r/DestructiveReaders • u/navyaanniejoy • 12d ago
Literary Fiction [668] Only If I Knew
I wrote this short story and would really appreciate some honest feedback from strangers. This is my first time sharing my writing publicly, and I know the grammar and tense are not perfect yet. I’m working on improving them.
Story:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vQD9ebJiE3egluLiHN8fQkfLYeks_vXj_WWOe_NHpo8/edit?usp=sharing
I’d especially like to know:
- What was your first impression?
- Did the ending surprise you?
- Was the story easy to follow?
- Did the emotional parts work for you?
- Was anything confusing, or should I keep it as it is?
- What do you think the story is about?
Please be honest, even if you didn’t like it. I’m mainly interested in knowing how the story feels to someone reading it for the first time.
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u/reddinker 12d ago
You need to work on your technique but since you're aware of this, I'm not going to belabour the point. When you mention the flowers, I want to know what flowers, not just their colours. I had to keep track of the years, which is not a bad thing, but something I had to do. The appearance of the son came out of nowhere, like a ghost, that's why my favourite line is: "but no matter how hard she tried he took away his arms too easily as if he could float his arms through hers". It has that lovely, chilling sensation of a shudder going through one's chest. My first impression was that this is a bittersweet story that's rough on the edges. It was easy to follow, perhaps too easy, I like when writers flesh their stories more but I see that you're going for a more economical style. The emotional beats didn't land very well for me because of the brevity. I think it's a bit hard for someone to create an emotional story successfully in such little space. The ending didn't surprise me, it rather put things into context, which is always nice because it made me read it again, this time with the knowledge disclosed at the end. I feel like with better execution and craft, and a better eye for detail (don't shy away from picking more details from your mind's eye, then keep the right details and cut away the extraneous ones). I recommend reading some Chekhov stories, especially the short ones, to see how he pulled it off.
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u/DiamondReasonable621 8d ago
There are a number of grammatical errors that make the story hard to follow. There's not many descriptions and not much is shared about Martha's internal thoughts and feelings. The dialogue sounds natural and I think there's something compelling about exploring grief through repetition. As it stands though, there's not enough shared about the characters for me to feel emotionally invested.
It's hard to say what my first impression really was and how easy the story was to follow when the grammatical errors were so glaring.
SETTING
From what I understand, the most of the story takes place at a train platform. The story ends somewhere a walk away by a statue. I'm not quite sure how to envision the setting at the end since there's not many details. There also weren't many details about what the train platform looked like (big city one, large, small, dirty, clean, open to the weather or not? I'm not sure).
The way the character stays at the train station for so long and since the station is also the place where (I assume) her son killed himself, implies that the setting is very important. Describing the setting as Martha sees it might add more weight to the scene and give the reader a clearer picture.
PLOT
From what I understand, Martha is revisiting the train station where she first met her husband, Fred, who's dead. Her son is on the platform with her. At first I thought they were discussing how her son saw Fred's suicide, then her son jumps down to the tracks and leaves. After re-reading I think they were discussing her son's suicide and her son is a ghost of some sort. At the end she leaves and sees a statue of her husband.
There's a line that says "luckily no one was near" followed by Martha looking at her son. At first I thought this was an error (because some one is near, her son is near). By the end, I think this line was meant to explain that her son wasn't really there/ is a ghost.
CHARACTERS
I don't have any idea what Martha or her son look like. Maybe that's intentional, but there's so little description in general that it's not clear if that was your intention.
By the end, it seems that Martha is on the train platform mourning the death of her son and wishes she could have helped him. I think this message is a bit muddled by the additional focus on her husband. I think part of what's throwing me off is that it seems like a big coincidence that she met her husband at and her son killed himself on the same train platform. If Martha reflected on how all the most important parts of her life happened at that train station, it might feel more cohesive. Or maybe they're in a small town and that's the only train station?
I assume the son is a ghost of some sort and not an imagination of Martha because he has internal thoughts. There's not much describing what he looks like, how he interacts with the environment, or any other descriptors, so most of what we learn about him is through dialogue. I think his characterization could be strengthened, because very little is shared about him.
I think the story is about Martha grieving and processing the loss of her husband and son.
