First, the Halloween contest is open until Friday at midnight Eastern time. There's still time to enter!

Alright. I'm looking for opinions about stakes. How do you build up what matters in your story so people are compelled to read on?

As a for instance, I'm finishing up Clockwork Orange. I don't know that I'd say the stakes were clear in the first part, yeah? But about halfway through the second part, there are a few things that pop out. Free will. The ability to keep the things you love. Friendships and family. Alex gets all these things stripped from him though I don't think he would have identified them as that important to think about in the first part of the book. But the point is the larger commentary on how much control society should have over people to make life peaceful for everyone. Where is that balance? And that larger point doesn't start coming in until the third part.

So, I guess what I'm getting at is story structure and how that plays into how we evaluate the stakes of a story. And do we even all come away with the same stakes when we're reading?

Thoughts? How do you go about setting up those parts?

Story: -

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12OhXYwF036Tn5HUPeUsJFRKFvQMbue-TtYisKoiq6Zg/edit?usp=sharing

Crits: -

[2200] https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1v7yyhl/comment/p09tnj9/?context=3

[2900] https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1wy8hdb/comment/pefbknx/?context=3

[2377] https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1wyt2il/comment/pea0yxh/?context=3

Note: -

One of the crits is 3 months ago but I don't know how to see the exact date, so just in case, I added another crit.

Feedback note: -

The highlights the sentences or phrases where I'm not sure if it's good enough, so if you wish, please comment on those as well.

Crits: [1832]

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1x5fz1n/comment/ph9ij2g/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Hi this is my first time having anyone read any of my stories, so fair chance that its. So, if you think its shit, say so. My teacher told me to post it here cuz he liked it. I hope I havent messed up the review thing.

Main questions I have are

Is the foreshadowing obvious and boring or does it acutally add anything?

Do the descriptions work?

Does the detatchment from the characters add anything or should I have added more dialogue?

But mostly just what works or doesnt work.

Im not really a writer. Any advice would help so much.

Story:

Basically, a couple watching a comet hit the world and coming to terms with that.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BSKcVI8Fq0_g5zimpdhj0gFsF8f0t1SdElrqFnv5yIQ/edit?pli=1&tab=t.0

My Critique [1379]| https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/s/vqNdmfQ5AB

I would have critiqued more before posting myself, but unfortunately I am on a tight schedule. I will contribute further whenever possible.

____

In Time And Not

Once in time, a boy drops a watch, and it dents. The boy cries, then cries walking home, then wipes his tears on a sooty sleeve. He examines the watch, running his finger across the dent, feeling how his finger molds into it. The hands tick, tick, tick, again and again. He imagines the gears inside, grinding quietly, pushing the watch along. A blacksmith close by slams a hammer onto a melting piece of metal, striking, breaking, molding. The boy cries because the watch was ‘worth more than our house, boy,’ as his mother had said. The boy hardens his soft mouth and sees a pawn shop far, far away.

In time, a boy with the same mouth as the first boy pulls a watch with a dent out of an ornate drawer. He coughs, his voice suspended between young boy and young man. He looks at it, then at a portrait of the first boy with his deep wrinkles and white hair and sharp suit over bone and skin. At the watch, then at a random message on his phone. The watch slides from between his fingers, and into the drawer, with a heavy thud. As he turns, a moonlit corridor and a small hand fumbling inside a drawer appear in his periphery, vanishing before thoughts form. Blinking eyes trace back to the watch, glossing over the deep dent, over the roughly carved initials. He closes the drawer on fading light.

In time, the soot-covered crying boy—now with a man’s face—walks into a shop covered with clocks, a crumpled list in his hand, a serial number scribbled in its corner. He searches for and finds a watch with a dent and pays in what was ‘worth more than our house, boy’. He takes a tool and pushes it into the watch as it bleeds shavings. He coughs, soot misting over the watch. At home, he glances at his awkwardly carved initials, feels how his finger fits perfectly in the dent. He notices scratches. Looking around himself absentmindedly, he throws it in an ornate drawer. His son comes to him, tells him with a lisping voice that he’s going to have a boy, tells him the boy will have his smile. The boy with a man’s face doesn’t smile until he does, taut lips blooming.

In time, the boy with the phone sits in a room joined to other rooms, and his father enters from one or another of them. He asks, with a lisping voice, what the boy is doing, understands that he is doing nothing, and tells him the tale of a grandfather, the boy’s grandfather, who was a soot-covered blacksmith apprentice, who lived in a house worth a watch, who the boy should aspire to be. The boy listens and doesn’t, and remembers the remembrance of his father. Later, his mind wanders to a watch in a drawer somewhere in a big house, fading light falling across its hands through a slit in the drawer. He imagines it without a dent.

Soon, in a big house, at the end of a long, dark corridor, the soot-covered boy lies under a sheet, bone under his skin, staring at his pristine face lined with deep wrinkles reflected in the window. The boy in the window stares back at him, glancing at a watch with a dent sitting on his plain side table. The hands lag behind, out of sync with the clock on the wall. A tear slides down his cheek, nestling in his ear. His throat screams for water. He rises in stutters and opens the plain side table drawer, pulling out fraying, aging documents. He picks up a pen inset with a ruby, hand trembling from its weight. He scratches out lines, adds others, and exhales.

