Not a bad little story. You did a good job showing John's happiness and how he fell into despair. Good use of imagery throughout the story, especially at the scene of the wife's suicide. I also liked his rationalization for thinking of killing the people on the bus. You make him out to be cold and calculating, yet not malicious or vindictive.
You pace the story well by alternating between the present scene and the past scene at John's house, but the story tends to jump around a little too much because of this, particularly towards the end. Maybe using italics for the past-scene parts would help separate it more easily for the reader.
Technically, there are some problems, but nothing that cripples the story. You jump into present tense for only one paragraph: "His name is John Roberts..." The rest of the story is in past tense, so you need to stick to it. Only change tense when the story allows; for instance, you could have used present tense for the scenes on the bus and past tense for the rest of it.
In the first paragraph, if you can find another way to say "any other morning", it will seem less repetetive. I understand that repetition is what you are aiming for here, but because the sentences are short it is too much. Try something like, "He waited at the bus stop, as he did every day. The bus pulled up late, just like it always did. The door slid open and John stepped on the bus, as he would do any other morning." It achieves the same effect, but the variations would liven it up, I think.
"He never usually sat at the back..." This phrase has to go. Change it to "He never sat" or "He didn't usually sit".
Your punctuation is generally good, but there is one recurring problem to correct. Some sentences either need to be broken up with a semicolon or the word "and, or need to be split into two sentences. Example: "It hit her hard, she became depressed." There are sentences like this all throughout the piece. Sometimes, this sort of sentence works to control pacing, as in these examples: "She accepted, they danced, they talked." "John cried silently, he cried with the baby on the bus, cried to the rheumatic breathing of the fat black man." In these instances, the broken sentences add a dramatic effect, but elsewhere they actually disrupt the flow of the narrative.
Feel free to drop me a line if you want clarification on anything I have said. I hope you don't feel that I'm cutting you up, because that's not my intention. Good luck with your writing! |
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