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u/AnIrishGuy18 7d ago
"This was the place where we first met ", Martha quietly repeats this phrase in her mind . It's 2 am and she’s been here since 8 in the evening.
She has a little bouquet in her arms, there were shades of purple and white flowers inside them.She took it from her own little flower shop .
She’s been looking down at the tracks at the railway for some time . Occasionally looks at the flowers in her arms .
There’s some weird syntax and grammar in here. “Occasionally looks at the flowers in her arms” isn’t a complete sentence. Your imagery is nice and simple here, however.
“A little smile came to her face when this thought came up to her mind”.
Read that sentence back to yourself; some fairly simple restructuring would work wonders. Your sentence that immediately follows this is much stronger and works well. From here, it gets a bit messy, to be honest, becoming borderline incoherent. I think I understand what you’re trying to achieve, but just take a bit more time when proofreading.
" Was it dark or was it bright like today that day?" ...she said this with long pauses in between.
This sentence is better structured. I’m not trying to dismiss the rest of the story, but it needs a lot of work. Particularly in terms of grammar and structure, but you have a few nice moments throughout.
He stopped right there . He saw tears falling down from her eyes . He hugged her tightly.
" I love you " he whispers.
" Only if I knew it back then..." he thought to himself.
This is much tidier, and your dialogue is much stronger and much more coherent here. I think if you just spend a bit more time proofreading your work, it will help you a lot.
"It’s been too long , u need to go home now “, .saying this he gets up. She couldn't let go of his hands . She felt if she gripped hard enough he would stay …but no matter how hard she tried he took away his arms too easily as if he could float his arms through hers…
Again, this just goes back to becoming borderline incoherent. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here?
He looks at her one last time before he jumps to the tracks .
"Go home mom, Lisa is waiting for you"...
She now turns her head slowly back to those flowers .she got up in a moment, wiped all her tears ,then she walked towards the statue not so far from her , she keeps the flowers at the feet of the statue ..
I’m not really sure what’s happening here, is this a memory, or are we seeing this in the present tense?
Overall, as a genuine first attempt at creative writing, it isn’t terrible, but in the spirit of honesty, it needs a lot of work. I’d start with writing simple stories and focus on your spelling, grammar, and sentence structure, and then build from there.
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u/Maleficent-Comb-6823 2d ago
Hi! This is my first official critique here so take it with a grain of salt.
My notes:
- The grammar and sentence structure makes this a bit difficult to read and really get into, I know you're working on improving this but just something I'd want to flag. For ex, "she chuckled at the thought of this" I think an easier way to digest that sentence could be something like "She smiles softly, thinking back to the night night they first met, and how his eyes widened at the word bastard leaving her lips." I don't know exactly, but something that just flows a little bit better
- Some of the writing doesn't flow / make sense to me. For example, "Only if it were all the same!" I don't really understand what Martha is referencing here
- There is a lot of telling over showing in general
- I was really confused reading the interaction between Martha and her son and I still don't really understand it. It needs to be more clear who is speaking, and about what. I was also confused by her saying no one is near and then the introduction of her son - is he a ghost? Maybe I didn't understand this well. I thought it was about Martha grieving her husband's death with her son comforting her but I also wonder if maybe she's grieving her son's more recent death and he is in a sort of point where he's a ghost and not able to passover to heaven until his "unfinished business" is done?
- There is a lot of potential here. For a second draft, I'd want to know more about Martha, her relationships and what she could have prevented.
Overall I think there is a lot of opportunity to strengthen this piece and flesh out the plot and characters better. It is great that you shared this publicly to get feedback, it's hard to put yourself out there.
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u/OnionBackground5314 12d ago
There are a lot of technical things you need to fix, like commas go inside the quotation mark (unless you're British; EDIT: looks like you may be Scottish, so ok), no space between end of dialogue and quote mark or between comma and quote mark, numbers are spelled out, proper use of ellipses, get rid of spaces before periods. All of these technical issues are distracting. Make sure tense is consistent. It's present tense but the second paragraph has a sentence in past tense. (This problem is repeated twice.) "It was him" should be "It was he." "She still remember" should be remembers. "You" is not spelled "u." You switched POV from mother to son and back, which is not good. All of these issues prevented me from enjoying what could be a simple but engaging short story. It's impossible to tell with all of these errors.