mercury_viola_rhapsody Lotus Crystal
 
Posts : 2124 Join date : 2013-05-11 Age : 24
 |  Subject: Transition to Original Works  5th July 2015, 10:02 am | |
| Hello everyone. I'd like to figure out how to make the transition into writing primarily original work versus writing primarily fanfiction, as well as get some feedback on my current attempts at fully original fics. If you want to see some samples of my original writing, they're in the spoiler boxes below.... and I like writing dark things and the first two were potential entries for a writing contest about writing serial killers. - 1:
Every since I was a child, I’ve had a habit of randomly blacking out. I don’t know exactly what triggers this or why I do this or how to fix it, but I just regain consciousness in the same place I blacked out a few minutes later, and it doesn’t happen all that often.
Apart from this, I suppose that I’m a perfectly normal forensic scientist who works in a rather understaffed police office in the middle of nowhere where most of my cases are parking violations.
(---)
The monotony of my job was completely smashed to bits the day I accidentally fell asleep in my office and woke up to my boss telling me that someone’d reported a body that’d been found in a locked warehouse.
The victim was in the morgue, waiting for me to examine them.
Locked rooms tend to either indicate suicide or the killing escaping through the window. Let’s hope that the detectives looked into the windows and didn’t blindly assume stuff.
The victim’s name was unknown, for the person who found him was a random night watchman. He was between the ages of fifteen and nineteen, and was killed by a stab wound to the carotid artery. No fingerprints were found on the body, and the time of death was between six to twelve hours ago.
So, as expected, there is nothing in here dealing with the window, for the average person doesn’t kill themselves by slitting their own throat.
By the way, you should ask the detectives to check that window.
I walk back to my office, expecting someone to have found the gloves the killer most likely used. Instead, I’m greeted by a note sitting on my desk.
Shall we play a game? Two can play, but one of them has to be dead. Sorry.
Does this person want to be found?! Are they framing someone with this note? Am I their next victim?
Okay, run handwriting analysis once anyone comes back with a suspect list, and tell your sister that you’re going to sleep here for the next few days.
I pick up my phone and begin to call my sister when I suddenly fall onto my desk.
(---)
I wake up five minutes later. Or is it five hours or five days? I’m never sure how long my episodes are, but I’ve been able to put together what happened while I was lying unconsciously on the floor every other time….
Someone’s put a report on my desk while I was out. They did not investigate the windowsill, but there was another person killed in a locked room about six to twelve hours ago with no witnesses and in the exact same manner as the other victim.
Of course… it’s like those stories, where there’s never a singular killer.
I have no idea who else was running morgue work for me while I was unconscious, but this spell has to have been longer than usual, for most killers don’t kill in incredibly short intervals….
Stop thinking about what day it is, and just get back to the morgue.
I have to call my sister first, and tell her that these spells are getting worse. I have to go over this victim’s body with a fine-toothed comb, for they never mentioned the absence of DNA or fingerprints. I have to go tell whomever lit a fire in my office fireplace to stop doing that. I have to….
Why is there a notecard stuck to your cheek?
I peel the card off of my face and begin to read it.
You want to keep playing this game? Go on, go ahead. But don’t worry, you’ll find me soon.
There is something strangely reassuring about this note, and a part of me wants to laugh at its juxtaposition with a ruthless serial killer.
I’m about to laugh when my boss walks into my office and informs me of a third victim.
(---)
Why do I feel like…. I’ve met this man before?
The third victim is a rather androgynous-looking man with brown hair who was stabbed in both the chest and face before his carotid artery was fatally slit. He was between the ages of nineteen and twenty-three, his time of death was between twelve and twenty-four hours ago, and the murder weapon was not found in the locked room he died in.
Theoretically, this could be the first victim, or even the second…. but killers tend to increase their level of cruelty as their number of victims goes up….
There was no DNA or fingerprints or hair or anything of the killer found on the body. The detectives still have no examined the windows or the windowsills, and I need to know if there was broken glass in any of the rooms.
Broken glass correlates with blood, which admittedly won’t go all that far but at least gives us something to go off of….
Why would you be so stupid to do that? Opening the window and cleaning it would be smarter.
Why did I suddenly picture myself as this maniac?
