There is a man standing at your door. You can see him through the curtains. He wears a tan jacket
, a red tie, and carries a deerskin case.
In a way, you feel as though you know the man very well. He comes by every day, at around four o'clock in the afternoon, and stands at the doorstep. In a tan jacket, a red tie, and carrying a deerskin case.
He never presses the doorbell. Never knocks. Never moves.
Never really arrives either.
One moment the porch is empty, and the next moment, as though waking from a light dream, you simply realise he is there. You have no recollection of him arriving (nor simply appearing, either). You always wait by the windows, half hidden in the curtains. Hoping to catch him red handed (at arriving? Hardly a crime, a little voice thinks. The voice sounds oddly like your late mother).
You also always shift uncomfortably as you realise the man in the tan jacket is standing at your door. You never pinpoint the exact moment he arrives.
But you can see him through the curtains. He wears a tan jacket, a red tie, and carries a deerskin case.
He never presses the doorbell. Never knocks. Never mo-
But this time he moves.
You sit a little straighter.
The man in the tan jacket puts his deerskin case on the porch and opens it a crack. From it, he draws a small, red envelope. He slots it through your dog flap, straightens his red tie, and is no longer on your porch.
You do not have a dog, nor a dog flap. Your cat (cats in general, really) do(es) not need flaps to get in your house.
You stare at your empty porch, feeling a little empty yourself. You are, however, mostly befuddled.
It is several minutes before you remember the red envelope now sits on your carpet.
It is several hours before your cat, and hence, eventually, you, realise the deerskin case still sits on your porch.
It is several days before you come home to see the man in the tan jacket, and a red tie, sitting in your living room couch without a deerskin case.
"I am terribly sorry, but it appears I have been rather careless," he says.
"Yeah, you kinda left your case." You say. You wonder if you ought to offer him a drink.
And that would make it precisely several days, sixteen hours, fourteen minutes and twenty seven seconds before you realise the man in the tan jacket is in fact, polite, amiable, and fond of unsweetened tea.
[A/N: Inspired by the Welcome to Nightvale Character, Man in the Tan Jacket. But frankly, as Nightvale fans will notice, nothing about him save the physical description is the same... So is this a Nightvale fanfiction? Frankly, I don't know either... I suppose it could be set in Nightvale...]
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140,462 Literary Works • 673,233 Reviews
I think this counts as Night Vale fanfiction, because you wrote it in Night Vale style. Like how you mentioned the dog flap, yet you don't have a dog flap.
Thanks for the comment!! Initially I was worried about actually calling this a fanfiction, since if it were, it would be hugely inaccurate, but no worries! I will continue labeling any continuations as fanfiction, because it would feel wrong not to, since it's so largely inspired by Nightvale. I'll see how it goes, it might just turn into a, as I said, hugely inaccurate Nightvale fic.
I'll assume you're a Nightvale fan too? Howdy! And thanks for the advice!
Inaccurate fanfiction still counts, because that's why a lot of people write it. If someone doesn't like how a story turns out, they can write it their own way (which is one of the reasons it's so popular).
And yes, I am a Night Vale fan
That... actually makes a damn lot of sense. Thank you! A Nightvale fic it is then!
Howdy! This is great, I really enjoyed it. I'm not sure if you're planning to follow it up with anything, or if it's a standalone, because to be honest it works well either way.
One of my absolute favourite things to read about is accurate descriptions of that kind of dream-logic where two perfectly contradictory things can happily co-exist, so my favourite part of this story was the description of the man not really arriving at the doorstep. Then again, there's dream-logic throughout the entire story, so I guess all of it is my favourite.
A couple of nitpicks:
A couple of times you use 'deer skin' rather than 'deerskin,' which I think disrupts the flow of the story.
I understand that the bits in brackets reflect the conversational tone, and I like the other parts of this story which do similar things, but in this instance I would get rid of the bits in brackets. They're too damaging to the flow of the sentence
I'm not sure what else to say, but I really enjoyed this. If it's the first part of something, I look forward to reading the rest, and if not, I look forward to reading something else by you.
EDIT: Oh, and I think: 'Never really arrives either.' Works better.
