"Mud Watching" Workshop

The story is about a 35-year-old man who is still pining over a girl he knew in his youth. They used to sit and “mud watch” over the girl’s father’s baseball field just to waste time. After some traumatic event (a hailstorm?) the father forbids his daughter from seeing the narrator again and sends her away.

            I liked the loneliness of the piece as well as the use of “you,” as though the story is a letter to the girl. This emphasizes that the fact that he still has not gotten over her. However, I’m a little confused about the traumatic event that makes her father send her away. It sounds like a hailstorm struck, but the storm seems like it sprung up too suddenly. This is the main source of conflict, so it should be as clear as possible. Also, I’d’ like to know a bit more about the girl. The narrator never mentions her reactions to any of the events he talks about, nor does he describe her physically. I think that, as obsessed as he is with this girl, that he would have a very romanticized idea of her and would mention specific details about her hair, gestures, clothing, etc. I suggest spending more time developing her character and cutting some of the details about their mud watching experiences (such as the little boys) to improve the draft.

            I think you’re off to a good start. Focus on fleshing out the traumatic event and the girl’s character, and you’ll be in good shape.

"In Hours of Autumnal Sleep" Workshop

The story is very dream-like, using lots of poetic language to establish a feeling of eroticism and the passage of time. It seems to be talking about two lovers who may have met in a bar and experienced bliss later in bed. The story, then, may be the dream they create in their love-making.

            One of the best things about the piece is the word choice. You use very specific and descriptive words and phrases like “Your widened palm to flit my lip hushed over.” This fragment flows exactly as the action it suggests: like a hand brushing over a mouth. However, while the poetic language is what carries the story, I think that it may relied upon too much. I found it difficult to follow and felt like the story warranted a few more direct sentences to help me orient myself. As of now, I only see one sentence like this: “The city had erected a false kind of arc, with no animals, with no pairs, and I still found you there.” I found this sentence to be a bit of relief from the rest of sentences and fragments, which, while poignant and descriptive, I sometimes had difficulty understanding what they described. I understand that ambiguity is important to the story, and in a dream-like story ambiguity is vital, but I feel like with a little more direction this first draft will turn into a great later draft.

"Perfection" Workshop

The story is about a young painter who lost his dominant hand in a car accident. He is trying to teach himself how to use his left hand to paint but is unsuccessful. When he realizes he can’t duplicate the last painting he did before he lost his hand, he becomes so distraught that he decides to kill himself.

            Overall, this is a tight story, especially for a first draft. Your descriptions of the paintings, are strong and deliberate, and I was able to picture them in my mind. I particularly like how you use the second painting to portray his feelings, such as the likening of the red scarf to a “blotchy noose.” However, I got a little lost on page three while he is painting the replica. At first he seems happy with his work: “When he finished, he closed his eyes and stepped back, a grin splitting his lips. He succeeded, he knew he did.” Yet, in the next paragraph, all that joy vanishes. I think the confusion comes in with phrases like “he stood before his portrait, ready to take in the replica” and “his heart pounded until it threatened to rip out of him if he did not look upon his painting.” These lines seem to suggest that he is painting with his eyes closed, and he wouldn’t be able to do that. Therefore, I’m not sure where the initial happiness comes from. He would know after the first few strokes that the painting isn’t perfect, so the happiness seems out of place.

            Finally, I also loved your concept of “life imitating art.” I like how you manage to flip an old idea so successfully and use it to make the end so chilling. Great job!

"Promise" Workshop

The story is about a woman who experiences panic attacks.  The story alternates between the present when she is attending her old music teacher’s recital and her struggle with the Fear in the past. At the end, her panic attack makes her unable to sit through the performance.

