Response to "The Grind" by Cole Eady

This was a story about Skipper Fischer, a young aspiring writer trying to get a job with a NYC late night show. He is taking the risk to do something bigger with his talent than just working on his fellow students' lame movie attempts. The work environment at the show isn't what he was hoping for, though, and he feels  cheapened and offended by the merging of art with corporate manipulation.
     I liked the character a lot. He seemed realistic and relatable and very well thought out. He was principled and had his ideals, but he was still down to earth and could put things in perspective for the readers. I liked his cynical, no nonsense point of view. My favorite line was, "A room full of middle-aged men deciding what Middle America wants to see late at night." Descriptions like that did a lot to tell us about the character and the way he thinks.
     I like the conflict that arises--Skipper needs a job, but his principles don't align with this kind of work--but I thought that his rejection of the job came too soon and was therefore less realistic than it could have been. He didn't even really have the job yet to be able to quit, so his storming out seemed to carry less weight than it could have. The thing about Donahue asking for the notebook at the end was good, though. And speaking of Donahue, him and Skipper having first names that start with the same letter was a little confusing at first. That would be an easy fix.

Response to "Winter's Chill" by Lauren Barkley

This is a story about Mr. and Mrs. Smart and the dynamics of their relationship. Mr. Smart is an undertaker and he is called out on a snowy night to retrieve a body. Before he leaves he sees a text on his wife's phone that makes him suspect her of being unfaithful. Before his wife can explain anything to him, he is in a fatal car accident.
      I think that this story is very well written overall. I enjoyed the tension that built between the two. I thought it was very realistic and insightful. The reactions and suspicions of Mr. Smith were well done, I thought, as were the brief bits we got of his wife. The dynamics of their relationship seemed very subtly exact and real to me. My favorite line was the description of the black text on the bright cell phone screen. It was a clear image, but the blackness of the text really showed how Mr. Smith felt about it.
      In the first section, the flow of time is a little unclear and hard to follow. The transition from present to past and back needs cleared up, I thought. Also, I'd number the first section the same way you did the second. Finally, there were a couple spots where you told us that a character responded irritably or something similar. I thought that the action itself was sufficient to get that point across.

Response to "Short Story 1" by Adam Smith

This is a story about a girl named Margaret and a lady named Lucy who is xenophobic and a bit of a recluse. Lucy adopts Margaret and tries to raise her to avoid strangers. Margaret inevitably finds a way around her adopted mother's unreasonable restrictions and begins talking to the milk delivery boy. When she goes out to meet him one night she sees a side of him that wasn't there before, and she is persuaded that her mother's fear of strangers is well founded.
      The characters in the story are well imagined and interesting. None of them seemed to me to be flat or stock characters. The setting is also well imagined and displayed, especially since it is a bit of an unfamiliar setting. The conflict built really well up to the end of the story, and kept me entertained as I was reading.
      There are a few problems that could really improve the story if they were corrected. For one, I wish that we were shown more of Lucy's thoughts and motivations. She seems like a closed book at the moment, and sometimes it makes her actions confusing. Second, there are a few places where Margaret is inconsistently referred to as Marguerite. Also, it is never clear exactly how old Margaret is. If it was revealed, then it would help to place us more firmly in her world. Finally, I thought that the conclusion was hasty and that we didn't get much resolution. I don't know whether to believe Margaret in the last line and assume she has changed her mind to agree with her mother, or to distrust her and assume that she said what she knew would make her mother happy.

Response to "Holes Full of Dirt" by Ethan Hightower

This story is about a boy named Jeremy who is new to high school and who has made friends with an older girl named Ashlyn. Jeremy has a crush on Ashlyn, and she drives him home from school every day. One day, she complains about the state of the dirt road that Jeremy lives on and jokes that if the potholes don't get fixed then she will stop driving him home. Jeremy starts to fix the holes immediately, but he gets his dad's truck stuck and his dad has to get the tractor to get it out. Jeremy thought his dad would be angry, but he was understanding and reasonable.
      This story does a good job of setting up the scenes for us and of showing us Jeremy's thought process. The thought process seemed very believable to me because it showed all of Jeremy's uncertainties and self-consciousness. It showed how quickly something like getting the truck stuck can cause a teenager's mood to swing, and how encouragement from a father can swing it back the other way. It showed the logic behind the unreasonable things we will do for love, and I found it realistic. I also thought that the characters were presented well and that they were all interesting, different, and active.
      Improvements I would suggest are as follows. The main conflict is that Ashlyn wants Jeremy to fix the road. But, it's already March, and if she's been driving him home all year, then she wouldn't have taken so long to notice the road's conditions. Also, in the interaction between Ashlyn and Jeremy, there were some reactions that seemed unreal to me. The wincing and the smiling with pain seemed out of place. Also, we don't get the narrator's name until page 6 unless I am mistaken. I'd say we need it sooner. Finally, the end of the story seemed to shift the focus from the Ashlyn-Jeremy relationship to the relationship between Jeremy and his dad. I understand that his dad is necessary to help him get the truck out, but  I think their conversation should point us back to what has been the main theme of the story and not introduce a new one.

Response to "Off" by Aimee Bender

This is the story of a girl who is at a party and trying to meet her night's quota of guys to kiss. She seems to be distressed about something and it seems to be causing her to act this way, but we never find out what might be bothering her.
      The narrative is in first person, so all we get is what the main character gives us. This precludes us from ever getting an objective look at the situation, but we do still get a lot of information about the character. We see her true character in her voice, her actions and reactions, and even in her subjective viewpoint.
      What I really appreciate about this story is that it is very engaging and entertaining without being about something exceptional. Sometimes it's hard to find stories to write, but this just goes to show that everything is a story if you write it right.
      I think what kept me so engaged in this story was the mystery of the main character's motives. We never find out what is driving her to complete this list, why it was this night, what happened. Yet we get glimpses, we see how she responds to her situation, we hear how she sounds as she narrates. Figuring out the character, to me, was the most entertaining part of this story.

Response to "Leaving" by Rhamah Norris

This is a story about two girls, Beth and Kat, who grow up being best friends and then try to move their relationship in a more romantic direction. When, inevitably, one of them (Kat) wants things to take a sexual turn, Beth is uncomfortable with it. Really the story is about Beth. She goes on a journey from being heterosexual by default, to claiming that she's homosexual, to trying to be bisexual, to finding out that she's asexual. The tension created by this last revelation causes their relationship to break down.
      I think that what this story does really well is steering clear of our expectations. It does this on both a large and small scale. On a big scale, it would be easy to let this story be about Beth and Kat's struggle against homophobia and leave it at that, but that is what we'd expect. What ends up happening it that Kat--who we expect to be the open-minded lesbian--is unable to accept Beth for who she is. On a small scale, whenever the narrator (Beth) resorts to a cliched phrase, she points it out, thus silencing our objections. This does a lot for the narrative voice, and it does a lot for Beth's character.
      I have a couple of suggestions for improvements. The biggest inconsistency I noticed is time. We get the video game scene in 5th, the sleepover about a year afterwards, then a week later they kiss, but we're told it's 11th grade. If I'm missing something, then it needs to be made more prevalent in the story. Also, a smaller thing, on page 5 we get a shift to present tense with the line, "I barely keep myself from blurting 'girl.' " These are the main issues that jumped out at me.
      Overall I liked this story. Like I said, it would be easy with this subject matter to go the cliche and expected route. I don't think this story does that and I appreciate it.

Response to "Lessons" by J.J. Nelson

This story is about a young American man travelling on a train in Italy. An old man and his accomplice try to swindle the boy, but he is one step ahead of them. I think that the story is conveying a message that you shouldn't underestimate people. The boy talks about how old people romanticize their youth and forget what it was like. The old man underestimated the boy, who, as he says, is neither blind nor ignorant.
      There is a lot in this story that is working. It builds tension well and conveys it in the right places. As readers we begin to feel uneasy when we hear the creak of the leather. The ending also was very satisfying. It was funny, but it wasn't a simple punch-line. What I love the most, though, is the keen observations the writing makes about everything from tourist-native interaction, to the relationship between the old and the young. I think the story explains both sides well, but that we come out routing for youth over old age.
      My biggest complaint is that I was unclear about how the dialogue was working at first. When the boy answered the old man in Italian, even though the old man (with his accent) obviously asked the question in English, I assumed that the rest of the conversation was essentially a translation from Italian for the readers. Not a big deal except that we get moments later on when the old man is searching for the right word to use. It confused me on the first reading is all. This brings me to my next issue, though. The old man's vocabulary seems to fluctuate. He's fairly eloquent about the boy's "dangerous idea", but he has to search for the word "lessons", among others. I understand that 'lessons' is really what this story turns on, so I would say to dumb down the old man's vocabulary elsewhere. Have him struggle to get abstract points across.
      Overall I think this story was very well done. It seems to tell us just what we need to know, and it tells it well. It was a pleasure to read.