Hello there!!
Glad you enjoyed it! I did actually edit the description about how the man never really arrives quite a few times. The initial tries sounded pretty nonsensical, so thank goodness it turned out alright.
Aah, I didn't notice that bit about the deerskin. And I might split the cat part into two sentences... Once I work out how...
I'll work on editing this, and the next part, based on your comments! Thank you for the review!!
Heyo, welcome to YWS! I see you've posted your first work, anyways, *canters around on a horse and does a flip* I am here to offer you my humble advice.
Well, I haven't read Nightvale, but after readi this I'm considering reading it. Ok, can it kick off by saying that the suspense and mystery you have built up in such a short amount of words is quite impressive.Tou may have gotten this inspiration from somewhere, but I don't care because it looks great and it hooked me in, and that's all I care. Secondly, I would like to applaud you on mastering the essay style with complete sass and epicness. When I started reading this, I was half groaning in my head because I thought,
'oh god, this person is writing and telling in an essay style, what is going to happen.' But frankly, I think you have done quite well with it. Granted, you didn't describe much here, every word is simple and to the point. The style is narrated, however I get the feeling you did this on purpose. Since this style suits the nature of this story anyways, I think you've made a good decision there.
Thirdly, I am so very very interested in where this is going. Now, I don't usually read fan fiction but this is different, is interesting and most of all, is written in the second person POV. That, is a tricky POV to master but is also one of the best ones to capture the readers and since, I didn't even realize you were writing in second person until I started reviewing this. I will say, you have a promising road right there.
Ok, this is final proof I need go start reviewing again because I can't find a single grammar or spelling mistake in this story. So, I will just go on and comment on your story and language.
As aforementioned, your style has a very unique voice amongst the writers on YWS, I beleive this style of narrating things and actions works rather well for you. You create a very fast and seamless pace as we read, and because you are using the second person, we the readers actually feel much more in touch with the character. Your language choice is good, simple and concise, straight to the point without any unnecessary words. The only nitpick I have is really, I wish so much you had made this longer, but I guess I I'll have to wait. Reflecting on it, my heart didn't race when I read this, is not a thriller but instead, this is one of those stories where the suspense and mystery is subtle and it slowly creeps around you. I also wish you could have described the meeti between the young man with the deerskin case and the MC more, but then, it would ruin your style. Can you please please please make your next chapter longer, I'm too curious. Who is he? What's in the envelop? The case?
Sorry, if I'm not been very helpful...but your story is as flawless as a simplistic yet wonderful story can be.
You can dump a load of pink stuff on my page if you really hate this. xD
-S.s
Oh gosh can I dig a hole and hide somewhere. Cough I mean, thank you so, so, so much for the very kind review!! It took me a very long time to read through it, because it was so detailed, and also because I had to stop reading every few sentences to cater to my instinctual need to hide my face.
Glad you enjoyed it so much! I wasn't expecting such a great review. I thought, given the quality of the writing on this site, mine may come off as unpolished, actually, but I'm glad I seem to have (thus far) lived up to this site's standards!
I completely recommend Welcome to Nightvale if you haven't heard of it yet! But it's not a book, unfortunately, it's a series of podcasts! I think you can download them from any podcast app on a smartphone. I'm sure you'll love it! I think they're going to publish a book soon though, so if you're not into podcasts, you can wait for their book to be released.
I love writing in second person! Every essay I wrote for school was in second person ever since I discovered it. This was the first time I used such a simplistic tone though.
I actually wrote this a few weeks ago, so... eh, it already has a continuation, just lying around somewhere in my laptop. I just thought I'd use this first part to test waters first, and edit part 2 based on the reviews here before posting it up. So I'll keep what you said was good in mind, and reread what I have of part two to make sure they're still there!
Again, thank you so much for the kind review! It means so much to me! (,: I feel highly pressured not to let you down now ):
PS. I don't get the reference about the pink stuff, but I'll try to figure it out.
Nooooo, don't hide!! Oh, do inform me when part two comes out! o.o Pink stuff? Did I say pink stuff somewhere, see, I can't even remember my own reviews...l