            I think you have a good first draft—I felt a lot of empathy for the character (and because of this I wish she had a name) and was sad for her when she had to run out of the theater. Aside from a few minor errors, the draft is clean and easy to follow. However, as it is now, I don’t feel like any change happens between the beginning and the end. While she is sitting in the audience trying to fight off her panic, I expected there to be some sort of revelation that either explains the source of her fear or hints towards its source, even if she doesn’t understand it herself. Music is a big part her life, so I wonder if her relationship music could be used to reveal something. After all, music made her Fear disappear once, and I’m curious why it fails later in life.

            Also, I wonder if a third person voice as opposed to a second person voice would be better for this piece. While the second person forces the character’s emotions onto the reader, I feel like it restricts the narrative to the character’s feelings. I want to know what else is going on around her, things that she might miss in the midst of her terrors. Right now, the story reads as a portrait of her, and she has promise as a character, but I think some more interaction and description of the world around her will help develop her further.

            You’re off to a good start! Keep it up!

"Cut Without the E" Workshop

The story is told from the perspective of an African hunting knife that belongs to a serial killer named Bill. It starts with a murder in a dark alley and then relates through flashbacks how Bill came to acquire the knife and began using it as a murder weapon. At the end of the story, the police surprise Bill right after murdering a young woman, and he runs off forgetting his knife, which ends up in evidence storage.

Telling the story from the knife’s perspective is a unique choice. I like that you make a romance of sorts between the serial killer and the knife, as serial killers are often reverent to weapon and/or process. I think giving the knife a name might boost this aspect of the story and make it even more personal. In regards to the end, though, I find it a little unbelievable that Bill would just leave his knife in the alley if he has such an attachment to it. After all, he goes to extraordinary lengths to obtain it and calls it “darling” after his kills. I think it would be more interesting if, when the police catch him, he uses the knife to slit his own throat. In fact, the line “His hands go up to his neck…” made me think that he was about to kill himself. How would the knife react if he forced her to kill him?

Another thing you might consider is adding more details about their “dates.” For instance, serial killers usually have rituals, though I don’t feel like I get many of Bill’s other than his cleaning of the knife with “utmost care.” Does he take souvenirs from his victims? Leave a signature? Perhaps focus on this a bit more and trim down the flashback, which I felt ran a little long.

Critique of "Never Marry a Mexican"

Sandra Cisneros’s “Never Marry a Mexican” possesses a narrative voice that changes as the story progresses. The first person narrator, Clemencia, who is an American Hispanic, begins by giving a brief sketch of her parents’ relationship before delving into her own relationship with Drew, a white, married man. She becomes obsessed with Drew, and many years later after he ends the affair, she seeks to take revenge on his son, hoping to infatuate and break the boy’s heart just as Drew did to her. Once Clemencia starts talking about her lovers, the story’s structure begins to shift from a standard chronicle of events to a stream of consciousness narrative. For instance, she refers to Drew and his son as “you.” These passages read like a letter to the two men, as though they become the audience instead of the reader. “Your son. Does he know how much I had to do with his birth? I was the one who convinced you to let him be born.” This technique illustrates her obsession with Drew, which becomes more intense as the story unfolds. “I haven’t stopped dreaming you. Did you know that? Do you think it’s strange? I never tell, though. I keep it to myself like I do all the thoughts I think of you.”

            Additionally, as the story draws to the end, Clemencia begins to shift back and forth between her addressees to the point where it becomes unclear who she is talking to.

“Oh, love, there. I’ve gone and done it…And you’ve answered the phone, and startled me away like a bird. And now you’re probably swearing under your breath and going back to sleep, with that wife beside you, warm, radiating her own heat, alive under the flannel and down and smelling a bit like milk and hand cream, and that smell familiar and dear to you, oh.”

Her talk of the phone and a wife is suggestive of Drew, yet the words “startled me away like a bird” and “milk” allude to the son. This ambiguity suggests that she is falling deeper into her obsession, and just as the reader has difficulty following her, so does she lose grip on reality. Thus, the fluctuations in the narrative work to underscore the mental instability of the narrator.