After the Wedding-Grueberfest 07 Sub. (579 hits)
Category: GeneralRating: -0.5 on 38 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by baron von munchausen (View user info) at 2007-10-01 21:02:28 EDT
As the flames ravaged the ancient gown that was Miss Havisham's constant reminder, she remembered after the wedding.
Twenty to nine. Twenty to nine. Twenty to nine. It was twenty to nine, it was twenty to nine all the time. There was no other time; no other time mattered. What time is it, Miss Havisham? Twenty to nine.
After the wedding? Why, dear, the wedding is just about to start...as you can see, the table is laid! But oh no, don't touch, dear child-not until later! I know, the cake does look delicious. It is like a glorious work of art, poised in the perfect context of celebrating my transformation from Miss Havisham to Mrs. Compeyson. Mrs. Compeyson-why yes, it does indeed sound truly delightful. It fits so well. Oh, I do love him so...shut up, Pocket. You know nothing of what you speak. My goodness gracious, do try and have some sense! Now leave me-I must dress...yes, what is it? A letter? For me? Please, yes, come in.
It was twenty to nine.
The wedding dress that had first been worn decades ago was nearly fully converted to ash, and Miss Havisham's body was already terribly burnt. The fire caught the dirty, crusted tablecloth where it hung over the edge of the table and spread. It spread between the rotten and the rotting, the decayed, horrific splendour of a fantastic wedding feast prepared over fifty years ago. The centerpiece of the table was a magnificent wedding cake, of many layers, with size and grandeur proportionate to that of royal ceremony. It was supposed to be a royal ceremony.
The wedding cake that was the pride of Satis House was yet untouched by the vicious flames. This is why it was being used as something of a safe island by the teeming mass of rats which had previously been feeding on the fabulously rotten spread. Rats stepping on top of other rats to escape the fire, their tiny, sharp claws digging into the eyes of their compatriots-fluids squirting from the socket, then blindness, then falling into the gruesome crematorium of the table's surface.
Rotten, burnt food mixed with rotten, burning flesh to create a hideous odour. Miss Havisham, however, was quite delirious and did not notice; nor did she notice the huge rat who was braving the flames in order to start gnawing greedily at her gaunt torso, in hopes of reaching the organic delights within. Soon, others joined him in devouring her innards; though some were eventually consumed by the fire on her rotting body, others would readily spring to the fore to replace them.
Yet Miss Havisham, though well on her way, was not yet dead. For her, it was the same time as was shown on every clock in Satis House: twenty to nine. The intense pain that she should have been feeling from having her abdominal cavity used as a flaming rat buffet was replaced by the intense pain she felt at twenty to nine, half a century ago. And her revenge; her revenge in the making since that hour on that day...what was it worth? What was it, really? To build up the expectations and fortune of a poor boy, to send him out of breath to the peak of a mountain, only to find he had no flag to plant.
And as consciousness returned to her in her final moments of life, and Miss Havisham finally felt the team of rodents busily and viciously strip mining her insides, she felt, for the first time, remorse.
User Reviews
Submitted by write-of-way (user info) at 2007-10-07 16:45:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by ColchesterDr (user info) at 2007-10-07 12:44:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Interesting idea, but just an okay read.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2007-10-05 15:41:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Well, the first line, for one.
Submitted by baronMunchausen (user info) at 2007-10-05 13:58:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I would appreciate knowing-use of the English language was always something I thought to be a great strength of mine. Fiction writing in general is a relatively undeveloped skill for me, but in terms of using English I thought I was fine...it's quite possible that there are a couple of things you took to be errors that I put in on purpose.
Submitted by baronMunchausen (user info) at 2007-10-05 13:53:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Where exactly?
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2007-10-05 13:25:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I'm not trying to be a cunt here, but is English your first language? I'm not giving this a negative rating because I can see what you were going for but sometimes the flow of the language made me think I was reading soemthing that had been run through babelfish.
And that is coming from uber's King of the Typos.
Submitted by PhillipTheGreat (user info) at 2007-10-03 16:17:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by baronMunchausen (user info) at 2007-10-01 21:20:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
That's the idea, dumbass.
Submitted by PhillipTheGreat (user info) at 2007-10-01 21:13:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
... isn't this from Great Expectations?
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How about doing something original, ey buddy?
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2007-10-03 09:14:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
still get a -2 for dickens. i fucking hate anything to do with him.
don't worry dear, you get to -2 my submission all you want. assuming i put one in.
Submitted by pshuu (user info) at 2007-10-03 02:41:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
It's interesting to see the fire from the point of view of Miss Havisham. But using Great Expectations seems like an easy way out of coming up with something of your own. +2 for a generally good piece. -1 for lack of originality. Not enough gore to win the contest.
Submitted by baronMunchausen (user info) at 2007-10-02 23:20:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
It's not plagiarized, idiot. If you knew your stuff you would know that this is different from what actually happened and that it is not even close, not even remotely close to any of the actual words. Hm, yeah, this is what I thought: "I think I'll plagiarize an incredibly well known classic novel. I think, just for fun, I'll keep all the same character names, place names, and exact times. I think that by being exactly true to the story, my plagiarism will go unnoticed." I'm not saying you should +2 it. I agreed with much of the fair criticism handed to me on this one. But you've got to be really, really, fucking stupid to think what you thought.
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2007-10-02 22:11:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by baronMunchausen (user info) at 2007-10-01 21:20:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
That's the idea, dumbass.
Submitted by PhillipTheGreat (user info) at 2007-10-01 21:13:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
... isn't this from Great Expectations?
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apparently you don't get the idea of this contest...
