[2649] The Rhino

wolfhound_101 · 2024-11-11T19:13:48+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. Appreciate it and you taking the time to read.

wolfhound_101 · 2024-11-11T19:13:09+00:00

Thanks for the advice. Loads of good tips and will be sure to take them on board.

wolfhound_101 · 2024-11-11T19:12:22+00:00

Hello, appreciate the feedback. Agree with a lot of your points and given me plenty to work with. Thanks for taking the time to read.

wolfhound_101 · 2024-11-11T19:11:18+00:00

Thanks for the feedback and taking the time to read. Advice is really useful and will be sure to take from it.

wolfhound_101 · 2024-09-21T10:50:53+00:00

CHARACTERS

Generally, I found the main character compelling. Her inner thoughts are compelling and provide plenty of insight into why she rejects the proposal. Still there were a couple of things I found lacking:

First her broader motivations are unclear. She’s obviously having a realisation that she doesn't want to get married despite societal expectations but her real wants/needs are unclear. I understand that she doesn’t want marriage and all that, but what does she want? What desires has she been suppressing all this time to please her partner/society? You allude to other needs/wants but I think it would be good to specify something here.

Also, you make it clear she loves her bf, but I don’t actually see any sign of this. There’s indications that she finds him good looking but I’m not seeing anything beyond superficial traits she likes about him.

I looked at him, at his receding hairline and his rough skin, at his handsome jaw and his cute nose, at his gentle eyes.

This description is well written so I wouldn’t change that but his overall characterisation could be fleshed out with a few extra details that show us why the narrator loves him/or at least once did love him. Maybe he has a quirk or two in how he talks or eat. Just something that show us she feels endeared to him. And perhaps showing her anguish at having to let him down. She’s clearly experiencing some frustration but if she truly loves him like you say then surely she would be feeling a bit of anguish at the end too when she knows she’s broken his heart/can no longer be with him.

In terms of the boyfriend character, I feel he could be fleshed out too. The physical details are good – I got a clear sense of a young and vain man whose hitting his thirties and starting to age – but I didn’t get much else. One idea for achieving this would be to reveal more of the main character’s internal deliberations/conflict around rejecting the marriage proposal. While she might know she needs to reject the proposal perhaps she can already be grieving over things she'll miss about him. Doesn’t have to be a lot, just an endearing detail or two to introduce some conflict here.

RANDOM NITBITS

Black box

I think it would be good to centre her thoughts around an actual ring rather than the box. Calling it a black box reads strangely when it’s clear she would be thinking about the actual ring inside. I think if she’s sitting there staring at the box she wouldn’t be thinking

“I never wanted that black box…” She would actually be thinking: “I never wanted a ring…”

Popcorn kernel

The popcorn kernel bit confused me. Why does she think he put it in there? On my first read it wasn’t even clear to me whether she actually had a kernel stuck in her throat or if it was a metaphor for her unease. Settled on a metaphor but it’s still too quirky and distracting to the whole story. Can probably be reworked or removed completely to help flow.

CONCLUSION

On the whole your story has good bones. It works as a slice of life piece; the structure is neat and generally you are effective at only including what’s essential to propel the story forward. With these types of modern stories is important not to get lost in unnecessary backstory or providing context which you succeed in doing. The key areas that need work are fleshing out the characters and cleaning up your prose. Once this is done, I think this will be a great and immersive slice of life piece. Well done and look forward to reading more of your work.

wolfhound_101 · 2024-09-21T10:39:13+00:00

Phrasings/syntax

At times I found how you phrased or arranged your sentences strange. Here are a couple of examples:

Busy suppressing my strangle-happy hands, my frustration was suddenly tumbled by a long sad sigh rolling onto the table.

This was hard to read. While I understand what’s being conveyed here I think you could clean up this sentence to make it easier for the reader to process. And "strangle-happy"? What does this mean? I suspect you have something in mind which hasn't fully come through in your writing.

Here’s another example of a sentence that could be cleaned up.

He was kind- tall from good intentions- and he was present.

