A short story of mine; Criticism wanted

Post Reply New Topic

Here's a link to short story I wrote entitled From Without, about an intellectually religious Aspie girl who has nothing better to do than contemplate her own existential dilemma and whether or not a guy she's never met wants anything to do with her:

http://www.fictionpress.com/read.php?storyid=1817326

I would like any criticisms anyone could offer. Is it too long? Is the character too implausible? What could be cut out or elaborated upon?

I was a bit crushed during the workshop this story recieved in my ficiton writing class, because half the people thought the main character was supposed to be insane. This story is pretty autobiographical too; I only changed the gender of the protagonist and her religion just to distance myself from the subjectmatter. Are most people just incapable of relating to this story, is there something wrong with it, or was it just read by the wrong audience?

Please offer any comments or criticisms you can. Thank you.

Thagomizer knows this but I want to go on the record as saying that "I do this too" as far as having mental conversations with those not there. If it means I'm crazy, then at least I'll have some company in the nuthouse.

Thagomizer, I am going to print this out and get back to you, but from what I have skimmed so far I think I will enjoy it. I can relate to the daily change in religion/philosophy depending on what one has read.

If it makes you feel any better, when my husband was telling his mother and sister about me before they met me, they both said "She sounds kind of crazy..." until he explained things to them a bit better. Although, after having met me, I'm not sure if they've changed their minds.

Is it considered "crazy" to envision total conversations in your head, looking at the various ways it could go, in an attempt to be prepared for a real conversation???

I do this all the time. It has helped me to improve my social skills because at least I have some "scripts" to follow. It's when someone says somthing totally unexpected that I get tripped up.

My real name is Keith, but I'm definitely Roberta.

My honest opinion of the store: It was interesting enought to read the whole thing. I didn't pick up on any symbolism (if there was any). Was the train ride or perhaps the cat's actions used metaphorically? The pace of the story was a little slow for my taste however.

CRAZY!! ! Look at the crazy person!! !!

*looks you in the eye*

Oh wait, was I supposed to look in a mirror?

There's a lot you do right in this. The descriptions of people and settings are spot-on, and paint clear pictures for the reader. And your dialogue is miraculously believable.

The main issue I have with the prose is that it's puffy. The obsession with Keith and her thought process in general is realistic, but in the fiction medium, it's overdone and repetitive. It pounds the point in far too long when it could be accomplished in a third of the verbiage. It's important to realize that if you give too much information, often the most important facts are lost on the reader. Pare every single facet of your story down to its core essence and it will be a thousand times better. Remove unnecessary words, especially adverbs. Like this:

"f**k off!" is a pretty terse phrase by itself. You'll find that most adverbs are redundant if your descriptions and dialogue are strong enough, so kill off as many as you can.

A couple minor things... conditional future dialogue (the "would have said" parts) are not clearly differentiated from normal dialogue. I'd recommend using italics instead of treating it as literal speech. Lastly, for clarity, I'd put spaces between paragraphs to indicate the passing of time (sleep periods).

It's quite good, though. I enjoyed it.

Heh.

Yes, the pacing. I included some description about the town etc. in the first few pages, thinking it would be longer and more important later on, but it didn't turn out to be. Now, I'm just trying to figure out how to conserve space.

The symbolism that is most intentional occurs at the end, when the car is stopped in traffic lights, and moves on as soon as Roberta finds a way to remove Keith from her life.

Occasionally, I used the fanciful nature of my own prose to suggest the subtext at various points. Roberta seraching for God parallels her search for Keith. Uncertainty is worse than guilt. It may be that she is abandoned by both and her relationship with either of them only exists in her mind.

When Roberta is talking with the "spirit", she also seems to be relieved that there is some unseen presence watching her. Even that gives her life meaning and context. Throughout the story, she sometimes imagines what her life would be like as a movie, book, video game etc., not because she is narcissistic, but because then it would actually make sense.

But, of course, Roberta is a character in someone's story, she does have an author, and there is a reader coming along for the ride. The lines in which Robera relates God to an author are double entendres.

In the end, Roberta has reached a conclusion about Keith, at least, but not God. That will probably take the rest of her life.

Excellent points, ghotistix.

The page the story is uploaded on screwed up a lot of the original formatting, though, so that's why the spacing is awkward and there are no spaces where there should be.

I agree with everything ghotistix said. I was interested enough to read the entire thing, but found it to be overly wordy and repetitive. I've found that what people enjoy most in a story is conciseness, vivid imagery, and believable dialogue; you succeed with the latter two but the former is something to be worked on. The passing of time wasn't clearly communicated, but it seemed to add to the protagonist's confusion and the sense that she is drifting through life without a purpose.

The ending was also satisfying.

I'm not sure why anyone reading the story would assume Roberta is insane. She does things that I think most people do but are afraid to admit to, such as obsessing and having internal conversations with people. Some people are more extreme in these tendencies than others, but I didn't think she went too overboard with them; she seems to be self-aware and intelligent enough to realize that whatever relationship she thought she had with Keith was most likely one-sided, unlike people who are genuinely warped and truly do believe there is a real committed relationship going on when there actually isn't. She also has a good sense of self-deprecating humour.

The fact that she is so young also makes her situation more understandable, since she is at a time in her life when emotions are overwhelming and existential angst is running rampant. Not that I've ever personally known a time in my own life that wasn't dominated by existential angst. But I know that these feelings were much more extreme when I was a teenager (I am assuming Roberta is in her teens).

Just curious... how long did it take you to write this 'short' story?

BOO! RUBBISH! Well you didnt say anything about constructive critisism!

I think Thagomizer (which is a really cool name, by the way) implied that the criticism be constructive when he asked for it. Most authors generally do not appreciate criticism if it does not help them in some way or another.

Does it matter? I worked on it on and off, so I can't really give you an accurate estimate.

I guess just because I have had some story ideas rolling around in my head lately and have been thinking of doing something with them. I have a lot of trouble writeing a 5-8 page paper and can't imagine any short story I write going beyond the 6-12 page range. So I"m just really impressed that you were able to fill 30 pages like that.

I always hated writing what other people told me to, such as essays for school. A 5-8 page paper would be an impossible nightmare for me too. My unfortunate compulsion of getting to the point doesn't help much.

I once started a short story, thinking it would end up a few pages long. As it turned out, it was over 6000 words long. You'd be surprised how many words you can put down when you've got ahold of something you actually LIKE.