Once a Poisoner - Comments

Hah, this one had me all twisted up right from the start! It was actually kind of like a rollercoaster because at first, I was startled by the cold distance of the first sentence and then I actually ended up laughing once I realized it was for theatrical sake because I was so startled. Then it actually got dramatic and intense, and I was right back where I started. It was definitely a unique and fun technique you used because it surprised me, then lulled me back into this strange comfort where I thought it was just going to be about a new actress filming her first movie, and then you basically whipped me back into this extreme situation that I thought it had been in the beginning anyway.

That was actually a rambling of a paragraph, that’s how upside I ended up being at the end.

But, in a more coherent fashion, I liked how you executed this. At first, I thought that maybe you should have spread the timeline out more so Michael’s outburst didn’t seem so out of left field but then I kind of realized that Megan wouldn’t have picked up on any vibes anyway. She was so caught up in perfecting her first big role that she just saw Michael as this, well, pompous ass, as she affectionately put it. So having it happen so suddenly and quickly actually was a good way to go about it because as a reader, it definitely left an impression on me.

Well done!

@ frank castle.
Thank you so much for the feedback! And I will probably go back through and edit extensively if I do make this a longer story. I would probably expand more on the background in future chapters because its just a preference for me to draw the readers in for the first chapter I was thinking that this might be the background story for the future chapters though. I will decide whenever I get my next prompt if I will continue it! But again thank you so much for your feedback! It's always appreciated!

I really liked the overall concept of the story, and I know that as of right now it's only a one shot, but I think if you choose to add more chapters, you might want to give more backstory on the characters. As a stand-alone fic, it's fine, but even so I feel like some more detail is necessary. That might just me having a personal preference, but even when I write a one-shot, I like to give a decent amount of background info on the characters throughout whenever I can, or at least hint to it.

I also noticed a few grammatical errors here and there, and some of the sentences seemed longer than they needed to be. All of that is stuff that can be edited though.

Again, I liked the overall concept though!

@ velveteen rabbit.
@ Sturdy Roger.

Thank you both for the comments. I tried to fix a bit of my sentence structure and I fixed the part where I use Hayden's name to Michael's name. I was trying to make it obvious that she thought she was in a scene, but since I blatantly state that I see now that I don't need that. I left his name as Hayden for the movie, but I only used it twice: in the instance where she gets yelled at, which kind of has to happen unless I change the whole plot, and then where she says she thought she was still in the scene.

As for what you guys commented about telling the difference between the movie and the story, I tried to do that by having the director say cut after a scene was over or just having him say take a break basically. Before the second scene I had him just say Action so I thought that would be clear enough to indicate the shift. I know I did start with a scene, but I think for me that kind of makes it have some drawing aspect because the reader doesn't know whats going on.

Thanks for the comments again! I just figured I would comment back regarding where I kind of tried to go with it! Thanks so much!

I couldn't really read it because of the layout, so I had to go to the default layout, which really kind of sucks because the default layout is equally as hard for me to read (because I have dumb eyes). But that's just me, I'm really weird about layouts.

I feigned love for the man who was supposed to be my husband as I held his dead, lifeless body in my arms. This sentence feels incredibly redundant, because dead and lifeless are pretty much the same thing.

I feel like a lot of your sentences are run-on, just incredibly long and kind of chunky. And the more I read, the more confused I feel. I couldn't really tell what was movie and what was real, if that makes sense.

I'm really interested in how this is set up, though, because like velveteen said, it was intriguing how Michael went from dying in the movie to wanting to kill Megan. It's interesting because it could be argued that, since he makes it to the end of the movie (from what I can tell) before he dies, they would both be the stars since they both got equal screen time.

I feel like by the end of this, it's easy for a reader to feel confused as to what has happened. I found myself having to go back and read through, because I was like "Wait, who is Hayden? How did she have a gun pointed at his chest and then Michael was twenty feet away?" I was really confused and didn't really know what exactly was going on.

Overall, I feel like you have a lot of nice description, but it's not really consistent. I think that this story would be really amazing if there was something certain to separate what's movie vs. what's story. It would also make more sense if there was just ONE name for Michael, rather than Michael and Hayden.

That being said, this was incredibly interesting, and different from a lot of things I've read recently, and I did really enjoy reading it. Good luck with your contest!

The layout was a bit off-putting to me because I found it quite difficult to read with the background you had going on. Obviously that's just my opinion though!

I thought the plot for this was interesting, how Michael went from being killed in the movie to going kind of crazy and wanting to kill Megan (I think I'm getting that name right) because she got the lead in the movie. It makes me wonder what's going on in his mind or maybe things that have happened in the past that caused him to do something like that.

You also had some nice descriptions throughout the story, I would just encourage you to be more consistent with them. Instead of having certain parts that are more descriptive than others, try and keep that description up through the whole story. It'll really help to describe the setting and the characters more, and make your story a bit easier to follow. It'll leave more an impact on the readers as well, because if things are described the readers will feel the emotions that your characters are feeling and will become more invested.

I was a bit confused about the way your story progressed. I think if you kind of differentiated where there was time lapses and the difference between when the movie was being filmed and when characters were just talking to each other it may have made things a bit more clear. At the end, you used the names Michael and Hayden interchangeably it seemed like, which I'm assuming is because in Megan's mind she was kind of acting in the movie at that moment, but I was quite confused about what was going on.

I would also suggest watching your sentence structure because your sentences can get a bit choppy at times. Especially in the very first paragraph, a couple of your sentences felt like sentence fragments which made it feel choppy to read.

Also, for Michael's name, I don't think you need to use his surname every time he's mentioned in the story. Having his surname in there the first time is okay, but then just referring to him as Michael for the rest of the story would be fine.

Good job overall though, good luck with the contest!