# Backwoods Kingdom



## MacDub (Oct 5, 2012)

_*(Disclaimer: contains laguage and concepts that some may find offensive or abrasive)*_
_I began this writing exploration after I awoke from a dream at about 4am some time ago. I am interested in technical and thematic critique. The idea arrived as a telling of childhood stories as if they actually happened. The Idea occured to take the childhood banter of ghost stories and make them real in a story. I have many more, as I remember alot of things with clarity. I have only shared this write with one other person, who knew and experienced the same stories. This is just the intro taste of it, with the intention of setting the scene. I look forward to any form of critique. So, here we go...._

_*(rewrites included in this post... I intend to grab hold of this story correctly at the introduction, so that I can confidently adventure into the rest of the story. I hope to refine the intro in the forge of critique.)*_

*THE BACKWOODS*

  "Don't ever go under the slide," he said and wiped a dribble of runny snot from the tip of his nose.
  "Why not? I gotta go pee," the smaller child said. He shuffled his feet and peered under the slide.
  "The ghost will get you," the older child said authoritatively.
  The green slide stood in the middle of a single lot park surround by a chain link fence on three sides. A large pasture lay beyond the fence where one lone donkey lazily grazed. A row of houses lined the far side of the street at the front of the small park.
  "What ghost," the younger child asked with wide eyes. His pee dance grew more urgent with excitement.
  "You don't know about the ghost under the slide," the older kid asked with a furrowed brow and gave the younger child a brotherly punch on the arm. "You don't know anything."
  "Hey," the younger child protested and rubbed his arm. A few squirts of escaped piss darkened his pants. "I really gotta go. Under the slide is the only place where the people won't see me." He looked over to the front windows of the houses across the street.
  "A girl died on the slide. Now her ghost hides under it," the older child said.
  "How can you die on a slide," the younger child asked. The pain and discomfort of needing to pee became unbearable and more piss escaped. He stepped under the slide.
  "She had a dog leash around her neck," the older child said and sniffled back his runny nose. "I guess she was playing like she was a dog."
  The younger child unzipped with fingers so cold they had swollen and become a bit numb. The pee flew from him before he could take proper aim. He looked deep into the shadows beneath the slide where the end touched the ground. Something seemed to glimmer deep in the darkness.
  "She fell off the top of the slide and the leash got stuck on the hand rail up there," the older child said and looked to the top of the slide. Ten steps led to the top where the hand rails stopped.
  Despite the relief of draining himself, the younger child grew more anxious and pushed with all his might to finish the piss. The glimmering thing he thought he saw deep in the shadows under the slide sparkled more clearly. It seemed to be moving toward him from a space in the shadows as deep as the night sky. "Oh, man," he quietly muttered.
  "They found her hanging from the leash. Dead." The older kid snorted up a wad of snot from his runny nose and spat it on the ground.
 "Oh, man. Oh, man," the younger child muttered, trying to stop his stream of piss.
  The younger child could hear a guttural gasping moving toward him from the shadows beneath the slide. Then he saw it. The hand with skin as white as paper grasped for him from the darkness where the end of the slide met the ground.
  He saw it's face and it's unfocused eyes bulging from their sockets. It's mouth gasped like a fish out of water and the tongue writhed like a worm on a hook. The younger child screamed and ran out from beneath the slide, still squirting piss, and ran into the older child in panic.
  "I saw her," the younger child yelled. The last of his piss spattered on the older kids shoes. They nearly tumbled over, but the older kid grabbed the younger and aimed him away.
  "Run," the younger kid yelled again. He could still see something moving under the slide. He zipped his pants back up in a panic, nearly escaping injury.
  The younger kid broke free and ran wildly to the street. The older kid quickly followed and looked back over his shoulder at the green slide. He thought he saw something reaching out from beneath the slide as he fled.
  "I told you," the older kid yelled at the younger as they jumped over the chain at the entrance of the park. They ran up the street until they lost their breath.

