearly need one"
His voice held too much contempt for anyone to miss. But the man still kept chanting to himself, much to Al's annoyance. When he could take it no more, the security was called in.
The two guards who entered gave Al a puzzled look.
"This man is crazy. He keeps on calling me a fake psychologist. I asked him to leave, but in vain. Just take him away"
There was a short moment of silence before either of the men made any attempt to follow through his orders. But then, something seemed to pass between them. One of the guards came towards Al and said, " Don't worry about it. Why don't you lie down for a while as we… umm… show him the way out? "
The other guard conceded with him.
"Yes, you don't look well. Just close your eyes and try to sleep. Everything will be alright. "
The suggestion suited Al, he laid down on the bed and tried to forget. But the words "You're fake." kept ringing in his ears. It was troublesome being a shrink. First of all, you try to solve their problems and they just go and dump out all their craziness on you. Psychotic people should be locked up in some underground cell. They go about infecting everyone with their madness, polluting everything that's good and hopeful.
Perhaps people can feel that they're losing their sanity, but it's simply too much to accept. Wouldn't it be easier to give in to that voice in the head, the one that eats away your reason and distorts your worldview? Al opened his eyes and looked out of the window as the sunlight caressed his eyelids.
"It's a good day for a walk." Al whispered to himself, almost longingly and then went back to sleep.
When Al next woke up, he found a woman in his room standing near the window. As he tried to get up, the noise drew her attention and she hurried towards the bed. After helping him in a half sitting position, she herself sat down on the chair which had been left vacant since earlier, when it's previous occupant was made to leave.
"How was your day?" she asked kindly.
"It was okay, since I mostly spent it sleeping. Except in the morning…"
Al wanted to tell her everything,for she was a kind of person who inspired confidence and trust.
"I heard about it."
" I wonder if psychologists keep on meeting such insane people who make them question their own sanity. People like him should be hanged for destroying everyone's peace of mind." Al couldn't help venting out his thoughts to her.
"No, I believe no one's really crazy once you choose to look through their eyes. It's all a matter of perspective. Being different doesn't make you wrong." There was something very gentle in her voice that almost touched Al. "Now I hope you haven't been too busy to take your medicine?"She handed him a glass of water and some pills.
Al smiled sheepishly at being caught red handed.
"I would have if not for that guy."
The thought of the morning's ordeal filled him with renewed resentment.
"Can you describe him to me, as in the entire incident - what he said, how he looked, how you felt ?"
Al closed his eyes and tried to remember. But the medicine was already taking effect. He felt sleepy.
"I don't know. Ask someone else."
She sat with him for a while till she was sure he was asleep. Then she switched off the light; and as she was leaving the room , she heard him say,
"Hey Dr. Marney, maybe you should give this profession a try. I bet you could even handle those insane delusional ones."
The doctor smiled at this suggestion, but said nothing.
The light outside had faded. If one strained their eyes, a star or two could be made out in the night sky. Dr. Marney locked the door of Al's room from outside. She opened the file and added an entry under that day's date.
27 May, 2020
Patient : Alex Cooper
Condition : Schizophrenia
The patient forgot his medication today and suffered from an hallucinatory episode . But there had been little improvement since the last time. The security said it was easier to calm him down. In fact, after talking for a while, he even managed to remember me. I'm optimistic regarding the effectiveness of the treatment
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125,027 Literary Works • 672,769 Reviews
Hello Zenith
Here is my review :
I loved the overall suspense laced theme of the story. I enjoyed the mental-hospital/asylum setting of the story, such settings usually promise extreme possibilities, and this story delivered me one too.
The best thing I liked about the writing is that it is really articulate at most of its parts. Being articulate while story-telling unlocks a whole new level of expertise and comfort. You can take this as a sign/token of improvement or growth into a good story-teller. Here are the parts that I liked in this context :
"but he shrugged off the thought with a more reasonable one. Perhaps it was one of those cleaning days, Al made a mental note to enquire about it later. "
The plot had some wonderful imageries to cement the setting of mental asylum . For eg :
"The wall was bare except for some cracks here and there. He stood up and looked around, but nothing much held his attention. Was this room always this empty?"
