Untitled Short Story - Needing feedback!

[Osiphen]

We just had a short-story assignment in our English class to base a writing off The Catcher in The Rye's writing style. and I wanted to write something creepy and compelling. This is entirely fiction. It's about a teenager who walks into a high school with a gun and starts shooting people and blames them for his actions and feels sorrow and misery over "having" to hurt them.

I haven't come up with a name, and I want to continue it, do you think I should?

Unnamed

They call me “the man without a face”. It isn’t a title I’m very proud of having nor would it be the title I would choose for myself, in fact I would probably have chosen something along the lines of “the moon” or “the endless vision of space”. I can completely understand why they call me it though – not that you would care or anything – I didn’t like to show myself often. I shouldn’t even be writing to you right now. I thought of myself as an ugly creature, a beast, the deformed mammoth. I did something very bad once and now nobody will ever think of me differently. I am truly an indifferent–an ugly monster. I don’t use the word monster scarcely either. I am more scared of myself than anybody else.

My family disowned me a few years ago for whatever reasons they had – not that I should care, from the day I birthed to the day they threw me flat on my butt was a living hell. I think they pushed me to where I am today, I removed myself from society, I hurt innocent people and now I hide – I hide to an endless degree. I hide from the misery and sorrow of my own. I hide from you and from them. I hide always. It had to be maybe two or three years ago that I hurt those children. I hurt all of them. I’ll never forget the boy that fought back for her. I was just simply inserting a new clip and he stormed at me and he made me defend myself. I shot him. I shot him dead in between the eyes. And the stomach. And the heart. And the shoulder. I just kept shooting him.
I’m sorry.

Cody

 

[TimeBomb]

Disclaimer: I'm a pretty critical audience. I enjoy creative writing when I have the time and am in the mood, though those two things rarely ever seem to collide. I'm going to give you my honest feedback and suggestions, and I promise you that none of it is personal . Also, it's nearly 5AM here, and, although I'm a night owl, some of the following post may have been processed by my potentially half-asleep brain.

My initial thoughts:
Interesting. It's off to a nice start. Though there are a few areas that could use some touching up on.

Before I go all grammar nazi on the story, let me pick out parts that I feel could be written a bit better.

- "thought of myself as an ugly creature, a beast, the deformed mammoth." and "I am truly an indifferent–an ugly monster. I don’t use the word monster scarcely either." read a bit... oddly. I think you should try laying these thoughts of his on more subtly. Perhaps something more like "The thoughts that were going through my mind were morbid. At that point, I knew I was sick. But I couldn't help it. No one could. I was too far gone."

- "I don’t use the word monster scarcely either" This sentence leaves a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth. It's not that bad, but I'm not a fan of how it works with the rest of the story. Removing the word "either" from that sentence would help a lot.

-"I am more scared of myself than anybody else. " This sentence is arguably a bit ambiguous. Is he the scariest person to himself, or is he more scared of himself than others are scared of him? While I'm pretty sure it's the latter, you may want to reword the sentence to make it a bit clearer.

- "My family disowned me a few years ago for whatever reasons they had" You may want to briefly describe some of the reasons that he may have been disowned. It would probably help infuse more emotion into the story, or perhaps even create more of a connection with the main character. "My family disowned me a few years back. Thinking back to it now, perhaps I shouldn't have gutted the dog after they refused to raise my allowance. Whatever, it doesn't matter anymore." That may be a bit too much, but I think you see what I'm getting at.

- "My family disowned me a few years ago for whatever reasons they had – not that I should care" If you do keep this sentence, I'd recommend removing the word "should."

- "I think they pushed me to where I am today" Make him a bit more certain. Even if the story may or may not make it obvious that it's true, it will, in my opinion, look better if he is trying to convince himself that his family is the reason. "They pushed me to where I am today," or, "There's no doubt in my mind that they pushed me to where I am today."

- "I removed myself from society" Once again, a lack of subtly. I think what is stated after this statement gets the point across well enough. Therefore, your story may benefit from removing this specific statement.

- "I hide to an endless degree" Somewhat similar to above, I think that this statement is overkill and thus unnecessary. The rest of the sentences surrounding this one get the point across quite well.

- "It had to be maybe two or three years ago that I hurt those children" I'd suggest that this be the start of a new paragraph. Perhaps precede it with something such as, "With every breath I take, with every thought I have... the memories still linger."

- "I’ll never forget the boy that fought back for her." This statement lacks a little bit of clarity, and I think it may lead to confusion for some. Perhaps change it to something like, "I'll never forget the boy that fought back. I had a knife around his little friend's neck. Maybe she was his girlfriend."

- "I was just simply inserting a new clip" Remove "simply." Unnecessary fluff. Sounds better without it in my opinion.

- "I shot him dead in between the eyes." You could add a bit more realism to the story by changing this to something such as, "I shot him dead right in between the eyes," or, "Bang. Right in between the eyes. He dropped to the floor, dead as can be. He didn't stand a chance."


And now time for Mr. Grammar Nazi!
- Some of your story appears to flip back and forth between tense. This is a common issue, and one that is easily rectifiable. For example: "They call me “the man without a face”." is present tense. "I didn’t like to show myself often." is past tense. Re-reading it again, it may be plausible that this is valid use of tense, though it is a bit... unintuitive. You may want to take some time to re-read it and make the tense more consistent where possible.

- "I would choose for myself, in fact I would probably have chosen" Run on sentence. Change the comma to a period and capitalize the word "in".

- "not that you would care or anything – I didn’t like to show myself often." See above. Change the "– " to a period. Also, in my opinion, the "or anything" looks odd, sounds odd, and removing it would be an improvement.

- " I am truly an indifferent–an ugly monster" You may want to try to tone down the amount of dashes you're using if at all possible, as it's starting to become quite prevalent. Also, I'm pretty sure "indifferent" can't be used as a noun.

-"from the day I birthed to the day they threw me flat on my butt was a living hell." This should be its own sentence. You also should rephrase it, as it sounds a little awkward in its current form. "My life has always been a living hell; from the day I took my first breath to the day they kicked me out."

- "I think they pushed me to where I am today, I removed myself from society, I hurt innocent people and now I hide – I hide to an endless degree" Split this into... four sentences. "I think they pushed me to where I am today. I removed myself from society. I hurt innocent people and now I hide. I hide to an endless degree."

- "and he stormed at me and he made me defend myself." I'd recommend you end the sentence at "he stormed at me." Then remove the word and and capitalize "he."


Finally, a couple story name suggestions:
- The Story Without A Name
- The Story That Doesn't Deserve A Name
(If you go with either of the above, you may want to change around the starting of the story a little bit as to remove his title "the man without a face." Then have him say "They call me “the man without a face”." near the very end of the story.)

Overall, awesome story. Keep it up . And my apologies if this was a lot more feedback than you expected. I tend to do that.

 

[Manova]

I enjoyed reading the story almost as much as reading TimeBomb's feedback. Nice work, keep it up!