  After several moments of catching their breath, the two began to walk up the hill. Still a bit out of breath, the younger child rubbed his pants where they had become wet with piss. He tried to dry it out with his hand by discretely rubbing, hoping it would not be noticed.
  The small mill town suburb consisted of two circular blocks on a hill. If one looked at it from the sky it would look like a figure eight or the symbol for infinity. The two kids walked up the hill where the upper block met the lower block.
  "You pissed your pants," the older kid took notice of the dark piss mark. "You little baby."
  "I am not a baby," the younger kid gave up on drying himself. He wiped his hand on his coat and smelled the palm of his hand. "I want to go home."
  "Baby, baby suck your thumb. Your brains are made from bubble gum," the older kid taunted the younger and gave him a shove.
  "I'm rubber, you're glue," the younger said catching his footing. "Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you."
  "Let's go see if Benjim is home," the older kid said, apparently giving up on the argument of who's brains were made of what and where insults actually stayed.
  "Okay, wait a sec. I want to take a look," the younger kid stepped up on the curb.
  A tall wooden fence surrounded the yard of a house that took up two lots. The second lot area had a swimming pool. There were a few places where the kids had found loose knots in the boards to open a peek hole in the fence. One summer day, a group of women were spotted in the pool wearing bikini swim suits.
  Even though it was a cold autumn day, the younger kid couldn't risk missing a chance at a peek through the fence at the pool. He found the knot hole at his height and picked at it until the knot dropped to the ground at his feet. He peered in.
  "Anything," the older kid asked. He knew the pool would be empty because he could see his breath, but still the itch of hope remained in all the boys on the block throughout the year.
  "Nope," the younger kid said. "Hey, there's a sign on the other fence. What does that say?"
  The older kid picked the knot free from his peek hole and caught it in his hand. He saw the new sign.
  "It says 'We don't swim in your toilet, don't pee in our pool'," the older kid read out loud as the younger kid picked up his peek hole knot and carefully replaced it.
 "I can't wait for summer," the younger kid said to the older and continued up the hill.
 "Yah," the older said as he replaced his own knot hole.

  The boys arrived at Benjim's house and knocked on the door. A thin woman answered the door.
  "Hi guys," she smiled.
  "Can Benjim come out and play," the younger asked hopefully.
  The thin woman first noticed the faint reek of piss and saw the mud on the boys shoes and pants.
  "Benjim," she called into the house. "Your friends are here."
  "Coming, mom," Benjim yelled from his bedroom.
  "So what are you boys up to today," she asked.
  "I want to go ride bikes," the older said.
  "I want to go build a fort," the younger said.
  "Well, whatever you guys do," she said. "Remember to be back when the street lights turn on."
  A pounding of footsteps thundered down the hallway into the living room. Benjim ran to the front door with a plastic machine gun shouldered. He strafed and ducked from wall to wall and behind furniture as the gun clicked away.
  The younger kid fell to the ground in a very painful mock death on the doorstep. "You got me," he gasped and blankly stared open eyed to the sky.
  Benjim jumped out of the front door and stood above the younger with the plastic machine gun aimed at his heart. "You're dead."
  "Well, you boys have fun," the thin woman said. "Don't stay out too late."
  She closed the door and the younger kid got up and tried to wrestle the plastic machine gun from Benjim's hands.
  "Let's go work on the fort," the younger kid said as he struggled against the might of the bigger kid.
  "I wanna go ride bikes," the older kid stated. "Let's go to the old road."
  "Okay," Benjim said and tossed the plastic machine gun into the front lawn of his house. He ran for his garage where he kept his bike.
  The other two boys ran across the lawn and dashed through a hedge. Their bikes were in their garage next door. All three boys met up on their bikes in the street.

**(half intro rewrite added to first post 10-12-12)**

Patches of clearcut land scarred the evergreen forests that reached up  to often rainy skies. The mountains they grew upon climbed and dived  steeply from the valley to the ocean, keeping many secrets in the rugged  terrain. Sawmills had begun a transition to becoming producers of paper  pulp. Lumber still rode on cars down railroad tracks, but the trees  became less fit for the blade. Small towns burrowed in around these  mills.

Siblings, Danil and James, grew up in the suburb of one of those  miniscule towns. The suburb consisted of two blocks, where the streets  ran in the pattern of the figure eight. Houses lined the inner and outer  sides of the circles. The street of the first block led downhill to the  lower circle. Kids who grew up on the outer sides of the circles had  the forest at the gate of their backyards.

The lower circle rounded close to a river still affected by tides. Parts  of the mill operation lay just beyond the river across a trestle.  Churning ponds of hot effluent wafted through the vision of the mill.  Hundreds of lights glowed, even in the daytime, on tall structures made  of metal and railings. A giant tube jutted up into the sky, spewing  steam into the sky like a giant fart pipe aimed at the heavens.

Even with the distance between the playground and the mill, where Danil  and James spent time, a stranger might have noticed the tinge of sulphur  in the air. A chain link fence surrounded the single lot park on three  sides, around the green slide. It's shadow stretched into the large  pasture beyond. A row of houses watched from across the street through  the dead eyes of their front windows. 

"Don't ever go under the slide," Danil said and wiped a dribble of runny snot from the tip of his nose.

"Why not? I gotta go pee," the James said. He shuffled his feet and peered under it.

"The ghosts will get you."

Only a few weeks before, a young girl found the leash and collar of her  family's dog. Her parents thought it cute how she crawled around yelping  and barking, pretending  to be a dog. She wandered across the street to  play in the park and climbed to the top of the slide. When her parents  looked out their window to check on their daughter, they saw her  swinging from the end of the leash. The collar clenched tightly around  her dead neck with the end of the leash wrapped around the top rail of  the green slide. This set the talk amongst the neighborhood kids afire,  and renewed half forgotten stories known only by older kids.