"looked out of the window as the sunlight caressed his eyelids"
There is a still some scope to add more imageries, beyond the visual ones. You can play around with auditory imageries or olfactory imageries. This will enhance the reader's experience of being able to imbibe the plot setting. Beside, it will keep the tension of the plot taut. Also, here you can enhance the description of sunlight to suit the setting, for eg : perforated sunlight, sunlight through sieve etc.
"Fine, then leave. Go see a real doctor. You clearly need one"
I liked the surprise humor in this part. It was new and unexpected to have humor, was placed beautifully and perfectly kept the suspense intact.
I personally felt the transition of the character form patient and sane psychologist to an angry and paranoid one could have been a bit slower. Traves said maybe you wanted to differentiate the professional behaviour of an actual psychologist and a schizophrenic who considers himself one. I, as a reader would have loved if he was very close to a professional, practicing clinical psychologist or a Professor in psychology, with very subtle differences, that too revealed at the perfect timing, only when required to suffice the requirements of the plot. Here are reasons why I personally feel so :
* The more you make him closer to a madman, the more you give away the plot ending. The longer you toy around with him being an actual psychologist, the more it escalates the tension in the plot. The reader starts becoming impatient of the possible ending. You can call it as "putting the reader on the edge of the seat ".
* Slow transition can let the reader immerse in the depth of the character of Alex. Popular deranged characters have a lot of depth in their characters, for eg. clown characters in Hollywood flicks, psychopathic character of Patrick Bateman in the novel American Psycho, Norman Bates from Hitchcock's Psycho etc. Slow transition will buy you time to develop your character more profoundly and vibrantly. I'll tell you about how you can add depth to this character in the next few paragraphs.
* As soon as a reader starts suspecting something unusual in the context of suspense-thriller, say in this case it starts when the reader finds there were no degrees on the wall, he/she starts making assumption as what could be possible explanations to it and what would be the possible ending of the story. Here the writer's job is to keep the reader hooked and not let him/her keep narrowing down to the true ending of the story. Switching the character close to a madman (angry or paranoid) real quick, gives away the ending. While doing it gradually won't do the same. The slow process will make the reader keep doubting his imaginary explanations or endings.
* Quick transitions are often seen as signs of lazy writing. Slower ones are generally regarded as signs of patient and intellectual writer.
"The suggestion suited Al, he laid down on the bed and tried to forget. But the words "You're fake." kept ringing in his ears. It was troublesome being a shrink. First of all, you try to solve their problems and they just go and dump out all their craziness on you. Psychotic people should be locked up in some underground cell. They go about infecting everyone with their madness, polluting everything that's good and hopeful."
This paragraph is brute in the context of shaping the character. This puts me in a confusion as to who is he, out of this asylum, in the real world? Is he a layman who merely pretended to be a psychologist or is he a genuine one? He lost his calm too easily which is unlikely of a professional psychologist. Now, in order to shape your character, ask these questions to yourself, who is this person outside the asylum? what kind of a psychologist is he? Does he practice? Is he a part of academia, a scholar or a reputed professor ? What kind of professional views should he express once he visits such annoying patients ? Is he an experienced one, experienced enough to tackle such a difficult patient? What kind of books does he read, especially what are his views on popular psychologists say Freud, Jung, Kahneman etc. Would he quote any of them if a peculiar patient ever visits him ? What kind of a psychology does he have expertise on, criminal psychology, child psychology, etc ? You need not mention all the details of the character in the plot but use them as tools to add depth to your character. Make sure you keep all the details at the back of your mind while shaping his character and conduct.
"When Al next woke up, he found a woman in his room standing near the window. As he tried to get up, the noise drew her attention and she hurried towards the bed. After helping him in a half sitting position, she herself sat down on the chair which had been left vacant since earlier, when it's previous occupant was made to leave. "
This paragraph has a quick pace in terms of change of positions, I'll suggest to slow it down a little. This is not the most important suggestion. Most importantly, add description of "physical touch" of the lady doctor, say for eg, her hands pressed cold on Al's warm back, he felt a sense of wintry and sluggish gush of reality hitting him from behind. The reason why I emphasize on this is that many readers who are over-thinkers like me would love to experience the hidden subtle meaning in the form of plot recall after the ending of the story, the reader will recall the whole plot and understand that the physical touch was deliberately placed to distinguish that the doctor and her physical touch was real and not another of his hallucination (because hallucinations are only visual or auditory in nature).
