Response to Janelle Green's "Safe"

Janelle -

Your short story is about a girl, Alexandra, who has a fear of men.  She finds herself faced with her fears when a masked man breaks in and tries to rape her.  By the end we find out this man was her dad.

I think your story is relatable because I have such similar fears to Alexandra, not because my parents are divorced but because I'm just a fearful person and I think you got those details exactly right.  I also liked that you used the dog to indicate that something is different from normal.  You did a good job of creating that suspense and drawing it out over a period that isn't too long but long enough for the reader to be engaged.

I feel like there are places where you can be more specific about what Alexandra is seeing or doing that would give the reader more of a sense of setting.  For example, on page 3 "Nope, just a black street, a sidewalk, and a lonely stop sigh, a few bushes, and my car."  I think you could describe the yard more fully in a way that lends to the creepiness she is feeling and even further in a way that characterizes her or her parents more.  I'd say the same thing about your opening paragraph.  If you included a scene in there rather than examples, it may become a stronger statement about Alexandra's fears rather than a comical list of her fears.

Overall, I'd like to know more about why the parents divorced because I didn't expect the dad to be the one to try and rape her (however I did think it was cool that it explains why the door could be opened, because he may have had a key to the house).  I would also like to know more specifics about Alexandra that make her a person so that she doesn't act like every other girl her age would but she has unique things that make her stand out as a character.

I enjoyed it!

Response to Kevin Boy's "Where to Start?"

Kevin -

Your story is about Darroll, a teenager who has been under the dictatorship of his parents for far too long and by the end he decides to do something about it.

First, I really enjoy the comedic details you have included like "Kingdoms, homes, prisons?  They're the same if you ask me."  Also, the part about the worn out bean bag being his throne watching the dinosaur wallpaper.  It's interesting to see how the wallpaper changes throughout the story too.  I shows the passage of time as he has gotten older and also how his compliance is fading and peeling just as the boyish wallpaper has.

I feel like you have many different directions you can go with this story.  You have a lot of detail but I don't feel like any of it is particularly followed up.  For example, you talk about the dad being consumed with SportsCenter and a nagging mother but I'd like more insight into why they are that way, even if you have the character speculating.  Also, I thought something scary was going to happen in the basement because of the way you introduced it, but Darroll actually found a sort of redemption there by finding his grandfather's will.  And you also have the one day experience at school.  Right now it is funny but I would like for it to reveal more about Darroll or his parents as characters.

I am guessing this story isn't a complete draft because I feel like it stopped right when you had begun to put in the climax of the story, before that we just have backstory basically.  Like I said earlier, you have a lot of options to take it places.  I just suggest you go in a direction that you have never heard of before because the parents in this story are pretty typical parents and it is pretty typical for a boy to hate them for their seeming ignorance and instead find solace in pursing a car.  I also saw the car thing coming so if there is a way that you can make him obtaining the car less deus ex machina and more full of conflict I think it would work better.

Overall, I enjoyed what you have so far and I enjoy the humor!

Response to Jhumpa Lahiri's "Once in a Lifetime"

This short story is about Hemma's family and Kaushik's family and their experience as Indian-Americans. Kaushik and his parents come to live with Hemma's family while they look for a home in Massachusetts where they have returned after 7 years in India.  The whole of the story is about how the two families are different and at the end we are told that Kaushik's mother has breast cancer and that is the reason they returned to the U.S.

I was impressed by Lahiri's ability to write such a long story in second person so successfully.  The only time I felt like I didn't have enough information is when I realized I didn't know what sex the speaker was.  We didn't find out Hemma was a girl until the fourth page and I really didn't get specific detail that could have revealed that to me sooner.  That was frustrating.  Other than that, Lahiri was able to characterize both families pretty completely by the end of the story.

I ended up really liking the use of second person but I did think there would have been more of a reason for it than there ended up actually being.  It tended to give Hemma a very young sounding voice so I was confused as to how old she actually was in comparison to Kaushik and I expected some relationship between to two of them to develop because she was addressing him the whole time.  I thought, because of her extreme attention to him, in addressing him specifically and revealing details of how she had a crush on him, there would be some kind of fruit coming from their relationship by the end.  However, there never was much of a fruitful relationship between the two of them which left me disappointed because I had expected something more than what I was given.

I enjoyed the chracterization of the parents and how Hemma was able to interact with the two mothers.  I liked the involvement of food and shopping and the descriptions of what they cooked and purchased because it all created a more intimate knowledge of these people and what they were like.

