Submitted by veriverd t3_z7un1j in WritingPrompts
sufrt t1_iy8oqax wrote
"What is this? What?" I said in shock, turning the pages in the bookstore. But why did I say it? And turning the pages of what? None other than the book written by my significant other, or my wife as I call her. Hardly the occasion for shock and surprise, you'd think. Surely I'd read the book before it was published. And I had. When she got her book deal and handed me a copy of the manuscript, I'd read every word, beaming with pride, even if I didn't actually enjoy the writing, though I might have. And that was that, or so I thought. "The book is getting published, and off it goes to the shelves, and that's it. Same book I just read", I said to myself. But one day in a bookstore, a strange thought occurred to me. An odd notion, almost as if it was beamed into my brain by some incredibly advanced alien species, far beyond the cosmos, their machinations totally unknown to us. "Why not buy the book?" I thought. "What if I, just out of nowhere, right here in this bookstore, buy my wife's own book?" I picked it up and paid the price. But I paid the price in more than one way. While flipping through the book, I felt shock. I felt terror and fear. "Wh-what is this?" I stammered as I threw the book to the floor. It was completely different. The entire book had changed.
AdmiralAthena t1_iy994ad wrote
Too short, doesn't really go anywhere, or explain why they reacted with terror. Confusion would make much more sense.
I mean, it could easily be explained as "this is actually someone else's book, and some prankster switched the dust covers." No reason for horror to be the first reaction.
sufrt t1_iy9ckvp wrote
Sorry, not sure I follow? It’s a horror story
UserMaatRe t1_iy9dpv3 wrote
What is the terrible thing that causes fear and can not be explained by mundane reasons (like someone switching the book covers)
sufrt t1_iy9f8zh wrote
Does it really have to be spelled out? It's heavily implied
UserMaatRe t1_iybvhkq wrote
Please spell it out for me here in a reply, because I genuinely don't understand what you were going for, and am trying to help.
EllipsisMark t1_iy9srtl wrote
You might need to... I don't know how to say it "Sharpen the implication?" I don't know. I didn't read it because formatting. It's just a wall of text. You need to double space your paragraphs.
Like this to make them drop lines.
AdmiralAthena t1_iy9x0me wrote
But where's the horror? The character feels horror, but we don't, because we don't have enough context to know why they're horrified.
Was the book about a wife murdering their spouse, and they realize the murder victim represents them, and their wife might be planning to kill them?
sufrt t1_iy9xb17 wrote
Where's the horror? It's all right there in the text. You'll note that the narrator feels "terror and fear", as well as "shock". He starts stammering, indicating even further that he's unpleasantly stunned by his discovery. He even throws the book on the floor, which no one would do if they weren't feeling strong negative emotions they couldn't control. These are all elements pointing towards the horror being experienced. You'll often find the same emotions in Stephen King, etc.
AdmiralAthena t1_iy9y5r0 wrote
He feels horror, we don't. The point of horror isn't to scare the characters, it's to scare the audience.
sufrt t1_iy9zgox wrote
The audience is scared, of course, by the horrific ending of the story. And empathy for the narrator only adds to the horror. Thus, given that both the audience and character are scared, as opposed to just one or the other, this falls into a category that can only be called "perfect horror".
Dry_Marzipan7811 t1_iya3r7g wrote
if your audience is telling you they’re not scared, the audience isn’t as scared as you intended. this concept may have gone over better in your head, but it’s not exactly fleshed out enough to elicit fear in your readers. maybe if you expanded further on your idea and shown the narrator gradually realizing the books are changing or having that experience with more books, the audience could better feel what you’re going for.
pyrodice t1_iya2lbk wrote
Ah. I see you're just trolling and this is a riff on the Geico commercial where they're scared of how happy the savings make them feel.
[deleted] t1_iy9ftg2 wrote
[removed]
hornylolifucker t1_iy94mfx wrote
Change how? Did the book change by turning into a pickle?
VacuumInTheHead t1_iy95wsa wrote
It got multiplied by i and became a plane where Santa and his fat dumptruck can roam free, I guess.
Also, nice username
Phoenix4235 t1_iy9vhlo wrote
I think what the other commenters are trying to say is that no one would have instantly jumped to that conclusion and felt "terror and fear" and " throw the book on the floor". They would have first thought about things that are much more likely explanations at first, and thought about the other stuff after those didn't pan out, so it really didn't make sense and felt much too far-fetched.
sufrt t1_iy9wiod wrote
Of course no one would instantly jump to the conclusion that the book had changed. One expects the book to remain the same book it was before. What I've done is a writer's tool known as "subverting expectations", as the fact that the book had changed to something else is quite a shock and inevitably sends chills down one's spine.
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