Be careful what you wish for
Thank you for sharing your short story. I hope these notes are helpful. If any of them ring true consider them for your next rewrite.
Page 1. Second sentence, “Depressed and wanting to get out of bed.” is a sentence fragment. You may want to combine with the first sentence.
Liked the twist at the end, it had a twilight zone or outer limits feel.
What does the main character want? I get that they are depressed, but if there was a goal or something they were fighting for it could up the ante and build conflict through the story. Maybe there’s something physically they try to do in the room and have difficulty.
Much of the short story seems to be told, we aren’t shown what’s happening. Maybe a flashback to how the protagonist ended up in the situation. Or a description of the accident.
The tone of the story is very dark, you may want to consider adding some slight shifts of tone.
Other Reviews by Lanceeliot
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Thank you for sharing your short story. I have a couple notes and suggestions. If any of this rings true, I hope it’s helpful for your next rewrite.
Opening paragraph seems to be a critique of morning radio shows. It summarizes the narrator’s feelings about radio shows.
In the second paragraph we get more detail in talking about Travis T. Hipp. You may want to open...
Thank you for sharing your short story. I have a couple notes and suggestions. If any of this rings true, I hope it’s helpful for your next rewrite.
Opening paragraph seems to be a critique of morning radio shows. It summarizes the narrator’s feelings about radio shows.
In the second paragraph we get more detail in talking about Travis T. Hipp. You may want to open with this since the narrator seems to have a relationship with this radio personality.
Page 3 halfway through the second paragraph, “I began to talk back to the Thursday...” this description could be turned into a dialogue between the narrator and the radio personality. The rising conflict between the personality and narrator could work really well. It’s better to show than tell.
When the narrator changes their mind about the “Take 5” rip off song it could’ve led to conflict between Travis and the narrator. The story has a humorous tone and the potential conflict between the narrator and Travis (the narrator’s radio idol) could’ve been funny.
Summary should be used sparingly. It’s always better to show than tell unless you need to advance the plot.
Enjoyed the story and overall tone but felt like it kinda fizzled out in the last two pages.
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Thank you for sharing your short story. I have a couple notes and suggestions. If any of this rings true, I hope it’s helpful for your next rewrite.
Overall, I enjoyed the voice and writing of Labor’s Day. I felt there were a number of stories at play and that any one of them could be visited or expanded upon.
The paragraph about the union riots could be turned into...
Thank you for sharing your short story. I have a couple notes and suggestions. If any of this rings true, I hope it’s helpful for your next rewrite.
Overall, I enjoyed the voice and writing of Labor’s Day. I felt there were a number of stories at play and that any one of them could be visited or expanded upon.
The paragraph about the union riots could be turned into a short story. The paragraphs about Kathleen and Pete’s courtship could make for a story. While a frame can often be an interesting addition to a story to give it context, this story opens with a few paragraphs of exposition and description. And then we’re at the drive-in eating corn dogs with Kathleen and the narrator. The drive-in would make a good frame if that was the opening and ending of the story.
Because of everything going on in this short work, I’m not entirely sure what story it is the author want to tell.
You may want to assess the different elements at play in this work and decide on which story you want to tell.
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Thank you for sharing your story via Trigger Street. I hope that you find some of these notes are useful, please disregard the rest.
Overall I felt like much of the story was being told to the reader. While summary can help advance a story, showing what happens if often times better.
Here are specific observations I had while reading the story:
While starting in the...
Thank you for sharing your story via Trigger Street. I hope that you find some of these notes are useful, please disregard the rest.
Overall I felt like much of the story was being told to the reader. While summary can help advance a story, showing what happens if often times better.
Here are specific observations I had while reading the story:
While starting in the middle can often help propel a story, seeing that the main character in the opening paragraphs is okay could prevent the reader from feeling tension if she gets in trouble later.
Page 4, what’s the importance of running into Ryan Bentley? The protagonist talks to him, but we don’t know what they’re talking about. Were they an item? What would this chance encounter tell us about the protagonist? Did she meet him at the party a year ago or did they know each other before?
What if:
“For the rest of that week, my mind kept returning to that mirror. I even saw it in
my dreams. I tried very hard to forget about it but I had already chosen the spot on
my bedroom wall where it would look its best.”
Was something like:
“I went developed a routine at my new job and home. I almost forgot about the junk shop and the mirror until I found the place in my home where it would look best.”
Page 4 - 35 British pounds - is the protagonist from LA or the UK? Where did she move to? Later on I realized the Protagonist was still in the UK thinking about taking a job in Los Angeles. This wasn't clear to me in the set up.
Top of page 5 - a lot of exposition from the woman at the Junk shop. What if we see what she’s talking about instead of her telling us what’s going to happen?
Top of page 6 - When she runs into Ryan again we’re told what happens between them, but we don’t hear much of what they say. The shop is described earlier as being in a back alley, why is Ryan back there in the first place?
P 7 - again we’re being told what happens between Ryan and the Protagonist. We don’t see the progression of scenes as they become more involved in each other.
P 8 - I feel the line, “That’s when I should have smashed the mirror, or taken it back to the shop.” takes us out of the story. It diffuses the possible tension, again we’re reminded the main character is looking back on what has already happened.
P 9 - We’re told that Ryan started to notice. Again, this isn’t needed since we start seeing the conflict between him and the protagonist shortly after.
Enjoyed the reversal at the end of the story, but again felt like much of it was being told to us rather than shown.
If any of these notes ring true I hope they are useful in your next rewrite.
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