A full-cheeked boy with a mouth like his grandfather’s stands in a moonlit corridor. He reaches up to open an ornate drawer, moonlight coating everything in white silver. His hand fumbles inside, catching on a round object, and he pulls it out. He exhales over it, mist building on the glass, blowing away the dust. His fingers dip into a dent in the back, not quite fitting. He sees shapes on the back, ridges and edges. He runs to the room of a boy covered in soot and wrinkles, whose mouth is like his.

A servant stands in shadows, keeping watch over the master of the estate—the man whose lungs were made of soot. The room has a bed against one wall, the opposite wall a window. A plain side table sits in the middle. The soot-lunged man lies on the bed. A boy, the grandson of the estate, runs into the room. Something in the grandson’s hand catches the moonlight. The servant strains to pluck voices floating in the air, and fails, for half are too frail and half too soft. The boy holds up the watch, moonlight in his eyes, standing in front of the window. The master of the estate looks, then moves his lips. The boy shakes the watch, coming forward slowly. Voices start swimming in the air, become sharp and brittle and high, stinging the servant’s ears. The boy puts the watch on the plain side table, and runs out. A sniffle echoes in his wake. The master of the estate stares at the window; something gleams on his cheek, rolling down, nestling in his ear; he pulls some documents from the side table, picks up his ruby pen, and writes. He calls for water. He tells the servant to put a watch in an ornate drawer, at the end of a long, moonlit corridor, in a big house.

In time, when the boy with his grandfather’s mouth turns eighteen, people in black coats and ties and shirts starched white visit. They talk of coming of age, they talk of segments of wills. They talk of how a particular segment was reserved until he came of age. They tell him that he has inherited a broken, inscribed watch. The boy sees a moonlit night and a soot-lunged man, and an ornate drawer and a dent. He searches for an ornate drawer in a big house with joint rooms and carpeted corridors and sooty fireplaces. He finds it. He opens it. He sees dust dark as soot, and an imprint slowly fading. He stares, then closes the drawer, his face in battle between grimace and smile. He imagines the watch, imagines it with a dent.

In between, the drawer was opened, closed; sunlight fell in, moonlight did too. Hands touched the watch, left prints and signs. In time, it was picked up, and placed in a pocket.

Through time, the watch passed hands, then more hands. Soft hands, hard hands, thin hands, thick hands, scarred hands, clean hands, calloused hands, supple hands, brittle hands, hands and hands. No finger fit the dent, and each felt like it did.

Soon or late, it reached another pair of hands, and its face was polished bright. It was opened wide, spilling gears and screws, and dust and soot were wiped off. It felt the cushioned comfort of velvet against its back, molding perfectly into the dent, and was buried under a thin glass sheet. It rested there, hands unmoving.

Once in time and not, it thought it saw a man with another soot-lunged man’s mouth, but then the moment passed.

Crits:1882 and I left another review but it was short I think. So I won't count it. Please let me know if I didn't meet the criterion!

This is chapter 2, I'm going back and rewriting everything from my novel, and I just finished my edits to chapter 2 so I wanted to post them here to get some feedback.