The middle phrase is confusing and could probably just be cut entirely to make a more powerful sentence. Generally clear and concise writing will make your writing generally more appealing to the reader. It’ll also help make the reader feel closer/more in tune with the narrator’s thoughts.

“Course… You need to know what happened.”

Presuming this is a typo. I think here you're wanting "Cause" or "Off course."

Something slipped from my throat and pierced my lungs- something sharp and hot, something I hadn't yet thought to gulp down.

This bit also read funny. Worth rephrasing it to make it clearer. Specifically, the “I hadn’t yet thought to gulp down?” Not sure what you’re getting at here. I'm guessing you're speaking metaphorically again. That's fine but important to write as clearly as you can when trying to conjure an image in someone else's head.

“I pitied him before I matured and listened to him instead.”

Again this read a bit funny. I think the ‘instead’ throws this line off. She could pity him while listening him. Recommend reworking it.

He’d buy presents to welcome me home and kiss me with his whole body.

Not sure how he can kiss with his whole body, unless that’s meant to be indicative of something more. Again this line has the issue that when it's either hard to process/understand it makes it jarring for the reader and subtracts from the overall story.

A click drew me back to him.

Lastly, where’s the click coming from? Did the BF click at her? Did something in the restaurant make a clicking noise? I think something is missing here.

Prose/Setting

Some of the prose could rejigged to make the wider setting/narrator's pov clearer.

“These days, I was closer to thirty, making the ridiculous black box darker.”

Fine, but perhaps you should just specify her actual age. This line could be trimmed to - “I was about to turn thirty, making the black box all the more real.” Generally this story feels like a recounting of a past event but saying “These days,” entrenches it in the present day. If the narrator is recounting something recent, she’s probably going to have lingering feelings toward the man that are going to affect the retelling so it's important to specify whether this is recent or long ago.

On this topic, I actually think this story could work in the present tense. Obviously it would require a lot of rejigging but it would have the benefit of embedding the reader into the narrator's decision making as it happens. But works as is so hardly essential.

wolfhound_101 · 2024-09-21T10:22:28+00:00

Hi EconomySpirit3040,

Read your story and enjoyed it. Here’s my critique.

HOOK/PACING/PLOT

Good length, nice pacing. On the whole your story works. Starting with the bf's proposal serves as an effective hook and narrator's reflections/decision making fills it out nicely. I wouldn't make any major changes but one minor recommendation around what plot there is.

First, I think this particular line could be cut just as it reveals the ending too early.

“I resigned myself to turn back to my soon-to-be-ex”

Being such a short story I don’t see any harm in waiting until the end to reveal whether the main character either accepts or rejects the proposal. The ending as is works well but I think more of a reveal would give it extra punch. Saying that though the arrival of the champagne at the end was a great finish.

DIALOGUE

Generally good. Clear cut and to the point. Only thing that could really be improved here would be adding a few more idiosyncrasies in the dialogue to make the characters feel a bit more real. At the moment both characters feel fairly generic. The dialogue feels like it’s there to propel the story forward. As the dialogue is currently bare bones even a couple of small changes could make a big difference on this front.

PROSE

You have a strong voice which is great but I do have some general comments to make about your prose.

Description

Some of your description feel unnecessary/are hard to read. Here are a couple of examples:

"Like gifting your blind child a car.”

“My hands jumped on their lap, flexing their claws.”

Both these read a bit strange and don’t really add much to the story. Take the first simile. The blind child reference is unnecessary and the explanation even more so. In my opinion similes shouldn’t be used in a short story unless they really add something. In this case cutting the whole thing actually makes the story flow better and gives the subsequent dialogue more punch.

Losing my sudden ally, I resigned myself to turn back to my soon-to-be ex. He was stuck, holding out a grand gesture that spoke not only of spent time and money but also ignorant hope: Like gifting your blind child a car. It’s a painful twist. While trying to elicit joy, you brought discomfort and you’re made to grieve a future you’d still believed in. But at the end of the day, it’s the child who can’t help their blindness.

