Hanako's Insanity [unfinished]

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TheHanafaggot
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Joined: Wed Jan 02, 2013 8:31 am

Hanako's Insanity [unfinished]

Post by TheHanafaggot »

Hello. I'm here to post something, since I've been writing for a few months now and never posted anything where I could really be indentified. I posted a few things on 4chan, and one of them even got 250 hits. I think it's strange considering the lack of actual feedback I got on it. In any case, I thought I'd post this here since you guys seem to be bent on improving writers, so here you go. If you guys like where it's headed, I'd probably finish it. No promises though.

The front door shuts closed. Not two seconds go by before she appears before me.
“Hisao! Y-you’re home!” Hanako says, giving me a tender embrace and a wet kiss. I don’t know how she got into the habit of waiting for me like a dog waiting for its master. But at the very least it’s comforting to know she loves me that much. When I proposed to her two years ago, she was only 21. I had my doubts, but who doesn’t? Luckily Hanako isn’t one of those women who can really just leave. Knowing what it’s like to be mistreated, she would never will that on somebody else. Six months later, we were married. And now, a year and a half after that, she still thanks me for everything I do for her. What more could a man ask for?
However, lately I’ve been getting some strange vibes coming from her. It’s not necessarily what she says or does, but how she does them. There’s an air of desperation every time she flatters me or asks me who I was with. It’s almost like she’s begging me not to leave. I wasn’t thinking about it, and I could never do such a thing to her, but it’s an odd feeling to have with somebody you’re so vulnerable with. It almost makes me feel sorry for her, but I know better than that. She just cares.
“This is nice,” Lilly says from across the picnic blanket.
Being with Hanako made me a lot closer to Lilly, and every first Saturday of the month we’d go out. It was never anything lavish or extraordinary; just a couple of close friends having a nice time out. This Saturday was no different and honestly, I think it’s good to spend quality time with your wife’s best friend. Somehow makes me feel closer to Hanako; and Lilly.
“What are you doing?” Lilly questions, as I put my arm around her.
“Just enjoying this beautiful day,” I begin, “Can’t a man get close to his wife’s best friend?”
“I suppose, Hisao. Just don’t get any ideas,”
Lilly has always been quick to judge me, especially when it came to matters regarding Hanako. I suppose it’s her motherly instinct coming through, but there might be a deeper meaning. In any case, Lilly’s happy with Hiroshi, so it’s not like I could make any meaningful advances.
Shutting the front door, Hanako quickly appears before me. At least she’s consistent.
“Hisao! How was your d-date?” Hanako says in the usual despondent tone, eyes slightly wincing. I begin to explain to her how we just had a nice little picnic at the park, and how I put my arm around her.
“O-oh... Okay,” She says, seemingly disappointed.
“Hey, w-were you the one sitting on the lawn earlier this m-morning?”
“No, Hanako. That wasn’t me. I’ve been out with Lilly all day,” I respond, slightly scared, but mostly just tired.
“O-okay, I must’ve j-just been seeing things again.”
I realize that she just told me that she sees things, but at this point I’m too tired from my and Lilly’s date that I simply kicked off my shoes and got ready for bed. Our house isn’t too large. It’s a single-story house, but I feel it’s just large enough for the two of us, and possibly a child. Hanako seems to be content with anything I like. With Hanako clutching my chest as we both lay on the bed, it was time for us to get some sleep.
Comrade
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Re: Hanako's Insanity [unfinished]

Post by Comrade »

Welcome to the forum, I hope you enjoy your stay.
It is well written, but it bothers me a bit that there is no spacing between paragraphs, it's all clustered tOgether
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Mirage_GSM
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Re: Hanako's Insanity [unfinished]

Post by Mirage_GSM »

Welcome to the forums.
The writing is a bit rough around the edges, but nothing a bit of practice won't fix.

A few minor pointers:
- The main part of the story is present tense, but a few times you slip into past tense.
- You try a bit too hard to foreshadow the coming conflict. (Even beyond the title...) Give your readers more credit. Even if they miss something, it can be very satisfying if they later reread the chapter and find the subtle hints then.
- The dialogue sometimes seems a bit off. For example would Hisao really refer to Lilly as his "wife's best friend" rather than just a "good friend". And later on would he really mention he put his arm around Lilly, especially since he seems to know she's suceptible to jealousy?
- I'm not quite sure if Hisao's intentions towards Lilly are really that innocent. If you intend them to be, you should maybe tone it a bit down.
Last edited by Mirage_GSM on Mon Jan 07, 2013 7:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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TheHanafaggot
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Re: Hanako's Insanity [unfinished]

Post by TheHanafaggot »

Thanks for the feedback, guys. It's well appreciated.
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Scissorlips
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Re: Hanako's Insanity [unfinished]

Post by Scissorlips »

An interesting start. I had a few pointers that I hope might be useful:
  • -A statement like "The front door shuts closed" is rather redundant. If you say that it's shut, the reader assumed that means it's closed all the way unless you specify that it hasn't.

    -Generally, stories are more readable when they're double spaced. It's just a helpful convention to adopt that's easier on the reader's eyes and helps pick out specific passages, not just to address issues but also to go back to things that were interesting or done well.

    -There definitely needs to be a bit more of a transition between events. With a single line break, you skip from Hisao arriving home to his picnic with Lilly and then back again. Any kind of transition would work, some extra line breaks, a series of dashes, anything like that. But just leaping straight into a different scene like this is jarring for the reader, they have to stop for a moment to figure out what's happening and where they're at.

    -It's a little odd that Hisao describes his outing with Lilly as a date in his head, immediately after reassuring Hanako that it wasn't one. Unless you're going to work in an unreliable narrator, Hisao's intentions appear to be innocent; he enjoys spending time with Lilly because he feels it strengthens his relationship with both Lilly and Hanako, not because he's thinking about fooling around behind her back. Having him think about it as a date when he just told Hanako it wasn't contradicts this.
None of those are deal-breaking qualms though. I hope you continue to write and show us more of this tale.

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Oddball
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Re: Hanako's Insanity [unfinished]

Post by Oddball »

I was actually rather interested in where you were going with this from the title alone. It's an eye-catcher. Although to be perfectly honest, I wasn't expecting it to go anywhere good. The title just brings to mind bad attempts to be edgy.

Sadly, it looks like this story never ended up going anywhere at all. There was a nice mood established and you did start to build things up to an interesting point.

I guess we'll just have to mark this one off as another "could-have-been."
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