The woman's dark brown eyes pierced into me. My breath hitched as my spiraling thoughts tried to form words that could explain my existence to her in a way that could lessen her anger. But I knew it was useless. I had not only taken possession over her friend, I had pretended to be her friend. 
Her hand grasped her mace and I found myself wondering what it would be like to be hit by it. My body began to shake as panic tightened my chest at the thought. We stood in silence for a moment, me unable to respond and her searching my face, attempting to discern if her realization was true. 
“I promised her I wouldn’t do this” She said, her voice trembling. “ But I can’t accept you in her body.” 
Through her glaring eyes and sturdy face tears began to stream as she lifted her mace out of her belt and began to swing it at me. My fear which was paralyzing turned into instinctive movement. I ducked and twisted away. I didn’t know how to fight, and I had never hurt anyone before, but my body knew that survival depended on me stepping back, ducking, and stopping the mace from reaching me. 
 She swung again. I stumbled backwards, somehow dodging once more. It was odd, I had wanted to die. I had jumped from a bridge. And instead of dying, I had woken up in a completely different world, and now, I was being killed. If death was what I wanted, why was I still fighting?
 She pivoted towards me, lifting the mace once more. This time, I attempted to stand still. Tears flooded my eyes. A broken sound escaped my lips. My body realized with a sudden clarity that it would die again. The mace came down. 
Despite my efforts not to, I caught it. 
The moment my hand closed around the metal, something inside me shattered and reformed. All the energy within my body transformed into particles that pressed against the inside of my fingers and palm. The particles felt like powerful pulsating dots of energy trying to escape my hand, urging it to release them. 
I squeezed my fist over the mace’s ridges, letting them press against my hand enough to make it throb. The mace began to crack, slowly at first, until it all shattered onto the floor. The woman, who had been watching me squeeze it without much of a fight, froze, her anger and grief twisted into agitation. “Dalm it, this was my prettiest mace” she snapped, before recalling the situation. Fear began to paint her face, her eyes wavering as she weighed her options. 
I swallowed, composing my thoughts. “Are you done trying to kill me?”
“For now.” She muttered. “I need to process.” 
“Who am I?” I asked sternly looking at her. “And who are you?” 
The woman hesitated, her fear dissipating a bit as her facial features began to soften. Her eyebrows pinched together, her body wheezing from the emotional pain.  
“I don’t know who you are.” She began. “But you are in the body of my friend, Valen of Redwatch. She knew you would come, as she saw you… in your other life. She knew you would come.” Her fingers tightened around the broken handle of her mace. “Usually, people who are possessed by divine abominations don’t get a warning. But she knew about you. She made me promise to help you when you arrived.” Her voice became more desperate as she searched my, well Valen’s, face. “What trickery did you use? To convince her to surrender her body without a fight?” 
“I am genuinely sorry that you have lost your friend.” I began, looking down at her small sobbing body. “I do not know why I am in this body. I didn’t know who your friend was or what this world was until today. But I am here now. And if you want me to leave this body, we should work together, to survive this dungeon and find a way to bring her back.” 
Alira moved her hand to her chest, stifling her sobs as she shifted her gaze between me and the empty space besides me. Her eyes kept returning to the shattered remains of her mace, lingering there for a few moments before she spoke. “You speak as though her body is something you can promise to return.” 
“I can’t.” I said, honestly. 
The silence stretched on longer, Alira’s gaze still fixated on her broken mace. “The only reason I'm here is because of her. I thought that if I followed her here I could stop her from transforming.” 
I was never good at comforting people, especially not those who had just tried to kill me. “Tell me about that.” I mustered, probing to get more information about this world I had transported to, while still trying to give her space to take control.
“No.” Her response came promptly. 
Okay, that didn’t work. 
“Who are you?” I gently asked. 
“Alira Voss.” She spoke softly, wiping her tears. “I’m a priestess of Aurea Profundis. I specialize in healing chants.” She looked up again, this time, beyond me. Her brows arched high, then tightened as urgency hollowed her gaze. A loud roar rippled from behind me. 
“It’s a Temple Reverent, a type of monster that spawns in The Ancient Golden Ruins.” She spoke fast, standing up and studying her posture “Do you know how to use your sword?” 
“What sword?” 
Alira stared at me for a moment, her expression tightening.
“The one you're carrying on your side.” 
I felt at my sides with my hands. My right hand touched a warm papery grip and smoothly wrapped around it. The sword was a long smooth silver katana that had green symbols etched on its side. The grip was covered in green tape embroidered with flowers and the cross-guard was a jade green that matched the gem on my bracelet. 
It was a beautiful work of art that belonged in a museum. But I had absolutely no idea how to use it. 
The temple reverent was getting closer. It appeared small and goblin-like. Its body was lean and hunched over, with limbs slightly too long for its frame, giving it a loping predatory movement. Its skin was cracked and flaking like dried clay split by age. The bones of its face pressed close beneath the surface of its head. It’s 2 long ears stretched backwards in jagged points. Tattered green strips hung like withered leaves against its body, forming a ragged robe. The most terrifying part of the creature was its eyes which were deep hollows filled with the same spiraling gold fog of the portal. Its pointy fingers on its right hand clasped onto a yellow dagger etched with different carvings. 
With this sword, I was supposed to fight this terrifying thing? I didn’t have much time to think. The temple reverent sprinted closer to me, letting out a soft cackle as it approached. I glanced at Alira. She took a step forward, then moved backwards, shaking her head. When I turned forward again, the reverent was a few steps away from me. I would have to fight this terrifying thing alone? The crumbling clay creature lifted its dagger up and took aim towards my stomach. I swung my sword aimlessly attempting to deflect the dagger, but it still landed in my stomach. 
My breath caught halfway between my lungs. The pain immediately flooded my entire body, and I hunched over instinctively. My hands hovered uselessly above the wound. I had never experienced pain before. My body was screaming at me in a language I didn’t understand. To survive I realized I needed to grow distant from the pain. The temple reverent was still there, his bloody dagger in his hand. In another split second, he could stab me again. 
I focused my blurry vision on his arm to see where he would aim the dagger next. When it came, instead of waving my sword around, I swerved my body to the side. The temple reverent followed, taking another swing. Again, I dodged. If I was going to swing this sword I needed to swing with purpose. I tried to replicate how I felt when I clasped the mace. I envisioned my energy, including the pain, as particles, and tried to hoard the particles towards my hand. I had never felt energy like this, and it felt like I had no control over its power and impact. Still, I needed to use it. I let it seep out of me into the sword, unshaped, unformed, and desperate. 
This time, when it swung at me again and I swerved, I swung with purpose, aiming at the back of its neck. I felt my sword hit resistance, then none. The head of the temple reverent fell smoothly off, clattering to the ground. Its other half of its body grew limp and also collapsed onto the ground.  I stared as its head rolled on the floor. Within a minute, the temple reverent began to disintegrate as if it had been caught on fire despite not being on fire. The ashes disappeared into the silent golden surroundings leaving behind a small yellow bead and the dagger.

I'd like you to answer the following questions:
Does Melony's narration feel like a believable response to what is happening? I want her to be a very analytical character.
Does Alira's shift from attaching Melony feel too sudden? It does to me, but idk how to change it.
Can you follow the flight clearly?
Where did you reread, lost interest, or feel pulled out of the story?
How's the pacing?

Crits: 2332 2377

Ethiopia

This one's an older story of mine that I translated into English. Looking for any feedback on the characters, pace, stakes, prose, etc. It's a complete literary short story.

