Madlibs on a Blank Page

This week I read Caterpillars on a Pink Moon by Edward Lange.

(Link)

Here's the description:
"Edgar Wilson’s world has gone completely and utterly bonkers. Giant rabid squirrels prowl the sidewalks, dead presidents are coming back from the dead, and people are spontaneously turning into giraffes. And it’s all Edgar's fault."

Alright, I don't know about the word bonkers, but maybe he's British or something. The rest isn't a bad hook. I want to know why it's all his fault.

The story got off to a kind of rough start though, when Eddy had problems spelling compound words and being funny. His Chinese mail     man begins arguing with a Pepsi can in an alley      way. That's when I said to myself "This guy wrote a bunch of nouns, adjectives, and verbs onto slips of paper, pulled them out of a hat, and tried to write a story." But no, that's not giving him enough credit. He obviously chose a Chinese mail        man because it's hilarious. I mean, he's CHINESE! Bwahahahahahgagagaa!

Get it? Chinese?

So, you want to know why it's all his fault, right? Fine, I'll tell you.

But I mean, seriously, when you think "mailman" you're all like "white guy," right? Right? Alright fine, you'll probably get it later and laugh to yourself.

So all kinds of crazy stuff happens that is not very "laugh out loud in Barnes and Noble" but it's interesting for a story. The guy finally manages to get home and talks to an angel which actually turns out to be real. The angel tells him that his sarcastic New Year's Eve resolution to "never kill anyone" is ruining the universe because he was always supposed to be real shitty at keeping New Year's resolutions, according to God. Fair enough, so far this is the most original story I have ever reviewed.

Then, the angel tells him to kill someone to make it all better and gives him a gun. It is slightly amusing when he goes through all the people he tried to kill that day and why it didn't happen, I just wish it wasn't literally a list. It had me on the verge of a "heh" when he said he contemplated killing a suicidal woman but she beat him to the punch. But then he shattered my dreams by following that sentence with "He'd wanted to kill an escaped serial killer and tax dodger who was hiding in his building, when a deranged sentient stop sign whacked him to death." Hey, you already did the "beat him to the punch" thing! And P.S. How did he know the serial killer was also a tax dodger (or an escaped serial kiler, for that matter), unless he knew the guy because he had just been living in the apartment building, in which case why the hell wouldn't he call the cops or move or something?

Anyway the guy runs out of time and- did you predict it? I did. He thinks of the clever loophole of killing himself.

But, thankfully, it's not over! He then meets the angel in heaven and he says something like, "You dick! Suicide isn't murder!" and they watch the universe collapse. HA! I'm not being sarcastic, I liked this twist. "Holy shit, did he actually like it?" You'll see.

Ratings:

Creativity: 3 out of 5. Like I said, the stuff he came up with took as much work as choosing random marbles from a sack, but I like Madlibs, dammit! I'm just kidding, I hated riding on the bus and not being able to run the fuck away from the annoying kid that was like, "Let's do some Madlibs!" But aside from all that, the plot was pretty creative, especially the ending.

Conflict: 1.5 out of 5. Don't ask why it's so specific. I have a system, and it involves far too many shades of grey. Let's just say he summarized the predicament of having to kill someone into a single paragraph and I feel cheated.

Humor: More than expected. I don't ever read fiction for comedy. I think anyone that does is probably hiding a man-sized costume of a fox in their closet or something, but when things are amusing I'm not opposed to it. Again, this wasn't laugh out loud (or "lol" as I hear you kids call it these days) but it wasn't painfully trying to be funny and just failing either.

Overall: 3.5 out of 5. Probably my highest rating ever. Time to retire.

If you would like to read something that will make you retire (from your job or from hope or faith or whatever) visit amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

When is Horror Ever Scary?

I couldn't think of a crappy pun for a post title this week, deal with it. This week, and for the past two weeks in which I totally didn't forget I have a blog in favor of studying, I read Crawl Space by F. Poj (don't ask me).

