Frozen Life (Short Story) - Warning: This Story Will Utterly Depress Most People

[NoshpalStefan]

Just saying that, although I just used a persona to make this story as melancholic as possible, it most probably WILL depress most people. Thought I should throw that out as a warning. :P

 

[spoiler=Frozen Life]                                                                                                           Frozen Life

 

 

The pure, white snow was staring me in the face. I could feel its gentle, calming touch as I felt the intense burn residing inside me. I felt its cries when I transformed its precious white color into a devilish crimson one. It slowly took on a bloodshot gown as it cloaked itself in the red pouring out of my chest. It subtly attempted to hide its fright when it saw the sharp, steel knife lying beside me. I had been stabbed.

 

As I lay on the snow, on that cold December night, sensing my heart weep its red tears unto the snow’s white dress, I turned the clock thirty years into the past. On that very same place, I saw myself as a mere child, not more than eight years of age. Standing in my comfortable blue jacket, wearing my new black gloves, stepping on my unusually green boots, I saw a piece of land heavily covered in snow.

 

I was frightened. I stared for a long time at the snow; I sensed a certain blend of emotions coming from it: anger, sorrow, fear, and many more. In my mind, the snow was a pet for which I needed to care. I slowly moved to the nearby tree, and with all the strength an eight year old could possess, I broke a small branch and took it with me. I slowly approached the snow, crouched as much as the winter cold allowed me, and slowly, I used the branch to draw on the snow. As my hand moved naturally, after a minute I stood up and looked at the snow once more. I had drawn a smile.

 

Now, as the blood was slowly dripping, I remembered that moment of happiness. I recalled that instance as one of the few when I was truly joyful. The eternal clock once more tampered with my emotions, and I now went back a few years after I had drawn the smile on my precious friend. I had just awoken from my bed, and I was slowly preparing to go to school. As I went out of my house, tenderly warm from my mother’s greetings, I looked at my dear friend, the snow. I ran to it, and to my sweet relief, I saw that the smile had remained on its face. But, as I stared at it with joy, I sensed a brutal, agonizing coldness coming from behind me. As I turned to see, I noticed a few kids standing behind me. I could recognize them by the burning hatred deep confined in their eyes. It was the school bullies.

 

With a resentful tone, the kids yelled at me for what I had done to the snow, subtly snickering at me. I quickly supposed why they were laughing, slowly establishing that my reality was much different from theirs. I rejected all the insults and simply stood quiet. Yet, that wasn’t enough. My silence provoked the kids, even threatened them somehow. They pushed me, and saw my tears as I fell into the snow, and saw me hiding my face from the shame. As I wiped the tears, I saw the kids sprint away, being chased by a voice coming from afar.

 

I recall this voice like no other. It was a soft, tender, female voice. Like a majestic beast’s thunderous roar, I remember the voice as soft and mighty, as both strong and weak in its complex simplicity. As I wiped my tears, cleaning my face from all the snow that I had plunged my head into, I turned to see the source of the gently powerful voice. I was correct; it was a girl.

 

“Are you okay?” – She asked me with a kind of fragile conviction, she herself seemingly afraid of the school bullies, yet, not the type of fright that transfers to the voice. It was, after all, her thunderous yell that scared the menacing children. In an attempt for assistance, she offered her womanly, yet strangely strong hand. She pulled me from the snow, and offered me her name. “Oh what a lovely name”, I thought to myself, though I was rather unsure whether I had said the thought in my mind or before her slightly judgmental eyes. Luckily, it was in my mind.

 

Several cold, winter days had passed, and I failed to remove the girl’s image from my mind. Perhaps it was because she was generally remarkable, or perhaps it was because I chose not to. I could still sense her trembling voice collapsing barriers around me, slowly awaking me with a tender spirit. Suddenly, through the secluded walls of my house, I heard a rumbling yelp for assistance. I rushed to the window, stopping with slight shock as I arrived there. In my precious snow, I saw the girl from the previous days, simply laying there, her face covered in purity and coldness, just as mine had been. She…looked frightened.

