Dolls Don't Cry
The penalty for snitching in this part of the world is death12 total reviews
Comment from HarryT
Good opening foreshadowing the feeling of danger and foreboding ahead in the story. Excellent description of the evil character driving the truck. The little waif is well-described and her neediness apparent. I like the use of self-talk to describe the inner feelings of the man. I admire the skillful use of similes throughout the work. Suspense continues to build and a nice twist at the end when he brings the girl home. I missed, however, he got her to go with him in his truck. An excellent job of hooking the reader and keeping him/her to find out more. Outstanding write.
reply by the author on 19-Oct-2022
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Good opening foreshadowing the feeling of danger and foreboding ahead in the story. Excellent description of the evil character driving the truck. The little waif is well-described and her neediness apparent. I like the use of self-talk to describe the inner feelings of the man. I admire the skillful use of similes throughout the work. Suspense continues to build and a nice twist at the end when he brings the girl home. I missed, however, he got her to go with him in his truck. An excellent job of hooking the reader and keeping him/her to find out more. Outstanding write.
Comment Written 12-Oct-2022
reply by the author on 19-Oct-2022
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Thank you SO SO much for this great feedback, and for the six star review!! I truly appreciate it!!
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You are welcome. Keep writing.
Comment from Pam Lonsdale
This is a fabulous piece of storytelling, something I'm always looking for on this site. You build the tension slowly and do a good job of juxtaposing her sweet innocence with his sick, horrific intent.
I've made a few notes as I read this, but only to clean it up a little. Yes, it's long as some reviews stated, but I don't see where you could possibly cut it. Keep it as is.
This belongs in a publication, and I hope you pursue that. Good luck with this contest.
She started dig up some grass - add "to" dig . . .
You've indented paragraphs in some places and not others - consistency needed there.
The sentence, "Where residents swallow down their suspicions of and clamp their lips shut" sounds incomplete.
reply by the author on 23-Sep-2022
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This is a fabulous piece of storytelling, something I'm always looking for on this site. You build the tension slowly and do a good job of juxtaposing her sweet innocence with his sick, horrific intent.
I've made a few notes as I read this, but only to clean it up a little. Yes, it's long as some reviews stated, but I don't see where you could possibly cut it. Keep it as is.
This belongs in a publication, and I hope you pursue that. Good luck with this contest.
She started dig up some grass - add "to" dig . . .
You've indented paragraphs in some places and not others - consistency needed there.
The sentence, "Where residents swallow down their suspicions of and clamp their lips shut" sounds incomplete.
Comment Written 23-Sep-2022
reply by the author on 23-Sep-2022
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Oh wow thank you for this wonderful feedback and I appreciate how thoroughly you read my story!! I will clean up the things you mentioned. Thanks, again!
Comment from royowen
Of course, child abuse is the worst of crimes, as Poppy hasn't manifested late in the story, I'm assuming he's still alive, but on the later menu. There are some
nutcases around and are strange, but appear to be "normal". I was on tenterhooks with this story, but Sparrow is right, some folks don't deserve kids, well done, blessings Roy
Typo : climbed the steps to (the) porch...
reply by the author on 23-Sep-2022
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Of course, child abuse is the worst of crimes, as Poppy hasn't manifested late in the story, I'm assuming he's still alive, but on the later menu. There are some
nutcases around and are strange, but appear to be "normal". I was on tenterhooks with this story, but Sparrow is right, some folks don't deserve kids, well done, blessings Roy
Typo : climbed the steps to (the) porch...
Comment Written 23-Sep-2022
reply by the author on 23-Sep-2022
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Thank you so much! And thank you for pointing out the typo. I will fix it. I appreciate you reading and providing feedback!!
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Most welcome
Comment from Wayne Fowler
Nice story. Very well told. Good work.
How did she die? Why?
It's a little bit of a let down. A hint of another story would do the trick, The ghost promising to leave clues, or to return with some.