(Link)

Here's a little description to wet your curious little whistle. That sounded dirty for some reason... anywayss:

"A Short Story. Horror. Frankie, an architect downgraded to building surveyor by the downturn after 9/11, finds himself on a job in downtown Buffalo. He must prepare updated floor plans for a huge abandoned building. The old school building seems to come alive, as the sounds of the cold wind howling through broken windows keep Frankie thinking he is not alone. Approaching the end of his task, he suddenly finds himself trapped deep in the guts of a dark, desolate maze. Frankie will have to crawl through mud, and fight against some unexpected enemies, to find his way out of this trap and cheat death."

Mud? He has to CRAWL through MUD!? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Alright, this story is a little more exciting than that, let me tell you. In fact, nothing is more exciting than a good story about an architect. Nothing, that is, except a story about an architect that can't find a job so he has to survey buildings. I was on the edge of my seat for the whole first half of this story as he took measurements and wrote down notes. Enthralling!

Other than a few editing errors every other sentence, I was really able to connect with this character's heterosexual interest in women and slight tendency towards laziness when it comes to crawl spaces. Real original stuff!

But it gets even more intense when he is mysteriously locked in the crawl space he is surveying. I actually did feel a little panic at this part, but our protagonist Frankie took it to the extreme by knocking himself out on a pipe and breaking his fist on the door to the crawlspace. He tries to find another way out as cockroaches crawl on him (not so scary for me, but I can see it, sure). He comes to a point where he has to dig with the bugs all over him and tears off his fingernails in panic. This is the point where I really winced. More on that later though. He emerges and is set upon by flesh-eating rats.

Well, spoilers, my friends, spoilers, because I have to call BULLSHIT on the description. "Unexpected enemies" means cockroaches, rats, and paralysis? Not ghosts? I thought this was horror, where are the fucking ghosts!? Not even a single serial killer? Fine, that still passes, barely. But the whole "cheat death" thing? No, he didn't cheat death, he did exactly the opposite of that. He fucking falls down a hole and abruptly dies (well, not so abruptly; the paralysis makes him good and immobile for the rats to eat him to death). Nothing is better than a story that was as fucking pointless as the surprise death endings of a Goosebumps "choose your own adventure"...!


Ratings:

Horror: 2 out of 5. Technically horror, but I would call it "thriller" or "psychological thriller" or some other genre that hearkens to the days when nobody ever fucking watched Fear Factor. Or maybe you did, in which case you are really fucking horrified of cockroaches and this story is for you.

Boooring: 5 out of 5. Pick a random sentence. It reads like this: "Once he reached the northwest corner, Frankie shot the laser back south to locate the southwest corner and determine the width of the tunnel: 42 feet and change." This is so interesting. Please do a story about a dude that uses a slide rule next.

Physical Discomfort Masquerading as Scary: 5 out of 5. I know, this is like a repeat of the first one. Well, you can just open your OWN fucking account and write your OWN fucking blog if you don't like it! Yeah I just remembered that the points where I "jumped" were the times when the idiot main character injured himself. Time, after time, after time. At a certain point it is no longer callus to say things like "survival of the fittest" and "pathetic" and no longer appropriate to say things like "scary".

Overall: 2 out of 5. Maybe this story would be exciting for someone (until the dude just dies and all that worry for our totally inept hero goes to waste). But that someone is afraid of cockroaches and rats, so why the hell aren't there any snakes? Why_the hell_not?

For stories that are exclusively about snakes (really, it's nothing but fucking snakes!) visit amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

The Disgusting Storyteller

This week I read The Disgusting Christian by Paul Ladamens.

(Linkel!)

Descripty:

"... only God knows what is in your heart and you can not lie to him

The Disgusting Christian is an uplifting short story (approx 1800 words) that touches on many themes of daily Christian life.

Follow the unamed narrarator as he solves the mystery of The Disgusting Christian and why he should strive to live like him.


The tone of the story is humorous and self deprecating however the message of God's love and salvation for us all rings clear."


Huh? Why did you begin your description with "..."? What happened right before that? Or you just couldn't decide where to start?


Anyway, if you're like me you're like, "How can you have an uplifting story that is character focused like this in 1800 words?" I mean, sure, it's possible. This guy's answer was to say, "Show, don't tell? Fuck that!" Seriously this reminds me of when I just describe an episode of a funny TV show to my friend and I can just see them like, "When is this guy gonna stop!?" but I CAN'T stop because I can see I'm failing to convey just how funny the episode was, so I have to give more details and just push it further and further until I have spent literally longer than the episode telling him/her what happened in the episode while there is a laptop sitting right next to us.


