Mike Works posted:

I've posted critiques in the past Fiction Farm threads, but this is the first time I've submitted a short. Any feedback is appreciated.


The Place I Was Before (504 words)

On the stove, White Cheddar Kraft Dinner bubbles next to a plate of sliced wieners. Priscilla’s cheek pushes into the embroidered Vancouver Giants patch while Derek forces a smile. His mother lets go, rubs her thumb along the logo stitching, asks him when he got this top, and he thinks back to shotgunning Kokanees with Mark in an East Hastings park before that game against Kamloops that had eight fighting majors and one half-remembered bout of concourse shoplifting.This sentence has too much going on. Also, and I fully admit that this is because I'm from the southern half of the United States, but I had to look up what half of this even meant. Depending on your intended audience, that might not be a big deal at all. And he says, Long time ago. While we are here, I'm not really sold on the lack of dialogue tags. I think there are places it can work, if used sparingly, but as a general rule I'd say stick to standard tag usage unless you're Cormac McCarthy. Because the piece is so short, it's not bothersome enough to pull me out of the story, but if it got much longer it would probably start grating.

Priscilla starts saying sorry, I’m so sorry, and it sounds like a general sentiment at first.On the other hand, I think this sentence works without the tags because you incorporate her dialogue into the narrative in a fluid, organic way. Then he realizes she’s spotted an unwrapped box of Anthon Berg chocolate liqueur bottles on the counter – a forgotten Christmas gift from the Dutch couple next door – and he tells her it’s okay, but she starts biting the heads off the foil-wrapped bottle necks and drips them down the sink one by one. This feels a bit awkward. I see the head / neck thing you are going for, but it ends up clouding the action. What kind of alcohol bottles can you bite the tops off of? Are we talking biting out a cork? Cause I'm pretty sure that would be drat near impossible. Also, biting tinfoil, ouch. For older people with the old-fashioned dental fillings (which almost everyone has one or two of), biting foil is horrendously painful. Also, I think "pours" would work better than "drips" here.

Your father’s in the playhouse with Benny, she says. Got a surprise.

Grass has gotten long while he’s been gone; the dew drops fall like beehives. Kind of a clumsy simile. Beehives don't fall unless someone is knocking them down, and even then they fall down just the same as everything else. He knocks on the small door built moons ago, which feels stupid, but Rick says come in. I'm not sure about "moons" here. I think "years" sounds more natural. Regardless, I like this line a lot. The playhouse is Benny’s now – old boy’s huddled in the corner, more folded laundry than basset hound at his age. Felt eyebrows lift like pinball flippers when he sees Derek, which finally feels like home.This last bit is confusing. The way you've attributed this, Derek "finally feels like home," which doesn't make sense to me.

Rick’s in his bath robe, knees at his ears, doing Derek doesn’t know what. Metal plates, screws, batteries. The Gipsy Kings escape all tinny from a baby monitor on the table corner, the other monitor surely in Rick’s den next to the record player. Somewhere else: an unused iPod with the click wheelNot getting the relevance of "with the click wheel" here; another Christmas present, this time from a son.

Hey boy.

Rick slides over printed pages of a Wiki how-to website. Building a robot: not the expected welcome home. Page 1 of 12 has a monochrome picture of C-3P0, but instead they’re putting together a door wedge with wheels. Priscilla starts vacuuming over Hotel California, so Rick clicks it off and says, Remember that race car we made for Cub Scouts?

The one with the Lego man on top?

The men puzzle over servo motors and NiCad batteries until the thing’s built. Rick whips his son’s wrist with the remote control antenna as a joke, tells him to give it a test. It hits Derek that this is the only thing he’s allowed to drive now. The doorstop whirs past snoozing Benny, then jerks left, chips the wall.

I pressed right, Derek says.

Easy fix, Rick says.

Rick turns the baby monitor back on. Bambeleo is quiet behind Priscilla’s phone call with her sister where she’s saying, I don’t know what we’re going to do, over and over until Derek switches it off, and that’s when his father tosses him an O’Doul’s and says, Tastes like piss,You might want to make this two sentences, or else drop the "then", or indicate a pause or something. As it is now the rhythm is kind of jarring then, You’ll get used to it. Rick leaves barefoot. Derek turns to Benny, because someone’s got to ask the question:

How’re you feeling, boy?