Best wishes.
reply by the author on 09-Sep-2022
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Nice story. Very well told. Good work.
How did she die? Why?
It's a little bit of a let down. A hint of another story would do the trick, The ghost promising to leave clues, or to return with some.
Best wishes.
Comment Written 09-Sep-2022
reply by the author on 09-Sep-2022
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Oh, that is excellent feedback!! Thank you so much for taking the time to read and respond. I will clarify that!
Comment from Olivanne Marsh
Good luck in the horror writing contest. You did a good job of setting a consistent tone. I loved your use of simile. I have noted a few especially fine ones below. I thought the piece was a bit too long, you could condense all the days of coming and going to work. Also, the narrator is constantly tired and disoriented. I know it happens in the lives of care givers far too often, especially during CoVid, and you are probably using it to make her more vulnerable to what is happening, but... it also gives her a one-dimensional character. Finally, a small stylistic thing that is a pet peeve, you started way too many sentences with and.
All that aside, it is a good story, and you did a fine job of telling it.
"...and its ecru and burgundy trim was flaking like dead skin after a sunburn." fine simile.
"...the earthy, viscous scent of unwashed hair." Original description.
"It's as if their presence leaves a custom made hole in the air that your energy is then required to fill and reshape." Lovely, original writing.
"The uninterrupted hours of sleep that I had waited for would have to wait." Using the words waited and wait so close to each other degrades the sentence. Use a different word, maybe something like...the hours of sleep that I craved...you get the idea.
"I fell into that kind of sapphire shade of a dreamless sleep." Again sapphire shade is original and poetic.
"...laid my head back on the pillow and took a deep breath before the sound that I was hearing finally." Finally what? This is an incomplete thought.
"...magickal bookshop..." Did you mean magical?
"...Jax XCAB..." what does this mean, I could not figure it out. Is it a typo or what?
reply by the author on 08-Sep-2022
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Good luck in the horror writing contest. You did a good job of setting a consistent tone. I loved your use of simile. I have noted a few especially fine ones below. I thought the piece was a bit too long, you could condense all the days of coming and going to work. Also, the narrator is constantly tired and disoriented. I know it happens in the lives of care givers far too often, especially during CoVid, and you are probably using it to make her more vulnerable to what is happening, but... it also gives her a one-dimensional character. Finally, a small stylistic thing that is a pet peeve, you started way too many sentences with and.
All that aside, it is a good story, and you did a fine job of telling it.
"...and its ecru and burgundy trim was flaking like dead skin after a sunburn." fine simile.
"...the earthy, viscous scent of unwashed hair." Original description.
"It's as if their presence leaves a custom made hole in the air that your energy is then required to fill and reshape." Lovely, original writing.
"The uninterrupted hours of sleep that I had waited for would have to wait." Using the words waited and wait so close to each other degrades the sentence. Use a different word, maybe something like...the hours of sleep that I craved...you get the idea.
"I fell into that kind of sapphire shade of a dreamless sleep." Again sapphire shade is original and poetic.
"...laid my head back on the pillow and took a deep breath before the sound that I was hearing finally." Finally what? This is an incomplete thought.
"...magickal bookshop..." Did you mean magical?
"...Jax XCAB..." what does this mean, I could not figure it out. Is it a typo or what?
Comment Written 08-Sep-2022
reply by the author on 08-Sep-2022
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Thank you so much for this thoughtful, lovely feedback!! I appreciate your specific comments, they are super helpful! And yes....XCAB is a weird typo that happened when I formatted the story. Thank you, again! I will fix the things you have pointed out. Have a great day!
Comment from leather
You certainly put a lot of work into this piece--it is pretty lengthy, but I feel it needs to be tightened up as it almost seems like a never-ending story.
I'm unsure if the police or medics wheeled away a ghost, spirit, or human being. I wish that were clearer so I could have a sense of resolution.
I believe your words "small town" should be hyphenated, so it reads, 'small-town.'
The word "fuck" seemed a bit jarring.