Soo.... this is a story about a crappy Christian judging another crappy Christian, basically. Oh, I almost forgot, there is this strange thing that he introduces right in the first line of the story, but it isn't the focus at all:

"I was a teenager when I first heard the Voice of God in my head."

You would think that would be important, but it doesn't really come up. Instead the important part is what he says a few lines later:

"The last thing I wanted was to hear what God had to say. I was too busy with my teenager life. I wanted to drink, chase girls, smoke, and play cards with my friends."

I bolded the teenager life thing because it's just hilariously phrased. But the point of this was that this guy is obsessed with the fact that smoking, playing cards, and drinking make him a horrible Christian. He's always like, "My mom was always telling me to stop drinking, smoking, and playing cards in the house." "Church was okay but I liked smoking, drinking, and playing cards." Seriously dude, NONE of the ten commandments has anything to do with those things. Yes, it's a good idea to stay away from drinking, smoking, and gambling (although with this story he might be talking about Uno), and it's kind of shitty to just like smoke and gamble in your mom's living room, but if you think these things make you a horrible Christian you might not be fully getting it. Maybe I just live the life of a sinner though.


So anyway the church assigns this kid with a mentor (churches have mentor programs that pair you with some old guy now?), Patrick (you guessed it, he's an Irish guy), who "had a way with young people." Patrick is basically there to tell this kid it's good he hears voices in his head and not answer questions: "I asked my mentor Patrick what he thought but he only shrugged his shoulders." Good job, Patrick.


There's also another old guy that goes to their church that stands in front praising Jesus and weeping and the kid wants to know what his deal is. Of course, Patrick doesn't know or can't be fucking bothered, so he asks the assistant pastor, Tim, who "was selfless in his good works," etc. Tim promptly explains the dude is an asshole, saying, quote, "He's not Christian at all, he is a liar! He disgusts me!" Dude what church do you go to where playing rummy is not cool but the assistant pastor violently talking shit about the congregation is just fine?


Apparently the old guy is an asshole at work, so the main character confronts him. The guy says he is praying for strength to change every Sunday, then, Lo! It's a miracle! The dude changes after a year of "trying," inspiring the main character to change and not judge people yadda yadda.

I just had to explain that far because I love how he wraps it all up: "If we love God and wish to honor him and keep his laws, then he will know."


So the moral of the story is try not to rape and murder people, and if you mess up, God will know your intentions were good! (Just don't drink, smoke, or play cards.)



Ratings:
Use of Commas: Hilarious out of 5. There are too many places to list, but I'll give you a little taste:
"How can I do good Lord?" 
...I think you mean, "How can I do Lord well."

Choice of Role Models: 0 out of 5. First he choses a guy who gave no other advice than "listen to the voices," then a guy that contradicts his entire life path as a holy man, then the guy that wails in church in the hopes that it will help him stop being a dick. Nice job.

Engaging Storytelling: 0 out of 5. This wasn't a story, it was a terrible personal essay. This was the only time I've ever read something that could almost qualify as flash fiction, yet I was still thinking, "How many pages are  left on this bitch? When is it going to end!?"

Overall: 1 out of 5. It had a beginning, middle, and end. :)


If you would like to read something that has at least two of those qualities, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

The End of Fiction...Again

This week I read The End of Days...Again by Joseph Coley.

(Link)

Here's the description:

"Andrew Wyatt and his friend Brian King just wanted to take a relaxing day down by the creek when they were pulled under...and emerged in a world that was familiar and terrifying at the same time.

A 6,000 word short story that evokes a "Twilight Zone" feel and makes you wonder...could you deal with the end of days...twice?"

Well, that says it all. Time for ratings.