Crit - 3891

Document Link - 2332

TLDR; open to any criticism but primarily looking for an idea of how it reads to someone unfamiliar with the world and lacking some context (to give me better idea what to revise).

Long + rambly version

I'm working on some short stories/serials set in a paranormal urban fantasy universe. This is first part of a completed 12.5K short story. I have gotten feedback from people familiar with the world and my original outlines (this is set after a planned novel i still haven't completed), but I'd appreciate some fresh perspectives from readers coming in entirely blind.

Some guiding questions:

- is it readable, and if so, how easily? intended to be airport style pulpy genre fiction, so appreciate pinpointing anything that gets in the way of that

- i'm aware a few parts/lines pretend the reader already has more context. how much does this pull you out? cut or expand these parts with more info, do you reckon?

- do you have some shape of what the story could be in mind, by the end (if you made it to the end)? Like, if I put on episode of Midsummer Murders I can kind of tell what ballpark it's going to be in, you know? Do you have some genre expectations already set, in other words, or does it feel entirely arbitrary and meandering?

- if you tapped out (stopped reading), where and why?

- craft criticism on technicals like prose, voice, characterisation, stakes, conflict, scene structure, pacing, etc always welcome. shred, go wild.

Note on setting:

- I'm not American. For reasons, this world/story are set in America. Miami is fairly arbitrary at this stage but there's some placeholders, and likely many things I haven't considered (so, happy to hear obvious mistakes so I can fix them, but I'm not trying to offend anyone on purpose here).

Thanks for feedback and your time.

My critiques | [2377]
This is my first time writing in a loooong long time, so I'm really just looking for any critique people feel they want to give! However broad or granular you want to get. Feel free to tell me something's trash as long as you can articulate why it's trash or what would make it less trash.

For a little context, this was written basically intending it to be a prologue for a post-apocalyptic/horror/gaslight/steampunk fantasy. (Warning, some gore)

Perhaps part of a first chapter/introduction for one character's point of view.

As such, mostly I want to know the following:

Was it enjoyable? Are you intrigued? Did the narrator have a clear and natural voice?

Thanks in advance.

----

Sure, it’s a hard job being a Torch, but it’s worth it.

That’s the line that gets you the free beer, or the doe eyes, or the big innocent smile with the ‘I wanna be just like you when I grow up’. They should give us recruitment bonuses or something for that last one. Anyway, before the ‘it’s worth it’ you have to lay it on a little thicker, butter them up, you know?

It’s hot as a Burner’s balls. It’s exhausting. Sometimes it takes days to get the blight-ash stink out of your beard. And yeah, sure, it’s dangerous. Every day you walk out onto the torch line you know you might not walk off. But, (this is where you pause and take a pensive-looking gulp of beer,) that’s the price we pay. And it’s a small price to make sure you’n your’n are safe from the Blight.

You start there. Then another pause while you swirl the glass around a bit; like you’re lost in the memory of the Torch siblings you’ve lost (which you shouldn’t be, don’t think about that). Then you lock eyes, say it, maybe with a sigh. ‘It’s a hard job. But it’s worth it.’ Make them feel like they’re worth it, let that sink in while you finish your beer. Works every time. Most of the time. Now and then at least.

Of course, it’s most definitely not worth it. Not the pay, not the free beer, not the starry eyed kids calling you a hero. Hell, not even the women - unless you’re down in Letic, but maybe I’ve just got a thing for Leticians. Even then, it’s probably not. Not when things go wrong at least.

Nothing is worth having to make the choice between huffing up great big panicky recycled lung-fulls of your own reeking sweat, shit and piss as it sloshes around in your boots; and on the other hand ripping your hood off to choke on blight-smoke that’s sure to leave your eye-juice spilling down your cheeks before you run out of breath for screaming.

Yet here we are.

Honestly from what I’m seeing happen to Boric, maybe my eyes melting out would’ve been the right call. Plus when you’re screaming out you’re not breathing in. I’m an optimist, see.

It’s a funny thing about Compound 38. When the Hand added c38 to the mix there was a lot of chatter going around about where it came from. Speculation always flies from amateur alchemists about each new compound. The longest odds in our company’s betting pool was that it was supposedly distilled from some critter up in County Morfen, what lives in the blighted scrublands in the hills there. It’s some little furry fella. Looks like it’d be all cuddly as a kitten, or maybe make a nice winter hat at least. Instead, it’s a venomous fuck that makes your arm, foot, whatever it bit swell up so much the skin rips, makes the muscle twist and grow tumors so fast it tears itself apart, and melts whatever fat you got on your bones right off while you try to run away screaming. Then the little fuck just wanders behind lapping up what you left on the ground like a carefree bunny munching on dandelions. That’s what Tarfin said was the truth at least, and his brother’s neighbor’s uncle is in the 109^th. Boric pissed in Tarf’s shoe that night for the horse shit story. That was the funny part.

Tarfin is a dick.

Dick or not, based on the way Boric’s blood and fat was seeping out the seams on his suit while he flopped around and tried to bend his bloated arms up to pull off his hood, I’d say Tarf’s brother’s neighbor’s uncle had good scuttlebutt. So I suppose Tarfin is also a dick with a fatter coinpurse.