Lastly, it was a lovely story to read. Many of the parts of my review are my personal suggestions. Feel free to ignore them. It's just me being paranoid on the various possibilities. Feel free to ask any question. I thoroughly loved the concept. It was unique, well written and engrossing. It's always fun to read your work, Zenith !
It's easily one of the longest reviews I've got, so a lot to take in at first. At some points, I forcefully tried to make the story fast paced (like in the beginning) because I was afraid to make it too long or boring. Some of the suggestions are really cool like adding different kinds of imageries apart from the visual ones or how to improve on character development (should've put on more efforts here). Also, I wasn't sure if I kept the suspense intact in the beginning and only revealed the twist in the end,if the readers wouldn't find it a bit absurd. But I'll work on it. Thank you for taking out the time to write such a detailed review.
Hi Zenith ! Traves here for a quick review!
I liked how this felt like a complete story while being short and crisp, particularly because I am not able to do this easily with any story I write. The cast of characters was small, and the conflict/resolution I understood was that of Alex's frustration and confusion/ it being revealed that he is a schizophrenic.
- It felt like a mental facility slice-of-life because of the start and end. Alex was reduced to just another patient. Whereas the PoV in some places before that was very personal. Usually whenever I read something like this it's separated by scenes, but this read like one whole unit. In some places I as a reader was beginning to feel for Alex which is a strong point for you as a writer, but then the guards and the doctor came in and the feeling vanished. I think adding more to the part before he goes to sleep would prolong that immersion.
- I liked the attention to detail paid to emphasize the difference in professional behaviour of an actual psychologist and a schizophrenic who considers himself one.
- Regarding your doubts about switching perspectives, I feel that it was alright enough to understand what was happening in most places. I had to re-read to find something. An issue that I did notice was that I was confused in some places over whether the third person narrator is observing things or if its Alex's internal dialogue. And those things are tied together, i.e. what type of narrator it is and the way internal dialogue is formatted. I found a good article on Googling although I myself haven't written like something like this where the omniscience of 3rd person PoV might affect formatting.
https://marcykennedy.com/2013/05/how-to ... -dialogue/
So you'll have to make some decisions about how you want to tell this story, and then see what information would be directly available in that pov and what would have to be revealed or hinted at.
I do believe the dialogue and perspective changes are mostly fine as is, but the confusion @Que has pointed out about pov and the correction suggested are the best cue imo to improve this part. It might be a good idea to go through all the yws articles under the "dialogue" section in mega post that they linked ->https://www.youngwriterssociety.com/viewtopic.php?f=150&t=101477&p=1319156#p1319156
All-in-all, this was a quick read and some more details and editing decisions here and there would make it an even smoother read.
Keep writing and sharing!
Thank you so much for the review and the links.
I think this is a model short story, as it's simple and intriguing, with a good twist at the end. I also think the opening piece of dialogue is especially engaging, and encapsulates the end of the story rather well too. Overall I genuinely enjoyed it, but there were a few small things I saw that with improvement, could better your story.
"The man spitted out his words." - Kind of an insignificant critique, but "spat" could make this sentence flow better.
"Surely, there wan't a single thing hung on the wall." - The use of "surely" seems a bit off, at least to me. You might want to try the sentence without it, or make it "surely enough,[...]"
"Now I hope you haven't been too busy to take your medicine today morning?" - the last part "today morning" you might want to change, and considering this is the same person talking as in the previous paragraph you don't need a line break. Also you have the next "She asked[...]" line on another new line, which seems a bit jarring and could just be added after the line of dialogue without a break.
