Wow! I can’t quite decide which horror is the central horror: the boyfriend’s love of the cat; his diffidence toward Tracy; Tracy’s self-absorption; or the cat! There’s probably more. I’d say you nailed this challenge and I’m no horror fan.
I thought you'd be most horrified by the wine that went stale. But you're a beer guy, aren't you? I'll make it skunky beer next time, so as to give you nightmares.
That is some amazingly powerful hallucinagen. Our cat now is barely affected by catnip, but our previous cat turned into an angry drunk. Probably not unlike Pretzel. Also, I see publication in your future. This is darkly original.
My cat is also indifferent to catnip. But she's mildly psychotic without it. 😼
Thank you for the positive prognostication. If this ends up being the first story I ever publish, I will burst into deranged laughter. Since it's not like anything I've ever written before in my life. 😂 If you know of any publications that are into this sort of twisted stuff, let me know. Maybe I'll make more of it.
I find that your writing has that quality about it -- a fearless approach to a story that people might otherwise dismiss, and that's a publishable quality. Even the elevator pitch would sound funny, but then I read it, and I find myself drawn in immediately. I'm looking forward to your next!
Thank you so much, Reena. I chuckled a little when I saw the other piece that you had read/liked the same day you read this one. That's a pretty good illustration for you of how all over the map I can be in here. 😊 Thank you for reading on both coasts.
This is so good! The tension builds and builds throughout and every detail mattered. No unnecessary descriptions or dialogue. I would never know this wasn’t part of your usual bag of stylistic tricks.
Thank you, Steve! Too much description certainly would have thrown a wrench (or meat mallet) into the rhythm works of this one. I'm glad my choice (or fluke) to leave that stuff out made for good dramatic tension. 🙂
I got chills and goosebumps and all! Haha. Brilliant. I wasn’t sure what to expect with a horror piece, and I really enjoyed it. I should have known her jealousy would be the death of everyone 🤣
In hindsight, I actually think Pretzel is the most sympathetic character. 😂 My heart tells me he made it out okay. Garrett not so much. Tracy... probably on death row after a wine and catnip fueled rampage against all her ex-boyfriends.
Hahahaha I love the name too- Pretzel. Why is it so perfect?! 🤣 poor Garrett, just a poor loving dude who loves his cat. What did he do to deserve this?! Hahaha that was one of the best moments, when Tracy stuffed her face with the nip. Quintessential rage.
Whoa! I was not expecting this at all, but damn, I was pulled right in! You built up some excellent tension, and the story was perfectly paced.
By the way, I love all of the custom images you use in your stories. The text messages and breaking news report felt so organic, and they only added to the overall quality.
If it's okay with you, I'm going to put the first line ("Whoa" through "damn") of your comment on my Stock Fiction bumper stickers. 😊 I'm glad the pop-up imagery was effective. It's hard to write contemporary fiction without including the various technologies we use to communicate. (I set one of my YA novels in the 90s simply to eliminate the need for texting. LOL.) But they're awfully boring to look at in standard print form. I love how Substack allows me to add visuals throughout the story. This one could have used a spooky soundtrack too. Perhaps I'll bring Pretzel back with amped up AV features for Halloween 2023. 🔪😾🩸
Couple thoughts/ideas to consider after reflecting on this one:
1. I would classify this piece as satire, even though it retains horror elements. In my reading -- which is just one -- the central theme is that humans like cats more than themselves, which is true, but also kind of dystopian. It certainly has satirical undertones.
2. One of the best pieces of writing advice I've heard is that "humor kills tension." Also, tension is what keeps you reading. So I'd be careful about inserting so many one-liners in the midst of the action. They're funny, but they dampen the tension, and make me take the threat of death by cat mauling less seriously. This is another reason why I think the story is a satire and not a pure horror piece. Perhaps it's a "satirical horror."
All this is to say it's well-paced and well-written, but when I saw "horror" at the top I began the piece with a different set of expectations. Every reader does this -- whether they admit it or not -- so just something to consider.
I appreciate you taking the time to reflect on this. That tells me it was worth reflecting on. So, I'll take that. 😊I made a huge point of admitting this was the first ever horror-like piece I'd ever written, so I expected I would miss a few marks. I've also never officially called anything I've written "satire", but according to one reader, I was writing that when I was 9. So, I won't pretend to understand the current multitude of genres/subgenres/niches and the various rules about them. Is horror the same as thriller? Is suspense the same as tension? Is humor the same as satire? Yes and no, right?
