Re: Discussion October SEVENTY-FIVE WORD WRITING CHALLENGE
as promised, my reviews.
Hex: I liked the warm feel to the over all piece. I liked that it was her nightmare that saved her (figuratively and literally). I loved the mystery left in the closure to the end, that it feels over, without being explained.
Mith: I love dragons, I love that you decided to give one a nightmare, and give him remorse and denial over it. Three times I changed my vote back to yours before finally settling on
Don’t Read This but it was a very near thing. Very moving, well composed, Did I mention that I loved it?
Culhwch: I still cry a little when I read it. I like the idea that he is profiting off the nightmares he is not having by selling them to others. I like that you left me with the feeling that he has no remorse for doing so and could seem cold while transacting his business. I love the image I have of his shop: close, dusty, cold and hot at the same time, with thousands of bottles large and small filling innumerable shelves. With one high up, unmarked, that others want to buy simply because they see that they shouldn’t. His sad smirk as he tells them it is not for sale, knowing they will mistakenly think it more then it is, watching them leave his shop with perhaps a little disdain because he doesn’t believe they know what fear really is. And then we come to the last line, the one that always makes me cry, where pain and fear come together in all the perpetual torment that a perfect memory of an event can give, sweetened just to the point of survival with the allure of almost closeness to the person whose life made dreams worth having.
Southron Sword: Having awaken like this from night terrors I was immediately drawn in to the story, knowing all to well the relief of not being in the dream anymore mingled with the need to go over every detail and reassure myself it was a dream and nothing more. I absolutely love the sting at the end, that the thing of his nightmare knew what his nightmare was and the chilling truth you leave us with that it is about to begin in earnest.
Phoenixthewriter: I liked the campfire feel of your narrative stile. I could even hear it popping and crackling in the background and almost taste marshmallows as I read it.
Mouse: I absolutely love that your narrator shows no remorse, and sounds cold and resigned to their fate. I love that your torment takes them all over the world giving an impression of penance for a world crime. On top of it all I love the stark and vivid imagery of the tortures they endure, stone faced and silent through it all.
Springs1971: This one too I almost voted for. The myriad of tortures, mental as well as physical, that are alluded to with such clarity is impressive. The implied transformation, and the sure knowledge that there was no escape from torment for this poor soul made it a top runner to the end.
Highlander: This one too made me cry
. In-humanizing the enemy and having them literally feed on the victims of their conquest brought home the hellishness of war as starkly as any imagery I can think of could do. The torment of knowing he was about to be eaten alive coupled with the pain of knowing, and being covered by, his friends and close companions brought to mind all the self torture and recrimination one would feel at being grateful for the cover their sacrifice provided. The terror that would follow this poor soldier out of battle also had it in my top running to the end.
Parson: I laughed, I still laugh every time. I’m glad I have other-English speaking friends to know what “the head” is or for a moment I might have been confused. The mortification in that “Oh no!” was the ticket for me.
Talysia: I like that your demon has such discerning taste, that an active and vibrant imagination could be shown to have its down side.
HareBrain: Perfect illustration of how empathy can perpetuate a problem. I love the way you paced it out, keeping me engaged in the moment so that it wasn’t till I ran out of words to read that I realized I had fallen in to the same trap, and was able to appreciate the subtlety of its composition.
Nixie: I feel it was the lash marks on his body after he woke that changed his mind, and thought that was a nice touch. The addition of fear that he might have more of the same to face in the future spurring the addition of an abbey for monks audacious enough to ask for a tax brake showed the power it had over him. It had less the feel, to me, of a change of heart and more a feel of impending doom.
Perpetual Man: I love your narrative voice in this. The panic just barely controlled, the pleading that rushes the eye on perpetuating his doom. The narrative voice so real and so captivating that I was compelled to believe it is what got my vote. The fact that I still cant read it without my eye flicking off the page to save him from eternity in such a typeface, reinforced to me that although I was sure you would win and therefore
could spend my vote somewhere else, I had to vote my conscious.
Alchmist: I loved the imagery of a child pleading with God as the tipping point for him. That he had no answer but to rethink his decision to create humans at all, was priceless. Imagining God and Michael talking about this nightmare over golf gave me a smile. I liked the double implication that if this had happened and we were still created that he had a reason for it grater then our destructive capabilities, or if this had happened instead that we would not have been created at all. Being able to back two arguments at once so perfectly without seeming at all to try to really impressed me.
High Eight: I didn’t know who to empathize with more, the dreamer or their stalker clone army. Which side of the coin would be more dreadful, to be feared and avoided by the one I loved most in the world, or to be haunted by love so adamantly that the one who loved ceased to live.