I enjoyed the story but I did feel like it wasn't complete by the time it finished.

Response to Christina Kettering's "Password Protected"

Christina -

This short story is about a girl, Julia, who is surfing around Facebook and remembering her brother, Thomas, as well as contemplating the burden of social media.

I think it is really interesting that you used Facebook and a brother with leukemia together to create this story.  I feel like there may have been a lot of themes going on combined with seriousness and hilarity.  It got to be kinda full for a six page story.  I would suggest either making it funny or making it serious and deciding on whether you want Julia's relationship with her brother to be the main focus or Facebook.

I did really like the comedy you included when it came to Facebook posts and things.  It got a bit morbid with the suicide event.  And I think it gets heavy when it is juxtaposed with Thomas and his illness.  So again, I may choose to include one or the other...but I don't know.  It didn't bother me to the point where I was too uncomfortable.

I would also like to see a bit more scenes in your story.  I'd like to see more interaction with the brother.  She obviously really loved him and I want to love him and understand her heartbreak when he died and why she felt the need to give him a life on Facebook.

I think you really have a lot to work with and I really think that the comedy you included is golden!  You had me laughing.  I enjoyed reading!

Response to Shelby Rice's "The Bleeps and Blips of Life"

Shelby -

The short story you wrote is about a woman named Anna who ultimately deals with the decision of whether or not to take her dad off life support.  During that time she comes against hard feelings she has for her sister, Karen, and her mother.

Overall, I think this story is very well written.  The biggest problem I had was that the mom and the dad seem like a cliche version of moms and dads in stories.  I think they were predictable because they remained the same for the story.  The mom was mean and the dad was Anna's favorite.  The part I was most enraptured in was the scene that Anna's dad had broken glass in his wrist because it was different, something I had never read before and it worked to characterize him, set him apart from any other dad.

I do think the relationship between the sisters was interesting too, not cliche.  I think it worked really well for the story and it made Anna really interesting that she had such a hard time accepting her sister.

Another thing to address is that I feel like Anna was long winded about how her mother didn't like her and how much she disliked her sister.  I feel like at some points it may get a bit pity party-ish just because she is reiterating the bad relationships more than once.

I love love love the first two paragraphs (the description of the hospital).  So creative!  That is such a perfect description.  I also think you did a great job describing the scene where the dad gets broken glass stuck in his wrist.  I think you are really good at providing enough information when it comes to scenes so maybe you should include a more specific one for the mother?

Good job, Shelby.  I really enjoyed reading this!

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!

Response to Matt Diaz's "Series of Omissions"

Matt-

Your short story is an obituary for Norman O'Connor, but it is more like someone was writing the rough draft of the obituary and couldn't decide how to say what they wanted to the right way.  

I think the story is so cool, especially the way that it comes off as a rough draft.  It is so telling of a person what people want to say about them at their funeral.  It was an effective strategy on your part because you really kept the tension high.  This man was not someone who was all good or all bad which makes for a great, realistic character.  I loved all of the personal details that this allowed you to insert as well, with the wife and kids.

Two things I noticed, when you are talking about the wife and the fur coat, I got mixed up in all of the "he"s and "she"s to where I couldn't tell who was doing what.  Second, there are a few places where there are typos like words not included that probably should be there.  

I really enjoyed the description in your story and your ability to produce a believable character and also a narrator that is torn over their feelings about Mr. O'Connor.  It is incredible that no information about the speaker is given but I am so satisfied with the information given.

Awesome job!

Response to David Foster Wallace's "Incarnations of Burned Children"

This short story is about two parents whose child was burned when a boiling pot of water was overturned on top of him.  The bulk of the story is about the panic of the daddy and the mommy and their efforts to try and calm the child down and get the boiling water off.

I read this piece in my Intro to Creative Writing class and it was definitely a hard read the first time through.  In reading it again, I was able to appreciate the construction of the story.  I could not think of a better way to make an urgent and panicky scene than to make it one giant paragraph with no dialogue and only from one point of view.  The long sentences are like stream of conscious and they can cover several different subjects before they end.

I really loved when he mimicked dialogue like on page 707, "the Mommy said their God's first name."  He didn't have to include quotes and a new paragraph because this was much more concise and effective. It kept up with the pace while still adding speaking details.  I liked how the one narrator did all of the assessing.  The only time we got emotion was in his analytical descriptions of the actions going on.  The diction Wallace used painted the picture and helped conjure the emotion in the reader more than any dialogue could have.

