RainStep, a short story.

[jrgp]

http://jrgp.us/misc/rainstep_v2.odt
http://jrgp.us/misc/rainstep_v2.doc

This is my first short story. I'd really appreciate some constructive criticism.

[Twistkill]

You might want to put that in plain text form for those members who are not running Windows. Here you guys go. I was bored...

I'd say that the entire theme/setting attempts the sci-fi aspect of existing in another universe. You might want to lengthen it somewhat, as it seems to end abruptly, although your attention to detail is decent. Combine that into a few pages and you've got yourself a good story.

[Graham]

What I thought at the end....

"I get it, you live in a dump."

Make something happen. You cut off right when you had a chance to go somewhere. Also stop saying you haven't seen "X" in years or decades.

[BondJamesBond]

Simple advice: Feck the detail.

You overdid it.

In another there was a steep pile of rancid soiled laundry at least a decade old.

[a-4-year-old]

Combine that into a few pages and you've got yourself a good story.

Check the sig.

I didn't read the whole thing. Detail ad nauseum

[Kszchroink]

here's a short story i wrote, i wasn't entirely serious when i did it but criticise me if you feel like it:

Ulfons was a professional gambler. if he was so professional,
then why was he having such a hard time fighting this little kid? he
was like 12 years old or something. they were playing louisiana flip
poker. Ulfons was about to lose his last money.
   louisiana flip poker is a game that came from eastern spain
in the 19th century, when spaniards became bored of regular poker. the
rules were simple. one player had to hold five cards in front of him-
self, and his opponent had to pick up to 3 cards from the player's
hand to change. everything else works like in normal poker.

   this kid was about to take Ulfons' joker. Ulfons had to act
fast to save this key to the gates of winning. he had to plant a bomb
into kid's mind and blow his thoughts into a cloud of doubt.
   Ulfons gripped his kidney and yelled out in pain.
   "sorry i just saw what card you picked and my kidney failed."
Ulfons explained.
   "oh. ok." the kid replied, expressionless and cold.
   this is it. the bomb has been set. Ulfons used a backwards
reverse psychology. now child will think that Ulfons lied to him to
make him pick the card. he would think that the card he was about to
pick was actually bad card. the kid will not pick his joker.

   the kid picked his joker.
   "jesus christ" Ulfons thought to himself. "this kid saw right
through my lies. he is amazing."
   everyone in the room who was watching Ulfons fight this mas-
termind gasped. it was amazing. the child beat Ulfons, 15-0. he also
won five million dollars.
   Ulfons could not believe this. the 12-year-old was always a
step in front of him, always evading his traps. Ulfons tried to burn
child's bridges, but in the end the child was already over them by
the time they went down.
   Ulfons could not let this happen. He pulled out his .357
revolver, loaded it with a bullet and shot the child in his head.
   "jesus christ Ulfons why did you have to do that" asked the
dealer. "we're in a casino."

---

i'm not going to point out the obvious flaws in your writing (too much detail, etc.). i'd like to look at some of the weirder stuff you wrote:

a rusty WWII era monitor

they didn't have computer monitors in world war II.

a dashingly melancholy thought blew through my mind with the speed and agility of a fork being expelled from a microwave

jesus, what the fuck. this entire fragment makes me facepalm with the speed and agility of a watermelon being eaten by a black person.

The nob disintegrated upon my touching it ever so lightly.

uhhh, when was this house built? knobs are usually made of metal and metal doesn't disintegrate if you touch it

my mirror ceased its usability

i don't know, this might just be my taste, but i really hate pretentious phrases like this. also, you pointed out that the mirror was the last time you saw a person before. most readers will remember something that happened a couple of lines ago and think "oh god, stop forcing that fact on to me" if you keep repeating it.

Wow, I must have had a life at that point in my life.

stop using the phrase "get a life", especially in sentences like this.

wielding an umbrella

is he going to attack someone with it? "carrying" would seem more appropriate

I saw my son get shot. JFK style. He fell. I screamed until I was shot too.

okay, this part is amazing. "jfk style. he fell." is completely unneccessary, and "i screamed until i was shot too" just sounds incredibly awkward.