I quieted Boric, for his sake. His smell was in the air now and it wouldn’t be long until the kirns were here. So I guess it was for all our sake. It definitely wasn’t because I couldn’t take the screaming, or the flailing limbs throwing reflections on the edges of my mask even when I wasn’t looking, or the constant squeeking of his suit. It wasn’t just for my sake. I’m a hardened Lineman of the Torch Corps. Just don’t ask my boots if they agree with that.

“Mekin, Ideth! You’n get up with Tamm at Thumb. They’ll come through the thinner trees there, bet my balls on it. Light up as soon as you hear ‘em. Do. Not. Wait! The fuckers here haven’t learned to fake their calls yet. Okay? I said got it?! Now, go!” I was shouting as loud as I could by the end, shoved Mekin to get his attention or start him moving, wasn’t sure which, but they had to go, and go now.

I really hoped they were at least half listening before I got their eyes off Boric. They tripped over each other trying to run off to the left flank of the unit and meet up with Tamm, so it occurred to me that I probably should’ve moved away from the expanding corpse before barking orders. Maybe put my ditch shovel away, or at least wiped it off. I could forgive their distraction, especially considering how fast they got over it.

Mekin and Ideth found their feet and crossed behind the burn line as fast as I’d seen anyone move. They posted up next to Tamm at the left-most position of our group and lit up their Torches as soon as I heard that warbling kirn shriek, maybe half a beat after Ideth planted feet. They were damn good Torches. Most of them at least.

All of them, if I'm honest.

Just, you know, some of them could've been really something.

Anyway¹ they always reminded me of a mix between a goose and the bay of those little round nosed hunting dogs, kirns did, their call I mean. Either way it was a sound that had no business coming out the throat of something tall as a horse. The official Blightlands Expeditionary Force Guide to Blightbeasts say kirns used to be some sort of wolf. It didn’t really matter what they used to be. They don’t look like wolves anymore and the only thing that matters is that now kirns are basically the rank and file of the Blightlands, so far as most of us can tell, all sorts of mobile active death to make up for the stationary nature of the plants. The distinction in descent came as a result of rumors that kirns were just people swept up in the first waves of the Burning, that’s what necessitated an official statement, so wolves it was. So much else out here was some twisted memory of all that mess, the ‘kirns were people’ thing made as much sense as anything else, not that you’d catch me saying it out loud. I don’t need my people thinking things like that, and I certainly don’t need an Auditor catching wind. No, I try to remind myself it doesn’t matter, I’m not BEF so it’s not my job to speculate. Leave that to the good boys in the 109^th.

In either case, maybe a dozen kirns streamed through the gap in the trees, trying their best to jump over the flames burning up the underbrush from our first pass. They rushed out only to meet a twin gout of liquid fire that dropped them down writhing and honk-baying into curled up straws of ash before the last one even cleared the bushes. When I heard the little triumphant whoop from Mekin, I even caught a proud grin myself for a moment. It went damn sight better than I expected, burnt up faster than any kirn I’d seen before.

So maybe C-38 is bad for people, but in the right mix for our Torches it’s damn effective on all manner of beasty. Sorry, Blightbeast. Best use the proper Hand-approved term. Torches -both the job and the eponymous tool- have a very singular purpose, and that shouldn’t be muddied. Plenty of mud already in this line of work, and using Torch fuel was strictly forbidden on anything outside of the blight.

I looked down at Boric’s body, a reminder that it was a shit day with plenty more room to be worse. Now that he was mostly limb but for the rigor of bloating his corpse had sort of filled out the natural shape of the suit. It looked like the pressure-test I saw during initiation. They take a suit, seal it to specs, fill it up to prove it doesn’t leak, that the Blight can’t get to you so long as you do proper de-com protocol when you come back from the field. It was right about then that the side seam on Boric’s suit gave way, and the yellow-pink ooze of his liquefied fat burst out, pressurized from whatever rampant cancerous growth was still taking place on his corpse. Lit from the fires all around us as it was, it made me suddenly think of a candle tipping over and spilling wax everywhere. Boric wasn’t wax cooling and hardening on a table though. Boric continued to ooze and bubble and spurt in ways a dead body shouldn’t be oozing and bubbling and spurting – nor a live one I suppose.

A little mental pat on the back for being so wise, what with knowing things would get worse. As I separated myself the minimum three meters required from the burn target, I took the moment to cinch my belt tighter around my waist in an effort to block some of the smells. Then I turned, squared up my trusty Mark 7 on Boric, adjusted the fuel mix a bit so it’d burn through his suit quicker, tightened the nozzle and pulled the trigger.

As me and my Mark 7 performed our singular purpose perfect to spec (aside from my fuel mix modifications), I watched the flames lick over Boric, burn up his suit, cook his meat and turn it to char within seconds. Even as he turned to ash, did my best to keep track of his left shoulder. There, the brown thread of the stick torch, and the grey of the Compound 2 bucket on his Torch Corps patch blackened, singed, but didn’t burn. It would never totally burn. When this was all done I’d have to come back from camp, sift through the ashes until I found the ever vibrant red thread of the hands holding that old torch and bucket. The patch was the only thing that’d remain of Boric. A physical reminder of the crueler truth of our motto, stitched in the same unburning red thread below the insignia of the Corps.

WHERE THERE IS BLIGHT
LEAVE ONLY ASH

I took a glance at my own patch. Boric was getting grease soot on it, should’ve stood upwind. That would be a nightmare to clean. That’s about the part of the day you try to stop being there, and start thinking instead about free beer and Letician women.

