Response to Molly Kirkpatrick's "Blood"

Molly -

Your short story is about a girl, Scarlett, who is in a psychiatric facility talking to a psychiatrist.  She is there because of a suicide attempt from cutting herself sometime after her dad died.  We learn details about her parents that would seemingly lead to her cutting.

I really like how this story is not something I have heard before.  I think the things that are working for you are definitely the details about the cat being run over and the patients as well as Scarlett's reactions at the dying and death of her cat and her father.  These all work to create an original character.  I also think Scarlett has a strong voice in this piece that serves to characterize her very well.

The thing that isn't working as well is that, like my story, yours is basically all summary with no real scenes.  The one dialogue you included was a remembering of an exchange between Scarlett and her dad.  I think having things happen in scenes would give the details I mentioned that were working for you even greater impact.  Also, I didn't sense much of a change in Scarlett since your story was summary.  Since the point of view she held at the end of the story was they same one she held at the beginning, though she was talking about a time she didn't have the same point of view, the character didn't ever go through a change.

I know the mom in this should be OCD because of the details but I would like for Scarlett to actually say she is rather than me just perceiving through details because I want Scarlett to have a voiced opinion about her mother.  The mom is satirized throughout the whole piece but I never hear the narrator say that she does or doesn't like her mother.  On that same note, I want more specific detail about the dad so that I can like him more and know him better as a character since he played such a big role in Scarlett's life.

Even though there are great details about the psychiatric facility, I feel like they are in excess and they can be replaced by these details about the parents.  I care more about that relationship.  Since you spent a lot of time describing the psychiatric facility I thought something more significant would happen there.

Overall, this is a great piece!  I really enjoyed reading it.