[Seree Zohar]

removed to sub
tnx

[Tim Love]

A few words are missing - I'd say "equate to facing" for example. And what have Granita’s two brothers to do with it? If Henri and Emile are the brothers, then I don't understand what the double wedding's about. It would be fun if Henri were Laurel's brother and Emile Granita's.

[Seree Zohar]

hmmm
yes,
I was looking for an additional excuse on the parents' part, ie: yr brothers have been away so long and now you're going too.
but it's utterly irrelevant as it stands.
It'd be close to impossible to totally hide that there's a crossover of bros and sisters here, so it'd make more sense if each of the two young women indeed had a brother who'd already gone off to the farm. ok.
will try to fix that.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Hello, early bird. Here comes the worm, or maybe the snake in the grass.

Oh, please let's not make changes in the text while it is still up for reviews, anyway not on the first day. That makes critting a lot harder. If one studies the text carefully and writes a comment, then comes to post and finds changes, the comment will not be relevant, or anyway less so, and maybe after a while, not relevant at all. Also, (if I may be so bold) ongoing changes makes it impossible to compare the comments of several readers to one and the same text. And that is what we learn from.

But here goes anyway.

I have trouble sorting out what the story is. Is it that these young people are leaving Israel to farm in Bordeaux? I made that my guess only because I know the author and the names Henri and Emile. On the other hand, there is a statue of the Virgin Mary in the breakfront (which was a new word I learned today) and Granita's mother is crossing herself, so that doesn't sound like a typical Israel family. So I am confused.

First para, this sentence: She and Granita had given their plan what they liked to think ... But actually there are three plans: Plan A, Plan B and Plan C.

These 500 words contain ten characters: Laurel, Laurel's mother and father, Granita, Granita's mother and father and two brothers, and Henri and Emile and that can get confusing even in a longer short story (non-flash).

With the introduction of "Granita's two brothers" we expect them to play a part in the story and when I got to Henri and Emile, I thought first that they were the aforementioned brothers, but nobody is going to be marrying her own brother so I realized I was off on the wrong track.


I think that in a flash every word has to be significant, so if you use a trademark like Allstars, I expect it to have a deeper meaning, esp. since there are no other trademarks mentioned.

The fault lies with me, but I don't know what the 'high seas' treatment is, or what rouge-wave brutality is. I do know though that in most cases single quotes are just distracting, such as those bounding high seas and the big day .

That's enough for one review. Let me say that I realize it is unfair to nitpick like this since you haven't had time to distance yourself from your story and you would likely sort all this out, if we weren't on a daily posting spree.

Over and out.

[Seree Zohar]

It's SO funny you first figured an Israeli family! Isn't there this kinda rule that the N ando/or characters do not represent the author? haw haw. Gotcha!

oh, nitpick away! Isn't that what I pay you for? heh. It's nitpicking that'll move this along. And yes, you're right, ongoing changes are rotten but there'll be no more. This is the thing that stays on the page for now. It's funny, but I considered 4 of the characters - all the parents - as being, basically, one character [like matrix, repeats of themselves] - so that's what reduced the character load for me, which I realised was getting high, but which is precisely why I didn't name any of them. Points to ponder.

yup, I might have to pluralise 'plan' - I sort of thought of it as the-overall-big-plan with subplans a, b, c but that is clearly just the way my odd head works. Or maybe I need to change that to "part A has ......" etc. Okay, an easy fix later on.

tnx

[Steve Mangan]

I read it as a double gay wedding -- the women and their brothers!? The women met when their brothers went off with each other, and then they go and fall in love too. Hence the family rejection...

[Nina Schuyler]

Thank you for jumping in, Seree, and getting us going!

For me the story starts with the quote, "I don't think she told you we were coming," and I wanted to know right away who is saying this. By opening here, we are in media res, in the middle of the scene, so the reader is hooked, wanting to find out what is going on. It is what I like to call, a Reader's Question--you don't answer everything immediately; the reader must keep reading.

I wanted some sense of Laurel and Granita's relationship. A gesture would do fine to indicate if they are lovers or just friends. A wonderful gesture that does so much work for you is when Laurel bends down to adjust a perfectly aligned sock. Yes! You've captured her anxiety without using the word.

How can the ending echo in some way the beginning? The word "going" might come in to stand in opposition to "coming." Or maybe you can think of an image for the opening and have it reappear at the end, somehow changed.

[Marybeth Rua-Larsen]

Hi Seree!

I read this just the way Steve did...that Laurel and Granita become lovers after their brothers run off together. None of the parents are approving.

I'm not sure I quite understand the farmhouse situation. Laurel and Granita have their eyess on a farmhouse they want to buy and live in together? Plan A is to get one or both sets of parents to help with a down payment? Since they obviously aren't going to do that, maybe their brothers would help?

I guess I'd like to know a bit more about Laurel and Granita in terms of their age and status. I sense they are young (the Allstars, though I know women in their fifties who wear those, lol)...but are they established in a job/career? college students? Why do they want a farmhouse? I want just a bit more.

Like Janice, I don't know exactly what "high seas treatment" and "rogue-wave brutality" are, but I like them, and I sense they are big obstacles that must be overcome.

You're off to a good start!

Best,
Marybeth

[Rob Wright]

Seree,

It took me a little while to get my bearings on this one. I could not see the girls until Laurel tugged at her sock. That, as John mentioned is a great detail. And like Steve, I assumed that the same of the mother was because there was an assumption of Laurel and Granita begging lovers, or at least too intimate for propriety. I do like the farmhouse as a destination. It's such a young-person's dream. I wanted to do it myself when I was sixteen and live with my friends. I even had the place picked out — but that's another story. I liked the idea that the girls were rehearsing on each other — or did I get that wrong — but then it seemed to move into a real situation with real mother's crossing themselves. Having Mary watching everything is a nice touch. I see her in a blue gown, but then…BANNED POSTit's not my story. I always admire the crispness of your dialogue and the realness of the voices you give your characters, but, like Nina I was a working hard to keeping the characters straight in such compressed piece.

Rob

[John Riley]

Seree,

"She and Granita had given their plan what they liked to think of as ‘the high seas’ treatment, evaluating it with rogue-wave brutality."

I think there has been some discussion of this sentence already but I like the poetry of it. The conceit of "high seas treatment" is great.

I had the benefit of the earlier comments, but I don't think this is overly overly obscure. The parents are fairly stereotypical but the girls's characters shine through, as do their youth and stubbornness.

The "high seas treatment" sentence does suggest to me, if you use it as a sort of model, that it could have a little more "psychological" (for lack of a better word) penetration. That sentence sets up a sort of "Call me Ishmael" dynamic I think you could do more with.

My one nit, and I don't think anyone else has mentioned it so it's probably me, is that I had to work to figure out who "she" and "Laurel" are at the beginning. I know it's stodgy to establish the antecedent but in this case I think the advantage outweighs the stodginess. Or either I'm not being a perceptive enough reader.

Enjoyed,
John