As I said somewhere above, choosing between pieces came down to splitting very fine hairs. I really enjoyed your piece - the writing of the MC was strong and you really did hint at his abusive nature and show it in action and for the most part indirectly in thought, and I thought the idea of making him abusive so that there's the satisfaction of him getting his just desserts at the end was quite clever.
There were two things that came down very slightly against your story. The first was that while I thought you did a great job of showing his abusive nature, there wasn't enough there to convince me as a reader of his motivation in going back for her. So you've set up a character that I believe, and put him in a situation that ends up emotionally satisfying but I wasn't quite sold on him voluntarily putting himself in that situation. Without more of a sense of his motivation, it felt just a little contrived to me.
The second was that I thought the end was a little too obvious, which in normal circumstances wouldn't have been a big deal, but of the three stories I could vote for, it relied the most on a twist at the end. I assume that you purposely named the story after a vampire movie where the little girl is a vampire? That may have telegraphed the end just a little too much.
Oh I didn't even think about that movie - I don't watch a lot of mainstream movies and television. But having looked it up on IMDB now I see yes I should have chosen a different title. Live and learn!
And yeah, with the MC - in my first draft there was more of his internal dialogue and about their relationship that I wound up cutting to save space (the first draft clocked in at about 2000 words which was wayyyyy too long). I think what I kept maybe didn't reflect enough of him still loving her enough to come back for her, in spite of his obvious shortcomings.
There were two things that came down very slightly against your story. The first was that while I thought you did a great job of showing his abusive nature, there wasn't enough there to convince me as a reader of his motivation in going back for her. So you've set up a character that I believe, and put him in a situation that ends up emotionally satisfying but I wasn't quite sold on him voluntarily putting himself in that situation. Without more of a sense of his motivation, it felt just a little contrived to me.
The second was that I thought the end was a little too obvious, which in normal circumstances wouldn't have been a big deal, but of the three stories I could vote for, it relied the most on a twist at the end. I assume that you purposely named the story after a vampire movie where the little girl is a vampire? That may have telegraphed the end just a little too much.
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And yeah, with the MC - in my first draft there was more of his internal dialogue and about their relationship that I wound up cutting to save space (the first draft clocked in at about 2000 words which was wayyyyy too long). I think what I kept maybe didn't reflect enough of him still loving her enough to come back for her, in spite of his obvious shortcomings.
Ty much for the feedback!
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