Hi Summer Wind is Healing , I just finished reading " Stuck On You" and I am here to offer my impressions in the hope that they might help you. Feel free to keep them or trash them, they are all yours !
Strengths:
I landed on this tale as I searched for something funny to read. The title betrayed nothing about what to expect and in fact, gave me the feel that it is going to focus on some love story as in the girl/boy is “stuck” on their love interest. Well, you kind of gave me that, didn’t you, trickster
Due to the finesse in the scene detailing, at no point I had to try hard to “see” things. In fact, I was really impressed and awed by some of the lines where you describe something mundane but yet describe it with such clarity that confirmed me your capabilities as a writer. I am talking about these lines, here:
“She noticed a magazine on the seat beside her. The wind was causing its pages to rip and tear. She caught a glimpse of Mark's blue shirt blowing wildly around his back, as the flies sat motionless on his head.”
Man, I was in the car seeing this all, I think. Amazing!
There is a plot(trick *evil*) and a subplot and you handle both wonderfully well. In spite to the short length of the story, I think you were able to introduce many emotions like excitement, frenzy, confusion, love and mirth <and maybe embarrassment, too for Mark >
And the end was something unexpected, since I was expecting some deep reasons for the flies, perhaps a symbolism and you caught me unaware. It made me smile, for sure
Questions/Suggestions
Just a minor thing, I couldn’t quite understand the line and its purpose, here:
“Mary remained silent, fearful of Mark's rejection”
DO you mean to say that if the lady would have told Mark that there are group of flies buzzing on his head, it would have caused embarrassment to Mark, if it were true and to herself if it were not. Was this the reason? Anyway, it is not a big deal because you didn’t linger on this sentence for long.
A minor suggestion would be too to clear out the excess blank spaces at the end of the story as it made me believe there is more to come. Oh wait, was it a ploy to trick me
The lasting memory of this piece in my mind
For obvious reasons, this line made me wonder how my high school mates would look say after 20 more years. It made me smile as I imagines them:
“His appearance was different than when he was in high school. He was her dream guy; a tall, handsome jock, with piercing blue eyes and blond curly hair. Now, he was chubby with thick coke bottle glasses that made his eyes seem larger than they were”
The overall feel
I think this a funny little tale, which has its own moments. It made me smile and time travel at some places
Thank you for sharing your work! Keep writing and keep rocking.
Thanks,
Nishank
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