Rhamah Norris "Cats"

This story takes place at an animal shelter specifically designed to take in and take care of cats until they can find a new home. The narrator of this piece is an employee and is charged with maintaining the floor and the appearance of the cats. While I initially assumed the narrator would be the protagonist of this story, I found it hard to justify this by the end. Instead of immediately negating the legitimacy of the story as a whole, however, I reread the story from the perspective that Lily the cat was the protagonist. She is the only cat given a name, and a fair amount of time is spent describing her personality, past, and actions. If this is indeed the intended focus of the story, I enjoy it for its originality and creativity. I might suggest a little more emphasis be put on Lily throughout the piece so it is more obvious what is being done, but all in all I like the concept.

            The change I saw in Lily was pretty straightforward: she pretends to be docile and deserving of a home, but in the end lashes out at the hand that was about to take her. In a weird way, I kind of saw this as a kind of exacting of justice on the cat’s part. For the short amount of time she has been at the shelter, she had been neglected and passed over by many people simply because of her missing eye. Maybe this was her way of sticking it to the man. Or boy. I really enjoyed some of your descriptions. One that stood out to me in particular was the line that read “as arms unaccustomed to holding an animal cradle her close.” This was a great picture of little children holding cats in the awkward way that they do and made the description very believable.

            My primary suggestion for this piece would be to make it a little more clear what the story is about. If it is about Lily, perhaps give a little more insight into her background or daily routine. All in all though, a well done piece.

David Foster Wallace’s “Incantations of Burned Children”

Two things immediately jumped out of this piece and grabbed my attention: diction and structure. The first two words of this story are “The daddy,” which immediately made me assume a child was serving as the narrator. The run-on sentences and utter lack of paragraphs added to my notion that the primary speaker was too young to have a firm grasp on syntax or grammatical rules. The continuous flow of action contributed to a certain sense of frantic movements and panic, but I felt the narrator’s tone remained steady throughout, giving the work an eerie, silent ambiance. By the end, I felt that the child who had been burned and died had been serving as our narrator all along, and I thought this was a beautifully creepy touch by Wallace.

            What is so haunting about this piece is how accurately it depicts a family crisis. Though a bit stylized and somewhat poetic even, the feeling of being in slow motion and not being able to hear anything during a time of unfathomable tragedy was preserved in this piece, and I felt it strike home with me. I also really admired how Wallace was able to develop his characters almost solely through their actions rather than descriptions. The father was particularly vivid on the page, yet most of what Wallace tells us has to do with what the father does: assess the situation, put his son in the sink, wrap him in a damp towel, and drive him to the emergency room. While this is the primary mode of character development, there were also powerful hints into the characters’ inner lives, and I loved how subtle yet unmistakable so many of these were. All in all, this amounts to a story wonderfully told and hauntingly compelling. I would love to incorporate Wallace’s obvious talent for impactful brevity into my own writing in the future.

Nate Lundberg "The Summer of Lemon Drops"

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.

Adam Smith "Animals"

It is often difficult to cover a long period of time in a short story, but this piece succeeds in doing so by telling us about the relationship between an unnamed bad boy and his more innocent counterpart, Jenny. The story begins with the narrator stealing a jacket in Italy, but the story as a whole focuses on what kind of attraction exists between a good girl and a bad boy. This piece did what I thought was a great job of capturing the insights of a troubled young man and his attempts to have a good relationship with Jenny. The central conflict is vastly internal, but the tension given to us between the protagonist’s animalistic desires and moralistic longings was more than sufficient to support a structured story. What is interesting about this piece too is that more than character appears to change by the end. The protagonist goes through somewhat of a roller coaster between trying to be “good” and falling back into his more base desires while Jenny goes from being sweet and innocent to more sensuous and thieving.

            I really thought a lot was working for this story. At the onset, I was afraid the main character was going to be one-dimensional and boring, but he turned out to be an emotionally and mentally complex figure that was interesting to follow. I especially liked his insights into the relationship between a sweet girl and a rough rider like himself on page 2; this showed how aware he was of his own situation and how difficult it is to control himself. The events leading up to the end were chalk full of emotion, and I appreciated the weight that the protagonist felt at changing Jenny into what he calls an “animal.” One of the few suggestions I would have for improving this piece would be to rework the beginning. This is the only portion of the piece that feels shallower than the others, but I think a little revision could very easily remedy this issue. All in all, a great story with a lot of insights and intrigue for the audience; I really enjoyed it

Taylor Hardy "Losing Sincerity"

This story shows a particularly busy evening in the life of a young hotel manager by the name of Brad. Brad has recently come into his managerial powers and some of his coworkers, including his recent girlfriend, believe the power has gotten to his head a little. I did not see any real change in the protagonist throughout the story; this felt more like a snapshot of a narrative rather than a fully developed beginning, middle, and end. The tension in the piece comes from two places: Brad’s coworkers and the drunken mass of party guests. The coworkers continually make comments, some serious and some not, about him being snobby with his power, and the party guests are so unruly that the entire event has to be shut down. I liked the subject matter of this story. It is not too often that we get the perspective of the management of a party, so the change of pace in viewpoint was refreshing. I think there is a lot of potential here with the characters, but there needs to be more of an arc when it comes to Brad.

            What I really liked about this story was the narrative voice. Internal thought seemed to flow nicely into dialogue, and I never found myself struggling to move through the plot. I was a little confused about his whole relationship with Alyson and how that played into the story. When it came up on the first page, I was expecting that to be some sort of driving force throughout, but it is barely visible in the action. In revision, I would suggest you take a look at this part of the story and decide if it needs to be there. If so, I would make it more prevalent and more important. All in all, though, there is a lot of good material here, and I do not think you will have any trouble making a few changes to have a good story.

jessica Mullino "For the Love of the Game"

This is a story about a girl wanting to meet her father. Ever since Lindsey’s mother has told her the identity of her father, she cannot get enough of watching his old baseball footage. He used to be a pitcher for the Mississippi State Bulldogs, but now plays in the MLB as a pitcher for the Cubs. Finally, Lindsey resolves to see her dad in person and sneaks off to a Cubs game one weekend. The primary tension in this piece originates from the absent father character in Lindsey’s life. As soon as she decided to go see him in person, the audience is wondering how both parties will react to such a meeting after never seeing one another. It is obvious throughout the story that Lindsey’s want is to meet her father and perhaps start a relationship with him. I cannot say I saw a significant change in Lindsey over the course of the story, but the circumstances around her appear to change a little.

            This story included a lot of really good descriptions especially pertaining to baseball. I enjoyed the imagery on page one that described the red clay and obscured lines of the batter’s box. There were several things that I think need to be improved, however. First, we need to know from what perspective this story is being told earlier in the action. For the first two and a half pages, I thought this was just a third person account of something happening right now. When I discovered that it was actually from the point of view of a girl watching a recording on TV, I had to go back and reread the section again so I could understand the context. I also wonder if the first few pages even really do anything for the story as a whole. Granted, they contain good descriptions and such, but I did not feel like they were necessary for the plot of this story. Perhaps if there was more insight into Lindsey and what she thought about while watching the video it would be all right, but as it stands now, this section feels a little extraneous. There are also some grammatical errors to address, but these should be quick fixes.

I really liked how the ending of this story was not as cliché as it first appeared it was going to be. Instead of getting to meet her father, Lindsey is only left with a note saying her dad wants to meet her, but wants to do so with her mother as well. This made for an unexpected turn, and I liked the unconventional route it took. With some editing and revising, I think this story has a lot going for it and will be a very enjoyable read. Nice job.