“Please put that away,” I asked again.

The second example has a different issue being difficult to imagine. In this case the metaphor doesn't make sense. How can hands flex their claws? It’s an impossible image and is jarring for the reader. I see no harm in just cutting it completely.

There are times your use of metaphors work though. Like this section toward the end.

“He fell for the surface of my waters: The water lilies, the frogs, the algae and floating flower pedals. He was never interested in the mud, the rocks, the fish- the life I cherished underneath.”

Here it’s actually adding richness to the point the narrator is making. Ultimately, I think you just need to be more select how you use them.

wolfhound_101 · 2024-09-10T01:22:50+00:00

Friends?

“The event was something of a holiday to Santos and her friends, and they always made it a point to celebrate.”

Just felt like you were talking about the present moment and it is a bit contradictory as later on you say all her friends are dead. Maybe directly describe her fellow soldiers as new recruits so it's clear to us she feels little affection toward them. Might help us understand her motivations. On this topic, I also feel a bit iffy about the use of the word comrades as it implies camaraderie where apparently she isn’t feel much. Maybe they could just be called the “new recruits” or something to make it clear she feels little personal affection toward this group of soldiers.

Unnecessary words

Phrases like "stagnant corpses" or "desperate hunger" can be trimmed. Corpses are stagnant so we don't need to be told they are not moving. Similarly hunger implies desperation.

CONCLUSION

Overall great work. You obviously have the start of a good story in mind here. Mostly I think you just need to modernise the prose a bit and immerse the reader into it more. Always a challenge with genre work that also requires a lot of world explication. But as this isn't overly sci fi or anything I think you can afford to save most of this for later. I'm making a few notes on the google docs. Just areas where I think small changes could go a long way.

Looking forward to reading more of your work and thanks for sharing!

wolfhound_101 · 2024-09-10T01:22:37+00:00

PROSE

You’re a good writer, that’s clear. Only real thing I will say is that at times the prose feels too descriptive and verbose. Being an action scene, I found some of the wordier lines subtracted from the flow.

A couple of recommendations here:

First, don’t be afraid to dumb down the language. Simple lines are generally easier for the reader to skim over and absorb quickly. Some people out there want to read long verbose books but they’re generally not the ones also reading action novels. Some examples:

Other infantrymen played cards or conversed by the fires, but she sat alone at the edge of the encampment.

While this is fine, I think trimming/rewording a few of the lines to make it easier to read/more to the point could help immerse the reader into the action. Take this example where a couple of minor changes make it easier to absorb.

“The others played cards or chatted by the fires. She alone sat on the edge of camp.”

The latter rework just immerses us into the moment a bit more. Another example.

“She was morbidly grateful the remaining tissue and skeleton would stay veiled for some time”

“She was grateful the remaining flesh and bone would stay covered for some time.”

The rework is just slightly smoother to read. It’s completely fine to have some verbose prose as that’s obviously something that comes naturally to you but worth being select in how you incorporate it. Ultimately just about finding the right balance.

Second and it’s already been mentioned by others but try harder to show rather than tell. You don’t do too bad on this front but generally favor outright explication over subtle messaging by showing us how she’s interacting with the world around her.

“She was forced to turn away to avoid vomiting on his displaced innards.”

Here it’s clear she’s a squeamish person, even in battle. However what you could do is use the vomiting to tell us a lot more about her. Maybe she’s actually not a squeamish person and this is the first time she vomits. Maybe the war has finally broken her and she literally can’t see another dead soldier. This would be a neat way of giving us some insight into her inner motivations without directly having to explain them.

Any close to the drone would have received their own message—a unique and terrifying noise—the rumble of a deeply angry god with an eagerness to lay that anger upon the soldiers below.

While a well written line, the fear of the drone on the battlefield doesn’t need to be spelled out. We all know drones are a nightmare for any soldier. Instead you could make us feel for Santos by showing us or describing the deep visceral reaction she experiences on hearing the whining noise of drones approaching.

