Short Story Critique

[Burchtree]

I just finished this one up the other day and if you're a short story fan, I would greatly appreciate feedback (good and bad). It is a rough draft, but you get the idea.

It is sort of an "homage."

Thanks --

 

[Walking Man]

It's a good story. It has a good plot. It needs more descriptions here and there. Like what senses is the speaker using to know it's hot? Is his clothes sticking to his skin, is the air humid, etc......

 

[MikeH]

It is difficult to comment at this point, because you state that it is a rough draft. This implies that the punctuation, non-sentences, and misuse of a few words will be cleaned up. To give one example, one doesn't peruse a bookstore. One peruses a book. Browse would have been a better word. Peruse means to read through carefully. Even as a play on words it doesn't work, as peruse implies a more intense scrutiny than just browsing.

Your general outline is well constructed, and the story "flows" well. Never having seen the back of Stan's head is very clever.

If it were my story, I would not allude to a dream at all. Did Stan really visit, or was it just a dream, a subconscious reaction to reading "The Devil and Daniel Webster"? This should be left for the reader to ponder. To me, leaving this issue hanging is the key to the whole story, and is the thing that I perceive as making this story perhaps salable.

 

[Burchtree]

It definitely needs to be gone through when I get a chance. That's the feedback I was looking for -- I didn't realized that I was giving the impression that he was dreaming. I wanted to leave things up in the air for the reader.