"I really gotta go. That's the only place where people won't see me."

Thoughts swirled through James's mind while pressure and pain built in  his bladder. He stepped from foot to foot with a wiggle and clenched  with all his might. The thought of pissing his pants reddened his face,  while the thought of getting in trouble for being seen pissing in the  park soured his stomach. 

"Aren't you scared of the ghost's under the slide," Danil asked and punched James's shoulder. "God! You are so stupid!"

"Hey." A few squirts of escaped piss darkened his pants as James tried  to recover his footing. The muscles in his shoulder cramped into a  knotted monkey bump from the knuckled punch.


----------



## FleshEater (Oct 5, 2012)

This story needs broken up with breaks; the conversation becomes a bit hard to follow when it's all bunched together. 

Also, with this type of story I think you could easily get away from describing who is talking each time. Noting each boy with added little gestures felt a bit repetitive and redundant. 

The ending...I would really cut this short and just eliminate telling the story any further than them running from the ghost. When there was no big reveal I found myself disappointed by the time I finished the last sentence. I think if you cut it short and really worked on just the ghost, possibly building more tension, more action, then this story would come to life.


I loved the idea though. Kids and their stories are always creepy.


----------



## Nickleby (Oct 5, 2012)

I realize this is just a rough draft and a bare introduction. A few suggestions:

The transition from "glimmering thing" to a concrete hand and face seems abrupt. You could heighten the suspense by adding an intermediate stage or two. That would draw out the sequence, which is the first time we see the ghost, to underscore its importance and the boy's terror. You might want to withhold some details of its appearance as well. The scariest parts of these stories are the ones the reader has to supply.

Another way to underscore the boy's panic is to make it contagious. The older boy doesn't seem to feel the same urgency that the other does, but that's what you want the reader to feel.

"nearly escaping injury" makes it sound like he almost avoided the injury but didn't. Every one of your male readers will get goosebumps. I guess that's a good thing in this context.

In this case you want _discreet_, not _discrete_.

The possessives of _it_ and _who_ are _its_ and _whose_.

This is not directed at you specifically. in a story with child characters, remember that the world is still fresh for them. Often they are doing things and seeing things for the first time. That constant sense of discovery is sometimes missing because the writer has forgotten his or her own childhood. Stephen King, to take one example, knows how to handle child characters.


----------



## Jon M (Oct 5, 2012)

Nickleby did a great job highlighting some of the technical issues. I just wanted to drop by and say that I did enjoy the story. Little details, like the kid wiping his runny nose, were effective at creating realism and pulling me in. I like how these details were occasionally repeated throughout the story. Shows you didn't forget, and I appreciated that continuity.

Did not like the older boy / younger boy names for the characters. Seems like it would be easier and more worthwhile in the long-term to just give them names.

With dialogue, rhythm is important. When every line has a beat (which is the action that follows a line of dialogue), the rhythm is very slow and repetitive. Ideally, you want areas in the dialogue where it speeds up (no dialogue tags, no beats), and times where it slows down (beats). And this manipulating of rhythms can be effective, too, for example when the kids get scared the dialogue can speed up. This gets the reader reading quickly, which creates some tension, a rushing feeling.

But like I said, I did enjoy this. Was very nostalgic. I am old enough that I did all of these things. So I was very much into the scene, even if the descriptions were sometimes spare or lacking. Spend time with the details.

Also, the suggestion to include intermediate steps is spot-on. The scare at the beginning happened too fast.


----------



## MacDub (Oct 5, 2012)

_Sharing something on the forum is sort of a scary experience for a new member. I have read and commented on the work of other people, which didn't seem quite right to me, because I had not been equally exposed. I am glad that I posted this rough introduction to a story. Thanks to those who read it and had something to say about it. This is probably a new member reaction, but I spent a bit of time writing a response to the responses. In hindsight, it might seem like I am taking a defensive stance, but that is not the case. This seems to be part of my process for now, where I explain what I had attempted while digesting the reaction to the attempt. Thank you all much for taking the time to read into this and responding._

I have been on other forums where I took the time to format what I wrote, but found that they did not stick after posting. I should have known better, Pouring this in directly from a simpletext does make for a poor reading experience.

I haven't come up with character names yet, This happens to me alot when I begin a new exploration, I have an idea of who the characters are, but I find that I put in place holders for the names until I really decide what I want to call them. It's more difficult than naming a new pet for me. I also have a weird tendency to make up strange names by glomming two common names together. Benjim for example. Sometimes I use those for place holders and sometimes they stick. I wonder if that's too weird.

I can see how I don't need to identify each speaker in the dialogue. Being that there are only two characters speaking there, it is not so good to tell the reader who is speaking. Probably insulting to the reader and most importantly throws off the timing and flow.