Okay, fine, I'll explain. This story was pretty "meh," if I don't say so myself. It didn't evoke a "Twilight Zone" feel because there was no ironic ending or anything. And it didn't really make me wonder about anything. Actually it did make me wonder about one thing. The story begins with him repairing his friend's 1911 .45 and this gun, which is called by its full name like this each time, becomes the center of the entire story. At first I thought we had a gun nut on our hand, but then the writing started to sound like the informal, crack-jokes-under-stress writing style of Mark Tufo's Zombie Fallout series. This made me wonder if the guy is a military guy, and surprise! he is (there is basically no fucking way this guy hasn't been reading those books). So, I don't feel so good about making fun of the more military aspects of this story. See me supporting the troops, bitches!?

That being said (Curb Your Enthusiasm, anyone?), this guy's style at its best is pretty much a copy of Mark Tufo, so you might as well just read his books (pretty entertaining, actually). Also, I feel like everything is needlessly limited to this military point of view.

It doesn't add anything, except the thing that defines this guy from Tufo: A super long exposition that I don't give a shit about. If it's not important to the story, I don't care how much you know about guns, what medals you won, what unit you were in, what unit your friend was in, what unit your wife was in, how long you served, etc. etc. unless you can integrate it smoothly to add flavor. (Again, no disrespect to those who have served us). It's just like, maybe your character has been a cabinet maker all his life, that's all fine and good to have his profession defined, but I don't want to hear about what tools he uses to carefully carve the dovetails and why he chooses them over housed joints blah blah unless the guy fucking saves his family from a river by making a raft using dovetail joints, or traps the zombies in a big ass cabinet and becomes a hero.

So after like 3000 words he ends up in a post-apocalypse world where nobody is alive (except his friend who promptly commits suicide WITH aforementioned 1911 .45 pistol). But that's it. The next 3000 goddamn words are just repetitive descriptions of the blood-red moon. YES! It's RED! Like BLOOD! I GET IT! There is no explanation ever given of how he got there, why the world is like that, or even what comes of him. You realize what you did to me, guy!? That's like if I gave a huge description of getting ready for a party and all the friends I went with for 3000 goddamn words, going into the specifics of my profession let's not forget, and then gave a lengthy explanation of each drink I drank, what it tasted like, and how long it took to drink it, one after another, then just stopped and said, "That's it." Nothing else, just wasting your fucking time. Not even a single handjob in the whole fucking story.

Ratings.

Writing Style: 0 out of 5. I already mentioned that at best this guys style will eventually just be the same as that other guy, but there is also the fact that he has huge, awkward, clunky sentences. My second guess after military guy was very young writer, because this guy just hasn't figured out how to write yet. But when I clicked on his author profile and it was a guy in fatigues I lost a little hope for him someday falling into his own. Could still happen.

Editing: 0 out of 5. EDIT YOUR FUCKING STORY. I don't want to be reading and then

     suddenly there's a paragraph break for no reason! Just read through it like_once!

P.S. It's called "present perfect tense," look it up. Not to be a bitch about grammar OR editing cause god knows I have typos all over the place.

Descriptions of the Post-Apocalypse: 5 out of 5. Nah, I'm just fucking with you, they were pretty dull. "The sky was red, but the ground was black, and the red didn't reflect on the black, and the moon was even MORE red." Yeah good job, buddy. Oh, also I went on and on about this in another post, but I really want someone to write a story that's a well-thought-out metaphor for the Iraq or Afghanistan war. I mean, what other reason would there be for going on and on about your military background?

Overall: 2 out of 5. Not unreadable, but I think given my record it's pretty clear I would read a story about cardboard boxes. And I think this guy might actually keep with it and someday be good at this. Maybe.


If you want to read the works of an author that will never ever be good at this, visit amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

Write Knight

This week I read White Night pun? YES! LOLOLOL! By Ryan S. Fortney.

Here's the pics:

(Link)

And here's how he describes it:
"Another one of my extremely short stories, fabricated by the dawn of alcohol inebriation and the early morning star.

Sex so good, it kills."

Haha okay dude, let me just give a couple marketing pointers (cause I obviously rock at selling shit). First, "extremely short": actually....keep that, it's one of the main reasons I decided to read this. Okay, but telling everyone one, "I was totally fucked up when I thought of this idea when I stayed up until like morning," is maybe not such a good idea. And then just the line, "Sex so good, it kills." Huh? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Haha okay fine, it's your space to describe your product, not mine.

