Good Read
Your piece was really well written, enough to make me commit the sin of reading for pleasure, not to review. :) That's one of the best compliments I can give. It's engaging, intriguing, keeps you wondering throughout the story, and the last line is deliciously satisfying.
Your characters journey through philosophy was pretty much just right. Not overdone, but not so much detail all you get's a yawn.
I would like his life to be examined more closely. Instead of saying he cheated, recount an incident. Give us a good anecdote about Caroline, some way your main character wronged her, known or unknown to her.
Again, really nice work. The writing is clean and descriptive without ever getting in the way of itself. Good work.
Other Reviews by krtshadow
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My assumption is that the author intends the piece to be relatively meandering, and not to wrap up neatly. However, I find myself wondering what the overall point of the piece is.
We meet Nathan at the 'end' of his journey, and we are taken back to the beginning, so to speak. What the author does (I think) is try to conjure some sympathy for poor, exiled Nathan. I found...
My assumption is that the author intends the piece to be relatively meandering, and not to wrap up neatly. However, I find myself wondering what the overall point of the piece is.
We meet Nathan at the 'end' of his journey, and we are taken back to the beginning, so to speak. What the author does (I think) is try to conjure some sympathy for poor, exiled Nathan. I found this hard to do, as it was beyond me to imagine his motivations, and then be able to cover up the scenario.
The piece is technically okay, there are some word usages that need to be corrected ('Now that I was out of everyone’s site', should be sight) but otherwise not bad.
The introduction of the other adult characters feels unfinished. The story could probably be longer to fill out the character.
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...and lots of them.
I feel like I knew where you were going with this story, but I don't think you got there. You drowned the story in description, and while it's apparent this was deliberate it ended up drowning the reader. In some cases, it just became confusing.
There was plenty of time spent on Al, the job, cruising to the triangle, the limo, but little actual interaction...
...and lots of them.
I feel like I knew where you were going with this story, but I don't think you got there. You drowned the story in description, and while it's apparent this was deliberate it ended up drowning the reader. In some cases, it just became confusing.
There was plenty of time spent on Al, the job, cruising to the triangle, the limo, but little actual interaction with Candace. Max talks about how lonely he gets waiting for the next job, but then becomes somewhat degrading to the prostitute. It's a difficult juxtaposition. Plus, I'm not sure how the four and a half hour wait gets filled by a half hour of driving Candace around. I never felt the connection with Max, and never got a feeling for what his ultimate intent was for having Candace in the car.
Getting to the language, I suggest a reread to see how the words hit the reader. It starts with the first sentence:
"From the backseat of Number 18 I watched the smoke trace the plane of dim sunlight shearing through the inch of window I’d opened when I lit the joint."
It's clunky and hard to follow. I had to read it three times to get the sense of it. For the first sentence, it makes for a long read.
I don't think the piece succeeds, I'm sorry to say. If there are future drafts, I'm always willing to read more. Keep writing.
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It took a little while to get into your story. The first sentence wasn't promising. I would have liked the story to start with the actual dialogue. It immediately puts the reader into the scene with Tessie and Elaine.
Moving into the story, it takes a while to become engaged with the story. The first scene between Arnold and Tessie doesn't feel very natural. While it's...
It took a little while to get into your story. The first sentence wasn't promising. I would have liked the story to start with the actual dialogue. It immediately puts the reader into the scene with Tessie and Elaine.
Moving into the story, it takes a while to become engaged with the story. The first scene between Arnold and Tessie doesn't feel very natural. While it's not completely unreasonable for a married couple to still be using condoms after three years, it's not likely. There'd be another form of birth control.
So goes the same with Arnold's meeting Elyce. It feels stilted, awkward. Her first paragraph of monologue should be lengthened and separated over paragraphs. Make her talk over her awkwardness.
Once the story starts to pick up steam it smoothes out. Hutch is pretty one-note, and I'd like to read more about Dick and Elaine, but Tess becomes far more interesting. Her journey of lust into anger is pretty engaging. Arnold and Elyce falling for each other is a good read, but I think Elyce's guilt might be a little extreme. That's an author's choice though, and I won't argue it.
I also think that Arnold and Elyce are built just a bit too nice. Tess has character flaws abounding, must Arnold be such a white knight throughout the story? The Arnold/Elyce attraction theme has plenty of meoments that can be enriched by detail, but the story rarely lingers on them. For instance, the lunch at the diner, I was hoping there'd be a really detailed description of Elyce's smile, and why it floored Arnold.
The ending, with its turns, is pretty fun. I kept trying to guess up til the end how it would go down, and in the end it was satisfying.
A good work, I look forward to future drafts.
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