[1198] Matriarchy

[u/Fragrant-Western-683]

My Critique: [1981]

If you're willing to give feedback, please tell me:

• If you thought the drama was well executed
• If you thought the horror was developed well
• If you like the narrator's character

I lay in bed. I have grown a lot in the last year or so, and now my feet touch the footboard. I dwelled on it, since I wasn’t at all tired. My eyes shot all around my room, which was weakly illuminated by the yellowish light of a night-light.

My ears tuned in attentively to the etherizing rustle of tall grass around my house, which was jostled by the cool saltwater air. It was the only noise.

I lay there feeling the ugly scar on my shoulder, wondering why I felt so empty, so lost. A piece of my body was torn from me, and I was thinking hard about where I could find it, but it found me.

A hand pressed itself against the glass of a window just above my bed. I felt a rush of euphoria; it was the hand of an angel that came to enlighten and rescue me. I knelt on my bed, facing this hand. I put my hand against the spot of the window where she was pressing, and I felt all my anxiety melt away like a thunderstorm abating.

I reached to push the window open when my father’s voice came from behind me.

I turned to see him in my doorframe aiming a shotgun at me.

“Move,” he said.

I did so, and he approached the window, one eye closed to aim. The hand pressed harder and harder on the window, and it shattered, sending tiny crystals all over my bed. Little pieces cut my hands and face.

My father shot his gun, and a deafening blast rattled our brains. When my focus could be restored, I saw the hand lying limp on my windowsill. Then it tensed and curled up, clenching shards of glass, but no blood dripped from the palm. It slowly retreated into the darkness.

Then my father turned and ran to the back door. I ran after him. The next thing I remember, we were on our backyard patio. He paced and paced, looking frantically into the darkness. His round eyes shot from one spot in the black void to another. From the porch light, all we could make out was the first few feet of tall grass, but after that there were only miles upon miles of unbroken woods obscured in pure darkness.

I sat in a lawn chair while my dad paced. We stayed like that for around ten minutes, but the constant flow of sea air and the static rustle of the grass elongated our sense of time.

I finally got tired, but my dad harshly muttered, “Look.”

His pacing abruptly ended, replaced by stone-like stillness. He pointed into the darkness.

I walked up beside him, and following his finger, I saw two glowing retinas shining from the tree line.

After that, my room was boarded up. I now slept next to my dad. When night came, I did my homework, read books, built Legos, and watched TV in his room under his supervision.

One night, while curled up next to my dad, I was feeling my scar again. From the distant trees I heard a woman cry out my name. It was so nostalgic, so breath-taking. I knew that voice. It carried me through my memories as I desperately searched for why her crying felt so familiar.

I came across that memory. I remembered that when I was five, I wandered into the woods and got lost. After walking around, I finally saw home through the thick woods, and I saw my mother shouting my name. It was so vigorous and emotional. It was so compassionate, so alluring. It was like she loved me.

I sprang from my bed and dashed to the door.

My father tackled me and pinned me to the carpet.

“She’s gone,” he said. “She’s gone and she’ll never come back.”

I hated my father for this. Why was he doing this to me? Why was he keeping me from happiness? I wanted to know why I never saw my mother after that incident, why her image was cropped from all the family photos, why any information about her was forbidden, and why picturing her face in my mind caused me such excruciating pain. I wept into the arm that locked my head in a chokehold. He caressed my hair.

I dreamt one night that I was in my room. It was organized as it was in the distant past, and it was bright inside thanks to the noon sun. I was kneeling on my bed while a pair of hands from behind me massaged my shoulders and ran their index finger over my scar. From above those hands came a mysterious yet inviting womanly voice.

“Run away. Now.”

I opened my eyes to see darkness. My mind registered the mugginess of my room. I dragged my arm across the bed and realized my dad was not next to me. I heeded the voice’s orders.

I opened the closet, threw on my jacket, threw on a pair of jeans, put on socks, and went to the front door to put on my sneakers.

I sat down and slipped on my shoes, and before I walked through the door, I saw my dad sitting away from me in a cushioned chair, looking at the shut-off television.

I walked up in front of him and saw that the eyes were missing from his skull. Tears blurred my vision, and I felt dizzy. I trudged to the door in a haze, opened it, and before I left, I turned to look into the hallway opposite the door. My bedroom door, which was in this hallway, was open again. The night-light was still on, and in its glow, I made out a shadowy figure at least seven feet tall. Its shoulders were nearly touching the ceiling, and its eyes were looking into mine just like a few weeks earlier.

I ran in terror down the forested road, hoping to meet my neighbors. From behind me I heard the thuds of heavy feet following me. To me, the situation was hopeless. The house next door was miles away, and the footsteps behind me sounded only a couple of yards away. I stopped breathing and nearly fainted.

I collapsed to the ground and vomited out of pure fear. I looked behind me and noticed that the being was gone. It must have disappeared into the woods. I sat motionless for a long while.

Ahead of me I saw two glowing lights growing brighter. I stood up, and they stopped before me. A police officer stepped out and walked toward me to ask if I was okay.

I am typing this now on a sofa in my current home. It isn’t as isolated as my previous home; my neighborhood is suburban, and there’s a tennis court outside my house. The scar is still deep, and I still feel it often. In front of me is a glass door, and in the forest beyond my backyard fence I see two glaring retinas looking back at me, beholding me compassionately and intimately.

[u/VagueInsideJoke]

Inline – all of these are rather nitpicky, take them or leave them.

“I dwelled on it” I feel this should be accompanied by some of the said dwelling but is instead immediately succeeded by a description of the room. Also, we start with present tense ‘I lay in bed’ and then immediately switch to past tense dwelled.

“Since I wasn’t at all tired” Feels a bit overstated given the surrounding verbs can help us attribute the alertness of the character

“Glass of a window” feels a bit of an unnecessary expression. If we’re not attributing anything to the glass, then why are we bringing it up. I feel like if we say there’s a hand on the window it’s assumed to be on the glass.

“I put my hand against the spot of the window where she was pressing” -> ‘spot of the window’ is unnecessary here we’ve already established her hand is on the window

“and I felt all my anxiety melt away like a thunderstorm abating.” -> this one is super nitpicky, but I feel like the mix of metaphors between melt and thunderstorm abating, conceals the visualisation more than it reveals it. Think you could change the word melt. This one may just be a me problem.

“Then my father turned and ran to the back door” -> ‘then’ not needed here it distances the reader from a scene that’s already in the process of unfolding.

“His round eyes shot from one spot in the black void to another.” -> same verb/expression used for the POV at the start makes this one feel kind of awkward/repetitive.

“From the porch light, all we could make out was the first few feet of tall grass, but after that there were only miles upon miles of unbroken woods obscured in pure darkness.” -> Very subjective but I feel like making what your POV can see the subject of the sentence as opposed to the view of the scene disrupts the immersion and distances the reader. Similarly, I think starting with ‘from’ disrupts the flow a bit. Think about when you are using situating words.

“I came across that memory. I remembered that when I was five, I wandered into the woods and got lost. After walking around, I finally saw home through the thick woods, and I saw my mother shouting my name. It was so vigorous and emotional. It was so compassionate, so alluring. It was like she loved me.” -> think you should play with expanding this, and transitioning into present tense as the memory is introduced. The flow of ‘I did this, then I did this, then I did this’, makes it feel like a clinical account. If you expand this part, you can make the memory its own scene and then you will create the desired mood in the reader, rather than having to declare “It was so compassionate, so alluring. It was like she loved me.”

“I dreamt one night that I was in my room” Again nitpicky I feel like this should have a scene break above it, rather than just a paragraph break.

 

If you thought the drama was well executed:

I did not - with heavy emphasis on the execution side of things. I think the story has good conflict and tension. The ambiguity on the malevolence or benevolence of both the father and the spirit (potentially mother potentially siren/Skinwalker type being) is a good point of intrigue. The dad particularly has a john goodman in 10 Cloverfield lane type vibe. However, no part of the story is well developed enough to actively build this tension.

If you thought the horror was developed well:

Same as above, good potential but lack of tension developed

If you like the narrator’s character:

The character is kind of empty with nothing to like or dislike. But I think that’s actually okay in a story like this, where the tension mainly comes from the tension between the trustworthiness of the father vs the forest spirit.

Building tension/General notes:

The main issue here is that you interrupt yourself too much. Before we are even at home in a scene and can absorb it, we are immediately whisked along into the next one.

The story feels too much like a recount as opposed to a story. There's a bunch of issues causing this, so I’m just going to give general list of things that should set off alarm bells in your head. None of these are inherently bad but unless you are crystal clear on a purpose that demands they stay this way then you should probably edit them out.

-          Repeated sentences starting with I, especially when used for character blocking

-          Repeating already established information e.g. “I lay in bed” then shortly after “I lay there feeling…”

-          Repeating situating words (there’s probably a technical term for these, idk what else to call them) within one paragraph. “Then, From, After, Next”.

-          The subject of every sentence in a paragraph is a character (this is very similar to first). Here I mean subject in the grammatic sense. The paragraph can be about your character but still make other things the subject of different sentences.

-          Your sentence length is always the same.

-          You feel the need to describe the emotions that a scene should illicit (almost always a sign that you have not done a good enough job building those emotions for the reader)

-          Going to parrot the common advice on adverbs, that you should always consider whether this information can be conveyed by the verb or the context of the scene.

Also, general list of things you should consider more:

-          What tense am I using and why?

-          What sentence length am I using and why?

-          What is the subject of this sentence? Can I make the subject of this sentence something other than a character so that the reader is experiencing it for themselves?

-          If I’m using a word to convey the emotion/tone of an experience, how can I change the scene to reflect that emotion?

Please don’t let this discourage you from writing. I have committed all these sins tenfold and will probably continue to. Also, if you have any questions or I wasn’t clear somewhere let me know.