This is only an introduction for the story to follow. It is not meant to be totally complete. I think I tried to make each segment a mini-story, where one event runs through it's own course leading into the next event over the arc. For me, this set the scene for a place to play in writing.

I attempted to use the urgency of having to pee really bad to express that discomfort and pain. I also tried to express that in the opposite with trying to stop peeing. Gah, maybe not the best device, but I tried the idea that it is a tension that everyone can remember. Maybe, if I could be more descriptive of the characters experience, it could be saved? I think I am relying too much on expecting the reader to see that and remember their own personal experiences. Would writing that out be over the top? I thought it would work to have the character in a situation where he had to go somewhere he didn't want to go and then to not be able to leave that place because he had gone there. Clearly, I am not communicating that in the story.

I think that I am going for more of a Tideland vibe in the experience of childhood. Personally I am not a huge fan of that movie, not just because The Dude did not abide, but it did inspire some ideas. The way that kids are so open and accepting of whatever happens in their experience, because they have very limited experience, is something that many people forget. The strangest thing might seem normal to the fresh slate of a child, because there is very little in their own experience to tell them that something was off kilter.

_Thanks again for taking the time to read into this blurb. I am open to dialogue that does not directly relate to the presented work, as long as it relates to what has been written in this thread. I do want to improve on this writing because I enjoy the journey it takes me on.
_
*-MacDub*

*Edit in* - Also, hearing that this receives a sense of nostalgia, I am wondering  if that should be left open. A general reader would not want to hear my  nostalgia explained in detail. I wonder if the limiting of some  descriptives should be left up to the reader. Part of the the intention  is to inspire that rememberance. 
I aslo tend to start stories with weird acts of strangness. After that I let the characters settle. I am beginning to think that this is not a viable tactic.

** I am still thinking about how I can expand on the beginnings of the into. I used the urgency of someone fit to burst by bladder. I am not sure I could draw that out much without taking away from that urgency. It might be worse if I drew that scene out and lost the sense of urgency. Perhaps I didn't stress those urgencies enough. I already know I have alot of work to do on this endeavor, and it's great to have feedback. Well, back to thinkin' on it.


----------



## GonneLights (Oct 6, 2012)

*I adore this more than you could ever know.

*The _vulgarity. _Good GOD. I adore that. I don't believe you even swore once, but it's absolutely disgusting. _A few squirts of escaped piss/more piss escaped_, etc. I really adore that. The kids are saying pee and your'e saying piss. You set up a Narrator-Character dichotomy - regalia, like you want. When my father tells stories of his childhood, it's always accompanied by the most heinous of vulgarity (he having lived in Glasgow for many years, Northern Ireland the rest), and it reminds me very much of that. '_I'm talkin', this c*** wazza size o' a f-' etc. _And it's all about being 6. I do it, too. We all do. And that makes it so glorious and realistic. That, to me, was the great shine of this story. Adult narrator, child characters. A good writer should be a pedophile, as much as we're voyeurs and stalkers and all other taboos. Surround kids with things kids shouldn't see. You didn't go balls-to-the-walls with the vulgarity, which is what I would have done, but nevertheless the object/subject dichotomy is set. Good for horror.

The style, yeah, it's clunky. The opening lines really had me, though, I mean it really got me.
_"Don't ever go under the slide," he said and wiped a dribble of runny snot from the tip of his nose.
"Why not? I gotta go pee," the smaller child said. He shuffled his feet and peered under the slide.

_But after that, as said, it drones. An alternative that I would do, instead of just taking out all the actions, which are cute and I feel important, I'd reduce it to something like this;

_"What ghost," wide eyes, pee dance growing urgent
"You don't know about the ghost under the slide," furrowing his brow, a brotherly punch on the arm. "You don't know anything."
"Hey!" rubbing his arm. A few squirts of escaped piss darkened his pants. "I really gotta go. Under the slide is the only place where the people won't see me." He looked over to the front windows of the houses across the street.
"A girl died on the slide. Now her ghost hides under it,"
"How can you die on a slide," The pain and discomfort of needing to pee became unbearable and more piss escaped. He stepped under the slide.
"She had a dog leash around her neck," sniffing back his runny nose, "I guess she was playing like she was a dog."
The younger child unzipped with fingers so..._