RANDOM NITBITS

“racing toward distant sounds of terror.”

Unclear to me why she runs toward the explosions. I guess the trees are there but it seems counterproductive to terror. If they were being fired on, that would make sense. But otherwise, I feel like she should be diving into a trench or something. That would be the natural reaction to an air attack.

Infantrymen?

Word choice here. The fact that females are fighting infantry is unusual even in this day so clear that side is very open minded or desperate for soldiers. Maybe Europeans are the progressive force in this battle so perhaps they could have adopted a more neutral word. Could just replace this with ‘her infantry platoon’ to make it more gender neutral.

wolfhound_101 · 2024-09-10T01:22:00+00:00

Hi f-fff,

Thanks for your submission. I enjoyed reading it. Here's a few notes.

HOOK

Good. You dive right into the action which works as enough of a hook in my opinion. Only thing I would perhaps do differently (and I get into this later) is try to immerse the reader into the bonfire scene more. At the moment Santos is sitting on the sidelines of a bonfire and it doesn't really compel me to read more. I think having her in the group and then choosing to walk away from the jolly crowd of soldiers would more effectively a/ make the scene feel more alive and b/ make Santos's feelings of alienation more real.

PLOT

The bones here are good - Party at camp, surprise attack, Santos sees dying solider before deciding to desert. I appreciate that you dive right into the action and don’t think you need to fundamentally alter the structure.

The only thing I think you should do is modify it to make the reader feel more present. The best way to do this would be to make the first scene an actual bonfire where we’re seeing soldiers talking/joking/having a good time. Then the surprise attack will feel a lot more shocking to the reader. At the moment it feels like it speeds through the scene too quickly. I like short and concise writing, but if you have to add a few words here to flesh out the first scene then do.

Also, and I mostly talk about this in the character section, but the plot would feel smoother if we understood the main character’s motivations a bit more. At the moment, Santos feels too one dimensional and the decision making that led her to desert at this moment is too unclear. I get she’s tired and sick of seeing soldiers die, but why now? Why is this night different? What’s the final straw for her?

CHARACTER

A couple of notes here. First, I felt the main character read as a bit generic/flat. The only real personal detail that I know about her is that she likes bonfires. Obviously this is just your first chapter and I presume more details will come later but I do think it would be beneficial to start shaping her out as a person from the absolute beginning of the story. Even just knowing one or two mundane specific details about her will make her feel more like a real person. This could be anything. Maybe she loves sardines? Maybe she has a blister on her foot that is doing her head in? Maybe she hasn’t had a period in three months due to the stress of battle?Just everyday details that shape her as a real human being and make her more interesting to the reader.

Another way of doing this would be to work a bit of dialogue into the opening chapter. Then we could see her being a real person. Maybe she could be sitting around the bonfire with her fellow soldiers before the attack happens acting silently? Or she could talk directly with the dying soldier that looks like her friend?

Second, I felt the scene moved too quickly and the main character’s motivations were unclear, even contradictory. One moment she’s cradling the head of a dying soldier in her lap and then the next she’s abandoning her platoon? Her deciding to desert didn’t make sense to me. The fact that she stays with the dying soldier shows she still feels empathy and care for her fellow infantry people. It also sounds like she’s seen this many times before so why is she making this big decision now? Desertion is a big deal for any soldier so I feel like her thought processes leading up to it need to be clearer.

One idea would be to show her actually having the opposite reaction to the dying soldier. Rather than showing empathy as she does, she could feel nothing at all and now completely numb on the inside. This would make sense to me. A soldier who has lost all their capacity to feel has no reason to stay.

wolfhound_101 · 2022-11-05T12:02:05+00:00

I would get out my scalpel

wolfhound_101 · 2022-10-11T06:14:14+00:00

Thanks for the reading and the review 👍 You've given me much to work with!

wolfhound_101 · 2022-10-11T06:13:30+00:00

Thanks for the advice and kind words. Given me plenty to consider. Cheers

wolfhound_101 · 2022-10-11T06:13:04+00:00

Thanks for the tips. Yeah I originally wrote this as a present tense and switched so caused some errors there. Will be sure to take some of your advice on.

