Discussion of "Happy Birthday Jeremy" by zatoichi

Holy ****!!!... You should write for Family Guy or Robot Chicken on Cartoon Network. This was insane... more people need to read this post.

I need to quit writing so late, though. There are so many typos in that thing, haha.

I'm not quite sure I get it. I also got very confused by 'PPZ' post; because I could see it was humourous in a gentle kind of way, but I was expecting it to be ironic, and it wasn't really, it was just odd.

But despite the insanity of this story, which seems like something out of the oddest horror movie ever, I thought it was written incredibly well, the language and lexis were elegant without being overwhelming, and most off all it flowed.

What I think the story lacked, asides sense, is more detail into character - it might just be me, but there wasn' much in terms of character depth in this story; and as good as it is to focus a story on its action, I think we need to know who/what its about first.

(Also, this story doesn't seem very mashable).

I'm going to give it a 3.5 I think, because it's a good story, but there's a lot lacking from it.

The sentence that mentioned the hanging bodies in the barn may have come in a bit too early - I found it so confusing that it interrupted my ability to read the story - maybe if you mentioned it a bit later? Or maybe that was the point? It's tricky because it's a nice foreshadow to the disturbing lady pinata but you don't want it to interrupt the flow of the story either...

I intentionally wrote the story without much character delving and I tried to make the story just seem ho-hum, like it was just another day on the farm. I just wanted to slip those items into the story before the party at the end. But anyhow, thanks for the comments guys. I appreciate it.

EW! This was incredible! I really felt myself drawn into this relaxing scene (as for the hanging bodies in the barn - I just assumed were deer, or cow, or pig, or something else that would fit the setting) and was shocked at the old man's comment about the material of the coat. What an eerie combination of the old fashioned, community feel, and the barbaric behaviors. 5 stars!

Yucky... I've been wondering when you'd write more. Your twisted mind really creeps me out every time. I think some of your other story lines held me a bit better than this one - this was over-the-top gross and lacked the dark humor of your other stories.

I noticed a few fast typing errors - some omitted words and a few punctuations mistakes.

The idea of this story is awesome, but it could be better. I like the use of plain language (this stuff is totally ordinary to these people) but you have some awkward wordings and tense issues.

For Example

*The door lay open revealing the livestock, hay, and hanging bodies; everything was neatly in order from years of experience." "from years of experience" doesn't fit here - it's referring to something that's not in this sentence, namely, Bruce or whoever put the bodies in the barn.
*Bright afternoon sunlight beamed through the window giving the man ample vision to work* vision is the wrong word here.

But I think the thing that would really improve this story would be to make it a little more active. Every time we're introduced to something creepy, it's laying or sitting. If the goal is shock (and shock humor) you might be better off hiding the punchline, so to speak, a little bit longer. For example, when Isabelle goes to the barn, the bodies are just there. If instead, she sees Bruce making his coat first, we have an in - a reason to see them (if this were a movie, you'd have the girl walk to Bruce, Bruce is making the coat, pan up to bodies, music cue). Likewise with the body that's on the ground becoming a pinata. Instead of just writing that a body lay there, show us the active part first (the man that looks like Bruce stuffing the body).

If you were going to keep going with this, I would agree with that one comment about how you'd need more character development. Right now, there's not much to these people as people: they are just archetypes that you're playing with. If this is a one off humor piece, I think that's fine.

Creepy to the max.

Absolutely creepy. In general, I liked the contrast of the 'ho-hum' with the sickness of what was going on. You have a good style and sense of pacing. And the idea that not just one farm full of people, but an entire neighborhood, engage in this macabre and sick celebration, really adds to the feel of the story. I gave it a 3.5, largely because I would have liked a better sense of relations between the characters (who is Jeremy? Is he Isabelle's brother, or is she a servant in his house? Why does Isabelle call Bruce by his first name? Is he a servant? etc). Also, some of the descriptions at the beginning felt unnatural to the story (specifically, the descriptions of Isabelle and her mother), but that's just my opinion. Overall, it makes for a great beginning of a really creepy story.

PS - love your name. Beware the blind, the old, and the poor, as they may have hidden skills - and if you come up against an old, blind, poor man, run the other way. Odds are good he's the greatest swordsman to ever live.

Needs some proofreading. It’s an interesting and creative scene with good detail, that’s for sure. Very twisted and leaves the reader with the obvious question, “who are these wackos?” I’m not sure where the story could go from here. Unless an outside force acts upon the community I don’t see where any conflict to build a story on will come from. Maybe one of the community members rebels? But I’m intrigued.

I didn't see any purpose or reason to why they did what they did. Too much gore for the faint of heart (me).

The phrases "a matronly, plump woman said" and "A young but plain girl replied" is odd. It feels like the reader is being disconnected from the characters, so it gave me a rough start.

The bit about Hispanic flesh was awesome and extremely **** up.

I particularly like how these characters are sweet and kind to each other but are internally evil.

The corpse being turned into a pinata was comical--not sure if that's what you were going for.

Proofread, proofread, proofread! Small typos and grammatical errors are very distracting.

I'm not sure, overall, where this story could go. It almost seems like a stand-alone piece, which could make it very difficult to mash.

Overall, good job!