I don't watch a lot of horror or slasher movies, but I do know some of them can be campy. And a little ridiculous. And not void of humor. Because I was telling this story from first person POV, I didn't want to write the protagonist as a mindless victim in her nightmare. I didn't really want you to side with her. Or anyone. Except maybe the cat, who was the real victim. 😼
I wanted Tracy to have teeth. And grit. And to be dislikeable even. I also think humor is a natural human response to tension. It is for me anyway. And as a satirist, I imagine you feel the same way. Like, maybe don't quote yourself as saying "humor kills tension" anywhere on your Substack, because your writing is funny as hell, but makes me incredibly tense. And I think that's the point. ❤️🔥
This is actually really fascinating to think about, so thanks for bringing these things up. I think my biggest takeaway from your comment is that I'm not going to genre stamp my stories anymore. Because it sends you in with whatever your definition of that label is, and that's going to muck up your experience.
Moving forward you will be completely blind to my authorly intentions. Enjoy your descent into chaos. And thanks for reading.
To be clear, I'm sure I think about this stuff more than most other people because I'm a natural learner at heart. I'm also a corporate mercenary who's much more prone to think about the business side of the art and how it's presented.
Also to be clear, there's positively nothing "wrong" with your story, so apologies if that's how the comment came off.
There are some subtle differences between genre and craft which I think are worth consideration, and have helped me grow as a writer. If none of this proves useful to you, no worries.
Genre: Horror, Thriller, Suspense -- these are all related, but genre as a construct is mostly bullshit. Colloquially, horror tends to have a supernatural element (e.g. hopped up cat), thriller is when nobody knows who the killer is, and suspense is when they do. Thriller >>> Suspense in terms of sales.
Satire is not really a genre, but more like a theme/construct. Many horror films are satires that reflect human absurdity back onto itself. For example, the movie Gremlins is a satire about unsustainable consumerism, but that theme is Trojan Horsed behind the little monsters (which unfold from somebody buying something they don't understand).
Two of my favorite books are Catch-22 and The Sellout. Catch-22 is a satire about the ridiculousness of war, and how trying to stay alive is perceived as madness, when it's obviously sanity. The Sellout is probably the funniest book I've ever read, which involves a Black man in Los Angeles reintroducing slavery. A must read.
Humor is its own genre. Michael Estrin writes excellent humor every week. Think David Sedaris too.
Tension is a craft thing, meaning how you create the story so that the reader feels uncomfortable and can't stop reading and needs to know what happens and wants to look away but can't.
Every genre needs tension, including humor. As you astutely pointed out, as someone who's allegedly funny, all of my writing should therefore be tensionless. I hope it's not, and the way I try to achieve that is through craft. So the Press Release thing yesterday -- there's a few obvious jokes interspersed in the narrative, but they're intentionally placed to give the reader a slight respite from the rest of the horror. Otherwise, it's a nonstop nightmare of corporate skullduggery, which is why it creates tension. The final line about "making the products that make human existence meaningless and unbearable" is there to relieve the tension, and tell the reader it's time to laugh -- if they're not already crying.
Alas, humor killing tension isn't a bad thing. In fact, it's required, because if you don't release the tension periodically and eventually the reader will be overwhelmed.
All of this is to say, in this reader's opinion, I bet there's a version of Pretzel where, if you just moved a few lines around, you could ramp more tension before giving us that big release at the end. Nobody needs more work, but you might want to play with it. Take a Word doc, move some lines around, and see how it reads. Maybe it's worse. Maybe it's no better. Everything's an experiment.
Finally, I wouldn't reflexively remove the genre at the top. Setting expectations is good, especially if you plan to usurp them. If I jumped into a story called Pretzel I might not otherwise expect a murderous cat. That's also good. Everything's a tradeoff too.
The best lessons I picked up on tension were from Chuck Palahniuk's Substack, which is called Plot Spoiler. I don't necessarily recommend a subscription -- I ultimately bailed -- but you should putz around and see what's freely available on tension and pacing. Whatever you think about him, he's a generous teacher, and the guy can write.
