Anchorstone (3.6k - 2nd draft - now w/ added creepy bits)

I am brand new here, and this is (obviously) my first review, so hopefully it's helpful (I'm still in the process of observing my surroundings).

I'll start by sying I'm kind of a horror movie fanatic; i.e. total nerd.  I have watched so many that I am no longer disappointed when a new one just reminds me of ten others, I just accept it as fact and move on.

That being said, as I read this story, it reminded me of "The Happening," the over-hyped, "first R-rated movie" by M. Night Shyamalan.  Except that your story was actually interesting.  I wanted to know what was going on (as opposed to my yawns and "oh, come on!" shouts at my tv during earlier-referenced disaster), I was concerned about the characters, as I got toward the inevitable end I truly was curious to see how things would turn out.  In other words, I like this story.  Quite a bit.

I will say one thing, and you already know what I'm about to say: I think there is too much going on to limit the story to this short of a piece.  I can see where details needed to be abbreviated and where so much more could be developed.  But that was part of the requirement to this event, so it's not so much a criticism as it is a hope that you are able to come back to this and add in the "extra" that it deserves.

I realize this review is not very critical in specific aspects, but I hope you take it as a polite nod to your story.  I will say that reading this is giving me my own push toward trying to finish something for this writing challenge, so thank you for that.  I enjoyed your story and look forward to more.

I feel like I'm missing a bit of the story that's happening.  The 'dead half' story isn't shown to me.  I know there's a second voice in everyone's head that's telling them to kill themselves (and giving them perfect recall), but this stranger in the mind isn't really exposed to us.  It should be, through the narrator.  He has to battle this somehow.  When he sees it infecting his kids and wife, it will make it scarier, because he'll know how tempted they are to just die.

In the story, the narrator becomes half-dead after a traumatic incident, and doesn't recover from it until the birth of his son.  The dust brings back the trauma and erases all the healing he and his wife have gone through since then.  That's what makes him feel half-dead.  What about the other people?  Why do they have the same desire to kill themselves?  This can possibly shown on news reports or through dialogue with his wife or maybe even the son talking about kids at school remembering horrific things and talking about how they don't want to live anymore. 

I would like to see more darkness (hehe).  The dust settles over the town and keeps spreading out, but there are very few mentions of how it coats the world and changes the light.  Shadows would be everywhere.  Light would be something very special.  The headlights cutting through the dust, the light-bulbs dimming as soot covered them, the lack of sunshine confusing the senses (mentioned once), the way he sits on the hood of his car and stares at the dead people (he would be in darkness while his headlights shine on the corpses).  Show us exactly how dark it is.  Cormac McCarthy does it really well in The Road. 

There are a lot of 'on the body' sensations missing from the story and too many 'telling' parts.  I think you know this with your comment about a 10 gallon story in a 5 gallon container.  The story would work more for me if I were closer to the narrator, hearing things directly from people's mouths and feeling the sensations he feels.

This was creeptastic. I really enjoyed the tension in the beginning as he makes his way home to his wife and kid, but I was surprised when you seemed to skip the reunion altogether. ("By Las Vegas I knew that they were safe, Natasha and Nick.) I think its a missed opportunity to see him racing through the streets, his neighbors covered in dust, houses recked, his own front door left wide open... then we could get the kissing and hugging scene. 

You do a good job setting up the memories, so I think you can skip any direct mention of it being a memory ("this is one of my memories...").

I love the idea of our selves being split in two, but I'm unsure of exactly what that means here. Is there literally another body hanging somewhere, or is it just a voice that we hear in our own heads? Is it all our memories that come back, or only our terrible thoughts? This has the potential to be the scariest part, so I think it definitely needs more development . I think you're right that 4,000 words isn't enough space.

Thanks for the read!

Lauren

I don't have anything new to add. I, too, feel that you have a great start to a great story, but with the word limitation you were unable to explore it's full potential.

There's some great little scenes (the tree that accumulates bodies is a personal favorite) and I like the incorporation of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. It felt... appropriate. I have not read it, but loved the movie.

I truly do hope you develop this story more, it has such great potential.

I'm giving you the thumbs up, but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take out some of the breaks. Lol.

There was some HOT descriptions in here. Some of your illusions and metaphors were truthfully fresh and exciting...they took me to this terrible-pretty place.

It isn't exactly a smooth read...I had to stop for a bit to catch my 'cement-breath' every once in awhile...but cool.

hmmm. not good at reviews.. so yeah... fucking awsome story man. im a huge fan of all nerdy scfy shit and whatnot. perfect recall, can very well be used as some military/religiounesque endgame... deffinatly more than enough layers to expand this(i cant imagine what grows in your head) but the length and the brutulness of being in another land, thousands of miles from your true loves, is prevailant, the killings and the sideaffects of the dust are cool, but what really rings true is the human factor, he ties his wife, cause she is unwilling to leave the godlike dust. yeah man, very cool.