So actually I realized from the first line of this book that this guy was a much better writer than ALL clues led me to believe so far. He is actually really good at descriptions. I especially liked "My hips smack upward with the sound of flesh packing like an audience of one applauding slowly with gradual increase." That image, at least, will make my sex life much more hilarious.

But where this guy is good at descriptions he really is lacking in ideas. I'll just go 'head and spoil it for you because I just warned you fair and square and it's my THING! Haven't you been READING this blog!? Alright so slitting someone's throat at the point of climax is not original--neither in fiction nor in real life. And then, Ryan, after you blew your load way too early on killing the lady right at the beginning, you had a mess on your hands. Yeah, it's kind of interesting to see how he will try to get rid of the body, but he just instantly is like "yeah I'll just dump it in the river." Fine, throw away a perfectly good conflict. But then the cops come! Okay here we go! But no wait, they just immediately catch him. But then he bites his false molar and, uh, magic, escapes. Alright, fine, now we got a chase! But then he is hit in the back of the head and dies, the end. I- wai-whu-huh?

See, Ryan, like your main character, you habitually kill the thing that gets the reader off. That's why your story is too short! Then what do I got to review? I just have to go like straight to ratings.

Ratings:

Unnecessary Deus Ex: 3 out of 5. Yeah it was fully in there, and what I mean by this is he magically escaped the cops only to immediately die. But why this gets downgraded is I have no fucking clue what happened. I'll read it to you: "My teeth clench together and a capsule buried within my furthest back molar erupts and at the same time metal twists and transforms into a ball of orange, throwing back my captor and most likely killing his comrades." What? Did his face fucking explode and leave him completely unphased? I don't get it! Someone explain to me what happened and where I can get one of those fucking awesome molar implants!

Descriptions: 4 out of 5. Like I said, they were just pretty damn good. I also like how the dude describes himself at the end with his contact info and everything like a true indie pro (oxymorons, YEAH!). I'm cheating a little when part of his downgrade is for the bewildering molar thing, but also for his cheesy line in his bio where he says, "My name is Ryan, but you can call me Batman." Ha, does your mom just die at that joke!?

Disappointment: 5 out of 5. The plot was disappointing, the lack of conflict was disappointing, the fact that the title just came from a line in the story about the moon being his only witness, his "cratered White Knight in the sky" or something just nearly shattered my skull with disappointment, but above all the "and then he died because I couldn't think of anything" fucking ending. I am just... beyond words at that shit.

Overall: 2 out of 5. Maybe less, but let's be fair, if I give him less than some of these other stories on here, well, why even HAVE a rating system!? Maybe I should think of another scale...

If you would like to read some stories that on a scale of one to ten are...not horrible, visit amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

As I Embrace My Unwavering Pessimism

This week I read "We Run Races With Goblin Troopers," from As I Embrace My Jagged Edges (And Other Thorns) by Lee Thompson.

(Link)

Here's a description of the book, although it doesn't say much:

"A diverse collection of Dark Fantasy stories focused on the horror's of family, loss, tragedy and failed beauty.

Toc:
1. We Run Races with Goblin Troopers
2. Beneath the Weeping Willow (A Division Mythos Story)
3. Daddy Screamed with Us (A Division Mythos Story)
4. Crooked Stick Figures (A Division Mythos Story)
5. When Crows Sing Sweetly Bitter Music
6. Crawl
7. A Bell Ringing in the Empty Sky
8. Sorrow's Breast
9. The Weight of All These Years (A Division Mythos Story)
10. Boys without Faces
11. As I Embrace My Jagged Edges (A Division Mythos Story)"

Yeah that's right, I read the very first story and it wasn't even the title story. I will probably never know what the Division Mythos is. All I can say about it is it's probably really depressing. Actually I got this book not knowing if it would be a real indie author or not, and it turns out all of these short stories appear to be published, so for once we are venturing into the realm of the LITERATE! Except in the above description, horrors should not have an apostrophe. HA! BITCH!

Okay so I just started reading, wanting to know if it would be fun to review and I got a little hooked by the first story and decided, hey, why not review something worth the e-paper it's printed on? "Except maybe it's not," the voice in my head said, and oh how I hoped it was true.