I mean, we’re out of other options, so we might as well go with you.
The world’s blurring around me, growing blacker and blacker with every second as I grab onto the edge of the examining table, trying to prevent myself from falling….
Oh, look. There’s a note in his hand. You really should get that examined once you wake up.
(---)
I expect to open my eyes to an empty morgue table. Instead, I’m lying on a sofa with a newspaper on my face.
How did I get here? Does this mean that I’m actually active when I black out?
“....all of the doors are locked, so they can’t find you, and…. there’s been another victim.” my sister says, as she walks towards me with a set of utensils in her hand.
Is this killer targeting me? Who is this other person?
“What happened?” I blurt out, causing her to tell me that a woman was found in a locked room a few hours ago after being stabbed multiple times, and that I shouldn’t leave her apartment.
I want to tell her that I’ll be fine, that the killer isn’t going to kill me and that I really should go back to work and investigate those notes and windowsills on my own, and to hell with the detectives’ investigation, it’s not thorough enough…. but my vocal cords are paralyzed and every potential thought of mine is drowned out by the pounding on the door….
Or is this all my imagination, and the knocks are my heartbeat?
You are an imaginary person. The real you is coming, and you’ll find out the truth.
(---)
The final time I open my eyes, my hands are covered in blood and my sister’s lying on the floor.
Wait…. this makes no sense at all. I’m completely unconscious every time I black out, so I wouldn’t have been able to have done anything that’d get blood on my hands….
Then again, I don’t know if my sister can lift me up, so it is possible that I can…. do…. things…
Someone has to have broken in through the window. That’s the only thing that makes any sense, even though we’re on the 6th floor and there’s no broken glass anywhere and the window’s locked along with all the doors and-
Well, so who did this, then? There’s only one suspect.
It’s not me. I didn’t kill anyone, I just have been blacking out more and falling unconscious due to the increased stress of actually dealing with murders as opposed to parking tickets and I wouldn’t kill her….
Oh, look! The newspaper article on the fourth victim. They were so kind to include a description of the suspect…. too bad that they all know it’s you.
And adding up the times you blacked out and that fire in your office and everything else…. that makes it even more obvious that you’re not unconscious when you black out, but you kill people and forget about it when you wake up.
This is not happening right now. I’m a perfectly ordinary forensic scientist who works in the middle of nowhere and doesn’t have DID or any mental condition and who didn’t kill my sister and four other innocent people, and who hasn’t been planning this for who knows how long….
I’ve been pacing around the apartment like a maniac, and somehow ended up in front of the window.
It’s so beautiful outside. Don’t you agree?
Yes, it is. Now let me join them and do the right thing.
- 2:
I don’t know how this happened, but my town is filled with clones.
It’s like the whole world’s been turned into a house of mirrors, and I’m the only person still alive.
If that’s the case, then what happened to everyone else? Where are their bodies? How did they die?!
I don’t know if they’re tracking me. I don’t even know if they know that I’m not a clone myself, but if they think I am, then they wouldn’t suspect me or expect to avenge everyone who died….
You need to administer justice to these murderers. Death is the only thing this army deserves.
(---)
The items in my house that are capable of killing or harming another person include several knives, a set of matches, and some cleaning products. In addition, there are a variety of blunt objects that could hurt someone if they came into contact with the right area of their body, but there’s absolutely nothing that’ll harm a large group of clones.
What if the clones are stronger than your average human being? What if they know what I’m planning?!
Then buy stuff off the internet. It’s still running.
What if they’re tracking my internet usage?
Well, what else is left for you to use? I mean, there’s always that stuff in your basement…..
Since when did I store anything remotely useful in my basement? On the one hand, if I was only using objects found in my house, they wouldn’t find me, but on the other hand…. why would there be anything fatal in there?
Why don’t you find out?
Impulsively, I pick myself out of the chair and make my way into the basement, hoping that all of the doors and windows are locked and covered.
No one will find me. No one will have any idea how I will gather justice for my fellow townspeople.
(---)
There are no windows and no other doors to my basement. Unless someone wanted to come in through my house, they’d have no idea that it even existed.
Why don’t you plan everything in here? No one will find you.
