Mitch sat at his desk in his apartment, working on a case-study about a pulmonary illness. He placed the final dot on the on the piece of paper in front of him and put his pen down. As his eyes moved over the words he had written down to answer the case study he felt pleased about himself, he had done a good job again. Like always.

This isn’t the first time a characters voice comes up in my head, I’ve had some good conversations like this in the past. I’ve even asked a character to tell me about something in their life and just let them talk, it gave me a great inside in their personality. I look at the piece I wrote as I let the conversation unfold in my mind.

I look it up, I know superiority complex is a thing otherwise I wouldn’t have the word in my mind. It doesn’t take longer than open Google and type in the search words for me to find a Wikipedia page on it. I can’t say I like what I read.

“I really don’t see you with an inferiority complex, let’s stick with narcissism, that suits you much better.” I close the browser again, I read what I needed to read.

“Really? Look. It’s not because (this should be just because) this Adler-guy came up with the definition for superiority complex it’s the absolute truth. In modern psychology people also belief a person with the superiority complex just feels better than others, you read that!”

“Let’s go over them. Maybe I do feel better than others, I have ‘a haughty body language’, I might ‘use other people without considering the cost of doing so’ and I have ‘problems in sustaining satisfying relationships’, at least until I finally meet Benjamin’s sister in a few years as you already wrote down, but I don’t have ‘hypersensitivity to any insults or imagined insults’, ‘detesting those who do not admire them’, ‘flattery towards people who admire and affirm them’, ‘a lack of psychological awareness’, ‘pretending to be more important than they really are’, ‘bragging (subtly but persistently) and exaggerating their achievements’ or ‘claiming to be an "expert" at many things’. I’m good at what I do, you never made me say I’m an expert on many things. Narcissism is clearly not the way to go, so go with superiority complex instead. Does it matter what Adler said? You’re the writer, even if you want to base yourself on true facts, you’re free to choose the view you prefer if there are more than one. So, rewrite that, make me bored instead of pleased and change my personality trait to superiority complex. That suits me much better.”

(The entire first sentence runs on for quite some time. It should have been partitioned in some fashion with either a full stop at some point, or perhaps a semicolon or two).

“Just do what I suggested. It will proof I’m right.”

“Good, now that is sorted, re-write that piece and make me bored instead of pleased. You’ll see, it will proof I’m right, it will fit me much better.”

The only reply I can think of is a groan, but damn it, Mitch has a good point and I don’t know how to counter it anymore. Even if the discussion comes to an end, it continues to haunt my mind. Thinking back, it’s true I (even in bold and underlined this one is hard to see, so I added this as well). didn’t display many narcissistic character traits and it’s true his father always demands the best grades from Mitch. I think about all the things Mitch pointed out and I can’t disagree with him. As much as it pains me to admit, Mitch is right. I can counter his arguments. Superiority complex might just be the way to go, it does fit his character. So, I start over.

Whoah. Wow. That was like watching a disneyworld ride wearing muppet-glasses inside a film loosely based on a Hunter S. Thompson exploit. Thoroughly scarred. Thank you!

I love the ending-glad all of this was going somewhere. I think you could maybe cut out some parts that aren't necessary and format the dialogue a little better to make it clear who is saying what. Maybe put the narrators voice in italics or vice-versa. All in all enjoyable and a fitting end.

The good: My signature single-quotation-mark dialogue is gaining ground! This is one of those madly-specific entries which is so tailored to the contest that it fits very nicely here. More generally, you did a nice, consistent thing with paragraphs that had a predictable flow to them and drove the story, one of those 'form contributing to the total piece' things you seem to do pretty often lately. I know that specifically this version won't necessarily be much use in future efforts -- but the fact that you keep coming up with ways to organize your stories cleverly is remarkable. I am remarking.

The work-on-its: It's hard to criticize the entry when it's designed this much for the contest at hand. I mean I can't fault you for messing up punctuation when your character kept interrupting, right? If the plot didn't make sense.... well that was the point, wasn't it? So I guess in your case, the 'thing to work on' is like..... I dunno, I wanna see something broader, something more conventional. Or just keep having fun. My objective when I'm doing these reviews is to help people improve -- but having fun is more important probably. Still if the generic 'writing improvement' thing is a goal, it would help to do more..... generic..... writing...... god that hurts to even type. Whatever.

Challenge-wise, despite your best purported efforts I think your character made you clear it, so good to go?

You have failed in the eighth labour.

So. I really enjoyed your story. Your grammar is, as ever, excellent, as is your sentence structure and variety. I will admit that the telling of this tale was quite confusing, how you would break in the middle of a paragraph and go to a different thought. I lost track of who was talking several times as well, and where The Narrator and The Character’s thoughts started and ended. I understand that it’s for design purposes but at the same time, on my first reading through I was hopelessly confused and even now my grasp of it is shaky. The balance between form and function might need to be reevaluated.

The reason I failed your entry, (though the above was a part of the consideration as well) was one specific line. You outright admit that the scenario is contrived, which goes against the challenge parameters. 'It's just you affecting their fates again in order to create a situation where you fight your creation in order to fulfill the requirements.' You deliberately picked a fight you couldn’t win, or you picked the fight and then did not destroy your character, to allow your character to beat you. I’m sorry, but I cannot allow your entry to pass.

It totally seriously matters.

I will have you know, I read @mdk's review (after the fact) - and they actually brought up a pretty valid point. In terms of meta-context, you never got the opprotunity to polish up your own story since you were busy having your face ripped off. In that sense, your story is a masterpiece. Every minor typo, mispelled word, the awkward sentence structure and the disjointed narrative shifting between third and first person - would all have served to enhance the unerlying 'unfinished' aspect of the story. However, information contrary to that little gem of a theory exists.

You have admittedly manufactured your opposition in the form of the Creation, including their powers and their commentary!

Or to put it as simply as possible - your story is not honest. It is certainly clever. It is definitely, definitely entertaining. But you did not adhere to the spirit of the challenge, and it is for that sole reason that you have failed.

Your grammar, spelling, and the overall structure of your narrative was much cleaner this time around - save for the jumbled and nonsensically arranged shift between first and third person perspective on the part of the narrator, as well as the confusing split between descriptive and verbal text. While I can understand that you did it for stylistic reasons and that the problem is intentional, ultimately the arrangement is more annoying than interesting. If you try experimenting with alternative formatting like this in the future, I would advise you to keep in mind one of the tenants of the challenge clarifications - you were not required to anthropomorphize yourself. By distancting your physical self from the dissonance in the narration taking place in the story, you might be able to create a more sophisticated effect that does not conflict with the personal perspective of the narrative.