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Firstly, sorry about this. I did write a review earlier, but the comment disappeared for some reason. I'll try again, but sorry if I seem to be cutting to the chase more than I should. Losing a good comment is discouraging!
Also, I haven't read The Thing on the Doorstep like >>Hap, so I'm going by this as a standalone fic.
Good Stuff: I liked how this started. Horror's not my cup of tea normally, but this had a splendid hook. I was excited and wondering how the poor girl was going to escape or deal with her capture now her Dad had stolen her body. This could have been a really great drama with a lot of angles and ways to explore what happens next and how she overcomes her predicament, or a story about why the Dad did this and what his motives and beliefs were that drove him to act this way. The possibilities are endless!
Bad Stuff: I'm not a fan of gore, and that first scene with her putting her hand through the stomach was where the fic went downhill for me. Then there was no real story: it was just a series of meaningless events one after the other that were grim and bleak, and that's not fun to read without something meaningful to tie it together, like a tragic narrative arc or something structured. But it's just death and death and then this speculative bit with necrophilia. I can't get behind that, I'm afraid.
Verdict: Needs Work. This might just be because it's not my cup of tea, but I'd rewrite everything after the hook so it's what I would call a story, answering the questions it sets up at the start (like how she'll cope or get out of this, or what the Dad's plans are in the long run). As it is, this feels structureless, so the gory and bleak content is just there, and I want justification for that so that it doesn't feel like pure sensationalism.
EDIT: I had a talk with Cassius on the Discord about this. Okay, so maybe it's got more of a message than I gave it credit for, so I'll acknowledge that. But I will say that, due to personal taste and my own impressions, I still have to stand by the rest of what I say here. I guess it comes down to how much I enjoyed reading it, and I honestly didn't enjoy it. Please consider this as a different perspective. I don't know how helpful it is to you as a writer, but I hope it's at least something you could consider informative?
EDIT 2: Changing my ranking to Possible Abstain.
Also, I haven't read The Thing on the Doorstep like >>Hap, so I'm going by this as a standalone fic.
Good Stuff: I liked how this started. Horror's not my cup of tea normally, but this had a splendid hook. I was excited and wondering how the poor girl was going to escape or deal with her capture now her Dad had stolen her body. This could have been a really great drama with a lot of angles and ways to explore what happens next and how she overcomes her predicament, or a story about why the Dad did this and what his motives and beliefs were that drove him to act this way. The possibilities are endless!
Bad Stuff: I'm not a fan of gore, and that first scene with her putting her hand through the stomach was where the fic went downhill for me. Then there was no real story: it was just a series of meaningless events one after the other that were grim and bleak, and that's not fun to read without something meaningful to tie it together, like a tragic narrative arc or something structured. But it's just death and death and then this speculative bit with necrophilia. I can't get behind that, I'm afraid.
Verdict: Needs Work. This might just be because it's not my cup of tea, but I'd rewrite everything after the hook so it's what I would call a story, answering the questions it sets up at the start (like how she'll cope or get out of this, or what the Dad's plans are in the long run). As it is, this feels structureless, so the gory and bleak content is just there, and I want justification for that so that it doesn't feel like pure sensationalism.
EDIT: I had a talk with Cassius on the Discord about this. Okay, so maybe it's got more of a message than I gave it credit for, so I'll acknowledge that. But I will say that, due to personal taste and my own impressions, I still have to stand by the rest of what I say here. I guess it comes down to how much I enjoyed reading it, and I honestly didn't enjoy it. Please consider this as a different perspective. I don't know how helpful it is to you as a writer, but I hope it's at least something you could consider informative?
EDIT 2: Changing my ranking to Possible Abstain.
My review (am also going at this standalone):
Characters and Dialogue: The most memorable aspect of this story, to me, is the characters, and their personalities which are invoked either explicitly or implicitly by the narrator. For a horror-like and slightly mystic story such as this, just the right amount seems to be revealed. But, ultimately, I guess I just can't get that interested in characters whose only description is suffering and/or villainy.
Plot and Pacing: The plot makes sense, I suppose, that is to say, the sorcerer who wants to stay young forever, and thus sacrifices his daughter and seduces our main character. But either I'm really missing something, or the pacing is mainly a trudge through our main character's self-pity. Starting with "a famous author," there are four whole paragraphs of the main character lamenting his demise. That's too much real estate for a flash fic, in my opinion.
Flow, Style, and Grammar: Aside from the questionable (and leading!) phrase "she still youthful and sturdy," nothing really tripped me up in the narration, which is good. But other than that, I can only describe it as "serviceable," and overly fixated on psychological gore, as mentioned above. The line about Disney Princesses also made me roll my eyes, and detracted greatly from the "slightly mystic" aura I described.