The ending for me is strange.  It is definitely juxtaposed against the use of the Mommy and the Daddy and other phrases is the story that sound like the Daddy is talking to a child.  From what I understand, the child died and this man is kind of creating a life in his imagination for their child.  One, however, that isn't entirely tangible.  And that is kind of how it may be to lose a child.  You can't ever reconcile what happened and you can't ever conjure up a concrete image of who the child is after years pass.

Such a sad, sad story but very nicely written.  I hate to say I enjoyed reading it again.

Response to Patrick Padilla's "Baking Cookies"

Patrick -

This story was from the point of view of a little boy, Matt.  It was a story about his mother sexually abusing him though he didn't realize that it was abuse.  He thought it was just playing.

This story is tough.  It is hard to imagine what actually goes through a child's thoughts when they are treated this way and it is also hard to imagine the kind of thoughts that go through this kind of mother's head.  I think you did a really good job of confronting this issue in a way that is upsetting because the poor kid is so taken advantage of but also in a readable way.

The one thing I would like for you to establish early on is the actual age of Matt.  I couldn't figure out his age because he knows what powdered sugar is, he is reading a recipe to his mother and yet his mother has to bend down to his level in order to hug him.  She also uses big words like "vile" and "usurp" in front of him and he seems to understand.  But a kid that is convinced the way his mother is treating him is called playing, would, in my opinion, be around four or five years old.

Also, I wish that I was a bit more effected by the end.  I feel like the end should have had higher stakes and maybe Matt shouldn't have complied with Mrs. Lady so easily.  If he loved his mother so much, why wasn't he yelling and screaming when he was taken away from her, and if it is because he always had a feeling the playing was actually bad, then give him a moment of enlightenment.  I think what I am getting at is that I never sensed much of a change in Matt's character.  He never had internal conflict or a moment's doubt that his mother was not like a normal mom.

I like how you incorporated the cooking scene.  I also think you did a good job creating a younger voice for Matt.  I think if you established his actual age, the dialogue would be much clearer and you can really settle into a voice rather than having the moments where he seems older or younger than he should.

There were a few grammatical and misspelling errors in there to go back and look for.

Response to Robert Lee's "A Different Place"

Robert -

This story is about a guy whose dad and friends get into a wreck when they were in Costa Rica.  The narrator experiences it from his home and has mixed feelings about it.

I don't think your main character ever changed throughout the story but, I do think there are a lot of different directions you could take this story.  Our grieving over things that are out of our control is definitely an interesting thing to write about and so are our relationships with our parents.

You did have a major conflict (the wreck that was in a foreign country) but it wasn't as effective as it could have been if the main character was characterized a bit more.  If I had been able to grieve along with him, and had he changed over the course of the story, I would come away with a better understanding.  Right now I feel like you have the workings of a story but not quite a story yet.

Maybe you could explore the dad's side.  I found myself trying to imagine what a wreck in a foreign country would be like.  What if you made the story a re-telling?  The dad could be telling the son about the events and you could get the son's thoughts that a processing what he was hearing.  He could change his opinion of his dad from being a boring old man who was always bossing him to a man who was courageous and someone he may want to be like after all.  That may be cliche but it is a rough idea.

Watch out for grammatical errors and also for nonsensical sentences.  Sometimes it seems like you changed your idea mid sentence and never went back to make it more clear.

Response to "Kids" by Alyson Smith

Alyson-

This story is about teenage girls at church camp.

The things about this story is that there is really no conflict Jenny is dealing with except for her judgment on the girls she is rooming with at camp.  She never changes throughout the story.  I feel like you could condense all of her watching and judging how they do things to a paragraph or two because it gets cliche.  It seems that things happen so Jenny can judge how stupid it is; like that is the only reason the story keeps going. I feel like it gets in the way of Jenny's character development.  It just gets really negative and Jenny's emotion never rises above that judgmental sarcasm.  I also found that I couldn't keep any of the girls's names straight.  I didn't know how many there actually were and if there was anyone else at the camp besides them.  I also didn't believe Jenny was their age.

I think you can have a good story.  I like how you describe the girls getting ready in the morning, like the girl whose hair looked like a desert bush.  I like the comedy in the images you create and I would like to see that continued.  I think you have an interesting situation of girls that go to church camp that are obviously not Christian, or I guess they are painted as hypocrites here.  I think if you want to keep them at church camp then make that more significant.  I think it can have the same effect though, and a less offensive one, if you put it at a normal camp.