GFF Literary Workshop: Week 7

Week 7: Closed

Welcome to the rotating literary workshop here at GFF. Each week will feature a new piece of member-written literature for you to critique and constructively criticize. Download and read the work at the bottom of this post, and offer your comments! The event will continue as long as there are submissions in the queue, so be sure to nominate and participate!

Comment Rules
There are no rules per se, but all comments are expected to be mature and within the bounds of common decency. The key is to be as helpful as possible to allow the author to improve their work.

Each work will be open for comments for one week, starting on Monday and ending on Sunday.

Submission Rules
The workshop is open to any and all GFF members; simply post in the thread and ask to be added to the queue. New participants are automatically placed at the top of the queue to allow them a week to prepare a submission.

Please send all submissions to orion_mk2@yahoo.com. Be sure to include your GFF username, preferably in the subject line. Submissions can be sent at any time, and will be held until your next turn in the queue.

Length
Submissions are limited to prose (stories) for the time being. They should be no less than 500 and no more than 5000 words long.

This is just a guideline; submissions slightly over the limit may be allowed. Sections of longer works are also permitted.

Format
Submit work in .doc, .txt, .rtf, or .pdf format.

Submissions don't have to be written especially for the workshop; feel free to submit anything you've got lying around already.

Queue:
RainMan
orion_mk3
Acro-nym
Ozma
Phone
The Wise Vivi
Ayos
Helloween
Dark Nation
Lycanthrope
Smelnick
Matt

People in bold have submitted work for their week. If you have not submitted anything by the time your week begins, you will be moved to the bottom of the queue and the next participant who has submitted will go.

This Week's Submission
Thursday's Laundromat by Matt
Prose, 500 words

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Interesting piece. I enjoyed it. I opened the file not knowing what to expect, and when i started reading i almost stopped. I'm not sure why i felt like i wanted to stop before it was done, but i did finish it, and i'm glad i did. I got a lot of mixed messages from this story because of my own assumptions pertaining to it's direction. This kept it fresh and new, and even somewhat exciting.

I'm not sure how well the World War II stuff works in there. It does, but seems to sort of come out of left field. If you're trying to show distraction due to train of thought then add something else rather random, or remove this one all together. It doesn't fit well on it's own, and needs something else to follow it for it be feel effective.

Otherwise, an enjoyable piece. Stick around, i wanna read more of your stuff.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Thanks for the insight. I threw that WWII stuff in there because I wanted the narrator to seem realistic and meander about in his mind something kind of dumb. I wanted it to be out of place...I actually wrote it as the guy losing his train of thought, but maybe it didn't come out to read that way?

I tried to italicize everything that he was thinking to himself, even if the font doesn't necessarily show it. That's my bad actually: the font didn't switch well when I converted it from Office 2007 to 2003 so I could finish it on my own PC, and I was too lazy to change it.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Ugh, so busy with the music contest I almost forgot to comment! Fear not, though :P

I really enjoyed your portrayal of the protagonist's feelings and especially their overactive imagination. The WWII segue may have been a little abrupt, but I smiled when I realized that it was just the character musing out of boredom. It was an effective tool at building a personality without coming out and saying "I'm a daydreamer."

Ditto the internal monologues that are more grounded in reality. They went over the top a few times (MOSTLY WHEN THEY WERE IN CAPS) but were also nice character building touches. I especially liked the "stealth" observations near the beginning.

As for quibbles, "laundromat" shouldn't be capitalized unless it's the proper name of a laundromat (and it probably wouldn't be; that's like having a chain of fast-food joints called "Restaurant"). I noticed at least one its/it's snafu ("Its right after WWII"), and wondered what a walnut tree would be doing in the middle of an apartment building. Also, for all the strength of the character development, it's ultimately a story with a very small conflict and payoff--he asks the girl out (but hey, maybe that's what you had in mind).

Good work; what's in store for the character next?

Most amazing jew boots

Hmmm..
I didn't really have anything planned for that particular protagonist after that. Writing about the first date itself wouldn't be nearly as interesting as asking the girl out IMO. Unless I went ahead and skipped past that and had the guy recollect on how terrible it went, but that would sabotage the "good for him" feeling you might get when finishing this story.

And boy, I was really hoping for more comments.

I was speaking idiomatically.