---

1. The preceding few lines were edited from the original post after feedback from comments.

Crits: [2377] , [953]

My story: Cartwheels on the soccer pitch

Hello! This is a standalone short story I wrote about the loss of girlhood and pressure to be like everyone else, etc. It's different from my typical writing, so I hope I pulled it off…

I would appreciate any general feedback and/or if you could specifically address the following:

• I worry at times the switching between the game and her inner reflection is too hectic. Does it feel like it strays too far from the rest of the story at points, and if so, where?
• ^ The gymnastics part I really want to keep but idk if it feels out of place.
• It's supposed to feel angsty and kind of overly pessimistic, as teens are, but does it come across as a well-developed voice or just annoying?
• Were there any parts that lost your attention or confused you?
• Does the ending feel rushed or too cliché?
• Do the paragraph breaks make sense? tbh idk the rules with them, but it just felt right to me…
• Does the horse analogy do too much/ is it confusing? I'm an equestrian, so idk if that's clouding my vision haha
• Overall thoughts, feelings, questions?

Thank you!!

One: Enter the Halloween Contest!

It is currently not that competitive, considering there are three whole entries. You have a strong chance to be top 3! Submit something! You have until the 23rd! That's like two whole weeks to perfect something!

Ok, ok. On to new topics.

Can we talk about pacing? How do you figure that out? What makes something work for one author but not for another?

I've read things I thought were slow and plodding that I absolutely hated. Some, I really like. Maybe it's the character...or a story that has a tighter focus so the plodding doesn't feel too slow.

Or on the reverse, I've read things that were too fast and had other people say they were glacially slow.

How do you figure out how to land that plane, so to speak? Thoughts?

My critique: 2377 (haha crazy, same word count as my story)

This is my first post here, and I'm relatively new to writing.

This is a heavily dialogue-driven short story. Not sure what genre to classify this as, perhaps literary or contemporary fiction?

Disclaimer: has themes on death and suicide

Any feedback is greatly appreciated! Some specifics I may want to know if possible, however:

- Does the story make sense throughout or are there parts that are too unclear? It can be a little bit abstract so I want to make sure it is conveying its ideas effectively.

- Does the prose and language style feel consistent across the story?

- Are there any places where the dialogue feels too stilted or essayistic or does it come across as natural?

- Are there any moments that feel pretentious or inauthentic? I want to ensure this story feels heartfelt and genuine.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NNgKMM7LuoZnSETNtU3VPd9NZWrTPCUrFgM4UpHFAms/edit?usp=sharing

Posting my chapter 2 for feedback since it is a dual POV book and this is a kind of “twin” chapter to chapter 1 that I posted a couple days ago. I would love overall feedback, specifically feedback on voice. The main character has a very clipped, gritty, sometimes noire type narration style and I want to make sure it’s not coming off too hard to read ( there are some dropped subjects).

TW: There is suggestion of dv and also the MC stops a dv attack from happening.

Here are my critiques

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/s/D207hptRal

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/s/RmevvG1N4O

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/s/ojLpl2eIph

And the path to chapter 2

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10plE_4ZKUnVo3ODqqgvr_FdQAq36WzARpWJDAaYWK2w/edit?usp=drivesdk

Hi everyone! This is my first time posting on this sub so hope I did this correctly.

I'm drafting a personal essay for my Substack about a friendship falling apart and some lessons I learned. The core idea is that being put on a pedestal sets the friendship up to fail, because reality will always fall short of the image. It's about 953 words, and this is the first full draft.

I'd love thoughts especially on how the content and ideas actually come across - is it interesting or things you've heard before? Does it resonate? Overall, what would you need to see in this piece to keep reading and find it refreshing / interesting.

Critique 1 (668), critique 2 (470)

Link to draft: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FKa92oGoVrwbQ4h3PBeLzhsK4-Q7ze_Eo4bItRbq0d0/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks in advance!

I wrote this for writing class as a fractured fairy tale for Father Frost/ Morozeiko and I'm rather proud of it. Someone tear me down a peg and help me improve :p

Link to comment https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1wyt2il/comment/pe70b3p/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Story:

Dear Angeline.

I'm sorry I dont visit you as often as I should. Its such a long ways away. I always doted on you Angeline. Of course I have, you're my blood. Not like Jessica. Even though she was born from another relationship, we loved Jessica near as much as you. Do you remember the time you and Jessica got lost trying to catch a rabbit? Or the time she went out in the cold to get tree bark for your tea? She loved you so much, you were her sister after all. She used to give you her food whenever we had to ration it.

It was a very cold winter. You remember dont you? We couldnt afford to feed another mouth. We deliberated for hours over what we would do. We knew we couldnt survive the winter. It was your father's idea to send her out in the cold. I was reluctant at first, but he convinced me. After all, she had nothing of the bond you and I shared. Blood is strongest. I sent your father out with Jessica to leave her in the fields. We couldnt spare even a blanket to keep her warm. Oh how I cried. We were so upset Angeline, dont you remember? We were so filled with grief for your sister. Eventually I sent your father out to bury her body, it was the least we could do. You were in your room Angeline, you refused to speak with me.