A gun. One of death's many catalysts.

and... yeah, are you going for some kind of noir style? i can almost imagine max payne saying this. it's very awkward after the last paragraph, which is phrased so badly that it's comedic.

some other points:
1. stop using "decade".
2. the introduction was much too long and clunky. make it flow better. try to get the same feeling of a shitty house/apartment/whatever in the time it takes jack to find his shoes and go out. right now it's like jack spends an hour just to remind himself how shitty his residence is before going outside.

[Smegma]

a dashingly melancholy thought blew through my mind with the speed and agility of a fork being expelled from a microwave

This should've been the entire story.

[frogboy]

i think someone just dethroned one gram

[Blue-ninja]

"An idea popped into my mind, but it went out like a spud that had exploded in the microwave."
---------------------------------------

Over-describing something in a story is almost impossible. I dare you to try it.

Good disturbing short story, jrgp. The descriptions you put in there put rather humorous images in my mind, although some parts of the story is slightly exaggerated.

The nob disintegrated upon my touching it ever so lightly.

THAT part I find so unrealistic. You could say that the screws in the knob rusted themselves away, and that the knob simply popped off the door in your hand.

The lack of hygiene in the story is even more disturbing.

[jap_man]

Straight up, it was weak, really weak. I didn't like it at all, but it has potential if you keep working on it.

The content was horrible, mostly because you've cut if off so short. You've barely told us anything about this guy other than his immediate surroundings and you're only giving us this short snippet of his life which doesn't tell us anything and makes a really uninteresting, pointless story. Then you bring his apparent son into the story then kill them both off immediately. It's way too brief you've told us nothing at all, in fact the whole story is a guy who prepares to "escape" (from what?) sees his apparent son then gets shot.

Also this line:
"a dashingly melancholy thought blew through my mind with the speed and agility of a fork being expelled from a microwave"
needs to be scrapped, it could only work if you're foreshadowing something, with the story you have now it would've better to have said a bullet fired out of a gun or something. Also by describing a fast action in a long drawn out sentence you're contradicting yourself. For example you wouldn't write down short, straight to the point thoughts of a character in massive sentences or paragraphs, you'd do it in one or two words.

Anyways, I hope that helps just keep at it, practice makes perfect, keep writing and keep asking for constructive criticism and you'll get better.

[{LAW} Gamer_2k4]

Short stories may be based around sudden twists, but you're doing it wrong.  The proper twist results in the reader saying, "Ohhh..." or "What, wait? Nifty," as they see the connection to the rest of the story.  Your twist causes a "WTF moment" (tm, (c), etc.), since it has no relevance to the rest of the story.

Another thing that I noticed is that you tried to make a story that wasn't profound sound like it was.  A guy lives alone for a long time, then goes outside and gets shot along with his son.  That's not social commentary; it's just RANDOM.

Finally, in your attempts to be eloquent, you've managed to mangle the English language.  "Dashingly melancholy," "mold withered ceiling," and "wielding an umbrella" are all examples of phrases that just don't make sense.  You've put incompatible words together, and your writing style suggests that such clashes are unintentional.  For your next story, stick to writing in a style you are familiar with.  Use words and phrases that you use in real life, instead of forcing together new ones.

Keep trying, though.  You can only go up from here.

[Kszchroink]

Also this line:
"a dashingly melancholy thought blew through my mind with the speed and agility of a fork being expelled from a microwave"
needs to be scrapped, it could only work if you're foreshadowing something

an idea: maybe when he walks out of his house, he get shot with a fork?

[a-4-year-old]

Over-describing something in a story is almost impossible. I dare you to try it.

Being redundant isn't good in a story. A reader would be very bored reading through something that repeats itself multiple times. Redundancy is demeaning to the reader, as if they need to be told about something so many times. Going off on a tangent and describing something meaningless to the story is not a good idea, especially if your story doesn't have a plot. then all it is is someone standing in a room describing everything he/she sees redundantly.

Also the use of an analogy is for either comic effect or as a tool for explaining a more complex "far out" topic, a thought is a common thing for the intended audience, (hopefully) they don't need to be told how quickly they come (and go) also using a very obscure topic (fork flying out of a microwave) would only confuse a reader, the inverse would work. Describing a fork flying out of a microwave as "as fast as a thought" could work.

[{LAW} Gamer_2k4]

Here's a short story I found recently; it's definitely worth reading:
http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

Take a look at this and make a note of how it's written.  Maybe it can help you if you write more stories in the future.

[Ivel]

dang, u guys know so much shit about writing o.O