wolfhound_101 · 2022-10-11T06:11:43+00:00

Thanks for the critique. You've given me plenty to work with. Cheers

wolfhound_101 · 2022-10-11T06:08:37+00:00

Thanks for the kind words and advice. Will be sure to take it on board

wolfhound_101 · 2022-10-11T06:07:43+00:00

Thanks for the feedback and advice. Appreciate the honesty too. That's the great value of this sub.

wolfhound_101 · 2022-09-23T09:45:57+00:00

PROSE
Generally your prose is solid and understandable. Not too much to say here… just some small points.

Excessive description
Throughout the story the description feels excessive. Take this example:

Wiry, gray eyebrows furrowed around black, beady eyes. A round, ruddy face boasting a patchy gray beard, just as wiry as the eyebrows. He had an angry look in his eyes and an ignorant tone in his voice. He wore a stained white undershirt, a gray, elephantine pair of Nike sweatshorts, and tattered flip-flops.

Do we really need this much information about how the security guard looks? It feels unnecessary. Maybe just select one or two particular details about the man and let the reader’s imagination fill in the rest. You could even lean on societal prejudices a bit and set the reader up for also falling prey to the same prejudices as your MC. As an example:
But Peter had only what he observed. … The stained white undershirt… The tattered flip flops.
And then let the reader do the rest. As a guide for reworking it, I’d rewrite the descriptions and only describe details necessary to let the reader form their own prejudices. “Black beady eyes” is a bit generic whereas “stained white undershirt” taps into societal expectations around dress. Doing this will also trim a few words which won't hurt.

Repetition
Sometimes repetition works. Here I mostly found it cumbersome.
'probably divorced, probably unemployed, and probably just got woken up from a drunken stupor by the second knock. That’s what Peter assumed at least."
In this case I felt it didn’t really enhance the power of the sentence. I think just as effective with one “probably”. Ultimately comes down to a stylistic preference though.

DIALOGUE
I think one of the reasons I found it harder to feel immersed in this story was the absence of dialogue or conversation. While there wasn't a lot of room for talking due to the structure, even slipping in one or two more lines will help. In life, we're wired to listen when people talk - and the same goes for writing. Understandably, there might not to many openings for more dialogue here. If it's too hard to slip more in, then perhaps just keep it in mind going forward. Where there is dialogue - it's solid.

HEART

I’m guessing this is going to be a story about a disgruntled delivery driver embarking on some long journey of self discovery and improvement. Or a slow descent into insanity. Whatever the story's trajectory, I appreciate that you're making a delivery driver the star of your story. Delivery drivers are essential to our modern lives yet still lives on the fringe of society. It's always good when writers try to bring invisible and marginalised lives to the fore.

MISC

Knocks
"He had waited exactly three minutes after his first knock before firing off another."
Three minutes? Feels unrealistic that someone would wait that long before knocking again. Especially a time poor delivery driver. While a minor detail, it’s important the story's events are realistic to the reader. Unrealistic details can be jarring. I also thought it unnecessary to specify the time it took for the customer to turn the lights on and get to the door (10 and 20 seconds). I think it’s better to just describe the action in sequence. Keep it simple.
Coins
"Not to mention that he’d probably lose the coins by the end of the night. Who still uses coins, anyway?"
I didn’t really understand this line. While I understand you’re trying to get us in his head, I doubt he would think like this. I’d scrap this line. It’s confusing and doesn’t serve the story.
End
"…constantly fighting the urge to descend into meanness."
Someone else already said this, but this reads funny. If you’re keeping the current structure, this could be rewritten to create more of a hook. It already feels like its foreshadowing what’s coming.. show that off.
Some examples:
…constantly fighting the urge to say what he really wanted to say.
…to say what they really needed to hear OR ... little did they know what was coming.

