Response to Cole Stuart's "Status Quo"

Cole -

Your short story was about Jake who is in school and he likes to test the status quo, figure out why it is there.  He ends up getting suspended for tardies and meets some guys there who he becomes friendly with and let him smoke with them.

I just have to say, once I read the title of your story, I couldn't get that song from High School Musical out of my head.  It's called "Status Quo" too I think...

Anyways, I enjoyed the comedic value of this story.  You have a nice way of wording things that work to make statements truly funny.  You also put some corny things in the story and it worked because it was in dialogue.  I like the way your story is going with a guy who likes to test the boundaries of social norm.  I would actually make that more apparent.  I feel like I want to know more about how he tests the norm and specifically why he does it.  His reasoning so far is that he just likes to see people's reactions but I think you should make him have more of a reason for doing the things he does.  Did he do it when he was a kid too?  Or is this a new thing?

Also, I don't feel like the character truly changed at the end of the story.  He liked to test the limits from the beginning and at the end we find him doing the same thing.  I think you can add some tension by having a character be a strict follower of the norm and have them interact.  Or you could have one of the guys Jake meets test the norm even more extremely than Jake does so that it offends Jake or so that it makes him learn something about playing with social standards.

I think this story is definitely worthwhile.  I enjoyed it!