One last thing. Good satire makes people uncomfortable, in a, "I can't believe this person is writing this for everyone to see" way. That's how I hope to achieve tension in my pieces, and why I'm such a monster fan of Dennard Dayle. Satirists must be fearless. Check out this incredible piece:
I generally avoid all things horror related, but I finally gave in and decided to read this one. I'm strangely glad I did, and also very glad that I don't own a cat. Job well done, Meg! Your creativity is off the charts!!
Thanks for braving it, Claire! I do have a cat. She's a sweetheart, but lately I've been slightly more wary of her when she starts acting, what I now call, "pretzely". 😂
Poor, poor clueless Garrett. If the cat didn't kill him, his girlfriend would have. He didn't stand a chance. 😂
Tracy's the real monster here, not Pretzel. Of course I might be a bit biased since I love cats and have had them my whole life. Hard to sympathize with someone who gets that angry over a mischievous cat being just that, dangerously-potent catnip aside.
Thanks for reading, Lauren. I've always said that Pretzel is the only innocent party in this story. And the real horror is the relationship between the two so-called human beings. 😊
HOLY CRAP! This is officially the creepiest thing I have ever experienced - in print, in movies, in real life. You win in the terror category, Meg. ( Now I am wondering where this came from and what other sort of furniture you have rolling around in your head.... which is also scary to consider.)
God damn this was BRUTAL! I loved it. Thanks for sharing that link, Meg! I loved how bloody, how vicious it was, and what a deliciously heartless bitch Tracy is. 👏🏻
Wow! I can’t quite decide which horror is the central horror: the boyfriend’s love of the cat; his diffidence toward Tracy; Tracy’s self-absorption; or the cat! There’s probably more. I’d say you nailed this challenge and I’m no horror fan.
I thought you'd be most horrified by the wine that went stale. But you're a beer guy, aren't you? I'll make it skunky beer next time, so as to give you nightmares.
Nice! I shuddered at the details here:
“A meat mallet. One side flat. The other lined with triangular teeth.
For tenderizing.”
Let me repeat: I shuddered.
That’s high praise! To write something that gets a visceral, physical response? That’s the goal! Good job.
Thanks!
Thank you, Wil. Your shudder and praise mean worlds to me. I should probably delete my tantrum now. 😋
The cat who gave me nightmares last week just casually popping up in my inbox 👀🦁🔪🩸
Sweet Wendy! Forgive me! 💝
Will start sending therapy bills your way. ;-)
Okay. I'll pay them with my author income. 😏
That is some amazingly powerful hallucinagen. Our cat now is barely affected by catnip, but our previous cat turned into an angry drunk. Probably not unlike Pretzel. Also, I see publication in your future. This is darkly original.
My cat is also indifferent to catnip. But she's mildly psychotic without it. 😼
Thank you for the positive prognostication. If this ends up being the first story I ever publish, I will burst into deranged laughter. Since it's not like anything I've ever written before in my life. 😂 If you know of any publications that are into this sort of twisted stuff, let me know. Maybe I'll make more of it.
I find that your writing has that quality about it -- a fearless approach to a story that people might otherwise dismiss, and that's a publishable quality. Even the elevator pitch would sound funny, but then I read it, and I find myself drawn in immediately. I'm looking forward to your next!
OMG! This was brilliant and scary and both! Looking forward to reading more..
Thank you so much, Reena. I chuckled a little when I saw the other piece that you had read/liked the same day you read this one. That's a pretty good illustration for you of how all over the map I can be in here. 😊 Thank you for reading on both coasts.
It's amazing. I am in awe.
This is so good! The tension builds and builds throughout and every detail mattered. No unnecessary descriptions or dialogue. I would never know this wasn’t part of your usual bag of stylistic tricks.
Thank you, Steve! Too much description certainly would have thrown a wrench (or meat mallet) into the rhythm works of this one. I'm glad my choice (or fluke) to leave that stuff out made for good dramatic tension. 🙂
I got chills and goosebumps and all! Haha. Brilliant. I wasn’t sure what to expect with a horror piece, and I really enjoyed it. I should have known her jealousy would be the death of everyone 🤣
In hindsight, I actually think Pretzel is the most sympathetic character. 😂 My heart tells me he made it out okay. Garrett not so much. Tracy... probably on death row after a wine and catnip fueled rampage against all her ex-boyfriends.
