As a person that is heavily into spirituality and metaphysics, I happened to understand your piece on a personal level.
I'm not inclined to argue in favor of "God's" decision to make life forms. It feels unnecessarily callous of Him to create an unhappy person when, I would like to assume, He has the agency to create any life form.
That is my biggest gripe with God: since I don't know what His world is, I would assume He has agency. I believe every major religion on the planet makes agency one of His most important characteristics.
If you're willing to DM on this site, I wouldn't mind discussing this stuff with you.
This wasn't bad at all, I enjoyed the quality of your writing. Your prose kept me engaged.
From a developmental standpoint, I had two issues: why did Tom and his friend stay behind in the field by the mote when those three other kids had the sense to run? And, far more importantly, the ending was unsatisfying. This is labeled as a short story and your review request is asking if it's good enough to publish. I wouldn't think so because of that ending.
So, yes, I would change up or expand the ending first, then find a reviewer that reads modern sci-fi stories to answer if it's good enough to publish. I can't really answer that question since I never read sci-fi stories that are published these days.
Hi. So what I liked about this piece was that you did a good job portraying Dexter's pain, anguish, and poor mental state that I would assume came after his son's sudden death. That was good.
What could use improvement was how the first few paragraphs had much longer (too long) sentences that felt like rambling. If you broke up sone of those sentences with a semicolon, it would read clearer.
However, you might want to take that advice with a grain of salt since those early sentences contributed to the tone/mood of Dexter's thought process.
My biggest complaint was that there was just so much more that could have been said. Was Dexter's married when his son died? How did he end up homeless? Does he now have a mental illness? Who is it that Jeremy warns Dexter about? There were just so many unanswered questions, that I don't feel satisfied with the ending.
I liked your story; it was good. I don't normally care for things as sentimental as this, but it was executed in such a way that it didn't bother me. Good job.
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