This
story centers around a young man who is sentenced to community service for an
entire summer in Florida. It appears that by some miscarriage of justice, the
primary reason this young man is sentenced to community service is because of
his trouble-attracting face and an offended female cop. Because of this
unfortunate circumstance, the protagonist is kept from going to New York City
and interning at a respectable “financial institution.” I had trouble
discerning any real central conflict other than the general sense that this guy
had a real bummer of a summer. The final bit at the end where John tricks him
into thinking they had found treasure buried in the sand seems to lack a
certain sense of depth beyond a simple practical joke. I was waiting for something
to develop in the relationship between the protagonist and John, but it never
happened. Without any conflict, it is also difficult to have a character arc;
something that I feel was missing in this piece too.
I thought it was funny how the
protagonist kept ranking his least favorite phrases, all of which had to do
with his summer of servitude. There are moments were I like the narrative voice
as well, but it is often interrupted by run-on sentences or overly-explanatory
sentences. I would recommend trying to cut down on general statements and
instead focus in on unique details. For instance, on page 4 the narrator tells
us “The whole scene was actually quite cinematic,” but very little was offered
to reinforce this idea. Instead, try having the narrator tell why the scene feels
cinematic without ever having to make a blanket statement like “it felt
cinematic.” As I mentioned before, I think some more thought needs to go into
what the conflict and character development of this piece are in order for it
to be a strong story.
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