Untitled So Far (Macabre and Language) - WritingForums.com - Writing Forums, Writing Challenges, Critiques and Help for Writers

Elipsis · 01-11-2008, 08:03 PM

I'm starting to get back into writing fiction after... a while. This is the introduction to my latest idea. An investigator following a sick and twisted serial killer. He begins to admire the killer's work and begins to become more and more obsessed and psychotic himself as he finds the killer's journal. Here's what i have so far.

I always admired the way a serial killer could paint such a picture of horror and macabre. A scene that rivals the surrealists' art. Those specialists and collectors that stand around one painting and talk about the "pain" and "emotion" of the piece. I'm one of those people, just... not in the normal sense.
Imagine a woman.
Imagine her hanging. Arms spread wide, legs straight, toes pointed. Angelic.
Her hands are sawed off, the hacksaw lying just a few feet away. Hooks lifting her from the ground, pierced through her shoulders and back. The way people do suicide-suspensions to find spiritual enlightenment.
She didn't die from the bleeding. Not starvation or even dehydration. Her wrists were cauterized. She looked well fed and a hamster cage-like water dropper hanging close to her face.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
I am not obsessed. Not by a long shot. Some people call me a nut-job, but I am merely fascinated by the mind of a killer.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
She hangs there, swinging gently in the cool autumn breezes. Her face raw from the constant flow of tears.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Her twelve year old daughter lies right in front of her hanging body. Piece by piece, necrotic and rotting, her twelve year old daughter.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Head removed from the neck. Arms removed from the torso. Hands cut from the wrists. Legs from the waist. Feet from the ankles. The saw lying just a few feet away.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
She hung there for days. She watched as her daughter was killed and dismembered before her very eyes. Her handless arms slipping up and down the chains that hold her up, trying to wriggle herself free.
She died of heartbreak.
The tears of her face. The blood on the cement. Her nude body hangs.
Drip.
Daughter on the floor.
Drip.
Screaming for help.
Drip.
The saw just a few feet away.

And as I look, admiring the "pain" and "emotion", under the hanging angel is a notebook. Its cover waterlogged and worn, wet from water feeder hooked up to the bathroom sink. I tiptoe through the crime scene and bend down to pick it up. The woman's feet dangling in my face. The notebook's title, written in glistening black marker is warped, but readable. I whisper to myself as I read in horror. "I Want You To Know P-"
"Paisley!" My name echoed through the warehouse, scaring the living shit out of me. "What in Hell's Half Acre are you doing over there?"
I slip the notebook into the sleeve of my sports coat. Nothing, i answer back, just wanted a better look at these blood splatters. You can tell the woman's hands were sawed off while she was hung, I go on. I know it's not relevant, but I needed an excuse and that's what I pulled out of my ass.
"Well damn it, wait for CSI to get in here, then. I don't want you fucking up evidence. If all these murders have been related, I want this son of a bitch ASAP."
I head back to my car and stash the notebook in the glove box. We wait for CSI and the chief stomps his cigarette out and curses god himself when they turn up no leads. My mind is elsewhere, all i can think about is the waterlogged notebook in my car. The notebook left under the victim's hanging dead body. "I Want You To Know Paisley"

RyeCatcher24 · 01-12-2008, 03:57 AM

A little sick, a little twisted. For an intro it's pretty well written. I like that for a brief second I couldn't tell who was talking the killer or the detective. I don't know if that's what you're going for but I liked it. Looking forward to more of this story

Elipsis · 01-12-2008, 01:53 PM

Thanks. I was kind of trying to make the detective seem a little off in the beginning. More is on the way!

Elipsis · 01-14-2008, 09:16 PM

Here's the next bit of the story. I've been having a bit of writer's block with this already. I'm open for suggestions, but that doesn't mean that I'm out of ideas.

