This piece shows great promise. I loved the dialogue by the guy in the blue hat with the pyrotechnics. I love the way he talks. Really. I can believe that.
I had a bit of a problem suspending belief that a rookie cop would be out alone so soon. But I don't think a whole lot of good about police in general. I doubt that they would be interested in what the guy did for a living. They would probably just say that they were told to "check things out." But that is my opinion.
Thank you! This is a very clear, carefully thought out explanation to a question that I have been pondering for the entire time that I have subscribed to this site. Finally I can get a grasp on why I have twenty three views of a story and only one review.
Wow, you crammed a lot of information and emotion into this powerful jetpack of a piece. I would like to read it in a longer version when and if you write it.
Could you consider changing it to make the nod to the doctor cause him to turn a knob on an I.V. tube? I think that would be more credible.
Thank you for this fine piece of descriptive writing. I am a little perplexed with the tense that you chose. Ursula K. Le Guin in her book Steering the Craft addressed this situation. She calls it the "focused narrative tense" and opines that it sacrifices the larger time field to acheive such close focus.
If I were writing this piece I would write it in past tense. But that it simply my opinion.
Thanks.
This is exactly the kind of thing I frequently mention in a good story. The author wrote about what she knows rather than try to write well and write about a subject matter that is very different from her personal experience.
I see an up and coming talent with a fine ability to turn a phrase. I especially loved the analogy of a hurricane to the father's anger. Good job! Revise and improve it and you will have a solid 4.5.
Of course it would be a good idea to run it through spell and grammar check as well. I still miss punctuation and awkward word uses after the 5th or 6th draft. Try reading it out loud to your friends with a red pen in your hand. The parts that sound awkward, that bring you up short will also bring your reader up short.
My first suggestion would be to run this through grammar and spell check. There are a number of technical errors that could be readily fixed.
1. the radio proudly announced. ( radios don't "say" anything. Announcers do.)
2. The store's only a few blocks out of my way, and what with a satellite, dvd, vcr and stereo, a single remote would sure come in handy.
Then you write: Hopping back in my car, I raced over to the same out-of-the-way electronics store.
Is the store a few blocks away or terribly out-of-the-way? (By the way, I have never seen those words connected that way.)
However, the largest problem you are facing is POV. Since you are writing this from a first person narrative, how can you explain that he remembers "A tingling blue-white light from his remote froze me in mid-stance, neither standing or sitting. Unable to move a muscle, other than to breathe.
"You see, our planet Arlunn outlawed fighting centuries ago so galatic conquests are frowned upon. Of course nothing was said about buying the planet. I believe there is a story about trading the island of Manhattan for $24 and some beads. We still need room to grow and your planet will work quite nicely for our needs. Earthers have this new gadget fixation. Add in the universal remote's great price, and we had a sure hit. Of course we can't allow you to remember any of this, so I'll just use the CLEAR button and reset your programming. This won't hurt a bit. Now repeat after me,"We don't want to keep this planet all to ourselves when we want to help our friends the Arlunnians". "
When indeed he awakens to some woman selling workout equipment?
Thank you! I have tried to impress upon my friends and relations to honor other's work as they would mine, all to no avail. Perhaps I can send them here to read this they will get the message. This is a well thought out and beautifully articulated piece. Bravo! Well done.
You have a lot of potential and a gift. Do yourself a huge favor and copy and paste your stories into a word processing system that has spell check and grammar check. I am guessing that you learned English as a second language and I applaud you for your efforts. It is a very tricky language and all of us have room for improvement.
But it is difficult to read your stories when they are so rife with grammatical and spelling errors.
Ah, thank you for reminding me. Yes, the news media did put a rather flimsy spin on it, didn't they. The piece is very well written and I cannot offer any points of improvement, except that I would like to see it lengthened a bit.
You had me with every word. There is a grace to your work, a talent for a particular turn of a phrase, an economy of language. I admire how you "show" rather than "tell" the story. I was on that train, I had that conflict and I made the same decision because it was the right one to make.
I realize this was flash fiction, and I wonder if I might have made the woman Jewish to add to the conflict. Or not. Thanks for a great story.
Thanks for writing this. It is an interesting premise and I think I get what you are trying to say.I would however, get rid of the half chair. It doesn't add to the visual. Keep writing, I like the way that you think. I would like to read more of your work.
Thanks for writing this. Dialogue is a very tricky thing to write. If I may suggest it, I would recommend that you copy the entire document into Word or Word Perfect and fix the spelling and grammar issues.
Then, have two of your friends that you trust read it out loud. That is what I do with dialogue to see if it sounds stilted.
Your writing can only get better with practice so stick to it! Write what you know!
Nicely done! I never saw it coming. You had me going all along. I really cannot find any flaws except that I wonder if American readers will realize that you mean a policeman when you use the term "copper". Thank you very much for writing this and by all means, give us more! Keep writing!
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