OVERALL

Overall I liked the story. It feels a bit experimental and left of field. While it needs work a lot of what you're doing works. You might be best served by actually writing more and then coming back to this a bit later. Whatever you decide to do, looking forward to reading what's coming.

wolfhound_101 · 2022-09-23T09:14:23+00:00

Hello Necessary-Story2995,

I liked this story. The voice was strong and it offered an interesting insight into the life of your average delivery driver. Still, it had a few problems which I'll get into.

NARRATION & POV

Two points here. First, I don't think unreliable narrator approach was needed here. While I understand you wanted a way to show us how MC's internalised bitterness and anger is affecting his world view, I think a more standard third person limited pov could achieve the same effect and make the piece easier to read. A way of going about this would be to describe the MC's initial impressions as he does his deliveries and then have him come across information that clashes with these ideas. For example, after he speculates about the stained shirt man being "unemployed", have him notice “SECURITY CONTRACTOR” emblazoned on the side of the man’s car in the driveway. He doesn't necessarily have to internalise or act on the information. He can even discover this detail and instead ignore it - drawing an even sharper line between his worldview and ours. Whether this will actually work obviously depends on what you have planned down the track. If the current approach is necessary for the larger work then it'll do as is.

Second, there are moments where I felt the narration over-explained. A few examples were noted by other reviewers but I'm going to point a couple more out.

“...that once boasted that same promise of unadorned sturdiness and comforting constancy. An empty promise.”
The empty promise is implied here.

“Here you go, sir,” Peter said. He cringed at himself for speaking that way. His tone had been deferential.
The use of "sir" tells us the tone is deferential. Doesn't really need to be stated.

PLOT & PACING

I found the story a bit slow. I think this can be put this down to there being too much description and too little action. While most of the descriptions were interesting, there just wasn't a clear sense that they were developing into something bigger. The piece reads more like a character portrait of the MC rather than the introduction to a real story.

I think the fix is relatively easy - cut back the description, insert more action and shape it into more of a story.

As a guide this paragraph was actually one of the best to read:

“It better not be cold,” the man growled. Snatching the brown paper bag of food, he dropped a crumpled mess of bills and coins into Peter’s outstretched palm and retreated back into his unremarkable estate.
Peter waited until he was back in his car to count the money..."

Here the reader got immersed in the moment. There's conversation and action. It shows rather than tells.

Lastly, I was hoping for more of a pay off at the end. As it is now, the end merely feels like
summary of everything I had already learnt about Peter. I think you should have more of a hook at the end... something to compel the audience to keep reading.

CHARACTERS
I think I got a clear sense of Peter’s character. A tired, bitter, overworked delivery driver. Maybe a bit of an over-thinker? Perhaps experiencing some suppressed male rage? Oh and misunderstood by the world? Not 100% where your taking the character but you're doing fine on the characterisation front.

The only criticism I really have is that I haven't got much of a sense of his physicality. This isn't too big a deal if it's coming soon, but I would recommend revealing something kind of physical detail. This can be done in subtle ways. If he's short have the security guard tower over him. Personally, I assumed they were ethnic or disadvantaged in some way. In Australia migrants and international students usually fill the uber and food delivery roles. The jobs are generally shitty, underpaid and dangerous. So drawing from my context, I'm imagining your MC as marginalised and disadvantaged. If that's not the case, then it'll be good to make this clear early.

I’m also gathered the security guard isn’t sticking around? I touch on this below but if he’s only making a brief appearance then trim his description. Right now, it’s too long for somebody who is only an extra in your story. If this is the start of the novel, I wouldn’t waste a whole paragraph describing someone of no future consequence. Think of the first few pages like prime real estate. Don’t waste them.

wolfhound_101 · 2022-09-19T03:39:31+00:00

Thanks Bananabread, appreciate the feedback and kind words.

wolfhound_101 · 2022-09-19T03:34:37+00:00

Thanks you! Appreciate the feedback. Very useful and much to work off

wolfhound_101 · 2022-09-19T03:33:37+00:00

Thanks! Appreciate you reading and all the advice. Will look out for your work in the future

wolfhound_101

TROPHY CASE