First up, and least important, I suppose; the title was a bit plain. Certainly not thought-provoking or symbollic; just really a depiction of the monster. Kind of like calling a slasher movie "A Madman Running Around with a Hatchet".
The writing style was okay (vocabulary etc.) if fairly conventional (cloak blowing open in the wind, etc.).
I did find, however, that the storyline did not perhaps make all the sense in the world. What it looks like is that the author had an idea in his head he was pretty excited with, and wrote down a story that made perfect sense to him-- what with his possession of what amounts to background knowledge-- but isn't neccessarily so clear when read by someone who Didn't create the universe in which it takes place. Entirely possible that I'm just a moron, but personally I would've liked certain nuggets of information to be made more clear-- why he's apparently indestructable when he's fighting the demon for the first time (he DID get pretty seriously stabbed), and yet perfectly hangable when the villagers get a bit cross (I get that perhaps he's just invincible at night time, but y'know... Tell us that).
I think perhaps a device would’ve been useful to indicate that the ghost is not, in fact, killed when Albert (^.^, Albert) stabs him and the sun comes up (by the way, one would think the villagers would be mightily confused if the sun rose early, but apparently not?); I don’t know, a wisp of particulate streaming away from the body of the corpse, observed with surprise by Albert? Whatever, I don’t know.
Also didn't see what was going on with the demon's heart-- it turns into a salamander, he puts it in his pocket and turns it to crystal. Later it starts writhing and when he pulls his hand out of his pocket (for apparently no reason-- I assume he was being compelled somehow, but he seemed pretty unfazed by the development) the salamander which may or may not have been made of crystal is suddenly a ring-- which Dandelion grabs straight away.
That brings me to my next point. The villagers in general are a little unbelievable-- Mr. Sods suddenly goes all agape when the stranger flashes a smile with a golden tooth-- even if that's uncommon, it's not exactly brainwipingly obscure. If I saw someone with a solid platinum fingernail (which I’ve never heard of before), I’m sure I’d be mildly curious, but I wouldn’t shit myself. They have strangely conflicting emotions (“WE ALL HATE YOU BUT PLEASE KILL THE DEMON AGAIN OR WE WILL ALL HATE YOU”), but my main beef villager-wise is Dandelion. “Look at me, I’m a silly bint, I’ll fall for you with no provocation despite the fact you’re a total asshole—oh, you have a ring? Of course I’ll marry you!”. I don’t particularly want to go into the unfair representation of women in literature because I would get torn to shreds and nobody would listen anyway, this being a heftily male-dominated forum… On the Internet… But personally, I just really found the character hard to come to grips with.
Basically, the recurring theme is, your idea was good and pretty interesting (the antihero protagonist was a cool device), but the execution lacked finesse. I would recommend taking longer to write stories and Definitely getting someone you haven’t spoken to about the plot to test-read it for you. Someone you can trust to be objective, mind.
TL;DR: LOL COOL STORY BRO
Author
Topic: A Terror to Behold: A Threetoe Story (Read 74882 times)