Lastly, I just have two things to say about the patient record you end the story off with. The date is May 27 "20XX". I wasn't sure if you wrote this just to represent a random date sometime in the 2000s, or as a placeholder space for an undetermined date. Also on the patient file, Al is just "Al". It doesn't make sense for the medical system/institute looking after him to only know him by his first name, and what I'm guessing is a shortened version of his first name at that.
Those were all the critiques I had, and some of them likely don't apply due to things I didn't get or understand, etc. but nonetheless it was a very enjoyable work to read, and I'll look to read more of your other work, so thanks.
Thank you so much for your review. I did make some corrections as you suggested, so feel free to give it another read and point out if anything's amiss. I'm glad you liked the story.
Hi Zenith!
It's doing really great so far, there are just a few things that I might do to give it a little more punch at the end.
This was a really fun piece, I absolutely loved the twist at the end.
I thought this was a really interesting part, and has a really dream-like quality, when things that you know should be there are always shifting before your eyes. I wonder if you could push this even farther? Like including more office imagery in the beginning, then having it shift to more of a bedroom (as it seems to at the end); I think that might add to the idea of having things changing on you even when you were certain of them a moment ago.
The first part of this was a little strange, "Al seemed to like their suggestion"--you're writing from his point of view, not an outsider's, so you can actually narrate his feelings, not just guess at them. "Al thought this was a good suggestion; after all, he deserved a break after dealing with this guy for the past hour. So he laid down on the bed and tried to forget." It gets the same point across, but in a way that reveals more character and feels as if it's more a part of the story/character--I'm not sure I'm explaining right, but does that make some sense?
Also, I think it's really interesting what he thinks about being a fake doctor and about crazy people, considering with the ending that he's actually a mental patient himself. It seems like it has some point that you don't quite get to? It's curious but seems a little odd, I wonder if that's how he sees himself...?
Just a little thing here, but because you use a strong swear in your work, you'll want to use an 18+ rating. (see the Content Rating Guidelines here for more info!) A lot of writers here are younger, and it's always helpful to give your readers a heads up that you use that kind of language within your work.
Two things on this; first of all, I wasn't sure that Al would know to identify her as Dr. Marney? It seems like from his perspective, she's just some nice woman who's vaguely familiar. Also, the perspective shifts from third person limited to something more like omniscient? I may be mixing up my terms here, but suddenly readers are reading from Dr. Marney's perspective instead of Al's. I wonder if you could make this a smoother transition, like maybe a break after Al falls asleep and then Dr. Marney's own thoughts and records as she closes the door?
I think you're trying to make this applicable to a lot of different times and people, but it might be good because this is an official document to give Al a last name and pick a definitive year? But that's just my personal thought on this.
Overall, really nice story! Again, I absolutely loved the ending. It was a little confusing at first to see Al acting not at all as a psychologist should, but it was great to follow that with having things slowly unravel until all is revealed. I think you did a nice job with making things seem generally logical to Al's mind while they were concerning for the reader. Nice writing!
Have a lovely day, and let me know if you have any questions.
-Q
Thank you for your review. It's just the first draft and I actually intend to edit it more. I must have missed the swear word. My apologies! And I know this thing has got inconsistencies and that's why I published it on YWS to get a better idea on what to edit out. You made it easier for me.
No worries, the swear was pretty minor but I just wanted to let you know!
Glad if I could help a bit, I really did enjoy this. I hope all of your editing goes well!
I did edit it a bit, but I really need improvement in making proper transitions between character perspectives. So I was wondering if you could suggest me something to read?
The edits look nice.
What kind of something are you thinking about? An article, or another work on YWS? You can feel free to PM me if you want!
An article would be cool I guess. But in general anything that would help me grasp the idea better.
There are some articles in YWS's Knowledge Base that discuss point of view (see here!)--but actually, since this is a short story and your point of view shift is necessary, most of the articles discussing jumping around too much don't really apply. I think you're doing pretty well here; the way you have it now reads pretty well! It only gets a little tricky if you switch back and forth between Al and Dr. Marney too many times. The way it is now has only one solid shift, and that is very clean and eliminates confusion.
Sorry if I'm not explaining this properly! It seems fine to me, but let me know if you have more questions.