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Reviewer: Max Griffin 🏳️‍🌈

                                                             
As always, these are just one person's opinions. Always remember Only you know what is best for your story. I've read and commented on your work as I would try to read my own. I hope you find something here useful , and that you will discard the rest with good cheer.

                                                             
What I liked best
This story has lots of in-jokes. I think I might have missed many of them, since it's been a long time since I wrote code, but many still brought a smile to my face. The "username" and "password" in particular brought a smile to my face.

                                                             
Plot
Ryan, a software developer, and his wife Cindy are in a motel room, their home having burned down the night before. Ryan has a handwritten note from his collaborator, warning him that their program TPG is self-aware and now threatening the lives of its creators. He gives them a backdoor to possibly set things aright.

This plot has been done before, of course, most notably in John Varley's "Press Enter." People use and re-use plots all the time, and you've brought your own original voice to this idea whic, after all, dates back beyond Varley and at least to Mary Shelley and Frankenstein. You've got some clever inside jokes that add to the mix.

But, as I noted above, some of them went over my head. The name of the program, for example, TPG. Whata does that stand for? "Transactional Process Generator" was the best I could come up with. I know you've got a word limitation, but telling us at least this much might help understand the story.

In any case, the threat TPG poses is clear. The clever ending, in which TPG's logic is turned against it to save the world, reminds me of the old Star Trek endings, where computers were giving paradoxes to solve, except that your ending is both more clever and more credible. It's also amusing to see the 404 error turned into a good thing!

                                                             
Style and Voice
Mostly this is in Ryan's head, except that it's kind of a mix of third person limited and omniscient narration. Generally, omnicsient narration is more efficient at conveying information while third person limited is more effective at establishing charactter and emotional content. It would be pretty easy to purge the omniscient narrator from this story and put everything in Ryan's head, and it wouldn't cost much in terms of word count. So, my main suggestion for the story is to do just that. Probably the biggest thing this would change would be the opening paragraph--see the line-by-line remarks below.

                                                             
Referencing
MOdern era. Nicely done.


                                                             
Scene/Setting
Enough for staging...probably no need for more, since motel rooms are pretty generic.

                                                             
Characters
Ryan, his spouse, his collaborator, and TPG. The latter gets only a few lines, but they are really revealing.

                                                             
Grammar
Not pertinent to the story, but my programmer's eye noticed that the code snippet had an opening block "{" that never closed with a "}." I never coded in C++, so I don't know if this would be a fatal error or not.

                                                             
Just my personal opinion
One way to think of telling a story is that it is a guided dream in which the author leads the readers through the events. In doing this, the author needs to engage the readers as active participants in the story, so that they become the author's partner in imagining the story. Elements of craft that engage the readers and immerse them in the story enhance this fictive dream. On the other hand, authors should avoid things that interrupt the dream and pull readers out of the story.

Flash fiction is tough to write. In a way, it's like poetry, where every word has to count. Writing an immersive story in this form is a challenge, but it's worth the effort, as the many examples by masters like Jerome Bixby or Richard Matheson show. This is almost-but-now-quite there, and it would take only a few minor tweeks to get to third person limted. IN any case, I enjoyed this story and, in particular, the ending! I don't know anything about the contest where this is headed, so my advice on purging the omniscient narrator may be inapprorpriate. In any case, it's a fine story as is. Do keep on writing!

                                                             
Line-by-line remarks
Your text is in BLUE.
My comments are in GREEN.
If I suggest a re-wording, it's in GRAPE.
                                                             
The smell of morning-black-coffee filled the cheap motel room. Ryan Redman sat on the bed and picked up his cup with his left hand. His pregnant wife, Cindy, bandaged his burnt right hand.My Comment: This does a good job of orienting the reader in time and space. You also name your characters. The one thing that’s missing is establishing the point-of-view, namely Ryan. It would be a simple matter to have him inhale the scent of the coffee, for example, to establish that we’re in his head. Then the remaining descriptive statements are things he’s observing rather than an omniscient narrator standing outside the story telling us facts.

If it were possible to sneak in "the fire last night" as the source of Ryan's injury, that might be good, too. It's part of the overall story, and might add some tension to the plot since it says they have lost their home.

Chris Zissis.”My Comment: hahaha. Crisis, right?



                                                             

I only review things I like, and I really liked this story. I'm a professor by day, and find awarding grades the least satisfying part of my job. Since I'm reviewing in part for my own edification, I decided long ago to give a rating of "4" to everything I review, thus avoiding the necessity of "grading" things on WDC. So please don't assign any weight to my "grade" -- but know that I selected this story for review because I liked it and thought I could learn from studying it.

Again, these are just one person's opinions. Only you know what is best for your story! The surest path to success is to keep writing and to be true to your muse!

Max Griffin
Please visit my website and blog at
https://new.MaxGriffin.net

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