RE: Chapter 1: Swallowed By the Floor -- Fabulous Freewrite In the Art of Stephen King
This is an awesome read! Very, very, very cool! :D
Though there is just one thing I'd like to point out, though it might just be me :P
Babies might crawl over her and inspect the small bumps that remained of her, and then quickly move on in boredom. Guests that arrived for the funeral wondered at her death as they stood on her buttocks and enjoyed baked ham and potatoes.
This has me thinking there were babies in her apartment prior to the funeral, did she have children?
I feel like this should be a new paragraph, since right now you have her sinking down still, and people already walking over her in the same paragraph... also since you speak of small bumps that were smoothed out over time, it doesn't quite create that "feeling" that much time has passed.
OK. That makes sense. I had this this vision of time passing, and babies crawling was my abstract way of showing that. But I think it doesn't quite work. You're right...
What if I said something along the lines of:
As time passed, her husband was more easily able to view her as what she always had been to him--a part of the furniture. And that is how it became for everyone. Whenever friends or extended family came to visit, the line was the same,
"How's Sarah?"
"Oh, she hasn't moved much. Maybe an inch."
UPDATE: OK, I have gone and changed it a little. Let me know if it's still confusing.
Thanks so much for your input! I really appreciate it.
That's more than perfect! :D Thanks for considering my input! :D
Thanks for giving it to me! I had another question. I considered going into more detail to describe how her body actually began to turn into the floor, but then I thought I'd like to leave it vague because that's kind of how she felt--numb and vague and kind of absent of any real awareness other than discovering suddenly she was no longer quite herself. Let me know if you think it's missing something there and maybe I'll develop it, or add it in later. Who knows.
I think the amount of detail is sufficient, especially given she isn't really at her right mind, most likely even suffering from opioid withdrawal ("...She longed for the medicine from the epidural to numb her brain. If she could, she would insert it directly into her brain. Anything would do: Heroin. Morphine. Pentobarbitol. ...").
The feel of the carpet-y fibers in her mouth was dead on, and its not like she was able to tell much else.