An Autumn Night (my Short Short Fiction)

[jon1jt]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO :D

[Logos]

I really like the atmosphere you've created here, there is much tension at the end! leaving the reader wanting more :)

[jon1jt]

Thanks Logos for reading! Happy that you picked up the tension in the end...it can never be happy all of the time! And you look very astute sitting there with your book, Last Orders---perhaps a plug?! Hell, I'll check it out!

[Logos]

Last Orders is a great story, and they made a movie of it too :) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0253200/

[Evergreenleaf]

First of all, let me just say that I think this is a really well-written story. I like how it's simple, but it has a powerful emotion behind the simplicity.

That being said, there is one part that I wasn't so sure about:


I live in a four-bedroom home. It has two bathrooms, one in the master bedroom, which is exclusively for my wife and me. The other is in the hall area reserved for the little ones. I’ve been married for almost seven years. I live in Candor, Vermont, a small country town with plush forestry, rolling hills, meandering streams, and frequent encounters with wild life. My neighbors are Travis and Jessica Edson.

I wonder if you needed this part. We can tell that the character is married, so you don't really need to say it, and I'm not sure that it is essential to the story that we know where he lives and what his house is like. Of course you should mention who Travis is because he speaks, but otherwise I think that this kind of interrupts the story by making it stand still for the information.

Anyway, I also agree with Logos about the tension. It's really subtle and well-done. Nice job!

[jon1jt]

First off, thanks a bunch EVERGREENLEAF for taking the time to read my piece. I should say that this is my first attempt at a 'short short story. I only started writing short poems last year and this story came out of no where while writing. You made a terrific observation and subsequent suggestion, something I had been contemplating as well. The paragraph mentioned does belabor the marriage theme and interrupts the storyline somewhat. My thought for initially including it was to be a bit outrageous by nonchalantly describing the bathroom arrangement to reveal the more banal, surface surrounding of the character---the exterior drawing out the interior, particularly the humdrum life of marriage, despite its occasional upside, which I bring to life in the part she comes to see him in his room, life is perfect, albeit momentarily! Still, it's superfluous and I'm going to get rid of the bathroom lines, definitely.

My big concern deleting them is only that the reader will reach the end of the story prematurely; that is, without first having had the time to draw out the subtleties about the relationship between the main character and himself/nature, as I thought I had arrived at the appropriate economy of words. I also mention Ms. Davis as 'philosopher' and Beth as a "math teacher" to set up another dichotomy.

As far as why I included where they live, the surroundings, it's relevant to the development of the nature/professional life images.

I'll hold on deleting the rest for now. As you can see, you got me thinking Evergreen, what more can I ask of a fellow writer?! Thank you.

[Evergreenleaf]

Hey, no problem, jon1jt! :D I'm just happy that my comments were helpful in some way. I think it's really good that you have a character-developing reason for everything you did, rather than just writing a bunch of stuff and not knowing why. I know how hard it is too try to keep something at just the right length and with just the right amount of detail.