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natashaghica's picture

Darlin'

By natashaghica in Scare Us

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Description

A young man arrives at a train station in Romania and is greeted by his old grandmother. Soon after, events take a mysterious turn and the young man finds himself on a strange journey. 

Comments

Jane Wiseman's picture
Jane Wiseman from living outside of Albuquerque/in Minneapolis is reading Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks July 31, 2012 - 5:53pm

A lot of this reads like a cross between a fairy tale and a story by Kafka. It has a really interesting dream-like quality. I do think it needs some work, though. I have the problem of using too many adjectives and adverbs, instead of letting the nouns and verbs do the work, and I see you have that problem, too. Also, you need to pay more attention to your verb tenses. They sort of shift around at random. In spite of how interesting I find the story, I really am confused by the ending. I don't know what actually happened, or how it involved the grandmother. I think we should get a better sense of these important matters.

saintkeeley's picture
saintkeeley from Baltimore is reading Either/Or August 1, 2012 - 10:30pm

I agree with Jane that the surreal quality of the story well done.  I did notice a tense shifts where the narrator was telling the story in the past, then shifted to present tense.  You may want to consider writing the story in present tense so the reader would experience the story with the narrator, or keep it in the past as a journal entry (or something akin to that).  Just a few ideas, hope they help.

Liana's picture
Liana from Romania and Texas is reading Naked Lunch August 2, 2012 - 10:06pm

Hi Natasha!
This was a nice surprise for me, first to realize you're Romanian, then, the coincidence that my grandmother lived in Pitesti for most of my life, so I visited there almost every year. How about that! I was almost picturing my grandmother in your story, so it made that creepier for me...

It's a very mysterious story, I agree that it sounds fairy-tale like. What I would like to see is more characters and more dialogue, maybe, if you want to expand the story more. And I agree that the verbs should all be in present tense, or past tense. 

But thanks for the enjoyable (and surprising) read!

 

ChokingGame's picture
ChokingGame from New York is reading American Psycho August 6, 2012 - 12:57pm

I like the foreboding fairy tale element that you've got here.  It's creepy in a very Old World sort of way.  It evoked imagery from Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretl - all of the "evil (?) old lady in the woods" stories.  But, it end so abruptly and with so many unanswered questions, I was scrolling and looking for the rest of it.  Expand it?  It's the beginning of something really cool.

Robert Blake's picture
Robert Blake from Glasgow originally, last wee while Manchester is reading The Sea Hawk (Rafael Sabatini) August 7, 2012 - 6:28am

I admit I thought we were heading to a new take on Little Red Riding Hood, but the compulsion the main character felt and the helpessness brought a decent amount of dread, without you needing to go into graphic detail.

natashaghica's picture
natashaghica from Romania is reading Franny and Zooey August 9, 2012 - 2:45pm

Thank you all so much for all your comments. It truly means a lot to me!

I'm working on revising my story currently. I know there are many past tense mistakes in the story. I've always had trouble with that when writing. I think because English is my second language.

Anyways, all of your feedback was great and I am definitely going to expand the story and add more detail to the characters and the scenes. 

I will be working on revising the ending because I realize that the abruptness of the ending left many questions unanswered.

Thanks again for your feedback =)

Jonathan Riley's picture
Jonathan Riley from Memphis, Tennessee is reading Flashover by Gordon Highland August 10, 2012 - 7:40pm

I too like the dreamlike quality of this story. I've added an attachment to help you with the tenses. I switched alot of the mistakes i noticed to the past tense because that is how you started the story. However if the whole thing was written in the present it would add an element of terror. Also, I'm not sure if past tense works here because i think your narrarator dies at the end. She would need to live or this would need to be a journal entry(unless she is now a ghost)

The idea of a room with no doors haunts me. I'm claustrophopic. So being trapped in there was frightening. However, you should show your charachter try to escape from the windows. show that they can't be broken,because i kept thinking that i would had stopped looking through the glass ball and thrown it through the window and gotten out of there. So maybe after she looked in it the first time she tried to kick out some windows before taking another look.

Keep up the good work. This story could be great.

 

--Jonathan--

sean of the dead's picture
sean of the dead from Madisonville, KY is reading Peckerwood, by Jed Ayres August 11, 2012 - 11:11am

I'll admit, I was almost hoping to read "Grandmother, what big teeth you have..."

The fact that this reads as a dream almost allows the fact that it's, for the most part, all telling and no showing.  It is creepy, but I think if expanded it could be pretty awesome.

I'd love to see the scene in the kitchen, where she drinks the tea, written out more.  Maybe show us the grandmother is not really the grandmother, or is evil, or whichever direction you want to take it.  The snippet she hears from the radio sets up something evil and foreboding, but then it's kind of just left out there.  

I'd also love to see the last scene, in the bedroom, written out a bit more.  I was getting slightly annoyed with her constant "monacle on, monacle off" actions, but I think it's a cool idea to have her only see the monster while looking through the glass.  So work on that part, it has a ton of potential.

Basically what I'm saying is you have a great idea, and a great setting here, so take advantage of that and expand to give us more of the story.

 

natashaghica's picture
natashaghica from Romania is reading Franny and Zooey August 12, 2012 - 9:40am

Jonathan,

Thanks so much for the attachment and for taking the time to give me your feedback. Your suggestions are really helpful.

 

I am currently working on adding more detail to the kitchen scene and the ending because they truly lack. 

I've been having trouble with the ending however. I'm not sure how to maneuver between the monocle on and monocle off scene, like Sean was talking about, without being too repetitive and annoying.

But I'm working on it. I will post a re-vised copy of the story once I'm finished with fixing it up.

All the suggestions have been incredibly helpful!!