Final: This fic will probably go on the lower end of my ballot.
Characters and Dialogue: The most memorable aspect of this story, to me, is the characters, and their personalities which are invoked either explicitly or implicitly by the narrator. For a horror-like and slightly mystic story such as this, just the right amount seems to be revealed. But, ultimately, I guess I just can't get that interested in characters whose only description is suffering and/or villainy.
Plot and Pacing: The plot makes sense, I suppose, that is to say, the sorcerer who wants to stay young forever, and thus sacrifices his daughter and seduces our main character. But either I'm really missing something, or the pacing is mainly a trudge through our main character's self-pity. Starting with "a famous author," there are four whole paragraphs of the main character lamenting his demise. That's too much real estate for a flash fic, in my opinion.
Flow, Style, and Grammar: Aside from the questionable (and leading!) phrase "she still youthful and sturdy," nothing really tripped me up in the narration, which is good. But other than that, I can only describe it as "serviceable," and overly fixated on psychological gore, as mentioned above. The line about Disney Princesses also made me roll my eyes, and detracted greatly from the "slightly mystic" aura I described.
Final: This fic will probably go on the lower end of my ballot.
After discussing this entry at length with several people, one of them being >>HiTime, I think I've spilled enough words on this entry to give it the full-review treatment.
Right off the bat, I'm going to discuss something that >>Hap alluded to: that this a story based off of H.P. Lovecraft's The Thing on the Doorstep. I actually think this story reads better not knowing the reference, although knowing the background of the story fills in a bit of the details that tie the entire story together. A long time ago, I once criticized Not_A_Hat for writing an original entry based off of Greek Myth as violating the spirit of the competition by basing his story on a pre-existing work, and I'll lobby the same criticism at this story. In fact, I think the issue is even more profound here, where basically the entire plot, characters, and genre from The Thing on the Doorstep are lifted wholesale, just spun in a different manner. Obviously some people will disagree with me, but I do think a lot more effort is required from an entrant making something from the ground up as opposed to someone who is directly co-opting ideas from another, and that is a factor I consider when evaluating a piece. In my opinion, it's the equivalent of taking a shortcut in the creative process.
With that housekeeping affair out of the way, what did I think of this story? To start, your opening line is excellent, and the prose flows together well, although I would call it the exact opposite of Lovecraft's. Lovecraft's sentence composition is all about long-winded, winding passages filled with elaborate and flowery prose, often choosing deliberately antiquated verbiage (the closest this story comes to that is using the word "septuagenarian", a truly terrible multi-syllabic car crash of a word that rightfully is never used), and Lovecraft would sooner let his reader die of old age trying to finish his long-ass sentences before even considering placing a period. The sentence composition in this story, by contrast, is short, punchy, and focuses on an economy of words.This sort of style plays to my personal preference of construction, and allows for some truly lovely sharp contrasts between lines that establish a very deadpan, sardonic mode of presentation.
Take for instance:
These sentences are unimpressive on their own, but when operating in conjunction, it gives the narrator a wry and bitter sense of humor about the entire situation. Each line sharply contrasts one another in content and tone: We start with Asenath starving, cut to Asenath's father dicking around with his boobs (in that of itself, an odd and humorous detail) and eating (content and tone contrast), immediately skip to him being shoot in the face six times (content and tone contrast), and then a mundane element of where the shooting occurs (more contrast). The deadpan delivery of many of these short, punchy sentences containing odd or humorous elements tied together gives the entire work an underlying tone of dark humor, which I think has largely been ignored by readers focusing on the "horror" aspect of this story.
Take for instance, another set of lines:
Now, bear in mind this is written in blood, Asenath apparently feels the need to add a cute addendum to her statement about wanting to be in love: "I'd prefer not to be old or lock in this attic."
At this point, I could assume one of two things:
1. The author doesn't know what he's doing. The writer apparently doesn't understand why a character wouldn't write such a message after jamming their hand in their stomach and ripping out their entrails, especially not such a dainty and long-ass message about wanting to be in love, and prefering not to be trapped.
2, This effect is intentional and is meant to contrast the situation with an undertone of bitter, dark humor by phrasing it in such a passive, almost wistful way. There's several lines that lead me to this conclusion, aside from the one's I've mentioned. The overall tone of the narrator seems to be almost bitterly sarcastic—I assume, perhaps wrongly, that the narrator of this story is actually Edward speaking reflexively about his own situation.
I tend to give author's a good amount of trust, and sometimes that blows up in my face and makes me look like an idiot. But I think there's enough evidence and conspicuous lines within the story to give a high amount of credence to my read. Even Edward's response to Asenath's death message is a mostly sarcastic reply to a long-dead corpse saying, "Love won't solve your problems. In fact, it caused mine."
