What can I say here. This goes too fast, there's too much background missing. We don't get to know either of the characters. What is 300 words should be 1000. Still I liked "the story" of a guy (a lawyer) who suddenly finds that his whole life is arranged and controlled, but to be a proper story it needs "lungs." It needs to breathe on the page. In this relating we get a series of actions which, while related, don't tell us anything we wouldn't find in a newspaper article about the same thing. Work with this story. Flesh these guys out.
Mostly I liked the way this flowed. The style of handling stream of consciousness was similar to how I would have done it. Good use of elipses. It falls apart at the end, however, because you have rushed through the whole wake up scene. Although we understand what has happened there is little separation between the rushing forward of the daydream and the actions after waking up. woke up, job centre, got off, sign up...all in one motion.
I do like this beginning. I'm not sure staying inside the diary/journal is the best way to go but there it is. We need more information about the characters, more information to understand what is being lost. Some contrast between the 1.8 million life and the new cramped quarters bomb shelter life, and perhaps sooner rather than later so we can gain the quick empathy with these people that we need to achieve. I like the subject. I like the journey.
What more can be said? This would be a great piece even if it was just scrawled on the wall of a psych ward (and maybe especially so). And it's so effective even for lesser habits and attachments. What's particularly nice here is how it turns amid phrase from "me" to "you" and gets ugly from there. From meth to alcohol, this is a powerful antidote. Rinse, repeat.
I was WONDERING what the new game could be. It was a great alternative. Yes, you have the formula for keeping an interest in the story line. If I didn't hand out all 5 points it was mostly because it sounded more like something told to a girlfriend over coffee that afternoon than a story by itself, and if it was that it might better have been written as that. Still, silly me, it stands on its own as a compelling piece to read.
This was very well undertaken. Mostly I wanted to see what Rachael was starting to see in how Sachael was changing her mood. I think the ending could have been a bit less rushed. Just when we're starting to understand the change coming over Rachael, Sachael is gone and the story is over. Wait! How did she feel about Sachael? Give us a few lines about her confusion and her epiphany at realizing that (fill in the blank) was not really gone, but alive in every ray of sunset. It's a very complex morph that is taking place and it should be expanded and explored and savored.
Besides reminding me of the 1913 poem "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes, this poem establishes a similar rhythm, but with less information. In "The Highwayman," for instance we hear the entire tale of the dark rider and his pursuit of his love (Marty Robbins does a similar thing in his song "El Paso."). Here, however, we only get to feel the drive of death(?) on its savage unresisted ride, compelling in itself, but better if accompanied by a story line or something that can "humanize" the experience.
I like how this story maintained the mood, the greyness, the...fog. It became a bit confusing at times and I found myself rereading sentences and sections to be sure I understood what was going on, and in this story it was obvious that we were being introduced to several characters in a short space so it was easy to become confused. You might want to improve in that particular - make the characters stand out more so they don't blend in too much with the grey of the story.
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