I think this is a great effort that begs for some polish and editing work.
Best wishes and keep writing.
reply by the author on 08-Sep-2022
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You certainly put a lot of work into this piece--it is pretty lengthy, but I feel it needs to be tightened up as it almost seems like a never-ending story.
I'm unsure if the police or medics wheeled away a ghost, spirit, or human being. I wish that were clearer so I could have a sense of resolution.
I believe your words "small town" should be hyphenated, so it reads, 'small-town.'
The word "fuck" seemed a bit jarring.
I think this is a great effort that begs for some polish and editing work.
Best wishes and keep writing.
Comment Written 07-Sep-2022
reply by the author on 08-Sep-2022
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Thank you so much for this helpful review! I am grateful for this constructive feedback. Yes, I have been getting quite a bit of pushback for using the F word, so I think that needs to go! And, yes....I also agree that the fact that it was a human being all along needs to be clarified. Thanks, again!!
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You're quite welcome. Have a productive day.
Comment from Malcolm Rothery
That was an excellent story and well-written to boot. You have a talent for creating an atmosphere.
I can see a few fuddy-duddies on FanStory saying some paragraphs are too long, but I would disagree. A paragraph is as long as it needs to be, so yah-boo sucks to them!
I found only one minor blemish - you need a gap between quois and about in the line - 'je ne sais quoisabout'.
Good luck in the contest.
reply by the author on 07-Sep-2022
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That was an excellent story and well-written to boot. You have a talent for creating an atmosphere.
I can see a few fuddy-duddies on FanStory saying some paragraphs are too long, but I would disagree. A paragraph is as long as it needs to be, so yah-boo sucks to them!
I found only one minor blemish - you need a gap between quois and about in the line - 'je ne sais quoisabout'.
Good luck in the contest.
Comment Written 07-Sep-2022
reply by the author on 07-Sep-2022
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Thank you so much for catching that glitch-y error! I will fix it. I so appreciate you taking the time to read my story and write a thoughtful response! Haha yeah some folks don't love the paragraph lengths, but what's a writer to do? ;). Thanks, again!
Comment from giraffmang
Hi there,
There's some excellent stuff going on in this piece but you could take another run through at it for proofing and maybe a bit if editing and clarification in some areas.
I made some notes as I read through (some are very minor and may not occur to a lot of readers or reviewers on site)-
certain je ne sais quoisabout it. - spacing here. Also no 's' on quoi.
like dead skin after a sunburn. Several of the planks from the wraparound porch were missing, making it resemble the mouth of a cartoon character after it's taken a blow to the face.- look at your similes here. The first first is good and helps to set atmosphere and tone. Whilst the second is descriptive it almost undercuts the good work of the first one. It's too long and doesn't add to the tone, but detracts for it.
It also needed an appliance update (as at least one pair of sweats and two t-shirts had been mysteriously consumed by the dryer),- this isn't clear enough. I get trying to set the tone but if there were clothes left in the dryer, it would be bettter to say that. Consumed suggests gone, in which case the narrator wouldn't have known anything about them...
To be honest, the assumption the house was haunted doesn't come across in the opening, it just feels like an old abandoned house which needs work. Maybe inlude other details like coldness or sounds which could help create more of an eerier atmosphere.
and its where I liked to curl up - it's in this instance.
When I looked at glass door, which had misted over- at the glass door.
It made me wonder why the spirit had taken so lone so tell her to go away in the early sections. She'd obviously been living there for a long time at this point, given the initial state of the house and how it's presented up to this point, a considerable amount of time must have passed.
GO AWAY had been written with a fingertip.- minor point here, but how did she know it was a fingertip?
There, sprawled across the floor, were the broken pieces of my favorite mug / the porcelain shards had been arranged in a precise and straight line next to the kitchen sink, as if forbidding me to stand there.- these two descriptions don't add up. Can't be both.
I wouldn't use the capitals to signify the yelling as you've already told this by the proceeding tag.