Hahahaha I love the name too- Pretzel. Why is it so perfect?! 🤣 poor Garrett, just a poor loving dude who loves his cat. What did he do to deserve this?! Hahaha that was one of the best moments, when Tracy stuffed her face with the nip. Quintessential rage.
Whoa! I was not expecting this at all, but damn, I was pulled right in! You built up some excellent tension, and the story was perfectly paced.
By the way, I love all of the custom images you use in your stories. The text messages and breaking news report felt so organic, and they only added to the overall quality.
Great stuff, Meg! Looking forward to more.
If it's okay with you, I'm going to put the first line ("Whoa" through "damn") of your comment on my Stock Fiction bumper stickers. 😊 I'm glad the pop-up imagery was effective. It's hard to write contemporary fiction without including the various technologies we use to communicate. (I set one of my YA novels in the 90s simply to eliminate the need for texting. LOL.) But they're awfully boring to look at in standard print form. I love how Substack allows me to add visuals throughout the story. This one could have used a spooky soundtrack too. Perhaps I'll bring Pretzel back with amped up AV features for Halloween 2023. 🔪😾🩸
By all means! Do this!!
I really do want to make bumper stickers. 😂
We're a cat hating family over here, so all of this resonates perfectly well.
Couple thoughts/ideas to consider after reflecting on this one:
1. I would classify this piece as satire, even though it retains horror elements. In my reading -- which is just one -- the central theme is that humans like cats more than themselves, which is true, but also kind of dystopian. It certainly has satirical undertones.
2. One of the best pieces of writing advice I've heard is that "humor kills tension." Also, tension is what keeps you reading. So I'd be careful about inserting so many one-liners in the midst of the action. They're funny, but they dampen the tension, and make me take the threat of death by cat mauling less seriously. This is another reason why I think the story is a satire and not a pure horror piece. Perhaps it's a "satirical horror."
All this is to say it's well-paced and well-written, but when I saw "horror" at the top I began the piece with a different set of expectations. Every reader does this -- whether they admit it or not -- so just something to consider.
Hiya.
I appreciate you taking the time to reflect on this. That tells me it was worth reflecting on. So, I'll take that. 😊I made a huge point of admitting this was the first ever horror-like piece I'd ever written, so I expected I would miss a few marks. I've also never officially called anything I've written "satire", but according to one reader, I was writing that when I was 9. So, I won't pretend to understand the current multitude of genres/subgenres/niches and the various rules about them. Is horror the same as thriller? Is suspense the same as tension? Is humor the same as satire? Yes and no, right?
I don't watch a lot of horror or slasher movies, but I do know some of them can be campy. And a little ridiculous. And not void of humor. Because I was telling this story from first person POV, I didn't want to write the protagonist as a mindless victim in her nightmare. I didn't really want you to side with her. Or anyone. Except maybe the cat, who was the real victim. 😼
I wanted Tracy to have teeth. And grit. And to be dislikeable even. I also think humor is a natural human response to tension. It is for me anyway. And as a satirist, I imagine you feel the same way. Like, maybe don't quote yourself as saying "humor kills tension" anywhere on your Substack, because your writing is funny as hell, but makes me incredibly tense. And I think that's the point. ❤️🔥
This is actually really fascinating to think about, so thanks for bringing these things up. I think my biggest takeaway from your comment is that I'm not going to genre stamp my stories anymore. Because it sends you in with whatever your definition of that label is, and that's going to muck up your experience.
Moving forward you will be completely blind to my authorly intentions. Enjoy your descent into chaos. And thanks for reading.
To be clear, I'm sure I think about this stuff more than most other people because I'm a natural learner at heart. I'm also a corporate mercenary who's much more prone to think about the business side of the art and how it's presented.
Also to be clear, there's positively nothing "wrong" with your story, so apologies if that's how the comment came off.
There are some subtle differences between genre and craft which I think are worth consideration, and have helped me grow as a writer. If none of this proves useful to you, no worries.
Genre: Horror, Thriller, Suspense -- these are all related, but genre as a construct is mostly bullshit. Colloquially, horror tends to have a supernatural element (e.g. hopped up cat), thriller is when nobody knows who the killer is, and suspense is when they do. Thriller >>> Suspense in terms of sales.