If you don't find that funny, well, you're probably pretty well-adjusted and probably a nice person.
The central conceit of the story is also (to me) very interesting. Essentially, the narrator is an embittered man trapped in an attic with a rotting corpse—alternatively, a simply deeply cynical witness to these events—passive-aggressively chastising H.P. Lovecraft for omitting Asenath from story of The Thing on the Doorstep (presumably because being trapped in an attic doesn't make for an interesting novel), which in the narrator's "rewrite" critiques as being unrealistic. The story itself has a bit of a meta quality to it, and from my read, serves as a critique of traditional story-telling forms, particularly the "Love Conquers All" trope, as Edward rather blatantly indicates that love is not like in a Disney fairy-tale, and will not, in fact, save you from being trapped in an attic.
Oddly enough, despite how cynically sarcastic and bitter this story is, the last passage ends on a rather sweet, almost romantic note, which is again, a very odd observation about a story depicting a man trapped in a room with a rotting corpse. But it's true: Edward basically says that love isn't a fairy tale, and it won't magically fix their problems, but relents and says, "If you're still lonely, you can love me." It reminds me of Swiss Army Man, a story about the friendship between Harry Potter and a waterlogged corpse. It's strangely affirming, and the lines took me aback the first time I read them.
One detail I found hard to wrap my head around was the body switch with Edward, mainly because of the use of gendered pronouns. I assume Edward is supposed to be in Asenath's body, but the phrasing is currently unclear. Additionally, the use of first person narrator combined with third person story telling, along with the close narrative distance the narrative has to Edward in particular, makes it hard to tell if the narrator himself is a character or if the narrator is simply Edward. It could go either way, but I am inclined to believe that the narrator is not some outward observer that happens to know all this information, and is actually Edward speaking about himself.
Despite this being against what I consider the be the spirit of the competition, I would say that I enjoyed this story quite a bit. In terms of composition, I think it is heads and shoulders above all but the best of entries this round, and I would not be surprised to learn that this story was written by a talented regular who wanted to remain Anonymous.
I do feel this story hasn't received enough appreciation this round, and if I were fielding a slate, this likely would be towards the top.
Right off the bat, I'm going to discuss something that >>Hap alluded to: that this a story based off of H.P. Lovecraft's The Thing on the Doorstep. I actually think this story reads better not knowing the reference, although knowing the background of the story fills in a bit of the details that tie the entire story together. A long time ago, I once criticized Not_A_Hat for writing an original entry based off of Greek Myth as violating the spirit of the competition by basing his story on a pre-existing work, and I'll lobby the same criticism at this story. In fact, I think the issue is even more profound here, where basically the entire plot, characters, and genre from The Thing on the Doorstep are lifted wholesale, just spun in a different manner. Obviously some people will disagree with me, but I do think a lot more effort is required from an entrant making something from the ground up as opposed to someone who is directly co-opting ideas from another, and that is a factor I consider when evaluating a piece. In my opinion, it's the equivalent of taking a shortcut in the creative process.
With that housekeeping affair out of the way, what did I think of this story? To start, your opening line is excellent, and the prose flows together well, although I would call it the exact opposite of Lovecraft's. Lovecraft's sentence composition is all about long-winded, winding passages filled with elaborate and flowery prose, often choosing deliberately antiquated verbiage (the closest this story comes to that is using the word "septuagenarian", a truly terrible multi-syllabic car crash of a word that rightfully is never used), and Lovecraft would sooner let his reader die of old age trying to finish his long-ass sentences before even considering placing a period. The sentence composition in this story, by contrast, is short, punchy, and focuses on an economy of words.This sort of style plays to my personal preference of construction, and allows for some truly lovely sharp contrasts between lines that establish a very deadpan, sardonic mode of presentation.
Take for instance:
After a while, Asenath dies of starvation.
Downstairs, Asenath’s father eats ice cream and plays with his new breasts. Later someone shoots Asenath’s father six times in the head with a pistol. It happens on a doorstep.
These sentences are unimpressive on their own, but when operating in conjunction, it gives the narrator a wry and bitter sense of humor about the entire situation. Each line sharply contrasts one another in content and tone: We start with Asenath starving, cut to Asenath's father dicking around with his boobs (in that of itself, an odd and humorous detail) and eating (content and tone contrast), immediately skip to him being shoot in the face six times (content and tone contrast), and then a mundane element of where the shooting occurs (more contrast). The deadpan delivery of many of these short, punchy sentences containing odd or humorous elements tied together gives the entire work an underlying tone of dark humor, which I think has largely been ignored by readers focusing on the "horror" aspect of this story.
