Man and His Youthful Pastimes

[RobinHood3000]

Not certain where to post this review thread--I figured it'd be simpler to keep it close to the original post.

Well, in case no one figured it out from tone, "Man and His Youthful Pastimes" was mine. So far, I'm told that the transitions are a bit hackneyed--does anyone else have something to add?

[Virgil]

Hey I voted for this one Robin. I thought it was a fun story.

[AimusSage]

Hey, I guessed it was yours already :) I really liked it too, it was a toss up between this one and 'I feel the west in you'.

The thing that did it is really stupid actually, but you mention 2.54 cm. I mean call it an inch if it is one. I know, it's stupid, but that bothered me.

[RobinHood3000]

Well, I figured that since Connor was a bit of a nerd, he'd go metric even if he lived in the States, no matter how pointless or unnecessary.

[AimusSage]

Yeah, I see the reason for it, but it pulled me from the story, It was just me going, hey, that's an inch, if it had been 2.49 cm or something it probably would have bothered me less, it's just me being a geek myself. :D

[RobinHood3000]

Mm, I suppose that makes sense. Besides, if I really wanted to, I could probably calculate the distance necessary to throw Connor back against the wall, if I knew the average charge on a human finger.

For now, though, I REALLY don't want to :p.

[rachel]

you wrote this M'Lord? well done, I am so proud of you. :banana: :banana: :banana:

[RobinHood3000]

Aww, shucks :blush:, thanks, rachel...:D

[SleepyWitch]

hey Robin, i voted for your story too.
i liked the ending a lot coz it's surprising and has got a message without adopting a moralist or patronizing tone,...
I'll re-read it again one of these days and give you more feedback...
i didn't guess it was by you, don't think i ever read anything by you before

[RobinHood3000]

Cool -- thanks!

If anybody has any negative input, though, please feel free -- my story obviously isn't perfect, so it'd be nice to know where to start tweaking.

[Virgil]

Just read again Robin, this probably my third time, and I seem to like it more with each reading. Here are more detailed comments:

Positives:
Good command of narrative technique, you dramatized not told
Good central character development, especially considering the short story length
It felt like was inside the world of the story

Negatives:
Yeah the 2.54 cm and also when you used "Ere long". Nobody today uses that kind of elecution, even though it might be in the dictionary.
The Walter Mitty conclusion was a little too cute; kind of made me groan a little.
The story didn't quite go anywhere. Where exactly was the tension or the conflict? Now I know that the length requirement makes this extremely difficult. I'm not sure how you could have done better.

Frankly the reasons that most of the others didn't vote for yours I suspect is because they were looking for a more serious subject. That's unfortunate. It's harder to win people over with a lighter theme. The story that won was not even my second choice.

[Jarndyce]

Honestly, I very nearly voted for your story. It was the most natural of the lot, and interesting in its slice-of-life way. The dialogue is quite nicely done, sparse yet comfortable. It seems to me that the dialogue was probably the easiest for you to write, because you seemed to have pulled it from honest examples without trying to create the natural, without attempting to do too much with it.

That said, I didn't vote for you story for the following reasons. First, the punch-line ending killed it for me. I could have been okay with the rest of it's flaws, but the Walter Mitty line just invalidates the rest of the story. It's essentially renders the whole empty by making it a set-up for the last line.

Beyond that, there isn't really any central shape to the story. As slice-of-life work, it does a good job of capturing the feel of the day, but without any kind of central tension, you're relying on just dialogue to pull the reader through the story. There's not a whole lot that makes the reader want to go on to the next line, other than interest in the character himself. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it could use some tension. There are some nice moments, the girlfriend showing up when he's in his boxers, etc. Moments for real character expansion, but they fall short of expectations. Again, the punch-line at the end just strips the story of its impact.

The language of your text was a bit stilted at times. Phrases like:


"Ere long, Connor was multitasking with enviable ease."

"Connor noted that it was almost nine o’clock, concurring with the pitlike sensation in his stomach."

"scuttled back to the imprint in the middle of the carpet that indicated where he had been sitting before"

pop up throughout, and although I don't have a major problem with them, they just ring an off note. The dialogue is natural, but the descriptive language isn't. It makes me want more of the simplistic ease of the dialogue to show through a bit more in the rest of the writing.

All that said, I did like the story, and it very nearly had my vote. For me, the competition was really only about two stories, yours, and the one that got my vote.

[Jarndyce]

Virgil, I like how you think...

Robin, take note here. Our criticisms are almost identical. That should tell you a lot about both where the weaknesses are in your story, and it's strength in general.

[Virgil]

Virgil, I like how you think...

Robin, take note here. Our criticisms are almost identical. That should tell you a lot about both where the weaknesses are in your story, and it's strength in general.
I noticed that too. Great minds think alike. :D

[Shannanigan]

I'll re-read it again after I go lie on the beach with a book of mine, lol, and let you know what I catch in my second reading. I did vote for this story though, I really liked it. :)

[Unspar]

No offense to the other writers or anything, but this was the only story in the competition I liked. It's the only fun one, but that's not what made me like it more than the rest. It read with a better pace and felt more cohesive with its ideas.

While I might agree with the criticisms of language that Virgil and Jarndyce make, I would argue the exact opposite point. The "stilted" parts they point out are great to the idea of the piece, it's just that the casual and nerdy languages don't fit well together. I'd fill the story with the nerdy-sounding stuff. But that's just me.

So I loved it, and maybe someday I'll have 100 posts and be able to support you in more than mere word.

[RobinHood3000]

Hmm, cool -- I'll get to tweaking. Thanks to everyone who posted; there's not much I like better than feedback of all kinds. It's nice to know that not everyone's looking for a serious subject. I read my competitors' stories, and felt like my choice of subject matter rather stuck out like Captain Hook's sore thumb.

[RobinHood3000]

In defense of the verbosity, "elocution" specifically refers to public speaking, rather than prose fiction. I didn't want the descriptions to sound too much like the dialogue. Still, I do see what you're getting at, Virgil and Jarndyce -- I'll see if I can't tone it down a bit and get it to fit in better.

I'm not quite certain what to do about the punchline. The reason the story seems like one big set-up is that, well, it is. Still, I suppose I could take out the extra-English-assignment plot thread and make it more slice-of-life-ish. There's more than enough of a time gap for me to work with.

[RobinHood3000]

Hey, Aimus, would it help if I wrote it as "two-and-a-half centimetres" instead of "2.54 cm"?

[AimusSage]

Yes, that'll work better I think, it isn't quite as distracting, at least not to me :)