Now, I'm in that sort of imagist-futurist model of thought. I personally would just reduce it to 'Hey, what do you know' windows on houses, 'you don't know anything' ghosts etc. nonsense, so, take anything I say with a pinch of a salt. Don't by any means do anything I suggest - I'm giving you _examples. _But the important lesson is - be always economical. We, as readers, have immense imaginations. The word 'sex' can trigger a million different things in one persons mind. 'Make love' gives it a whole new timbre, compared to 'Screw'. If you say, 'They had sex gently, tenderly, lovingly...' it's nice, but wordy and clunky. 'They made love', everyone from Leipzig to Saigon knows what you're talking about. Saying 'They had sex hard, fast, like two monkeys...' is nice, but again; 'They screwed.' There is a time for the former, they are poetry. Languid, long, superfluous, flowery. Word Painting, we call it. There is a time for that. But not _here. _Here is a time for making love or screwing. A basic knowledge of semantics, and an eye for post-Reading Comprehension level grammar will serve you well. Think Hemmingway, but not foppish and Lost Generation. Hemmingway created tension - The opening scene to The Killers is lifted from Hemmingways short story of the same name. The dialogue is almost word-for-word, and that scene is _tense. _The writing in that story is very sparse and usual. The only possible visible extraction was that of off-the-wall high-tensity. Remember that.

As for the scary bit - eughk. "_it's unfocused eyes bulging from their sockets. It's mouth gasped like a fish out of water and the tongue writhed like a worm on a hook." _This isn't tense, frightening or even fun to read. It gets in the way of the impeccable style of the rest of it. Your description needs work, I feel. But, in this context... Think of Lovecraft. I'm certain you've read Lovecraft. Dagon is the best thing you could possibly read, I think, if you're trying to create tension, which I feel that you are, and if you're not, should be. In Dagon, Dagon is never described. He's marooned on a wasteland, does eerie exploring, he's creeped out, finds strange things, puts it all together and then the climactic finish - '_Oh god! That hand! That hand! At the window!'. _We all know what a hand looks like. I've got two, you've got two, Jon's got two, Flesh's got two, Nickle's got two, etc. We've seen plenty of hands. But it's tension, tension, tension, tension, tension. Image. Let me illustrate it this way; you cannot write a snuff film. You're allowed to publish the most grotesque works of literature known to man, and sell it to anybody, but you can't put that on a television show and play it during the day. If you film a brutal castration, that's disgusting and everyone gets upset. If you write about it, we all just gloss over the gory bits. You might have a few horrid descriptions that make us go 'ew' but we, as relatively sensitive human beings, don't actually imagine it, we don't let ourselves. So, you have to trick the mind into seeing something horrible, by holding a common, recognisable image against a horrible backdrop. With Dagon, the tension was all built up and the climax was at the hand. I was very disturbed by that hand, but if you just wrote down, 'That hand! That hand!' it'd mean nothing. Go further, describe a horrible, gangly aquatic hand rapping at my window. Does nothing. At the end of Dagon, hits. You need to hit.

The scare doesn't happen in the first paragraph. This is all tension. Not only have you created a sentence that is fundamentally unfrightening, but you've ruined any possibility of the story becoming frightening at any point. Because now I know all I have to fear is a thirsty old hag, really. I see that every day at the off-license, right? Every time I go and visit my grandmother, that's the image... I'm really not scared by this thing, so the rest of the story is just me reading about boys being potentially frightened. Then I feel a bit pervy. A writer should be a pedo, not a reader. I don't want to read about little boys getting scared, I wanna be in among the terror. My advice? Don't describe it at all. Don't describe it all! Have him run out terrified. The other boys going, 'I told you! I told you!' and the kid is just pure white. I know something really is under that slide. And the more tense you make the lead-up, the more horrifying the overall sense of dread is going to be. You have the potential to give me a phobia of slides. Do it. I wanna be scared of slides, I want everyone to be scared of slides, because then I can say, 'I once criticised an author who started a mass-epidemic of lapsophobia. To his FACE!' Imagine if, after your novel, children became so afraid of slides that play parks all had to be build without slides, and slides became a historic thing, like the Iron Maiden or the Stretcher? That'd be a _powerful _thing to evoke. And, you've got the ability to that, here. I mean, nothing was worse for the Clown business than The Thing, right? 

Build slow, be tense, don't be pretentious, be economical, and play to your strengths, which are; Characterisation, Narrative and Voice. Also, I disagree entirely that the Younger Boy and the Older Boy should be given names. Me and all of my literary friends pride ourselves in what we call Unnamed Characters, and but for the main character and a select few others, all of our characters don't have names. The story I just posted, apart from the characters Jack (I, the narrator), Brigitte and Ryul, they're all 'The Connection,' 'The Dealer,' 'The Dominatrix'. In my last thing I posted here, there was only one named character in the whole thing, Carlo. The rest were 'The Sailor,' 'The First Mate,' 'The Rebel,' etc. I have a friend who's actually been published, he has a very long and arduous Western novel called, uh... Jesus. I can't remember the name. Sorry. Up for 30 hours. Caffein. Uh... Anyway, apart from David, the main character, it's all 'The Indian,' 'The Cowboy,' 'The Pinkerton,' whatever else. And, this is not a new tradition. Go to Steinbeck. 'The Chinaman,' etc. Go to Iron Age Hittite Mythology - 'The Sea god', 'The Sea God's Daughter', 'The Storm God', 'The Storm God's Daughter', these were the actual names of their deities. Just, make them _proper _nouns. Capitalise them. The Younger Boy and the Older Boy, and then Benjim and the rest of the crew. I think it is one of the most beautiful and charming of literary traditions and am keen to see it continue.