 

I immediately put on my winter coat, and I rapidly ran outside to help her. As I stood before the snow, staring at her weeping face, I had come to know a great truth. I needn’t look at the girl as a savior from beyond, as an angel from the stars. She, much like me, was just frightened, weeping from her face what she felt in her heart. The thought was simplistic in its core; it meant that I could share the chains of my heart with another; meant that I was no longer alone. That idea, I must confess, was perfection. I couldn’t dare to miss out on perfection. As she wasted her final tear, and turned around, subtly cleansing her weeping face, she saw me, offering my hand.

 

“Oh what a marvelous thought”, I said to myself as I bled on the cold, shivering snow. “It has been an amazing life, has it not?” – I began to talk to myself, inevitably knowing that these were my last moments. I then recalled a bit further from my childhood, to the year I graduated from high school. The memory is joy. It must be joy, for that was the only feeling present. Two people are standing in front of my precious friend, the piece of snow. Bells are ringing, people are cheering, and above all, happiness is spread. The noise is intermittently began and finished, yet the greatest intermission came with the doubly repeated phrases: “I do”. I absolutely had to recall that day. I had to recall it because one of the two people was the girl with the softly thunderous voice; and even more significant for me, the second person was I.

 

As I recalled that memory, I also recall how I spent my wedding on the snow, on my oldest friend. Many other things have happened on its watch as well. Much of what I am able to remember is the current day, before I had fallen on the snow, bleeding my soul out. I was happily married. I possessed love. Yet, she left. She was no angel, she was no priestess; she was but mortal. I became unsatisfactory. She took all I cared for: the anchors of the heart, the chains of the soul, and simply reinforced them with pain and illusion of a bright future. Who was to trust now? I could trust none, absolutely no one; except, perhaps, I could trust the snow.

 

So, in that manner, I came outside on the December night, I stepped outside into the shivering sight of nothingness. All was white, I was certain. Yet, I knew precisely where I needed to go. I found my old friend. I stepped right above it. I courageously took out the knife. In but a moment, the deed had been done. I felt the steel of the knife align with the pain of my heart and soul, bleeding out all they possessed over my friend’s frightened eyes. The snow was the only hope, the only friend. It was fragile, it was pure, and it was free. It had at times disappeared, and then it had come back. So, as it fully put on the crimson gown, and I was no longer, I must have asked myself “What now?” What comes after the steel has taken the love, the hate, the hope, and the fear? Am I to expect the love of Paradise? Am I to expect the cruelty of Hell? Or am I to expect the rewinding of the cycle into yet another treacherous dream? I am certain the cycle will rewind. After all, in a dream, cruelty and love are a blend, they are together, and furthermore, they are most stable. After all, you’ve just been fed the dream of a fellow dreamer, just told the truth of something that might happen, and told the lies of what has never become reality. See, you’ve been given the blend of golden attributes; just given the love of the creator and the cruelty of the dreamer.[/spoiler]

 

This story was originally planned for a YCM writing contest, and was written for it, but it got cancelled so thought I'd just post it as a separate thread.

[NoshpalStefan]

Bumpity bump.

[NoshpalStefan]

Guys, seriously, bump!

[Astolfo]

I'm not a great person to ask for a review you could say. Unless the piece I review really is horrible, I'd like it probably. However, I like this one a lot. Well done Beginning. :D

It didn't have that strong of an emotional impact on me, but it left me feeling slightly depressed for a short while. After that, I thought about it, and in my opinion, it seems to have that 'dreamy'/'nightmarish' mix, which seemed to go well along with parts of the story. It seemed slightly deep - I guess - to me, and this piece is well written. Hope to see more from you Beginning. :D Sorry if the review's crap. :c

EDIT: You're not Beginning. =o Still same review though. Hope to see more perhaps. :D

[NoshpalStefan]

Thanks for the review nonetheless. :D In any case, I'm glad you like it, actually I am quite a fluent writer who spends most days reading and writing, so if you liked the story, expect many more to come. :)

[The Warden]

Don't make such careless boasts in the wake of, wait for it... HEART BREAKERS! boy. Know this: [url=http://forum.yugiohcardmaker.net/topic/299580-wait-for-it-heart-breakers-episode-4-magic-is-gathering-hold-tight/?p=6181237]Challenge Accepted![/url]

[NoshpalStefan]

The ironic part about your segment is that it actually made me laugh as opposed to "breaking a heart".

 

Now, perhaps it would be wise to throw in a few of my points as opposed to your 20+ comments of which each one (or almost each one) had cursing in them for no apparent reason:

 

1 - The snow is a symbol for purity / innocence. Perhaps in the midst of your insults, you failed to see that iconic technique's utilization. And, perhaps, in the midst of your insults, you failed to notice that all the events (or almost all of them) included the main character losing parts of his innocence (because most of them are relating the girl). Before criticizing something to the bone, learn to see the techniques used in it.

 

2 - Bullies are bullies; they can bully you for looking at them funny, yet alone for acting wimpy. Perhaps you were never bullied that much as to notice such things (if so, bravo for you), but most bullies, even eight year old ones, can bully for the smallest things.

 

3 - My goodness, the story IS called Frozen Life and it DOES focus on the snow as a main element. You can's ask an author to shut up when something plays THAT crucial of an element. And by the way, the kid is supposed to appeal to most wimpy kids in the world who don't have many friends, so, if you aren't one of them, bra-f***ing-vo for you, but a successful reviewer looks at a piece objectively, not subjectively.

 

4 - Inducing emotion is a difficult writing task, one that I am perhaps still in the midst of learning, but I'm pretty freaking sure that a wimpy kid who gets saved by a girl and whose only friend is a snow and who dies with that as his only friend IS indeed supposed to induce pity. Don't know if you're just a heartless b***ard, but others can voice their opinion too.

 

5 - The whole point of the character reminiscing back as he's dying on the snow is the whole thing people say that your entire life flashes before your eyes when you die, it's a commonly used technique among writers, so if you're going to critique me for it, might as well critique about 20 % of writers out there. For one thing, it's also supposed to be 5% of what brings out the depressing part of the story, but I guess a heartless guy like yourself wouldn't know anything about that.

 

Your move BrokenHeart15 (and just so you know, your intended to be hateful yet funny segment actually brought more viewers to this piece, and clearly following the "bad attention / image is better than no attention / image", I am grateful for your time).

[A Hollow Man]

What's the point of a review that contains the full text of the story it's reviewing? Sure, the most accurate map of a territory is the territory itself, but it's also the most useless map.

 

As for the story: it didn't really do anything for me. A lot of the writing felt like it was trying much too hard, especially considering the thread title, which ends up making the whole thing feel artificial instead of natural, which stops it from really being depressing. Yes, as you say, a kid whose only friend is the snow is supposed to induce pity, but whether it actually does induce pity is down to the writing, and here it doesn't work. You can't conjure emotion through brute force.

 

From a technical perspective, I'd heard before that adverbs are the weakest part of speech in English (and adjectives the second-weakest) and that it's much better to rely on nouns and verbs to carry the weight of a sentence. I never fully understood that before, but while reading this it suddenly become clear. A lot of sentences here rely on relatively generic nouns and verbs that you then modify with multiple adjectives and adverbs, which hurts the flow and contributes to the feeling of artifice. Just to name one example:

 

Standing in my comfortable blue jacket, wearing my new black gloves, stepping on my unusually green boots, I saw a piece of land heavily covered in snow.

 

The description drags much more than it needs to, because you have a list of generic nouns each with two adjectives stacked on top of it; condensing it would make it stronger. Replacing "heavily covered" with "buried" would also help, both in terms of condensing two weaker words into one stronger word and because the word "buried" evokes the grave, which supports your intended atmosphere.

 

Now, all of that being said, I think you've got potential. I know on the internet it's cool to treat everything that isn't 100% perfect as the worst thing ever written and to say the author should commit suicide for even thinking of posting it, which really betrays a complete failure to understand how writers develop. You've got a good amount of ambition here - short writing is much harder than long writing, emotional writing is much harder than "and then new duel academy student Ace Blackjack summoned a 4000 ATK monster and won", and the vignette form is interesting - and despite the purple prose, your command of English is much better than most of what I've seen on YCM. Keep at it!

[The Warden]

1. I suppose, except that the imagery was used too god damn much. That's the problem: I felt my face being pushed against the glass, then 1/4 the way through my face went through the glass. And I don't care for the character's innocence, because he was a woobie, it was too be expected. Even iconic techniques fail if they're just abused. It might've worked had you used it once or twice; instead of 20 times, cause, that's just annoying.

 

2. I know that, but it didn't stop me commenting on it nonetheless, because it is an incredibly stupid reason to bully someone for; even by kid logic. Also, it would've been more damaging that, instead of just chewing someone out for it, they'd stomp the face. That's a kid action. That's what a kid would do. They don't complain to someone about them drawing a face in the snow.

 

3. Now you're just being pretentious. Snow is in no ways relatable, and the kid isn't a wimp, he's a god damn pussy. If you want to inspire pity for someone, you have to give people a reason to like them in the first place. You didn't, and I just got annoyed that this kid didn't do anything except make the moves on a girl when she was down.

 

4. Yes, except that if you want to try and induce emotion, you should learn to do so beforehand with some beta scripts someone could peer review for you. What you did was pile a whole load of crap onto this kid, so you inevitibly made me sidle past pity into downright frustration over what a complete turd of a human he is.

 

5. Then why use it? Authors seek to be original, and if you're pointing out this then clearly my critique was wasted effort if you aren't going to learn from it. You could still have done a life past before his eyes, but readers would appreciate subtlety over cliche any day. Why settle for 5% when you could have created about 40% via bombshell.

 

(That's the point of, wait for it... HEART BREAKERS! I do my reviews to bring presence to whatever fic I happen to target, good or bad. Your boast just happened to draw me in, and I was honestly dissapointed. These reviews are purely my own opinions, and it seems you aren't ready for YCM if my harsh criticism harms your little god bud so much. My opinion? Go back to the drawing board and revise.

 

Also, listen to the guy above me, he's pretty much spot on, and more eloquent than I put it. Also Hollow, I have the fic in there so the readers can see what I'm commenting on, since I follow the typical disassembly type of review used by the others before me.)

[NoshpalStefan]

Okay, Hollow Man and BrokenHeart15, I am just trying to look at the writing's points objectively. I realize that it is not the best piece of writing ever and I realize that your segment's  purpose for the writing if for me to try and improve it - and for that I am thankful. I have been on several writing forums for several years, and I do understand and take criticism. So, as I said, I don't mind or hate your critique - far from it actually - but, as hallow man said, be more eloquent. I don't know if I am sensitive or down-right a wimp, as the character in the story, but you aren't going to induce much with hateful criticism. On a related note, I'll try to revise several more drafts of this story and then you may critique it once more.

[Astolfo]

Um. You know he is hard to impress and the series he does is intentionally tearing apart creative writing pieces to review them? He's not being hateful. Just blunt. ( ._.)

[The Warden]

I'm going to give you some advice, just in case you try this again.

 

Writing emotional character pieces is 50% character design, and 50% psychology. It's like this because you need to assess every little piece to ensure it will cause the emotions you desire. In order to successfully perform pieces like that you need to know how to manipulate your intended audience's emotions. If you fail to do so, then the audience won't know what to think, and will probably end up confused or annoyed. It's also good to give a backstory to a character in order for people to relate to them. The character in this story can't be related to because he's more or less a blank slate. There's nothing for the reader to latch onto, and as such they won't care about them.

[NoshpalStefan]

Okay, I will indeed try it again and post it when I have the time, even if you may be the toughest person to impress, it is mine to try.

 

Also, this piece was written about 6 months ago. If you want, I can give you my first (brief) chapter of a novel that I'm working on, so you can try that for a change.

 

Edit: The reason why I'm trying to adapt to others's opinions and asking to post my stuff is because, objectively, I can look at (others's) writing and see it objectively, but I also realize that when looking at my writing, I'm just downright head over heels at first with any of my writing, so I thank the internet for that sole reason that I have someone to objectively look at it.

 

That was just a fun little side note.

[NoshpalStefan]

http://forum.yugiohcardmaker.net/topic/300368-the-first-chapter-of-my-novel-blindness-the-unforgivable-sin-title-prone-to-change/

 

There you guys go, a more recent piece to critique.