This is a great sci fi piece with all the humanity ressonance one would expect.
Your descriptions are good, bringing places to life in a short span of words, but I think it would be better if you actually gave more description to the places and objects you're presenting.
Along that same vein, I think you tried to pack too much in. This story feels a bit like a whirlwind and the way everything flies at you is very distracting. A way to still have everything fit would be to have the story start with Troy in the spider craft and tell the beginning of the story through flash-backs. I think by keeping the focus on the Olympic battle, it would give the survival angle a lot more power.
Also, you need to give the reader a bit more background on what the world status is at the time of the story. So much has changed in the earthly experience. A few bits and pieces, through news stories, etc. would help the reader gain a perspecitive on the world Troy lives in. Historical data on why the Olympics has changed so drastically would be an excellent bit to put in.
I would also bring Warren out a bit more. He gets glossed over, but he's an excellent foil to Troy. The classic battle between being an individual and being a team player could be very nicely played out between them.
I found this poem to be highly evocative and emotional. The imagery is good and the language really creates the feelings experienced.
Your choice to not use punctuation is a fair one, but I have always found this challenging as a reader. Without commas and capital letters, the work feels unfinished and is always more difficult to read. This is a stylistic choice, but I think that, at the very least, you should insert some commas or -- to allow the reader to pause where you want us to.
This is a good poem and deserves the reader's full attention.
I really enjoyed this little tale. You captured the mentality of Hal perfectly. I could really feel his desperation and delusions of grandeur.
There are some technical errors in the piece (wondering instead of wandering, that sort of thing). Cleaning these up would make it much more readable and a stronger piece.
On a style note, I would drop the newspaper clipping. Leave the ending more of "Lady and the Tiger." It would leave the questions open and have that aggravating but fulfilling quality of mystery. Does he make, doesn't he? I think the story would pack a greater punch with those kind of questions left it.
You have a wonderful talent for bringing scenes to life with few words. This poem is so evocative of the scene it portrays. I can smell the weather, see the bridge, etc. Very well done.
My main problem with it, is the last stanza. Here we have a poem with the emotional power of a jack-hammer and then at the end, it sort of taps you. I hate to say it, but it made me mad.
Perhaps you need to add a few more stanzas about life changing but coming back to normal, so that the reader doesn't feel they just stepped off a cliff. Bring us back down gently, like you built us up.
This piece is very well-written. Nothing is too heavy handed and your description is held to the minimum, which prevents it from being too weighed down.
However, the story felt a bit lacking. The back story didn't really push forward to the twist at the end. I didn't really feel the father's feelings. There was a distance between the reader and Donald that prevents them from entering his mind.
This is unfortunate, because being in his mind and identifying with him would make the ending all the more powerful. Here we are moseying along, feeling the pangs of his pain and then we find out that he's a killer. We've been identifying with a killer. That kind of dissonance makes the horror that much stronger.
While your descriptions aren't weighing the story down, a bit more of them, the church, the various mourners, the scene at the house after the murder, things like that would help to create the atmosphere a bit more.
I liked the parallel between religion and vampirism, especially Catholicism (both involve the drinking of blood), and that might be an angle you play up even more.
It's nice to know that odd ideas don't just hit me when stuck in traffic. :)
I found this to be in the same vein as "A Modest Proposal." It did, in fact, bring a smile to my face.
However, I have a few cautionary words. This piece made me uncomfortable. Me, personally, I have had the misfortune of having to bury someone very dear to me and the idea of a cemetary and golf course, well, it rankled that little bit of me that feels the place is sacred.
Please don't misunderstand, I'm not saying that this piece is offensive in the least, but I'm worried that I'm not alone and that those innate feelings of "respect for the dead" will detract from the very humorous quality of this piece.
I wish I could suggest something to fix it. Perhaps, lightening up on the puns, or making it so ridiculous as not to be in the realm of possibility, or bringing in the commercialism angle a little more. Like the business men, playing with the undertaker as caddy.
This is a great psychological piece. I enjoyed the concept of it a lot.
However, I felt that the pushe behind it was the storyline and not the characters. Yet, the characters are the real focus. Without expanding on it, I think it would really help to focus more on Horace's feelings about what he did and what he's goign through as he confesses the awful truth.
To be honest, Horace came off to me as cold-blooded, just like the wife he described. I appreciate the unanswered question, but would a killer who is trying to plead his case be so didactic about it? If Horace were warmed up a little more, it would really help the ressonance of the story.
