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notgump's picture

El Chupaco rewrite

By notgump in Scare Us

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Description

Barbecue Cook-Off weekend in a small Florida town takes a frightening turn.

Comments

sean of the dead's picture
sean of the dead from Madisonville, KY is reading Peckerwood, by Jed Ayres July 16, 2012 - 3:44pm

This is a tough one for me.  I want to say that I absolutely love the message of the story.  At the same time I feel the message may come down too heavy-handed, too obvious.

I'm not going to tell you how to write your story, because it's your story and that is not my place, but I'd love to see the individual instances the reverend/creature mentions written out and expanded, a scene in the classroom, a scene at the market.  AND THEN have the end still happen, but the creature speaking past tense, mentioning those killings.  This way tension is building as the bodycount is adding up, turning this into almost a "slasher" story, but you can still have the "reveal" at the end.  Does that make sense?

I like the idea, I like the setting/atmosphere, and as I said before, I like the message.  I'd love to see a little more expansion of the clown college idea, just because that is intriguing to me, but that is all up to you.

Overall, I'm not going to rate this a like or a dislike yet, because I think with some expansion this could be really good, but it's not quite there yet.

notgump's picture
notgump from Florida is reading Everything I can about writing July 16, 2012 - 5:44pm

I appreciate your insights. I know the story is too compressed and that the message is way too heavily drawn, but I could't see where to go with it.  Your suggestions really help.  Thanks!

notgump's picture
notgump from Florida is reading Everything I can about writing July 16, 2012 - 7:46pm

Just posted my revision. Not sure it's there yet.Thank you for taking the time and for your thoughtful comments. I'm a complete newbie, can't thank you enough.

Jane Wiseman's picture
Jane Wiseman from living outside of Albuquerque/in Minneapolis is reading Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks July 16, 2012 - 11:14pm

I did understand the message, and as the other reader said, it's a valuable one. But I couldn't really follow the plot. At times I wasn't sure what was happening in the story, wasn't sure who was doing what to whom, or why. 

jennydecki's picture
jennydecki from Chicagoland is reading The Foreigners July 20, 2012 - 3:08pm

I was a little confused by the plot too, so much happened it seemed like it needed a lot more page space for all the ideas to unfold. It's an original message and one I personally enjoyed a lot!

notgump's picture
notgump from Florida is reading Everything I can about writing July 23, 2012 - 2:24pm

Jane and Jenny, you are right!  Thanks for yopur insights. I can see lots of problems with my story and I am going to be making major revisions to try to make it better.  For sure, a lot more words to develop the story, and try to take the heavy-handedness out of the ending while remembering this IS a monster!

Chaning my name to notgump, so don't begthrown off by that.

notgump's picture
notgump from Florida is reading Everything I can about writing July 23, 2012 - 2:25pm

Also, sorry about my typing.