Hello Kara! Happy Review Day!
Yayyy more horror! I swear that's the only good thing about halloween- more horror stories, poetry, etc! I didn't expect to find a horror song though! That's pretty cool! I also have a love for writing song parodies/filks, so this was indeed an interesting read! Though it's often hard to imagine how lyrics are supposed to fit together into a song, seeing them simply on paper with no music. So that was the other cool thing about it being a filk, because you linked the original song and we could kinda get an idea of what you were going for!
Unlike Alliyah, I didn't find that your song lyrics flowed with the music like the original. Some of it did, but others seemed forced. That's the only thing that I don't like about filks/parodies- it's really hard sometimes to fit the song with new, original lyrics that don't have a bunch of random 'this is only in here because I need words here' lyrics. I'm not really sure how to fix that exactly, other then really taking the time to think the words you put in there through. And then thinking them through again!
Just try to avoid me, you will get hurt.
There were some instances where I felt the wording was a little awkward as well. I'm not sure exactly why this sentence feels awkward, but I think it has to do with a. the word choice, and b. the relation of the first half of the sentence with the second half. "Avoid" to me seems like not a strong enough word. I avoid chores and creepy looking bushes. I don't avoid monsters- I run, hide, etc from monsters. I might even fight monsters. But "avoid" seems to casual and passive to me, like it's more of an inconvenience then a struggle for survival or something. Then "you will get hurt" sounds weird after "just try to avoid me" because... I'm not entirely sure. If you said it like "Try to avoid me, and you will get hurt" or "then you will get hurt" it might flow a little better. Partly I think it's because of the random words things again. And by that I mean- sometimes as writers we add words that technically work fine in a normal sentence, but there are far clearer and even possibly shorter ways of saying that thing that doesn't require words such as "just". Sometimes less really is more.
So how can we fix wordy-ness? And especially, how can we fix wordy-ness in a filk, when you need those extra words to make the flow right? It really comes down to re-reading a work and reworking parts of it. I'm someone that struggles with wordy-ness. You should see my prose. Yikes.
As far as the meaning of this song, the content. I can tell for sure it's supposed to be a horror, but it's hard to tell exactly what the song is about exactly. What is the 'monster'? Some hints to that would be cool- I didn't notice any (though maybe there were?). That would maybe give some reason for us to be scared or threatened by the lyrics such as "just try to avoid me, you will get hurt." What are we running from, here? Give us a reason to run. The other thing is, don't underestimate the power of unique words/images. In this piece, there's a lot of more-or-less cliche themes throughout. phrases like 'come and play', the mention of children, are pretty common horror themes. So my advice to you, since you can't really avoid many cliche's in a lot of stuff (ex. love poems), as yourself: how can I make mine different? Say it differently. Use words that might not typically be in a horror song. Use your own unique view of the word and inject that in there. Sometimes when I'm trying to grasp the concept of making something none-cliche even though it's a common cliched theme, is it helps to think of trying to describe a colour without using the colours name or referring to colour at all.
Anyway, I hope you keep up the filking! Hopefully you found this somewhat helpful.
-Socks
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Reviews: 494
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