The Hatred

[NickBrown]

The hatred swallowed my family. At first, it was just a brooding specter, looming in the shadowy crevices of our home. But it grew. Slowly at first, so that no one paid it much attention. But its influences were everywhere, meant everything.

The hatred snuck into our home about a month ago. I woke up earlier than usually one morning to use the bathroom, and decided to stay up. Work was in a few hours, and I wasn’t all that sleepy. My wife gets up early to let the dogs out, jog, and make our daughter’s school lunch. I meandered into the kitchen to get myself a bowl of cereal, when I noticed her laptop open. She usually doesn’t leave it out like that. As I passed by the kitchen table to the cabinet, I saw that she was in a chat room. I took a closer look, and noticed that it was with another man. Then I saw the naked pictures, taken in our bedroom, with daylight being barricaded by the blinds.

And so the hatred crept in. I could’ve been sensible; I could’ve just confronted her, got a divorce, and let the little whore get on with her life. But I didn’t. I wasn’t as strong then as I am now.

The hatred flew in and nested, settled with our happy little family. I started ignoring her, purposefully avoiding her whenever I could. The hatred grew. Then I started to berate my daughter whenever we were alone. The hatred grew. Finally, I made my first firearm purchase. The hatred grew. It grew and grew, until it was a homogenous blob hovering right below the ceiling, bubbling with anticipation.

Now I’m standing in my bedroom with a cool gun in my hand. The ichorous jet black of the hatred meets the refreshing maroon of the blood in the middle of my vision. Right below me are the bodies of my wife and daughter, hands bound, mouths gagged. I hear nothing but the deafening beating of a heart other than my own. Until the rip of gunfire shuts out the noise. Now I hear nothing.

[hillwalker]

There's a fundamental problem with the plot arc here - and it's difficult to explain why it jars so much.

Paragraph 1 - great opening line. The second sentence would work better as a new paragraph by allowing the reader a moment to absorb the first statement before you plunge into an explanation of how it began.

But in the following paragraph (the second) you change style completely. It's as if you decided to start telling us the same story again but in a different way.
Now we get the banality of a character waking up, going to the bathroom, pondering about work, eating breakfast. . . Yawn. Any potential for suspense or intrigue has been flushed down the pan.

Stories involving tension or menace are all about pacing and build-up. There has to be a logical sequence that tightens the strain one notch at a time as the reader continues to work their way through it. If you were to plot the stress level of this story on a graph it would be dropping bit by bit when in fact it should be a steadily climbing curve.

The actual crux of the story - the narrator's wife's on-line infidelity - is treated in much the same way he might handle the discovery that she's forgotten to wash the dishes. It's reported - then the story moves on into some rather clunky internalised dialogue. In the space of two or three seconds he contemplates divorce and labels her a 'little whore'. Hatred not so much 'creeping in' as arriving on the back of an ICBM. Does it sound believable - not in a million years.

And to make the plot even more unrealistic he decides to shoot the daughter as well. . .

Some interesting ideas buried in the purple prose - and as a plot it has potential if properly fleshed out. But at the moment the best part is the way you humanise 'hatred'. The rest is a bit of a jumble.

H

[NickBrown]

So how can I work on my pacing?

[hillwalker]

When I read your piece I couldn't imagine you sitting down and writing it in one sitting. Parts of it looked as if you had been trying to write in quite a profound way - personalising hatred and showing how it can grow out of control. Other parts - the 'plot' or the choreography - looked as if they had been bolted on later. The voice isn't consistent. Pace also suffers when you write in this way.

One way to avoid such problems is to try and write a complete scene in a single burst - then read over it before starting on the next episode. That way you are more likely to pick up the momentum again (rather like jumping onto a bus that's already pulling away from you).

I find that the correct pace comes naturally to me so it's difficult to demonstrate what I mean without giving a simple example:

Suzie felt herself slipping from Lenny's arms. Holding on tighter - a few seconds more - but it was no good. The boat was drifting away with him aboard while she slid deeper into the sea. She lurched for dry land but in reality this patch of dry land was also rapidly turning wet. Her deckchair abandoned, she grabbed a magazine to cover her head and dashed barefooted into the cottage.

“Damn, damn, damn,” she wiped dripping hair out of her eyes as she bounded up the staircase. The downpour battering against the cottage roof was relentless.

After slamming shut both bedroom windows she stared through the blurred glass in utter frustration at the storm which had already overwhelmed her garden and the fields beyond. A few minutes earlier the dream had been perfect. Her and Lenny castaways on their own desert island. Now the only discernible features were the two trees at the side of the gate, aged and weather-beaten like the withered, black masts of a shipwreck. There was someone crouching beneath their branches. Another half-drowned castaway perhaps, or one of the lads from the village more than likely.


In this first extract everything that happens leads on to something else happening - even when she reflects on the dream for a moment or two - everything steers the story forwards in the direction it's meant to be heading.

Suzie felt herself slipping from Lenny's arms. Holding on tighter - a few seconds more - but it was no good. The boat was drifting away with him aboard while she slid deeper into the sea. Lenny had been her boyfriend back in the days when teenagers wore their hair long as a sign of rebellion. But Suzie had never had much to rebel against.

She lurched for dry land but in reality this patch of dry land was also rapidly turning wet. Her deckchair abandoned, she grabbed a magazine to cover her head and dashed barefooted into the cottage.

“Damn, damn, damn,” she wiped dripping hair out of her eyes as she bounded up the staircase. The downpour battering against the cottage roof was relentless.

This was her parents' cottage. They had emigrated to warmer climes and Suzie had only come to the country for a few days' break. Anything to get away from the drudgery of temping in London.

After slamming shut both bedroom windows she stared through the blurred glass in utter frustration at the storm which had already overwhelmed her garden and the fields beyond. A few minutes earlier the dream had been perfect. Her and Lenny castaways on their own desert island. Now the only discernible features were the two trees at the side of the gate, aged and weather-beaten like the withered, black masts of a shipwreck. There was someone crouching beneath their branches. Another half-drowned castaway perhaps, or one of the lads from the village more than likely.

In the second I've added bits that certain writers might think add flesh to the character or add relevant detail - but in each case they drag the story to a halt and set it off in reverse.

There's a time and place for background information - if it's drip-fed into the plot it doesn't stall the story. But if it's dumped into it without any thought for how it affects the momentum of the plot it's likely to be problematic.

H

[Hawkman]

The main problems with this piece are the changes in tense. You are talking about what happened a month ago, so why do you switch into present tense? "She usually doesn't leave it out like that." and at the time of writing, she's already dead. The repetition of "The hatred" is over used - a bad rhetorical device. You just don't need to keep saying it. I agree with hill about your digressive explanation about getting up early. Much of this detail could be left out. Not sure I agree with the idea of strength equating with death. "I wasn't as strong then as I am now." but the story concludes with "Until the rip of gunfire shuts out the noise. Now I hear nothing."

I'm not a fan of flash fiction, and I guess this qualifies. I think I'd have preferred to se the tale worked up into something more substantial. At the moment it's all tell, whereas the suspense could have been built up with a series of scenes played out with interactions between the characters. As it is, the reader isn't really taken on a journey, just told where the path is.

Live and be well - H