I was all alone when I heard our own dog speak. In a raspy voice straight from the depths of hell, as if Satan himself was punishing me for my sins. "YOUR daughter shall die this very night; HIS daughter shall live to be a delight". Oh Angeline you cant imagine how frightened I was. I cried out at the dog, in a fearful rage. "Hold your tongue you foolish beast! I had no choice!" But it would not relent. "I had no choice you mutt!"

I was nearly sobbing when your father returned. I was stunned, Jessica was adorned in the finest of robes and jewelry, I was so elated that she had brought back such treasures. She was understanding, she would've wanted you to live instead of her too. I wanted the best for you, my dear. I always have, so I sent you out to the same spot. So that you may retrieve the blessings too. You cannot imagine how relieved I was that there was hope for us. When we were at our lowest we experienced what surely must've been divine intervention. Then the dog started again. "Your daughter is frozen quite stiff and cold, And shall never have a chest full of gold". I was terrified for you, of course I was. Oh Angeline, if I had only known how it would end, I swear I would never have sent you out there in the cold. I ran out as fast as I could, my face was burning from the sting of the frost but I barely registered it in my panic. I ran for what felt like hours but in reality was likely only minutes when I found you. Frozen, unmoving, curled up into a little ball just as you had done all those years ago when you were lost. The tears still froze to my cheeks as I finally allowed myself to accept the cruel fate you had befallen. My entire face was burning from the cold but I could barely feel it. I held you Angeline, I held you in the cold hoping to transfer some of my warmth to your all too still body. But it was of no use, Your fate was sealed as soon as you left the warmth of our shelter. Your father left me there in disgust. He couldnt understand why I had sent you out alone in the cold with nary a blanket to keep you warm. None of them could. Angeline, I would do anything to have you back, to see your brilliant smile, to feel your loving embrace once again. Sometimes I think that this is all a dream I'm about to wake up from, it's simply too horrible to accept. On the coldest nights I remember the things I like to forget.

There was never a dog.

Hi! First post here, hopefully doing this correctly.

My Critiques:

3644 1300

My Writing:

Number 42

Horror Lit Fic Short story, light gore, An empathetic man.

What I'm looking for:

Anything really. I'll take critique on my voice, writing style, pacing, point of view, and overall plot. I'm worried about the ending going off the rails.

Thanks in advance!

Desperate for feedback!

Specific questions:
Would you keep reading? Is it a strong opening?
Where did you skim?

Here are my critiques!

Crit 1

Crit 2

Crit 3

Here is the link to my story!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-s7BxzUToCh5t_3aLJDUeHck44vs8ar1PS3VkyWy1So/edit?usp=drivesdk

Hello,

I have the urge to improve my writing again. I used previous feedback from posting on here before and I planned all Marth's feelings out, aiming for emotional impact. I thought I did a good job.

So I think I need some feedback :)

Could you tell me what I did well, and what I didn't do well please.

The story

Crit:
[5493] DragonKnight

(I hope my crit was ok)

Some backstory:

• Marth is Eric's butler, and Eric was previous known as Lady Erika.
• Joseph Farrow dumped Lady Erika because he got 'cursed', triggering Erika to stop lying about her identity.

I wonder if Kite is a believable 6 year old, and if the flash backs were confusing. I drank moderate amounts of wine whilst writing this chapter (ha ha ha). I also wonder if it captures some of the aspects of grief effectively...

I have a submission thread but if you have questions, here's the place for that.

Crits:

[962] Off to the Side

[2163] The Lure Chapter 3

[2500] Hillsides (Marco)

[1842] 08 Tiffany

[2000?] I dunno

- - -

Current Piece: HB - Chapter 6 - Arrival

This is the start of Part 2. Hoping you can jump in here without it being too jarring, even if you haven't read what came before (brief recap below).  Sorry it's bit on the long side. Thanks in advance if you read it. 

What I'm looking for:

Any type of feedback would be great. I have a lot of Concerns. Some general: all the “things” - voice, pacing, tension, characterization, etc. Some specific: but I’m not going to mention them as I’m hoping they’re not as noticeable to you as they are to me. That said, I’m really looking for things that feel off or don’t make sense. Anything that could be improved. And I always appreciate hearing readers’ reactions, questions, predictions. I have comments enable on the doc.

Brief recap:

Colly is a down-on-her-luck, aspiring singer with a bit of a gambling problem. Desperate to get out of her stagnant hometown, she agreed to take a job as a domestic servant at a remote mountain monastery. Her ulterior motive: steal (and sell) the recipe for their highly coveted, addictive brandy (Tempist is its brand name of sorts). 
Dob is a monk who traveled to Colly's home town to recruit her, and is now her traveling companion. Ginnie is a good horse. 
Last chapter: the bridge on the main road was closed, so they’ve had to finish their journey on foot…

Context: A gang loots dead soldiers during the American Revolution.

I’m seeking feedback:

- On my German. What do you think of the Hessian by how he speaks?

- On Philosophy, what are your impressions of the German Idealism, Kant’s theory of mind, which was discussed
at the final scene?

- Or any bits and bobs you’d like to rant or discuss: style, era, mood, setting, themes, material culture, lingo, character dynamics

[456] The Story

[846] The Feedback

Critique 1

Critique 2

Frankie stumbled backwards onto the damp grass and froze. His eyes were adjusting to the darkness, but he could make out Alicia stumbling away from her tent. She was holding her left arm straight and rigid toward the ground with her right, obviously hurt. He saw the dark, wolf-like shape following close behind her.

