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.