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2007-10-02 22:10:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
i can't remember enough of great expectations to know if this is exactly plagiarised from it but close enough.
-2 dickens
-more for ripping off dickens.
Submitted by mockidol (user info) at 2007-10-02 21:23:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
No Comment
Submitted by baronMunchausen (user info) at 2007-10-02 17:40:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
The "gore" was an (obvious) afterthought because I was afraid that it was requisite for this contest, and I knew I didn't know how to do it...evidently it was the wrong choice to include it and I stand corrected. If by some miracle or forfeit I advance, my next submission will be superior with this knowledge. Trial and error, people.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2007-10-02 17:02:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Twenty to nine. Twenty to nine. Twenty to nine. It was twenty to nine, it was twenty to nine all the time. There was no other time; no other time mattered. What time is it, Miss Havisham? Twenty to nine.
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I got that far.
Submitted by icarus1987 (user info) at 2007-10-02 15:31:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
I see where you were trying to go with this, but it needed a lot of work.
First off, if you're going to try to write to a certain style or period, you have to stick to it. The internal dialogue towards the begining came off like Paula Abdul trying to write Lewis Carrol.
Second, show, don't tell. Calling a cake "pretty" or burns "bad" is about as exciting and descriptive as calling the Grand Canyon "big" or Mount St Helens "pointy". You don't need to give us the autopsy report, but throw some critical detail in there.
Third, even fantasy writing needs a kind of logic. It felt like the gore and the artsy prose was heaped on to make up for the fact that there was no real plot to speak of, just a sort of vague idea. This might have worked if there were more vivid descriptions (see above), or if the gore weren't so cheesy.
Submitted by Surgeon (user info) at 2007-10-02 14:01:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
laminectomy..
Submitted by ahumblefool (user info) at 2007-10-02 13:15:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
Sorry, I know what you were aiming for, but it did not work right. This was more Hostel, lot less The Haunting. Gorror is much easier to pull off, that is why Eli Roth focuses so much on this easily tapped subject. To gross someone out is easy, severe violence. But, you become use to it after awhile, that is why Eli has to up the scales each time.
True horror, horror that makes you wake at night swearing that someone is standing at the foot of your bed, hiding in the shadows, that is hard. It plays with your psyche, it messes with your beliefs and senses, and it makes you reel from the true paranoia of it.
A good attempt, but Gruberfest is my favorite contest of the year, so I tend to judge a little more severely.
Submitted by Jeanneee (user info) at 2007-10-02 12:58:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
"Flaming Rat Buffet" would be a good name for a performance art troupe.
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2007-10-02 12:48:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
you have very little grasp of the english language
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-10-02 12:39:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
.
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-10-02 12:39:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
Submitted by ChaosJester (user info) at 2007-10-02 12:18:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
Submitted by ilikesteak (user info) at 2007-10-01 23:08:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
See, it's not up to you to decide if there are problems with the execution.
The best frame of reference I can give you is with association.
There's a difference between gore movies and horror movies. Gore movies provide the chill, without all the thought of actual horror. It's easier to give the chill with a picture, because it's immediate, and people tend to reaspond more quickly to images.
Horror takes time. It builds suspense, provides suprise, and forms a connection between viewer and what is being viewed.
You went with gore, being immediate and easier with imagery.
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Couldn't have put it better myself.
Submitted by Amontillado (user info) at 2007-10-02 10:15:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I don't get it. But still interesting.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2007-10-02 09:17:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
i did not enjoy this in the least.
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2007-10-02 09:06:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Meh. Sorry dude.
Submitted by Empathetic (user info) at 2007-10-02 08:07:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Shit.
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2007-10-02 07:07:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by MANICMOTHER (user info) at 2007-10-01 21:41:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
Detailing disgusting imagery does not a horror story make.
Interesting idea, bad execution.
Submitted by orph (user info) at 2007-10-02 05:43:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I did not like this.
The first 2 paragraphs are class, yet it trails off badly.
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2007-10-02 05:14:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Yeah... Well, I kind of liked that it was manic, but the horrible bits seemed really tacked on, an after thought. I'd have stuck to just making it insane.
Submitted by Wildman (user info) at 2007-10-01 23:41:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
weak sauce
Submitted by ilikesteak (user info) at 2007-10-01 23:08:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
See, it's not up to you to decide if there are problems with the execution.
The best frame of reference I can give you is with association.
There's a difference between gore movies and horror movies. Gore movies provide the chill, without all the thought of actual horror. It's easier to give the chill with a picture, because it's immediate, and people tend to reaspond more quickly to images.
Horror takes time. It builds suspense, provides suprise, and forms a connection between viewer and what is being viewed.
You went with gore, being immediate and easier with imagery.
Submitted by DirtyHarry (user info) at 2007-10-01 23:01:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Wasn't this a South Park episode?
Submitted by baronMunchausen (user info) at 2007-10-01 22:50:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I know little about horror writing, but the main element was supposed to be the crazy craziness. It was necessary to add graphic disgustingness because it is called GRUEberfest, ans it's fun. But the descriptions of gross things are not the main "horror" element of the story, the rest of it is-and I find no problems with the execution.
Submitted by MANICMOTHER (user info) at 2007-10-01 21:41:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
Detailing disgusting imagery does not a horror story make.
Interesting idea, bad execution.
Submitted by baronMunchausen (user info) at 2007-10-01 21:20:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
That's the idea, dumbass.
Submitted by PhillipTheGreat (user info) at 2007-10-01 21:13:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
... isn't this from Great Expectations?
Submitted by ilikesteak (user info) at 2007-10-01 21:06:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
Did not like.
Also, if you want to see something that mildly interested me, pay close attention to the titles for this contest and see if you notice it too.