The best summary of this crazy shit I can provide is that, well, A) It isn't meant to be taken literally, so B) I think it's a metaphor for how terrible the Iraq war has been on some families. But disclaimer: I might be giving this shit WAY too much credit. Other than that, C) Cannibal, soldier, guns, other cannibal, prostitute, crazy. That's basically like as clear as I can make it without just telling this story to you.

Fine, it makes no sense, does that mean it's bad? Well, according to my last post, yes. But this guy is all deep and war brings out the best in pessimistic, artful critiques of the futility of senseless killing, like Hemingway, right?

Well, two things: First, Hemingway didn't write Noir Fantasy (although this story is only "Fantasy" because of the word goblins). I'm sorry, I have no respect for angsty shit set in a spooky, overly violent, elven forest. PROVE ME WRONG. Second, Hemingway didn't just pile horrible shit on top of shocking shit to sound cool while he was drunk. He wrote honestly terrible shit that really happened and had a poignant message to it...while he was drunk.

What I mean is this guy tried to walk the line of writing a dark world to (I hope) make you think but then crossed that line and then took off all his clothes and started running away from the line wildly screaming. I just imagine this guy's brainstorming sessions consisting of making a list of the most shocking shit he can think of like, "People eating the intestines of other people, hacksawed limbs...hmm... taking out womens' eyes, oh, prostitution, that's a good one. Um, keeping a head in the fridge always works. And insanely shooting at hallucinations, yeah. Putting a bomb up someone's ass, no, no, wait a big spike. Using a dead mom's blood to paint unicorns on a little boy's chest." Too far? Well guess what, all of that was actually in the story except the bomb/spike up someone's ass (I added it for the lols). Yes, you read right, the end of the story is his memory of the guy painting unicorns in blood on his son's chest.

Now, this is arguably still not the recipe for my eyes rolling all the way back into my head and down my throat until you add the ingredient of just listing this shit off pointlessly, almost like I did above. There are no visceral descriptions of this stuff to make it horrifying like Saw, and I think that's actually the very reason why he does it. He doesn't know how to use just a splash of horrifying things in chilling detail, and the things he does use don't have much of a point so he just stacks them on like the fucked up limbs of hookers which his characters lobbed off until his shockers reach their word limit. Not quite Hemingway.

Ratings.

Fluency: 5 out of 5. This is a very well-written story in terms of me being able to read all of the sentences and not wonder what the hell he's talking about. This is more a criticism of virtually every other story I've read than anything else.

Using the Tired Example of Sex Work to Show How Grim the World Is: 5 out of 5. He had the most unnecessary and pitiful hooker ever. I wouldn't be surprised if this shows up in his other stories; I'm pretty sure this is his idea of Noir. He probably thinks he's edgy and deep when his co-workers say, "I got a great parking spot today!" and he responds, "Some women don't even have cars. They have to suck a dick just to get a ride to the ABORTION CLINIC."

Making me Think About the Irony of it All: 0 out of 5. For all his dark brutality, it seemed tactless and fake. I did think about the Iraq War, but that's mostly likely just me giving him the benefit of the doubt, and I immediately thought about how I wish someone would do a better job of it.

Overall: 2 out of 5. It didn't make sense, but it sounded professional not making sense rather than completely incoherent. For that, I have to give it something.


If you think coherency is overrated, read my stories at amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

Story Precautions

I read a story by an English teacher, Erin Ritch, called Snow Precautions for Your Safety.

(Link)

I know, you're like, "An English teacher? Must be an all right read." Well, you are right that the spelling and punctuation is better than most of the crap I read, but just because you have subject-verb agreement doesn't mean you know what the fuck a plot is, apparently. Here's a description:

"To any passerby, this sleepy town is one of many. Nestled in a quiet place with a quiet name, it's a flash in a huge forest of flickering light. When a young girl moves there amidst a circumstance of ghosts and curses, she attempts to find normalcy in a very obscure world. Instead, she will discover that maybe she fits in after all."

I'll let you guess. Just take a minute and try to figure out what that means. Try it out, predict what you think the ending might be and write it down. I'll wait.

