Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Short Story

This is topic Short Story - 5 in forum Fragments and Feedback for Short Works at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Swimming Bird (Member # 2760) on :

aa

[This message has been edited by Swimming Bird (edited October 01, 2005).]

Posted by Firebird (Member # 2846) on :

How does the main character know all this about the girl? Why is this in the present tense?

I'd like to see where this is going, but I sense no hook right now. Nothing interesting to the plot that makes me want to keep reading. Add one in that makes sense, and I'll be glad to read the whole thing.

Posted by BuffySquirrel (Member # 2780) on :

There's potentially a strong voice here, and I like the contrast between the externals and the narrator's fantasy, but (and it's a BIG but), I am so not interested in reading yet another rant about how someone hates women who will have sex with other men but not them, and it's all their mother's fault, so they end up raping or killing them or both. Sorry, but it makes me tired.

Obviously, this may not be about that at all...it just looks that way.

"peaking" should be "peeking", and I think "cutoff" should be two words, in context .

[This message has been edited by BuffySquirrel (edited September 01, 2005).]

Posted by Noctivigant (Member # 2843) on :

I think it has a good hook to it. I would definitely read on. Please send when you want it read (email in profile).

Making sweeping conclusions based on no evidence at all.. reminds me of people that I know. To me it's quite humorous. Also, the hate-filled attitude he approaches life with is easily apparent. It made me curious about how he got that way.

The pledge of allegiance speech in the background makes me assume they are in school. The sexuality of it seems accurate to a teenage guy. I don't think many guys admit they have these thoughts, but they happen all the time. It would make me expect the same honesty throughout the story.

*I would agree that it needs to be more than a rant against women. The character comes off as sexually frustrated, but could just as easily be sexist instead.

[This message has been edited by Noctivigant (edited September 01, 2005).]

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

I don't think that most guys go that far. I mean, I'm sure that I'd have a low opinion of a girl that would get a tattoo on her butt, and that opinion wouldn't be improved by her showing off any portion of that tattoo in class.

But...the entire scene with her getting ****ed by a biker in the tattoo parlor, that seems way out of what would naturally come to mind. And hate...seems a little bit off-putting. She's just some dumb kid.

Of course, I guess that teenagers don't see other teenagers that way. I didn't really get that at the time, and frankly I still don't. How can teenagers not see how purile and stupid they seem to everyone else? Some special neurotransmiiter produced in response to adolecence, no doubt.

Anyway, even if this is a realistic portrayal of what teenagers are like, it isn't something that I'd want to read about.