I get in the car and start back home for the night. My mind drifts.
“I want you to know Paisley.”
I run a red light and a car comes inches from clipping my rear end. My heart stops for a second when I hear the blasting of their horn and the screeching of their tires. Okay Paisley, I tell myself, wake the fuck up. You’ll never find out what’s in that notebook if you’re dead. I keep thinking about what might be in the notebook. What could the next scene of horror might be. Maybe an exact replica of some Dalí painting, only in blood and flesh. And of course, the murder weapon lying just a few feet away.
This man must have no fingerprints. We once arrested a group of ‘terrorists’ who had burned all their prints away. Fingers, palms, feet, everything. Now that’s commitment.
I finally arrive at the AveryHotel, a dilapidated old hotel on the shit side of town. This is what I call home. The force likes to rent out rooms for men and women on the force in places like these. I guess they think its security to have an empty police car outside at all times. Oh well, I’m off duty. Getting out of the car, I almost forget the notebook in my glove box. Up to the third floor, and into room 5B I go.
I throw my sports coat on the bare mattress in the corner of the room. It slips off onto the floor. I take a seat at my desk and open the window. The notebook sits in front of me. I’m almost cautious to open it. My fingers tremble, my heart pounds, a ball of ice grows in my stomach. The title stares me in the face as I grab the corner of the fist page and open it.
“I want you to know Paisley.”
I begin to read, my eyes glued to the page.
“Hello Paisley. I know you have been looking for me for some time now. I have seen the way you look at my art. You see it just as I do. I would like you to be able to see me at work some day, but first you must know everything.”
Four pages in and I’m tumbling down the rabbit hole. Falling deeper and deeper into this man’s mind as mine is swarming with ideas and questions. These people wished to no longer live, but in the face of a horrible death, begged for their lives.
I’ve heard most female suicides are done in the bath tub. They say it’s because they don’t want their families cleaning up the mess. I say it’s because that is where they went to relax and finally find peace.
This man was doing them a favor.
They made their choice and he showed them what they have to live for. Only in death do people realize this. Only when it is too late, do people realize what really matters.

Elipsis · 01-15-2008, 06:09 PM

I wake up in a cold sweat. The cool breeze blowing the sounds of the city through my windows. It's two in the morning and my hopes of getting back to sleep are lost.
A shipping barge hulls its cargo down the river. Its light reflecting through River Street and up through my window. The pale illumination of my apartment reveals the notebook set beside me on the bed. I reach to the light beside me, switching it on. A black shadow creeps through my peripheral vision and catches my attention.
I turn my head to the far side of the room. Nothing is there. I sigh to myself and my pounding heart calms. Just nothing, i say to myself. Now Mr. Hyde, let's see what else you have to tells me.
I read five more pages and I'm back to sleep. I dream of meat hooks, hack saws, needle-nosed pliers. Majestic scenes of torture work their way through my imagination. I sleep like a baby.
The ancient Chinese would tie a person above a young bamboo plant. They way trees will grow around an obstacle, bamboo won't. It will keep growing straight and try to punch through anything in its way. Like a torture victim for example. The poor soul would be there for however long it took for the bamboo to work its way through the back, breaking ribs, the spine, and all organs standing in the way. They would keep you alive the whole time.
Excruciating.
Imaginative.
Fascinating.
The morning sun shines above roof tops, now. It burns its way through my eye lids and I wake. The fresh smell of salt water runs up my nostrils as I take my fist breaths of the morning. Eight pages for breakfast and I feel refreshed and clear, like it was a cup of hot tea. Thirteen more during lunch. It fills me like an appetizer before my cheese steak sandwich. I go home and order take out. My dessert of a dozen and a half pages settles me down for the night.
As I read, I imagine everything this man did before, during, and after he wrote this passage. Sometimes he would describe his excitement before or as he found a victim. As he told them why he chose them, he would note their reaction.
All of them similar.
It was a drama, a thriller, even a comedy to me.
I would imagine being him in the moment. I would fill in the blanks. What I would do. What would I do? Thinking like this is dangerous, but where's the fun in playing it safe, I say.
I dream of being him. I dream of doing things he did. Maybe he had a wife and kids. Maybe he was the youth minister at the Nazarene church down on Broadway. A super hero whose secret identity would always be the suicide killer.
A super hero.

Truth-Teller · 01-16-2008, 01:25 AM

I.
Have.
Something to.
Tell you.

Learn to write proper
sentences.

Elipsis · 01-16-2008, 03:41 PM

Being an asshole isn't going to help anyone. The story is set in first person. The way the main character describes things with one word makes the reading more poetic. If you have a problem with that, tell me in a way that doesn't make you out to be a jerk and helps me in the process.

Adamboy · 02-21-2008, 03:43 PM

At first i thought, 'this is sick!' But then i thought it's amazing.

I love your style of writing, so dry and in your face.

I particularly liked the relationship between the killer and detective, it crossed me as a an almost forbidden relationship that the killer should have the same interest in death as a form of art.

Keep going.