It was as if someone had dropped a jar of marbles that rolled all over the attic floor--an attic that I wasn't even aware existed in this house.- how could she not know there was an attic? Even if there wasn't an entrance to it, she'd have know there was one by the shape of the house/roof.
so I moved methodically from room to room, searching the ceiling for an opening to the attic. Strangely enough, I didn't find one. - surely she'd have looked around the house once when she bought it and again when she moved in?
be careful with your adverb usage, they can signal a weakness in verb choice and tend to lean toward more telling than showing when you could strike a better balance.
I laid my head back on the pillow and took a deep breath before the sound that I was hearing finally - this reads a bit awkwardly.
from which I had been ordered by Jax XCAB to acquire items. - what is XCAB?
I decided to make a day of it: do some shopping at the stores that don't exist in small town Iowa, and drink enough caffeine to make my innards vibrate the entire way home.- why would she do this? It doesn't make much sense. She raced out of the house to get stuff she needed with such urgency and then doesn't return to do what must be done.
had left all of the lights on, and, apparently, the television--though I swore I had turned it off-- she didn't, she spoke to her sister and fled the house. No mention of turning anything off. it may be her perception but the reader knows.
and standing there, staring out at me, was a dark silhouette.- how did she know the silhouette was staring at her? A silhouette is just a dark shape. A human form has basically the same shape front or back. (pointing at her may be more effective)
expecting to see an dark entity materialize - a rather than an here.
I didn't really get why she'd been living in the titchy attic room when the entire house had been abandoned.
I found a certain disconnection between the title of the piece and the story itself. There weren't really any 'little scratches' throughout the tale. The description line, although intentional, may be a bit misleading.
It should also have a warning for language on it. I wouldn't use the full site one but a little disclaimer at the top.
The deep point of view and the central narrator are good and solid and give the reader a nice 'in' to the work. Some of the description is nice.
I think you could go further in creating a more eerie tone and atmosphere.
All the best
GMG
This rating does not count towards story rating or author rank.
The highest and the lowest rating are not included in calculations.
reply by the author on 07-Sep-2022
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Hi there,
There's some excellent stuff going on in this piece but you could take another run through at it for proofing and maybe a bit if editing and clarification in some areas.
I made some notes as I read through (some are very minor and may not occur to a lot of readers or reviewers on site)-
certain je ne sais quoisabout it. - spacing here. Also no 's' on quoi.
like dead skin after a sunburn. Several of the planks from the wraparound porch were missing, making it resemble the mouth of a cartoon character after it's taken a blow to the face.- look at your similes here. The first first is good and helps to set atmosphere and tone. Whilst the second is descriptive it almost undercuts the good work of the first one. It's too long and doesn't add to the tone, but detracts for it.
It also needed an appliance update (as at least one pair of sweats and two t-shirts had been mysteriously consumed by the dryer),- this isn't clear enough. I get trying to set the tone but if there were clothes left in the dryer, it would be bettter to say that. Consumed suggests gone, in which case the narrator wouldn't have known anything about them...
To be honest, the assumption the house was haunted doesn't come across in the opening, it just feels like an old abandoned house which needs work. Maybe inlude other details like coldness or sounds which could help create more of an eerier atmosphere.
and its where I liked to curl up - it's in this instance.
When I looked at glass door, which had misted over- at the glass door.
It made me wonder why the spirit had taken so lone so tell her to go away in the early sections. She'd obviously been living there for a long time at this point, given the initial state of the house and how it's presented up to this point, a considerable amount of time must have passed.
GO AWAY had been written with a fingertip.- minor point here, but how did she know it was a fingertip?
There, sprawled across the floor, were the broken pieces of my favorite mug / the porcelain shards had been arranged in a precise and straight line next to the kitchen sink, as if forbidding me to stand there.- these two descriptions don't add up. Can't be both.
I wouldn't use the capitals to signify the yelling as you've already told this by the proceeding tag.
