1. Posted: December 29, 2013In:

    Lonely woman recognizes on a blind date one of her torturers from ten years ago. After the memories of her horror come back, she decides to take revenge and find the rest of them.

    JayK Penpusher

    Yes! Especially the empowerment implicit in the concept of "best therapy"! Hell hath no fury like a woman gang raped. Feed on the rage! I would make it more transformational by making her meek and mousy, and morally ambiguous by making her the spurned wife of a pastor. Try this?... "Still sufferingRead more

    Yes! Especially the empowerment implicit in the concept of “best therapy”!
    Hell hath no fury like a woman gang raped.
    Feed on the rage!

    I would make it more transformational by making her meek and mousy, and morally ambiguous by making her the spurned wife of a pastor.

    Try this?…

    “Still suffering from acute trauma ten years after a brutal gang rape, a spurned, mousy, submissive pastor’s wife decides that her best therapy and chance at marital redemption is to stalk and kill her attackers one by one.”

    (Gives me chills!)

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  2. Posted: December 30, 2013In:

    A recovering alcoholic, teetering on the brink of relapse, uncovers a shadowy 12-step labyrinth of blackmail, human trafficking and murder while he probes the brutal death of his sponsor.

    JayK Penpusher

    Again, thanks for your encouraging critique! As a matter of fact, I had in mind that a sleazy sponsor would turn out to be "good", but now I see the twist you've torqued and it intrigues me! At the very least, he should be morally ambiguous. Having to seek information in all the wrong old places isRead more

    Again, thanks for your encouraging critique!
    As a matter of fact, I had in mind that a sleazy sponsor would turn out to be “good”, but now I see the twist you’ve torqued and it intrigues me! At the very least, he should be morally ambiguous.
    Having to seek information in all the wrong old places is a deadly irony to a person who knows he must sever links with his drunken past. I think the challenge of that irony is pivotal: if he doesn’t go back, he’ll never know; if he goes back, he may not recover and likely die.
    I think I’m pretty close to beat-sheeting this (novel, actually) and pulling together all my research and personal experience.
    I welcome further input from everyone!

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  3. Posted: December 30, 2013In:

    A recovering alcoholic, teetering on the brink of relapse, uncovers a shadowy 12-step labyrinth of blackmail, human trafficking and murder while he probes the brutal death of his sponsor.

    JayK Penpusher

    Thanks for tightening it up. However, the precipitating event is the death of his sponsor, which event gets "buried" in your rewrite. Also, a great part of the risk is involved with his needing to revisit the very people and places that almost killed him in the first place. I've been thinking somethRead more

    Thanks for tightening it up.

    However, the precipitating event is the death of his sponsor, which event gets “buried” in your rewrite. Also, a great part of the risk is involved with his needing to revisit the very people and places that almost killed him in the first place.

    I’ve been thinking something more along this line:

    “A recovering alcoholic risks his sobriety by returning to his old haunts in search of answers to his sponsor’s brutal death, and uncovers a shadowy 13th-step labyrinth of blackmail, human trafficking and murder.”

    Closer to what’s really going on. Your thoughts?

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