Other appraisals; the fact that the boys just forgot all about the ghost after seeing it is just _gold. _That's such a boyish thing. The characterisation, the interplay - 'I wanna ride bikes.' and they all ride bikes. The dominance the Older Boy has, that's absolutely glorious. You have depicted power roles between the wolf pack - you have essentially created a wolf pack subtext, which is very rare in literature. It's usually father/son, homosexual lovers or something more mystical. You've got this great, Gebo thing going on, and it's really wonderful, and the piece deserves a great deal of praise for that alone. I think, if you are receptive of the criticism you've received - all of which is excellent, which shows that you've got an excellent piece, never fall caprice to the notion that a good piece receives jaded criticism. The stronger a piece, the more serious the critique - and you work it out into a proper story, it'll be really, really glorious. This has sooooooooo much potential, as an intro to a much longer, flaying thing.


----------



## MacDub (Oct 6, 2012)

Thanks for the indepth reaction and insights you offered in your response, KarKingJack.
All the feedback I received is very encouraging and helpful. I want to go back and seriously revise.
Would it be appropriate to post the revise?
Originally  I wanted to write this out as a series of ghost stories strung  together. I hadn't intended on it being all about the ghost under the  slide, but KarKingJack's comments left an impression on me. I had hoped  that it would set the tone for a series of events, and the ghost under  the slide would just be the introductory event of everyday occurances  for these kids.
Now, I am totally inspired with greater focus, direction, and excitement. Back to writing....
Thanks again.
*-MacDub*


----------



## MacDub (Oct 6, 2012)

_*Better or worse?*_

*Backwoods Kingdom (revised/redefined)*

"Don't ever go under the slide," he said and wiped a dribble of runny snot from the tip of his nose.

"Why not? I gotta go pee," the Younger Child said. He shuffled his feet and peered under it.

"The ghost will get you," the Older Kid said with authority.

The green slide stood in the middle of a single lot park, surrounded by a chain link fence on three sides. It's shadow stretched into a large pasture. A row of houses lined the far side of the street.

"What ghost," the Younger Child asked. His pee dance grew more urgent.

"You don't know about the ghost under the slide?" The Older Kid furrowed his brow and punched the Younger Child on the arm. "You don't know anything."

"Hey," the Younger Child protested and rubbed his arm. A few squirts of escaped piss darkened his pants. "I really gotta go. That's the only place where people won't see me." He cast a glance at the windows.

"A girl died on the slide. Now her ghost hides under it."

"How can you die on a slide," the Younger Child asked. Unable to endure the pain, he stepped under the slide.

"She had a dog leash around her neck," the Older Kid said and sniffled back his runny nose. "Pretending she was a dog."

The Younger Child unzipped with swollen fingers numbed by the cold. His piss flew aimlessly. Something glimmered in the shadows where the end of the slide met the ground.

"She fell off the top and her leash got stuck on the hand rail."

"Oh, man." The glimmer moved closer within the darkness.

"They found her hanging here. Dead." The Older Kid snorted up a wad of snot from his runny nose and spat it on the ground.

The Younger Child screamed and ran out from beneath the slide. "I saw her." The last of his piss spattered on the Older Kid's shoes. "Run!"

Without hesitation, the two boys broke into a wild run and jumped over the chain at the park entrance. "I told you," the Older Kid yelled between breaths. They sprinted up the hill until they ran out of breath.

*-MacDub*

_*edits in - I already want to change "furrowed his brow" to "scowled". I am wondering if this edit has taken away from the things that people reacted to or if it has impoved on it. I look forward to, and hope for, more feed_back.


----------



## MacDub (Oct 6, 2012)

_also want to add a take on dialogue only:_

"Don't ever go under the slide."

"Why not? I gotta go pee."

"The ghost will get you."

"What ghost?"

"You don't know about the ghost under the slide? You don't know anything."

"Hey, I really gotta go. That's the only place where people won't see me."

"A girl died on the slide. Now her ghost hides under it."

"How can you die on a slide."

"She had a dog leash around her neck, pretending she was a dog. She fell off the top and her leash got stuck on the hand rail."

"Oh, man."

"They found her hanging here. Dead."

"I saw her. Run!"

"I told you!"

_-that was the dialogue. perhaps it could be the script I found in the story. everything I write wrote must have been an attempt at acting it out in words. I am still trying to pick this thing apart and make it better. Thanks for your parts of the journey. Endless Gratitide. *- MacDub*_


----------



## FleshEater (Oct 7, 2012)

MacDub; I liked the second version much more EXCEPT for the lack of showing the cold, dead hand creeping out from beneath the slide. I wouldn't hesitate at all in putting something about that back in. The ending, the very ending was superb however. 