It was as if someone had dropped a jar of marbles that rolled all over the attic floor--an attic that I wasn't even aware existed in this house.- how could she not know there was an attic? Even if there wasn't an entrance to it, she'd have know there was one by the shape of the house/roof.
so I moved methodically from room to room, searching the ceiling for an opening to the attic. Strangely enough, I didn't find one. - surely she'd have looked around the house once when she bought it and again when she moved in?
be careful with your adverb usage, they can signal a weakness in verb choice and tend to lean toward more telling than showing when you could strike a better balance.
I laid my head back on the pillow and took a deep breath before the sound that I was hearing finally - this reads a bit awkwardly.
from which I had been ordered by Jax XCAB to acquire items. - what is XCAB?
I decided to make a day of it: do some shopping at the stores that don't exist in small town Iowa, and drink enough caffeine to make my innards vibrate the entire way home.- why would she do this? It doesn't make much sense. She raced out of the house to get stuff she needed with such urgency and then doesn't return to do what must be done.
had left all of the lights on, and, apparently, the television--though I swore I had turned it off-- she didn't, she spoke to her sister and fled the house. No mention of turning anything off. it may be her perception but the reader knows.
and standing there, staring out at me, was a dark silhouette.- how did she know the silhouette was staring at her? A silhouette is just a dark shape. A human form has basically the same shape front or back. (pointing at her may be more effective)
expecting to see an dark entity materialize - a rather than an here.
I didn't really get why she'd been living in the titchy attic room when the entire house had been abandoned.
I found a certain disconnection between the title of the piece and the story itself. There weren't really any 'little scratches' throughout the tale. The description line, although intentional, may be a bit misleading.
It should also have a warning for language on it. I wouldn't use the full site one but a little disclaimer at the top.
The deep point of view and the central narrator are good and solid and give the reader a nice 'in' to the work. Some of the description is nice.
I think you could go further in creating a more eerie tone and atmosphere.
All the best
GMG
This rating does not count towards story rating or author rank.
The highest and the lowest rating are not included in calculations.
Comment Written 07-Sep-2022
reply by the author on 07-Sep-2022
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YES!!!!!!! This feedback is great and exactly what I was hoping for when I submitted this story. Thank you so much! I absolutely agree with all of your points. I chose the title "Little Scratches" because that's the meaning of the word "graffiti," and graffiti plays a key role in the story (the billboard, the shower door....), but perhaps that misses the mark. I will have another think! I am planning on printing out your review and going through it point by point. Again, I really, really appreciate this detailed response, and I am grateful that you took the time to read my story so carefully. Thank you!!
Comment from Douglas Goff
Very nice use of description words. Poignant yet beautiful flow. I was interested the whole way through. I would have rated a six star save the f word. I am no prude being a former Marine, but it didn't seem to fit with the rest of the beautiful lay-out of the piece. Like a fella wearing all black, except for one red sock. Anyways, I really enjoy your writing. Thanks!
reply by the author on 07-Sep-2022
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Very nice use of description words. Poignant yet beautiful flow. I was interested the whole way through. I would have rated a six star save the f word. I am no prude being a former Marine, but it didn't seem to fit with the rest of the beautiful lay-out of the piece. Like a fella wearing all black, except for one red sock. Anyways, I really enjoy your writing. Thanks!
Comment Written 07-Sep-2022
reply by the author on 07-Sep-2022
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Haha that makes perfect sense! Thank you for this great feedback, and for taking the time to read my story. I appreciate it!
Comment from Sanku
That really brought out goose pimples all over. Scary and chilling .Hope the person finally will find peace with the ghost .all the bet for the contest.
reply by the author on 07-Sep-2022
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That really brought out goose pimples all over. Scary and chilling .Hope the person finally will find peace with the ghost .all the bet for the contest.
Comment Written 07-Sep-2022
reply by the author on 07-Sep-2022
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Thank you so much for taking the time to read and review this story!! I'm so glad you enjoyed it!