This story was interesting to me, as a person who has struggled with some of the same issues, ie, going back to school after years of being away, not knowing which path to take, and being generally out of place and poorly prepared in critical situations. In fact, all of those are strong themes that you are able to write humorously about.
There are some improvements I can think of though, to make your story stronger.
1) If this is a stand-alone story, it might be best if it did not refer to another story or incident we haven't read about. For "The night of the drunken lesbians" I will have to sort through your other papers to figure out what you mean.
2) I liked your "computer languages" comedy, but I was curious about your terms "speaking" "computer languages." Did people at UW actually say "how many computer languages can you speak?" Have you actually heard anyone who is involved with computers talk about programming languages as if they were spoken languages? If not, your story might be stronger if you made sure the reader knew these were your terms, and not the terms the geeks were using. You are making a point about how you are different from those folks, after all.
3) I sense that we could be having more fun reading your story, but not necessarily so much at your expense. Your first person character does not actually come off sounding so much ignorant as simply out of place, in culture and time. Surely something you did or said endeared you to the folks who were so different from you. Surely there was more give-and-take in the mix, some more spark of humanity having a good time with a weird situation. Hmm? Maybe your haircut was outdated but the color of your shoe laces gave you away as a radical?
Benjamin, I hope that you did make a great decision and that things work out really well. You sound like a cool guy.
This is the most beautiful story! It is very moving!
I hope to the bottom of my heart that the ending is true. You've drawn a beautiful parallel between the man freeing the fawn and God freeing the man.
This story deserves an in-depth, line-by-line review, because although it is very touching, it is not as clear as it could be.Please remember that I mean this review in the most respectful spirit. I care about the story a lot.
Neb, I'm going to try out some rearrangements of your sentences and see if this is helpful. Some of the sentences seem to be carrying somewhat more information than they are designed to hold. There are also places where part of the sentence doesn't completely agree with the other parts.
My rearrangements are in red:
"All I ever wanted was a house full of peace and love," Neb thought to himself as he sat at the table in the Florida room. The diffuse afternoon sun lit the magnolias and pinoak trees. He and Elizabeth liked to call this the "gathering" room. It was a closed-in porch with tongue-and-groove paneling..."
I've broken up the long sentences into shorter ones and tried to make the references accurate.
Try this paragraph rearranged to describe the house afterreferring to the Florida room. Note that mentioning the name of the person your narrative refers to brings them into the picture:
"As soon as he had walked into this room with the realtor, Neb knew that it would be a quiet place of healing. He had decided to buy the house for Elizabeth even before she had a chance to see it. With a beckoning bookcase....the house gave everyone who entered there...."
"Of course Elizabeth loved it..."
There are a few problems with tenses:
"Today Neb could accept the reality of things as they were."
It seems wrong at first glance to say were,, referring to today. It isn't wrong. I don't know the technical term for this, but were is appropriate in your sentence.
"...his former wife spatat him..."
Some more sentences broken up for clarity:
He was on his way to a client's house. He should have known to call ahead; eight hours ago, no one was home when he had attempted to stop by, and no one was home now."
Referrence: "Neb threw the lever of the aging Volvo..."
Just rearranged for clarity: "Struggling against the fence, Neb was unable to free the fawn. It tore his heart in two, seeing her bleeding legs, hearing her cry for help like an injured child."
Referrence: "Three weeks later, Neb stopped his own futile struggling..."
Rearranged for clarity and referrence: "Her long auburn hair caught the soft evening light, glowing like gold. She looked like an angel." Your sentence has the hair itself looking like a golden angel, which I don't think you meant.
Your last paragraph is perfect. The only thing I would change is that you make a paragraph break each time the speaker changes.
I loved the story. May my comments be helpful and your writing prosper. Long live Elizabeth the Angel.
This has a lot of potential! It communicates the disturbing mental state of the murderer very well, by showing it through her actions rather than describing it.
You have asked for ways to improve it, so these are my suggestions:
When you get the part where the murderer
enters Michelle's room, you need to create
a clearer image of two separate,
distinct people being in the room,one
of them helpless (Michelle) and the other
one threatening (Caroline).
Try this and see how it feels to you:
"Michelle Westhouse lay in the bed. Her complexion pale, she looked fragile and small among(not againstthe many contraptions around her. This comatose woman was oblivious to the presence above her, but someone was there. Someone who almost had a change of heart, almost walked away to focus on another patient...
Then you can continue calling the murderer "the person" until you identify Caroline as the culprit. Until you DO identify her, don't use the pronoun "she." Caroline is an unknown until you tell us who she is.
..."by the time the fluid ran out and the oxygen stopped going to the lungs, the attacker would be far removed from the area..."
Oh, what beautiful images you have for this forum! Just gorgeous. I love them all and it's hard to choose a favorite, so I'll just gush appreciation for every one of them. I could stare and gawk at "Dream of a Review" for days on end. "Now That's a Review" makes all my scholarly Talmudic chromosomes sing. "That's a Deep Review": oh my, oh my how imaginative. I want them all for background images on the computer screen, but maybe I shouldn't have them because I might never get logged in. What a treat this forum is, not only recognizing us reviewers but pleasing us with the beauty of these images.
Very, very good job! This is a high-quality item, flawlessly structured and flowing smoothly to the end. Spelling is perfect, which adds to the quality. I loved the way you had the main character so consistently self-absorbed that he didn't notice he was dead until he was TOLD. Chilling, disturbing, so close to the awful truth, but brilliantly written.
This was a very exciting and gripping item. It held my attention to the very end and I felt the ending was excellent! You have taken the trouble to spell perfectly, which seriously enhances the quality of your story. You have woven your descriptions of action and emotion together so that they flow in real time. Very good job!
Thank you for the complete and understandable explanation of awardicons. I just had the best day I've had in a long time because I won an awardicon, and this page made me feel even better.
I absolutely loved this. I haven't been entertained like this in a long time. It isn't that easy to make me laugh (I've got kind of a tense life) but by the time Val began to dance for the Vikings I was jello. This writing is satin smooth and seamless, all the transitions, all the point-counterpoint perfectly in place. More people ought to see this.
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It is very moving!