I'd go into more detail but I'm on an iPad...these are awful to type on. 

Definitely a drastic improvement!


EDIT: I also loved that you capitalized Older Kid and Younger Kid...very nice.


----------



## Jon M (Oct 7, 2012)

The ending, while improved, still comes on too abruptly, and now there is also the rather strange image of the younger kid running away with his junk hanging out because the writing doesn't specify that he zipped his trousers. 

And the capitalization of older / younger kid is annoying and technically incorrect.

Your writing here is very spare. It is essentially just beats of dialogue and very little descriptive prose, unlike the first version. Story needs to be beefed up more. Thick, chunky paragraphs of scene-setting, descriptions of the kids, their actions, their thoughts, etc.


----------



## MacDub (Oct 7, 2012)

Having made the attempt at readressing the characters (and all), I think the next rewrite will have them as Kid and Child rather than Older Kid and Younger Child.
I agree with you FleshEater, and  I want to bring that element back as the kids run away from the playground. I plan to have the Child look over his shoulder and see the hand clawing in the sand from under end of The Slide as they jump over the chain.
*Looking forward to more critique -MacDub*


----------



## MacDub (Oct 7, 2012)

Oh, Jon. For you, I will return the line about "nearly escaping injury". 

otherwise, I did worry about about taking this thing down a tone or two and stripping it bare boned. BUT... now that I found it's skeleton.... I can have fun putting some flesh back in it.
*Regardless... I still need more feedback... please.  -MacDub*


----------



## MacDub (Oct 7, 2012)

gotta ask.. most of what I cut out was my own voice. That is apparent when I presented only the dialogue. I think I need advice on my story telling and interaction... or what... I am not even sure what to ask. I do think it refined greatly, and maybe now I need to re-enter my narrrative voice, but if that musses the story up again... well... I don't know what to think.


----------



## GonneLights (Oct 7, 2012)

LOL@now all the advice you're getting is conflicting

I actually preferred the first version to the two modifications. I think you're definitely right, about the voice. I would try either completely rewriting it with the new considerations, or completely discarding the new considerations and writing more with them in mind. The latter would be my preference - then there'll be a slight altering in style, it might be improved and you'll fill it with your voice. Then you can just shape up the first section into the same style as the rest. I have never edited something based on criticism from this website, but I always take the criticism on board entirely, if you get what I mean?


----------



## FleshEater (Oct 8, 2012)

Jon M is right about the capatilization not being "proper". However, I think it adds a sense of style to the writing. I just posted a story that capitalizes randomly near the end of the story, just to add importance to the line. 

Maybe try keeping the dialogue but then setting aside some time to describe what the younger character might be feeling, what the settig is. Breaking up character dialogue with well wrote descriptive dialogue makes for a great story. You could have the presentation of the "ghost story" come to fruition first, but then break to describe the setting, the chill that lingers in the air, etc. etc. Then once the boy sees something take a second to describe the panic that rushes into him and really make us feel the fear that is suffocating him. Break up these descriptions of emotions or scenery with spacing though so we know that we're stepping back and perceiving it as a narrator rather than a character.


----------



## MacDub (Oct 12, 2012)

*(half intro rewrite)*

Patches of clearcut land scarred the evergreen forests that reached up to often rainy skies. The mountains they grew upon climbed and dived steeply from the valley to the ocean, keeping many secrets in the rugged terrain. Sawmills had begun a transition to becoming producers of paper pulp. Lumber still rode on cars down railroad tracks, but the trees became less fit for the blade. Small towns burrowed in around these mills.

Siblings, Danil and James, grew up in the suburb of one of those miniscule towns. The suburb consisted of two blocks, where the streets ran in the pattern of the figure eight. Houses lined the inner and outer sides of the circles. The street of the first block led downhill to the lower circle. Kids who grew up on the outer sides of the circles had the forest at the gate of their backyards.

The lower circle rounded close to a river still affected by tides. Parts of the mill operation lay just beyond the river across a trestle. Churning ponds of hot effluent wafted through the vision of the mill. Hundreds of lights glowed, even in the daytime, on tall structures made of metal and railings. A giant tube jutted up into the sky from the digester tanks, spewing steam into the sky like a giant fart pipe aimed at the heavens.

Even with the distance between the playground and the mill, where Danil and James spent time, a stranger might have noticed the tinge of sulphur in the air. A chain link fence surrounded the single lot park on three sides, around the green slide. It's shadow stretched into the large pasture beyond. A row of houses watched from across the street through the dead eyes of their front windows. 

"Don't ever go under the slide," Danil said and wiped a dribble of runny snot from the tip of his nose.

"Why not? I gotta go pee," the James said. He shuffled his feet and peered under it.

