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Stellar concept. I mean that. Really, really great.
Unfortunately the execution is lacking. The prose wanders between excellent and funny to overdone and opaque. I think you need one narrator, not three. It’s disorienting to hop around so much. Since everything in this story takes place in a single house, there’s no reason you can’t constrain the piece to one person’s perspective. We can still hear the parent’s conversations, etc…
The use of italics and footnotes really kills the narrative drive. I’d omit both. You can give us the girl’s stream-of-consciousness without the footnotes.
I’d love to see this story streamlined, stripped of the stilted style elements which take away from its momentum, and honed to keep the story moving at a good clip.
As I said, the concept is great and made me laugh a few times.
Kind Regards,
Nathan
Thanks for your critique, Nathan. I was trying to make the story a little disorienting by hopping around to try to mirror the effect those hand tablets would have on the characters. I didn't get the chance to ask my usual writing partner what he thought about that before the deadline, so I just went ahead and tried it. I really appreciate your feedback!
I would reply in the same manner good laughs, but a little confusing as stated.
My second time replying on the site and i got a little button happy. Sorry if someone could fix this or show me how to fix it, it would be greatly appreciated. I didnt mean to mess up this persons story thread.
sorry
Surreal is the word I'd use to sum up what I just read. I really like the absurd, black comedy flavor of it all. Queen of the World, yet no security detail. Perfect. Parents that regard the decision of their offsrping's future mate with no more regard than choosing what color to paint the house...so climical. You've got some great commentary going on here. I mean, what teenage doesn't think they're King/Queen of the world, able to boss their parents around? The true brilliance of your story is in these elements.
Unfortunately, the story as written, is pretty disconnecting. I really struggled to contextualize some of the dialogue and actions the characters take:
I had a hard time telling whether people are living in their tablet so much that they've forgotten how to communicate, or if you had a dialogue issue. If I didn't know any better, I'd say they were all poorly programmed robots.
In the end, if Brent had reasons for doing what he did, I completely missed them.
Overall, I think this needs a few more revisions. Really take a hard look at clarity. Make sure the reader has all the information they need in order to come to the conclusions you want them to. Currently, for me, that's mostly what's missing here. This should be a smooth read, and you have a few rough edges to deal with. But if you do that, I think you are on to something here.
Thank you for letting me read your story.
It's a cracking concept, and there is a load of good stuff in here. Overall though it is just a little too disjointed. I think the extrapolation of facebook and social network sites is really good, and there is a lot of humour in here. There are some parts that are very repetitive though, for example in certain sections you use the words 'terms and conditions' a lot. With such a short memory span, would your humans read T&C's even? It needs a bit more development to smooth it out a little, but it has great potential.
There is a potentially interesting idea here but I really couldn't get into the story. Honestly, I couldn't finish reading it. It was a combination of many different things that thew me. Mostly, it had to do with the language and the characters.
If I understood you're intent, the phrasing and style was supposed to come off as similar to communication used on a particular social networking site. For me, it made the characters interactions very difficult to follow. This may just be an issue with me, but it might make sense to go back through and either explain things like how the tablets interact.
Then there was the nature of the characters themselves. I could not suspend belief sufficiently to relate to them. As an example:
That sounds like a heart attack waiting to happen! For me to believe it, I'd need to believe that the parent didn't care or that she was in fear/under the control of something external. Neither of those two ideas came across to me.
I guess it really comes down to the world being so alien/surreal I couldn't get into the story. :(
Still, the idea of social networking taking over is an interesting one. Definitely give this another shot/round of edits and keep writing!
Thank you, everyone, for your encouragement and your critiques! I feel the same way you all do about this story...oh, deadlines. Your help is truly valued, and I am happy I made the decision to submit this story and receive the comments of such thoughtful readers.
Thank you, everyone, for your encouragement and your critiques! I feel the same way you all do about this story...oh, deadlines. Your help is truly valued, and I am happy I made the decision to submit this story and receive the comments of such thoughtful readers.