Frankie kept waiting for his eyes to adjust, to snap into focus and demystify the tall shadow in front of him, but they never did. He watched in a dreamlike daze as the figure caught up with Alicia. Methodically and quietly, it reached a large, clawed hand around her face, muffling a terrified whimper. 

With its other hand, it sank claws deep into the centre of her chest and dragged them down through the girl's stomach. Frankie could hear the faint squelch of tissue and viscera being shredded, but Alicia made no sound. Not even as the contents of her stomach and intestines sloshed onto the hillside, and not as the crunch of teeth crushing the back of her skull offended the night air.

His mind was screaming at him.

“Run” … “Hide” … “Help her” … “For God’s sake, do something!”

A voice rang across the valley.

“Bastard!”

He realised it wasn’t his own.

He watched, entranced, as Michael ran screaming at the figure, a golf iron held up against the firmament like a great sword. The same one they had used to hit golf balls off the mountainside that evening.

The rage of his sister’s loss flowed through Michael as he charged the beast, but it had opened his throat before he could bring any wrath upon it. The club fell from his hand, and there was a moment of stillness before blood streamed silently from his throat. He fell back to the cold earth and sat staring into the darkness, making no attempt to stem the bleeding.

Michael accepted his end with great dignity. Frankie always remembered that part.

Frankie watched as the creature lowered itself onto all fours, now more wolf than monster, and walked slowly towards Michael. If Michael had closed his eyes in terror, he could not tell. Its jaws opened and clamped around the boy’s face, and although Frankie’s body screamed at him to look away, he watched as the wolf tore away his friend's memory in the darkness. The moans of agony lasted only for a short while, but the sound of flesh tearing and bones crunching persisted.

Still, Frankie remained frozen.

After a short time, a veiled shadow crept out of one of the tents. His mind raced, begging that it not be her, pleading with her to get back into the tent.

Mary’s scream shattered the silence. There was a horror in it that was hard for Frankie to fathom, which made him realise he wasn’t in a dream. He watched as his girlfriend took off running across the hillside. He remained frozen to the earth as the beast bounded after her. It caught up to her in an instant, leaping onto her back and pinning her to the ground.

This was the moment. Adrenaline flowed through him, and he knew he should spring into action, but he couldn’t. He felt his legs and arms melt away into his body until he became a limbless blob stuck to the hillside. Even his mind had ceased talking. All that remained were the nerves firing off electrical signals throughout his body, a cacophony of explosions trying and failing to uproot him from the soil.

Mary screamed for help, but it was abruptly cut off by the creature tearing away her lower jaw. Frankie found a strange comfort in knowing her suffering would be ended soon. The thought of Mary’s terror as her eyes searched helplessly in the dark for her parents to comfort her in those final moments overcame Frankie. His whole world became blurry and out of focus, but he remained conscious.

Mary’s suffering was not over. The creature fed on her body for a long time before she finally succumbed. Frankie listened to her groans and incoherent pleas as the creature buried its muzzle in her belly. Eventually, the night went still, save for the sound of the beast gorging itself on teenage flesh. He remained frozen, his eyes fixed on nothing at all, and his mind gone to some far-off place.

A flurry of movement brought him back again. It was Barry and Aaron sprinting from their tent back towards the cars. They had made it quite some distance before the creature snapped its head in their direction and took off after them into the night. They were at least a couple of miles from safety. Frankie knew they wouldn’t make it.

The police found him there, sitting in the very spot he had been when the attack had first started.

“Are you alright, son?” one of them asked as the others examined the scene around them.

Frankie did not hear him. He trembled lightly and stared off down the hillside. A policeman shooed away some crows that were perched on Mary’s body.

[2686]

When you jump into Chapter 1, expect to step into a slow-burning, psychological trap that operates on a completely hidden frequency.

While you are immediately hit with the numbing, exhausted fog of a mundane tech job, the real experience of reading it is the creeping realization that every tiny, repetitive detail is a variable in a massive, hidden equation. The text forces you into a state of hyper-vigilance, you aren't just reading about a guy staring at a monitor, you are being forced to track a cold coffee cup, a loose cable cover, and an unyielding corporate debt like a puzzle you didn't realize you were volunteering to solve.

It is a profound test of patience because it masks a high-stakes corporate sci-fi horror inside the rhythm of pure administrative boredom. The text relies on you feeling that heavy, insomniac loop so that when the narrative engine finally shifts beneath the floorboards, the drop is absolute. You are watching a consciousness slowly figure out the physical boundaries of its own prison using nothing but the micro-changes in the room around it.

You cannot rush it because the book is actively training your brain to notice the exact anomalies required to understand how a mind might try to break a system from the inside out.

[Think About Something Pleasant - Chapter 1: Clanker]

Hello!

I would appreciate any criticism on this short story. Did you feel bored reading it? How did you feel about the narrator's voice? Did it feel clunky or unnatural? Would you enjoy reading similar stuff?

Thank you so much!

Document : https://docs.google.com/document/d/10BhjJjYnXXqjcnxbYTrNNJ7zvZURIPWbrUiSZinJN6A/edit?usp=sharing

Critique : https://old.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1wsk5sz/2058_come_home_family_drama/pczed3n/