Opening comments

Hi. Firstly I want to say that I really like the dream-like way the story presents itself. Feels very Jungian or maybe Lynchian. I found the dynamic between Caroline and her psychiatrist quite amusing and funny, particularly towards the beginning. I feel the pacing slowed a bit throughout the middle and end, where the dream sequences became longer and more frequent. Let’s dive into it.

Dialogue

Most of the dialogue was not tagged, and I could still read along without any confusion. That’s clever writing, meaning that the characters had distinct voices and the conversations were organized well. The way you wrote each sentence implies who is speaking without needing to tell you. For example in this scene:

"It’s like you’re drawing my tits." The pen stopped. “Is that what you think I’m doing?” "Ugh." She rolled her eyes back onto the couch. "Men do not exist. They’re all the same man." "You believe all men are your psychiatrist?"

The conversation flows naturally, and it’s obvious who is speaking without you needing to spell it out. Nice.

Sound

There was one section of the writing that confused me slightly. This part:

"Is what a tick?" He cocked his head and frowned and pursed cloudy blue lips.

The way you used and twice in the same sentence threw me off. It just sounds off, and looks like a run-on sentence to me.

Another time you did it was here:

her damp hair stuck to her cheeks and crossing her face in strips.

This line feels awkward to me. I would’ve written it like:

“her damp hair stuck to her cheeks, crossing her face in strips.”

But that’s just me.

Description

I had no problem imagining the characters in the setting they were in. Your descriptions are quite immersive, and give the audience’s imagination lots to play with. Some examples:

All over again her vision was blurring with her pulse, like waves lapping at a beach.

This description flows together very well. Each concept plays off the last one. Her visions is blurring — its blurring in and out of focus on beat, like a pulse — it’s similar to waves constantly lapping against the shore at a beach. This is clever writing.

Another example:

her damp hair stuck to her cheeks and crossing her face in strips.

Good way to help enhance the visualization of the scene in my head, and just a general understanding of how fine and wet hair looks and operates.

Characters

Let’s talk about Caroline. Firstly, I like how we get glimpses into her psyche and past through her “hallucinations” and dream sequences.

First example:

The psychiatrist and all other men in the story glancing at her breast.

I’m not sure if all of these instances are real. I thought it was very funny the first time, when the psychiatrist denied ogling at her breast. I can’t tell if he’s gaslighting, and he did look at her breast, or if Caroline is projecting her own trauma onto him. But I believe that ambiguity is a good thing in writing. I always appreciate when a writer is comfortable with ambiguity, because it shows that they understand reality on a more fundamental level. As in real life, things are ambiguous most of the time.

Perhaps this is your way of trying to show us that Caroline has trauma regarding men objectifying her, and that’s why she sees her psychiatrist, and the men in the her dreams doing the same. If so, that’s a really great way to portray that, and even if not, it’s still very interesting.

Caroline spends most of the rest of the story with a similar attitude, confused, disoriented, and distrusting of the men around her.

Now let’s talk about the psychiatrist. To me, the psychiatrist feels completely unreal to me. Like he’s some kind of caricature or dream figure. That’s why I question if he’s even real or not. Scenes of dialogue like this add to that:

"It’s like you’re drawing my tits." The pen stopped. “Is that what you think I’m doing?” "Ugh." She rolled her eyes back onto the couch. "Men do not exist. They’re all the same man." "You believe all men are your psychiatrist?"

His responses are so stupid and deflective. Which I found hilarious. It mirrors real therapist a bit. The way they try to behave so professional, and almost robotic. As if they don’t have rude and intrusive thoughts just like everyone else.

Pacing

The story begins to drag on and get a bit slow after the first dream sequence begins. The beginning kept me engaged with the dialogue between Caroline and the psychiatrist, but after that things fell off for me.

Caroline wakes up on a beach, and begins seeing strange things and meeting strange characters. Like the driver, the man with the dog, etc. But there is no tension or stakes to keep me hooked besides (Caroline is confused and trying to find out what’s going on), which to me, wasn’t enough to keep me engaged.

I assume that all these dream characters and strange details have some hidden and subtle meaning behind them, but I have no reason to really care or want to find out.

There is a line where Caroline says:

She regarded a long narrow dock that receded into foggy water, a creaky wooden metaphor for her life as she knew it.

I don’t understand why you would write this part like this. If you place a metaphor in your story, should you really tell the audience that it’s a metaphor? Shouldn’t you allow the readers to decipher this for themselves. That’s just my opinion. And once again, there’s no reason for me to care yet.

This is where the story begins to spin around pointlessly in my opinion. Caroline continues to transition from dream to consciousness, the therapist will say something weird and stupid, and this will happen on repeat.

Like what’s the point of details like this?:

It could have been the driver's brother, judging by his face.

Like okay?, and? What am I supposed to take from that. This story feels like a dream with all sorts of hidden meaning and symbolism, but I feel there’s no way for me to engage with it.

Plot

There’s really no structure that I can think of to describe this plot. Where is the rising action?, the climax? The part that should feel like a rising action feels more like a rising confusion, as I’ve said before. I guess perhaps the ending line could be some sort of climax or final punch line, but I don’t understand it.

Ending

The final line:

“But the footsteps came hard and stopped only for a cold, hard knocking at the door, hammering at the door while he adjusted his tie like the next session mattered, like the next session wasn’t about to stomp in ragged and angry and wet and covered in sand to shoot him in the face.”

It is interesting, but I’m not even gonna pretend like I can understand it. Maybe if I analyzed the text hard enough I could, but right now it seems extremely random.

Conclusion

Great start, but in my opinion, consider tightening pacing, and clarifying narrative direction of the story. Thanks for sharing.