Satire is not really a genre, but more like a theme/construct. Many horror films are satires that reflect human absurdity back onto itself. For example, the movie Gremlins is a satire about unsustainable consumerism, but that theme is Trojan Horsed behind the little monsters (which unfold from somebody buying something they don't understand).
Two of my favorite books are Catch-22 and The Sellout. Catch-22 is a satire about the ridiculousness of war, and how trying to stay alive is perceived as madness, when it's obviously sanity. The Sellout is probably the funniest book I've ever read, which involves a Black man in Los Angeles reintroducing slavery. A must read.
Humor is its own genre. Michael Estrin writes excellent humor every week. Think David Sedaris too.
Tension is a craft thing, meaning how you create the story so that the reader feels uncomfortable and can't stop reading and needs to know what happens and wants to look away but can't.
Every genre needs tension, including humor. As you astutely pointed out, as someone who's allegedly funny, all of my writing should therefore be tensionless. I hope it's not, and the way I try to achieve that is through craft. So the Press Release thing yesterday -- there's a few obvious jokes interspersed in the narrative, but they're intentionally placed to give the reader a slight respite from the rest of the horror. Otherwise, it's a nonstop nightmare of corporate skullduggery, which is why it creates tension. The final line about "making the products that make human existence meaningless and unbearable" is there to relieve the tension, and tell the reader it's time to laugh -- if they're not already crying.
Alas, humor killing tension isn't a bad thing. In fact, it's required, because if you don't release the tension periodically and eventually the reader will be overwhelmed.
All of this is to say, in this reader's opinion, I bet there's a version of Pretzel where, if you just moved a few lines around, you could ramp more tension before giving us that big release at the end. Nobody needs more work, but you might want to play with it. Take a Word doc, move some lines around, and see how it reads. Maybe it's worse. Maybe it's no better. Everything's an experiment.
Finally, I wouldn't reflexively remove the genre at the top. Setting expectations is good, especially if you plan to usurp them. If I jumped into a story called Pretzel I might not otherwise expect a murderous cat. That's also good. Everything's a tradeoff too.
The best lessons I picked up on tension were from Chuck Palahniuk's Substack, which is called Plot Spoiler. I don't necessarily recommend a subscription -- I ultimately bailed -- but you should putz around and see what's freely available on tension and pacing. Whatever you think about him, he's a generous teacher, and the guy can write.
One last thing. Good satire makes people uncomfortable, in a, "I can't believe this person is writing this for everyone to see" way. That's how I hope to achieve tension in my pieces, and why I'm such a monster fan of Dennard Dayle. Satirists must be fearless. Check out this incredible piece:
https://extraevil.substack.com/p/exclusive-evil-smart-pistol-user
I generally avoid all things horror related, but I finally gave in and decided to read this one. I'm strangely glad I did, and also very glad that I don't own a cat. Job well done, Meg! Your creativity is off the charts!!
Thanks for braving it, Claire! I do have a cat. She's a sweetheart, but lately I've been slightly more wary of her when she starts acting, what I now call, "pretzely". 😂
Poor, poor clueless Garrett. If the cat didn't kill him, his girlfriend would have. He didn't stand a chance. 😂
Tracy's the real monster here, not Pretzel. Of course I might be a bit biased since I love cats and have had them my whole life. Hard to sympathize with someone who gets that angry over a mischievous cat being just that, dangerously-potent catnip aside.
Thanks for reading, Lauren. I've always said that Pretzel is the only innocent party in this story. And the real horror is the relationship between the two so-called human beings. 😊
HOLY CRAP! This is officially the creepiest thing I have ever experienced - in print, in movies, in real life. You win in the terror category, Meg. ( Now I am wondering where this came from and what other sort of furniture you have rolling around in your head.... which is also scary to consider.)
Yay! I won something! I was planning on restacking this one on Halloween. Now I think I might need to restack your comment with it. 😻
All publicity is GOOD publicity, right?
God damn this was BRUTAL! I loved it. Thanks for sharing that link, Meg! I loved how bloody, how vicious it was, and what a deliciously heartless bitch Tracy is. 👏🏻
YAY! I'm glad you liked it. Most readers would agree that Pretzel was the most redeeming character in this story.