Also, more description on Chris would help the reader to see this family unit. Chris, in the beginning, is really well-done with what a reader would expect a child with a dying parent would be like. But his sudden explosion at his father is too sudden. Granted, he might be insane, it still is too jarring for the reader.
Technically, the story is very good. Some of the sentences are a little too convoluted, but a re-read should correct that.
I really liked it overall. It's a great story idea.
An absolutely wonderful poem. Amazing imagery, beautiful structure. It captures essence and feeling so well.
However, the poem while feeling wistful and yet confident, doesn't have the current of longing I would have expected for it's subject matter. This is more of a personal critique, so feel free to ignore me.
Despite my one reservation (a very small one) this is a fantastic poem worthy of great praise.
I like this one. The double-meaning and switch-back is very inventive and a nice use of language. It is humorous in a subtle way that allows the listner/reader to really explore the piece.
Great work on this, as per usual, I am yet again very impressed with the depth of your mentality.
A very inventive piece. A nice commentary on the randomness of thoughts as boredom becomes monotony. I really liked the whole horny worm theory. But, and you may already know this, worms are asexual, I believe.
I'd love to hear how the horny worm excuse would work with your boss.
Stylistic, the conversational tone is perfect for the piece. You have a nice rambling style that gives the piece a lot of personality with sacrificing too much.
However, you need to go back through and check your punctuation. I find that when working with a conversational tone you have to be more alert to the placement of commas and semi-colons. Otherwise, the tone is lost while the reader tries to parse through your sentence.
I've read a few of your stories and greatly enjoyed them. You have a knack for creating tension and using exposition just enough to get the point across without brow beating your reader with it.
As a fan of the short story, I'm sorry to see this wonderful form ignored by so many avid reader. It is a great way to get a taste of wonderful writing without having to sit down to a complete main course. Because of the terseness it forces a writer to be very picky in their word choice and to make sure that ever word, every scene does its own work.
I love your tone throughout this piece. It is sweet and sardonic and perfect for the content. I have some issues with the poem, thematically. You go so into detail about this woman you are creating and have the refrain over and over and again, but I found your "catch" anticlimatic. The refrain didn't really take on more meaning to me after getting to the end. You might consider adding one more stanza playing on the "catch" theme and thus giving the poem a little more punch.
I really like this story. I like the creativity of the premise and the simplicity of it. It is captivating in its tight focus makes it a wonderful read.
Bill's characterization is a bit lacking, however. While I do get a feel for him and his amazement at how the evening changes things for him, I want to know more about him. What makes him so apathetic and not bitter? Why does he accept this kindness from a strange woman? Does he have sexual thoughts about her from the beginning? Also, a little more description of Kathy would be good. Give us more of an idea of what she looks like and her physical demeanor.
Just a side note, but Subway is a copyrighted trade name and you might to refer to it merely as a Sub Shop when seeking publication. Some places get really touchy about stuff like that.
I love the twist at the end, but I would try to make it a little less plan, perhaps have a short note and then reveal what Bill finds out in his research into who she was, or something like that. It just felt like an anticlimax and I would cut out how old she really was. Leave that for the mists of time, or something.
All in all, I love this tale and would love to read its revisions.
This is brilliant! Amazing. I love the characterization the progression. Our narrator is never sane throughout it all, barely lucid. The the logic and reason, the glimmer of what everyone else calls sanity lies there under the surface.
I would love to see this performed and think it would make a great piece for that. For me, as a reader, breaking it down into more paragraphs would make it easier to read (and memorize) and ease the flow of the slyly jointed, disjointed thoughts. Very good. Thanks.
This editorial has a lot of thought and sincerity behind it. That comes out in spades throughout the entire piece. For that I applaud you.
However, the piece almost seems like two pieces brought together into one. On the one hand, there's the lauding of Cat Stevens and all his work for peace throughout history and the horrendous treatment he received by American officials. But on the other hand, there's an editorial about the freedom of speech and doing exercising our constitutional rights etc.
It is apparent how the two concepts are related, however, I think you might to focus on one or the other and not merge them as you have done. Using Cat Stevens and the numerous other cases would be a good way of bolstering the "Something wrong with America" argument. Or just focusing on what happened to Cat and why it was wrong would be a good homage to him.
Thanks for a thought provoking read.
Nighala
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