OMG THIS NEEDS TO BE PUBLISHED SO I CAN RECOMMEND IT TO ALL MY FRIENDS! The rasputin comment was genuis! Its so fucking true. Four bullet wounds, blugening to death, posion and he still managed to escape his bonds when they dropped him in the river!33 I WANT TO BE YOU NO REALLY!

This is amazing! Seriously i wish i had your talent!

Christ.

This story is fantastic on so many levels. The imagery is just compelling. It's more than being able to see the characters... things just seem to jump out at me. Spencer's eyes, Brian's hair, the Tully family, St. Ivo's, the diner, Tabitha's laughter, Mercy's Jimmy Choos. Lilith's dreams about Sweeney Todd.

I have to admit, I'm hooked. :D

By the way of concrit, all I can think of is slight errors in grammar and sentence construction, but any good editor could fix them easily. It's the emotion that counts.

"Shit and piss, rotting meat and maggots, slowly festering as flies laid their eggs in her nostrils and all of the other parts that had caved in."

Oh yummy..

wow...that's just wow...well really freaky and captivating too..It's creepy but u can't help wanting to read more..

for the review game!

HOLY CRAP. I love the way you began this. It's so interesting. You never read of a character that does this and doesn't like it. And I love how you began with killing the elderly and then advertisements and then television and then...just wow. I am throughly impressed by this. Your main character seems very neat and I wish I knew her in real life. She'd be an interesting character (ha ha ha).

Great job. Just...wow.

I read the first chapter a while ago, so this review is a bit overdue. Sorry! P

Thank you for writing, and, despite my misgivings, it definitely was a pleasure reading.

REVIEW

This chapter started out with an interesting premise. The Main Character (MC) kills people, and does so using advertisement as though the killing was an actual business. There were details about the MC that fleshed out his/her life—details that were otherwise inconsequential to the plot, but gave a depth to the MC, which I usually prefer.

The only thing I had a problem with through the entire chapter was that the entire thing was more ‘tell’ rather than ‘show’. It reads very much like a journal entry, or a story being told to an unseen audience. This is more of a preference of mine, though, to read stories where the action is first and foremost, before the telling. And the MC really has a habit of telling that would’ve become tedious if the prologue had been any longer.

Other:

[Every time I plunged my knife inside, carving red hot tunnels of tissue, it was like I was right there with them, imagining what it felt like.]

The first time I read that sentence, I passed it over, thinking nothing of it. Now, though, I wonder why the MC has to kill them with a knife and do so violently enough that the word ‘carve’ as to be used? ‘Carving’ implies dragging a knife through the flesh, in this case, which doesn’t seem the quick and easy way out. ‘Plunging’ I could see; if a knife plunges into the chest cavity to the heart, that’s it. I admit that the mechanics of killing someone with a knife isn’t my forte, though.

[like I’m not breaking beneath a thin veneer made of spider webs]

I didn’t necessarily understand the comparison or mention of spider webs in the sentence above. It also seemed unnecessary, especially when in the same paragraph, the MC provides details that shows the reader more clearly how shaken up and at ease he/she is.

GRAMMAR REVIEW

1. [They’re good fliers, on the front is a picture of a beach in black and white- peaceful enough to make]

2. [transmitted at 8.12 pm on September 22nd 1955, the next morning Gibbs S R Toothpaste made front page]

3. [Quite the opposite actually, it used to make me feel sick to my stomach]

4. [When I was a child, I wanted to be Barbie, that way I could have a different career every week.]

Comma splice! After [good fliers], there’s another independent clause that has its own subject and verb.

It’s technically incorrect, because independent clauses should be separated by conjunctions, conjunctive adverbs, em dashes, semi-colons, colons, and or ending punctuation marks like periods and exclamation marks. Commas should only be used with conjunctions and conjunctive adverbs, because if they aren’t, the sentences they’re used in wherein they’re separating independent clauses becomes run-ons.

Excerpt 2 has the same problem, with the comma after [1955]. In excerpt 3, the implied ‘it’s’ before [Quite] serves as both subject and verb, so what follows after could stand on its own, because it does actually have its own subject and verb stated clearly. In excerpt 4, the comma after [Barbie] should be replaced, or a conjunction added in after it.

CONCLUSION

I don’t like the MC. Not because he/she kills people, but because killing people seems to have consumed her very life. It suggests that for the rest of the story, the MC will be troubled, even more troubled, even MORE troubled, then perhaps things might or might not get better. It also suggests that there’s a chance that drama and angst will take over everything, because the MC seems to have a tendency to focus on the negatives again and again until they mysteriously become positives.

I don’t think I’ll be able to make through a plot like that, no matter how interesting it is. I should have perhaps not clicked on and read through a chapter of a story that’s been categorized as horror, though.

Overall, there’s just the problem with run-on sentences. Otherwise, this chapter was pretty clean. Congrats! ;P

Hello~ This is for the game. :)

I really liked this chapter, especially when Bethany was describing her boyfriend a a caged bird, and when you talked about her cat.

This is going to be hard because, to my eyes, there are very few mistakes to point out.

I Have a question about this sentence "Nic pulled the car up to the large cast-iron gate, turning orange with rust and unwelcomingly decorated with a lock and bolt." I understood what you were trying to say, but it made me stop for a second, because the adjectives are placed so that it looks like you are describing Nic as "Orange with rust".

- Try it this way, "Nic pulled the car up to the large cast-iron gate, one that seemed to be turning orange with rust and was unwelcomingly decorated with a lock and bolt"

"Taking my hand in his own, which was littered with tiny scars, scabs and scorch marks he tried to pull me out of the car and P.S leapt from my lap..."

- You need a comma between 'scorch marks' and 'he'.

“Birds with sharp beaks who like to eat dead people,” he said nervously. “You know what a group of crows is called? A murder.”

“A group of owls is called a parliament, but that doesn’t mean they run the country, you giant wimp."

-XD I loved that. Just had to put it in there.

I really, truly cannot find anything else that I would have you change, besides that there are a few sentences here and there that are a bit like the rusty gate one. Just make sure it sounds right if you read it out loud to yourself.

I REALLY love this story so far. You have a wonderful skill, I will definitely be reading the next chapters. The ending of the chapter was Super-suspenseful. I cannot wait ;)

-Myth

ok. i am so creeped out right now.

it's because you're writing is so descriptive and i really like the plotline so far. (by the way, this seems like the type of story i'd pick up off a bookshelf, not read on fictionpress ;D)

now i'm going to continue reading...

Keep writing!

~DixieAusten

Oh wow, Ting Tong! You really know how to draw the reader in. Wonderful first line, it's a big exclamation mark because "why old people only?". I like the general atmosphere of the chapter so far. It has a sort of slice of life feel, but still dark (like her worrying that her bf is not sexually attracted to her before taking out the bodies, hah)

Biggest flaw is that I don't like when the narrator speaks to the audience. It is sort of awkward to read. Like you do here; "In case you’ve jumped to the wrong conclusion and I wouldn’t blame you if you did,". I am not sure how the general opinion on this is, though, so I am not even sure if I should urge you to follow my advise to remove it, haha.

Interesting so far, anyway!

- Frac

First of all, the hook in this was utterly fantastic. I did one of those almost-laughs when I read it. Second of all, the bluntness of the narrator is great; it's like she's funny, but not trying to be.

The third paragraph down confused me, though. Maybe instead of the comma after "They're good fliers", a period or semicolon would be better, to separate the different thoughts.

"September 22nd 1955" I think there should be a comma after the "22nd"; actually, I don't think the "nd" is needed at all.

"In case you’ve jumped to the wrong conclusion and I wouldn’t blame you if you did, I don’t kill people for fun."

I would put a comma between "conclusion" and "and", but I have a tendency to over-punctuate, so I'm not sure if that's just what I find easier to read.

This is very intriguing... I like the matter-of-fact way the narrator describes her hobbies (i.e. murdering).

Also, this:

‘SICK OF LIVING? We can help.’

For a moment I had a flash of Chuck Palahnuik (writer of Fight Club); I could totally see your narrator going to self-help groups and helping those that no longer wish to live, all the while complaining about her own problems.

The ending to the chapter was good too, because I'm interested to know why she kills and who the corpse is.

I must not have you on alerts.

Crap.

HI, HOW HAVE YOU BEEN? I am glad to see you writing stuff.

"killer" first line. okay, don't gut me for the bad joke. I MISSED YOU, so that's my excuse.

honestly, it's bad form to gut people who miss you.

I adore the section on advertisement and desensitis..ing... I dont think I spelled that right for some reason. anyway.

[...my drugs and my knife stuffed into an old canvas bag- because everyone knows plastic bags are murder for the environment.]

your word choice here is great.

I just love this story. very funny, very morbid, and just different. it's a great hook for the rest of the story!

"bits of their decomposed bodies sinking into the carpets." - disgusting as it is, I could really picture that. The body slowly collapsing and disintegrating. Eww.

"That jumper was Doreen Foxe’s swan song, her life’s work in knitted format. And it was crap." - BATHOS. ICH LIEBST ES. However, maybe you could use a more diverse range of swearwords? You seem to centre on only one or two.

Ooh! A reflective tone! :D

You set your stories all over the UK! Wales, and now down South. I like your diversity :). I wonder where your other story is set.

I like how real your characters are :D. It's so difficult to find characters quite as relateable to as yours :).

Sputum coming out of her mouth? Gross. But that word always makes me giggle xD.

"The front of the school was large and imposing, many windows some missing glass and lining the brickwork," - that part doesn't make sense to me.

You personified crows :D. I get the feeling they're relevant to the story somehow.

I never knew a group of owls were called a parliament xD, but I can see where the collective term could have been derived from.

"I thought Crows only gathered in, like, cemeteries or where people die.” Where buildings died." - I don't know why I loved that line, except that I did.

Allusions to the Titantic! Wow o_O.

Oh, and I forgot to say before: you need to sort out your summary. It's all helter-skelter and looks messy.

The dead woman was described...excellently o_o. And I have no idea what's going on here, but it's good.

xD, fixation with the word 'sputum' much?

That was...some ending to the chapter. I only wish I'd been more constructive, but your writing was, as ever, almost perfect xD. I love your stories :).

I liked the poem that you quoted at the beginning, but not the poet. I still think he's an aberrative human being for how he treated Sylvia Plath.

I liked the blunt honesty of the first line. Nice black humour xD.

Wouldn't "TIRED OF LIVING?" have been more effective? It implies a form of closure through peaceful means: an eternal sleep.

I liked the inclusion of the fact about the adverts: it showed you'd researched things :).

"because everyone knows plastic bags are murder for the environment." - xD.

A female serial killer? Oo, a nice twist on the stereotype.

As of Christmas Eve when? The Christmas Eve which has just passed for her? One which passed 8 years ago!

"‘Do It Yourself Euthanasia Barbie’" - I have a small quibble with that. This being that Euthanasia is not suicide because it is a specific term in which a victim requires assistance in death. So I don't know how 'do it yourself' works out...

xD. This whole thing is a twist on the Twilight books, right? I like the idea :), really good twist. Your plot already completely dominates Meyer's. I only wish that were more of a compliment.