"The ghosts will get you."

Only a few weeks before, a young girl found the leash and collar of her family's dog. Her parents thought it cute how she crawled around yelping and barking, pretending  to be a dog. She wandered across the street to play in the park and climbed to the top of the slide. When her parents looked out their window to check on their daughter, they saw her swinging from the end of the leash. The collar clenched tightly on her dead neck with the end of the leash wrapped around the top rail of the green slide. This set the talk amongst the neighborhood kids afire, and renewed half forgotten stories known only by older kids.

"I really gotta go. That's the only place where people won't see me."

Thoughts swirled through James's mind while pressure and pain built in his bladder. He stepped from foot to foot with a wiggle and clenched with all his might. The thought of pissing his pants reddened his face, while the thought of getting in trouble for being seen pissing in the park soured his stomach. 

"Aren't you scared of the ghost's under the slide," Danil asked and punched James's shoulder. "God! You are so stupid!"

"Hey." A few squirts of escaped piss darkened his pants as James tried to recover his footing. The muscles in his shoulder cramped into a knotted monkey bump from the knuckled punch.


----------



## FleshEater (Oct 12, 2012)

I like this! I like how you paint the image of this playground in a small suburban town and also really like the set up for the girls ghost as well. 

You couldn't think of anything besides "fart pipe"? Haha! That made me laugh when I read it.


----------



## MacDub (Oct 12, 2012)

The "fart pipe" term kinda gave me footing for this rewrite. There really is no other way to describe the steam stack of a pulp mill for me. I typed that line before I started the rewrite. It cracked me up. I couldn't wait to use it. I can't keep my humor out of this, as grim and strange as the story will get. I intend to keep those little jokes in the story. I am stoked that you had the same reaction that I did from that phrase from nowhere.


----------



## MacDub (Oct 12, 2012)

I do have a question about the current structure. I thought about putting some of the dialogue first, then drifting into the setting description. I would appreciate some feedback on that point. Does it read better with the setting description first, or should I keep the hook of the initial dialgue first.

_I can't wait until I get this intro right and get back to just typing out the story. There is more joy in just writing rather than laboring on what has been done. I understand the process from the perspective of times spent in animation where I labored over key-frames just to get a few seconds of playtime correct. It's worth it when you see all that time spent come to life... if ya know what I mean. _


----------



## FleshEater (Oct 13, 2012)

I think either way would work...the dialogue would tell you that your perceiving the surrounding from one place where two children are talking. You might not need as much scenery if you present the dialogue first.

Yes...editing is rather loathesome.


----------



## JLAu (Oct 19, 2012)

Hi, first off I agree with you on the point about saying anything about your work or anyone else's without being similarly exposed. Also I've lived near a paper mill and that is the most visually and ... *nasally* accurate description I've read. 

I think you are stuck in a no best scenario I liked the mood of the snot sequence. Maybe you could use it to smooth the transition between the scenery and the horror.
Maybe here:
Even with the distance between the playground and the mill, where Danil  and James spent time, a stranger might have noticed the tinge of sulphur  in the air. A chain link fence surrounded the single lot park on three  sides, around the green slide. It's shadow stretched into the large  pasture beyond. A row of houses watched from across the street through  the dead eyes of their front windows. 
"Don't ever go under the slide," he said and wiped a dribble of runny snot from the tip of his nose.

"Why not? I gotta go pee," the Younger Child said. He shuffled his feet and peered under it.

"The ghost will get you," the Older Kid said with authority.

"What ghost," the Younger Child asked. His pee dance grew more urgent.

"A girl died on the slide. Now her ghost hides under it."

"How can you die on a slide," the Younger Child asked.

Only a few weeks before, a young girl found the leash and collar of her  family's dog. Her parents thought it cute how she crawled around yelping  and barking, pretending  to be a dog. She wandered across the street to  play in the park and climbed to the top of the slide. When her parents  looked out their window to check on their daughter, they saw her  swinging from the end of the leash. The collar clenched tightly on her  dead neck with the end of the leash wrapped around the top rail of the  green slide. This set the talk amongst the neighborhood kids afire, and  renewed half forgotten stories known only by older kids.

"I really gotta go. That's the only place where people won't see me."

Thoughts swirled through James's mind while pressure and pain built in  his bladder. He stepped from foot to foot with a wiggle and clenched  with all his might. The thought of pissing his pants reddened his face,  while the thought of getting in trouble for being seen pissing in the  park soured his stomach. 

"Aren't you scared of the ghost's under the slide," Danil asked and punched James's shoulder. "God! You are so stupid!"

"Hey." A few squirts of escaped piss darkened his pants as James tried  to recover his footing. The muscles in his shoulder cramped into a  knotted monkey bump from the knuckled punch.


I'm just a noob though so maybe this will give something to consider. If not you've  sure got something here.


----------