It is quite strange that I hadn’t ever thought of sequestering myself in here to plan my revenge against at least a thousand clones, but people do forget several little details in times of chaos….
I flip the lightswitch on, unmasking a cold, empty room completely devoid of anything remotely useful.
Well, this certainly was incredibly illuminating.
At a second glance, there appears to be some sort of gun lying around in here, but I have absolutely no clue why I would’ve bought one before the clones invaded my town and murdered everyone, or why it appears to be stuck in a crevice.
Unfortunately I have absolutely no idea how to use it and this basement is incredibly stifling…. but I still yank it out of the crevice and sprint back up the staircase, as if I’m escaping some sort of prison.
Well, the truth is a prison and lies are prisons and everything you see is just perception….
(---)
Just walk into town when everyone is conglomerated in the same location, shoot someone random, and let the clones start killing each other.
That is actually a surprisingly good plan. If everyone looks identical, how can you determine which of them is the real killer?
Unfortunately, there is absolutely no event that could cause everyone in town to all show up at the exact same place. Especially since the clones are all of me, and I have never been the world’s largest fan of public gatherings.
So, let’s go back to buying stuff off the internet.
For once in my life, I am glad that my brother switched my internet settings on April Fool’s Day to some obscure European country which has not been infested by clones. If only said nation actually spoke English or I understood how to get the page into it without alerting the army that I’d planning on getting justice for everyone they killed….
Just click on random stuff. Wait, if I’m ordering stuff off the internet, wouldn’t they notice that I’m getting a bunch of packages from some random country in Europe?
I’m back to square one now. All I have are random household implements and a gun I can’t use.
(---)
The clones are still here. Everywhere I look, I see versions of myself I have to kill.
What’re you carrying with you? Use that to eliminate them.
The matches are with me. There are twenty of them in the box, and it’s morning. If I kill anyone, they’re going to see me and I’m going to get caught and I really don’t want to do this….
They deserve it. They killed everyone in this town except you, and they deserve nothing less than death.
I strike a match and toss it against a building, which goes up in flames.
The clones see everything. The clones know everything. They know exactly which one of them is getting revenge on the others, and which one of them is real.
Rapidly, I light the rest of the matches as the clones close in on me, not knowing or caring who or what is going up in flames as I run to safety…. for they know everything.
They’re tracking me and my revenge. But I won’t let them win.
(---)
I have to speed up my plan and get rid of all of these clones before they kill me.
Thankfully, I was able to get back to my house without anyone chasing me or having any idea what I did….
It’s nighttime now. No one will see you, and you are armed with the knives and that gun.
I have to finish this as soon as possible. No matter what, they will not find me. I slip out the door and shove myself through the neighbor’s open window, where the clones are enjoying dinner.
They don’t notice me until it’s too late.
I want to regret doing this, but I can’t. Besides, this is the fate they deserve.
- 3:
I bottle memories for my job. Most of my clients are people who are afraid of amnesia, and are willing to do anything to prevent it.
Even if I was a charlatan, they’d seek me out, but I don’t mind helping them.
(---)
The main challenge of this job is extracting the memories from my clients. Most of the time, I ask them to tell my about their lives, and grab the fragments of mist that float in front of my eyes.
However, some people are incredibly bad storytellers, or they just don’t trust me. Then, I ask them to reenact the scenes they wish for me to bottle.
Some of them will realize that I might be a fraud, and leave. But most people will agree. I don’t know if they do this out of fear or genuine belief, but either way, it pays well and I want to help them.
Or maybe I let them reenact their lives because I want them to remember me. For the scenes are all similar, just with me inserted into them.
(---)
Every time a person experiences something, colored mist floats in front of them. When I was a kid, I thought it was pretty, and grabbed them.
Bizarrely enough, there was also a mass amnesia epidemic when I was a kid as well. I didn’t realize that I was stealing people’s memories until my teens, but to be fair, I didn’t realize that I had memories of events I’d never lived through.
I guess I’d gotten used to knowing things I wasn’t supposed to. When I grabbed the mist, I was grabbing people’s memories and internalizing them.
So I decided to stick them in jars instead, for I could give them back to the people I stole them from.
(---)
For all who fear amnesia, come visit me! Bottle memories in the hopes of recovering them!
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