If you're like me you wrote something like, "It turns out SHE'S the dead one," or some other cliche bullshit. Well, let me tell you, that shitty and overdone ending would have been WAY better than the actual story. "Is it a horror story?" you ask. No. It isn't. "Then why does the description make it sound like it's spooky?" Because you are trying to make sense out of nonsense. You are seeing shapes in the clouds. You are on acid and all of your synapses are firing at once and your brain is telling you there are faces in the wood grain. Because this story makes NO_FUCKING_SENSE.

Sorry to spoil it, but oh wait, you can't spoil NOTHING. You think I'm exaggerating. You think I'm going to tell you the plot now and it will be at least half a story. IT ISN'T. There is no reason to read this. You might as well look at a random collection of letters for TEN GODDAMN PAGEAAAGHWKJhekwhekw!

Sorry. Alright, I'll summarize it as best I can. From what I glean from the description the narrator moves to a new town (yeah, it's not so apparent just reading it). She moves into her grandparents house (that part I read all by myself!) because they died of a double heart attack while reading (seriously this is in here for some reason, and P.S. it never comes up again and has absolutely no significance to the story) Irish Faerie Almanac and it's suspected some Irish faerie took them to the afterlife or something. Okay, I know, you're like, "I follow," but seriously I am helping you a lot right now. After that a year passes. It rains a lot. Summer comes and they miss the rain a little. The end. Really. No, no, I'm not fucking with you, that's it.

I'm not kidding. No conflict, just a weird like personal essay that had every indication of going paranormal and it just ends. It's like a month-by-month account of random pictures—seriously, like if I just showed you my year in images and it was like a mailbox, then some trees, then a cat, and a tire swing. No, actually, that probably makes more sense than this story.

My theory is that this is some sort of free-form poem that just got out of hand so she labelled it as a short story. Fuck, I can't even explain how insane this shit is, just look for yourself:

"Halloween was the first time I ever stopped to look around. All the moments before that were filled with unpacked moving boxes, thoughts of thoughts of what to wear to school and the obsession with the avoidance of an ever-present drizzle of rain. So I got on with life once the moving boxes had been buried at the dump and I realized the rain was just a few hydrogen atoms and some oxygen mixed together. I can remember that one shining moment that we all look back on for inspiration while we sit on our toilets and feel depressed. I had eaten breakfast on a regular Saturday and went to get the mail from our tin box on the other side of the road. As I stepped across the gravel street, I heard a rooster crowing." Paragraph complete!

The first time I read that I was like, "Huh!?" Now that I've written it down here I get it, and despite every indication, it is actually one continuous thread. She is simply trying to jam some artsy shit into each and every sentence. To the point where it comes out like, "Halloween boxes on the toilet. Then there was a rooster!" Yeeeees. I like roosters too. Tell me more. (By the way, if you did follow, this huge moment she is talking about is just like looking at a house she never noticed before. WTF!?)

Ratings:

Hipster Use of Feminist-Inspired "Shocking" Language: 5 out of 5. Well, it wasn't all feminist-inspired, but at one point she was like, "At the time when I was just barely learning to spell 'uterus...'" I get what you're saying, but only because I am also a hipster, and that just makes me understand you are trying too hard to sound cool. Instead of thinking some "Are You There God?" reference shit, I'm like, "You specifically remember when you were learning to spell uterus?" Que comments about how I'm an insensitive prick.

Choice of Title: 1 out of 5. When I saw this story I got stuck on trying to figure out the title for much longer than I'm proud of. Finally it's revealed that every winter they put up that sign, even though it never really snows, it just rains some more... Heh.

Knowing What a Story Is: 0 out of 5. No conflict? No characters? No dialogue? Nothing happens... at all? Time passes, in chronological order. That is the only connection the end has to the beginning. Fail.

Overall: 0 out of 5. That's right. I hope your students at least learn from you by realizing what not to do, because this is it. I almost put "N/A" because I can't give a rating to something that just isn't even a story. And this "story" is the promotion for her book. I just imagine 50,000 words of shitty, hipster, too much pot, fucking coffeehouse beatnik-would-spit-on-you-for-it "poetry".

If you want to read something before anyone else even heard of it, check out amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall