Anyway, I finished and polished the bulk of this short-short story the night before yesterday's critique group while watching the director's cut of THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY on AMC at 2:00 AM. Hence, the many problems spotted by the eagle-eyed writers in my biweekly crucifixion session.
The Good
- The "switch" i.e. the change of direction at the end of the story
- The rhythm of the writing in some spots
- One pop-culture reference spotted
- The main character's arc
- My second paragraph should've been my intro paragraph.
- The fantasy element, telepathy, needed a bit more definition/consistency for one person
- One paragraph on an ex-girlfriend mentioned only once (among other things) could be nixed.
- I never named the story's supporting character.
- My experiment with not using quotation marks for dialogue was a fail for one reader.
- A major plot point about what people think of the main character might've been a little negative when usually, the truth is that most people don't think about us nearly as much as we think they do.
- ...leading to the question of whether the main character is actually reading minds or seeing a reflection of his own POV.
- Another lively debate (like in the last group), this time about my use of the generic THE OFFICE/OFFICE SPACE/DILBERT cubicle-hell setting and how the protagonist's co-workers were all painted as mean and blackhearted in some cases. One person strongly felt it was "overused" while another felt it was "awesome."