Take for instance, another set of lines:
“If I could be anywhere, I would be in love. Even better, someone would be in love with me. It wouldn’t matter if I was old. It wouldn’t even matter if I was locked in this attic, so long as someone loved me. But if I could be anywhere I’d also prefer to not be old or locked in this attic.”
Now, bear in mind this is written in blood, Asenath apparently feels the need to add a cute addendum to her statement about wanting to be in love: "I'd prefer not to be old or lock in this attic."
At this point, I could assume one of two things:
1. The author doesn't know what he's doing. The writer apparently doesn't understand why a character wouldn't write such a message after jamming their hand in their stomach and ripping out their entrails, especially not such a dainty and long-ass message about wanting to be in love, and prefering not to be trapped.
2, This effect is intentional and is meant to contrast the situation with an undertone of bitter, dark humor by phrasing it in such a passive, almost wistful way. There's several lines that lead me to this conclusion, aside from the one's I've mentioned. The overall tone of the narrator seems to be almost bitterly sarcastic—I assume, perhaps wrongly, that the narrator of this story is actually Edward speaking reflexively about his own situation.
I tend to give author's a good amount of trust, and sometimes that blows up in my face and makes me look like an idiot. But I think there's enough evidence and conspicuous lines within the story to give a high amount of credence to my read. Even Edward's response to Asenath's death message is a mostly sarcastic reply to a long-dead corpse saying, "Love won't solve your problems. In fact, it caused mine."
If you don't find that funny, well, you're probably pretty well-adjusted and probably a nice person.
The central conceit of the story is also (to me) very interesting. Essentially, the narrator is an embittered man trapped in an attic with a rotting corpse—alternatively, a simply deeply cynical witness to these events—passive-aggressively chastising H.P. Lovecraft for omitting Asenath from story of The Thing on the Doorstep (presumably because being trapped in an attic doesn't make for an interesting novel), which in the narrator's "rewrite" critiques as being unrealistic. The story itself has a bit of a meta quality to it, and from my read, serves as a critique of traditional story-telling forms, particularly the "Love Conquers All" trope, as Edward rather blatantly indicates that love is not like in a Disney fairy-tale, and will not, in fact, save you from being trapped in an attic.
Oddly enough, despite how cynically sarcastic and bitter this story is, the last passage ends on a rather sweet, almost romantic note, which is again, a very odd observation about a story depicting a man trapped in a room with a rotting corpse. But it's true: Edward basically says that love isn't a fairy tale, and it won't magically fix their problems, but relents and says, "If you're still lonely, you can love me." It reminds me of Swiss Army Man, a story about the friendship between Harry Potter and a waterlogged corpse. It's strangely affirming, and the lines took me aback the first time I read them.
One detail I found hard to wrap my head around was the body switch with Edward, mainly because of the use of gendered pronouns. I assume Edward is supposed to be in Asenath's body, but the phrasing is currently unclear. Additionally, the use of first person narrator combined with third person story telling, along with the close narrative distance the narrative has to Edward in particular, makes it hard to tell if the narrator himself is a character or if the narrator is simply Edward. It could go either way, but I am inclined to believe that the narrator is not some outward observer that happens to know all this information, and is actually Edward speaking about himself.
Despite this being against what I consider the be the spirit of the competition, I would say that I enjoyed this story quite a bit. In terms of composition, I think it is heads and shoulders above all but the best of entries this round, and I would not be surprised to learn that this story was written by a talented regular who wanted to remain Anonymous.
I do feel this story hasn't received enough appreciation this round, and if I were fielding a slate, this likely would be towards the top.
This is a:
Lovely piece of writing, but I'm not sure I can bring myself to call it a story. I mean, when >>Cassius says, "the narrator is an embittered man trapped in an attic with a rotting corpse," I hafta disagree. To my eye, the narrator's someone who's read Lovecraft's story and is using it as the springboard to write a guided mediation on the concept of romantic love. It's a marvelous meditation, but when the author says, "If I wrote the story...", it strikes me as a tacit confession: the author isn't writing a story. I really, really like this, but I think I might hafta abstain in the voting...
Mike
Lovely piece of writing, but I'm not sure I can bring myself to call it a story. I mean, when >>Cassius says, "the narrator is an embittered man trapped in an attic with a rotting corpse," I hafta disagree. To my eye, the narrator's someone who's read Lovecraft's story and is using it as the springboard to write a guided mediation on the concept of romantic love. It's a marvelous meditation, but when the author says, "If I wrote the story...", it strikes me as a tacit confession: the author isn't writing a story. I really, really like this, but I think I might hafta abstain in the voting...
Mike