INTRODUCTION

Hello chili_dog,

I found your item "Invalid Item"  in the review request thread and saw that you're hoping to get it in shape to submit somewhere. I have some experience with submissions (though mostly just in the speculative horror genre) and thought I might be able to offer some insight.

So, let's get right to it.

WHAT I LIKED:

Story

I like that the story is filled with a certain amount of uncertainty, and think that ambiguity goes hand in hand with the almost spiritual voice of the narrator. It's introspective, it relies on a connection I think a lot of people can relate to, and there's something to get out of it, for sure. There's a lot of potential in a piece like this, and I hope I'm able to offer some advice to help you get it ready for submission.



This isn't in regards to the story specifically, just a friendly bit of advice; when you're posting work here to get feedback, make sure that you make it available only to registered users or higher. If you post it with no restrictions, a lot of literary magazines and anthologies will consider that as being "previously published" because it's hosted online, and most places pay lower rates for reprints.

Tense

I think the biggest thing to work on for the piece is going to be the tense. It's a little difficult to jump around in a timeline (like you do in this piece) when the story is written in the present tense, because it's just a little more alienating than it would be if the story were written in the past tense. Starting in one moment, backtracking, and cycling back around was sort of a bold choice for a story in this style of writing.

A more traditional approach would involve switching tense - starting and ending in the same moment written in the present tense, but telling the majority of the narrative in the past tense like it's being told to an audience, but that would involve re-writing a large portion of the story to fit into the past-tense.

An easier solution would just be to put more separation on the beginning and end of the story, just to emphasize that it's the same moment and everything in the middle is (somewhat) linear and separate.

CONCLUSION:

I hope that this was at least somewhat helpful, and I wish you all the best with getting the piece published!

Sincerely,

-Cat
















My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .