Hi!!!
Dropping in for a quick review here! I want to start out by saying that I really enjoyed your quaint little story, I love how you have characterized Dan, the tone of the story and the way it seems to stretch with really long rambling sentences beautifully emphasises Dan's age and really brings his character to life.
However, I feel like you can make your paragraphs shorter, which will make the entire installment easier to read. And, there are a few grammatical errors here and there,
On days when Dans moods were gloomy enough to diffuse all motion and the weather followed that up by taking a turn for the worse, Dan felt there seemed to be little hope in what tomorrow would bring.
There should be an apostrophe here, "On days when Dan's moods...."
That's a good lad. There now. Now now.
There should be a comma here, "There now. Now, now."
So when he spotted the little girl climbing the cherry tree in his field, overhanging the gravesite his thoughts had held sacred in his mind for so long, he watched with casual interest.....
There should be a comma after "So, when...." also, here, it should be 'a girl' instead of 'the girl' because the article 'the' suggests that the girl is familiar to Dan, or has been referred before in the story both of which are untrue.
Then again, these are very small errors so don't worry about them too much, a quick spell check and you're good to go!
I really love how simple your story is and how you have managed to keep things interesting without everything getting too complicated or long winded. Moreover, I loved your ending! The rising action seems to give it a cliffhanger ending which lends itself beautifully to the readers imagination, wraps up your story neatly and makes it memorable.
However, there are a few things that I don't quite understand.
The island was his primary place in this world. He had aspired notions within himself to be the islands only astronomer, when that didn’t work out due to costs of the smallest telescope stocked by the store costing more than a few years of savings, he studied botany and even purchased and assembled a greenhouse. When nature’s cycle proved too harsh and inflexible for his ideals and short span of human life, he chose then to become a family man but was quickly scared off when the more fine human trivialities of relationships became daily work on top of the serious actions involved in reproducing humans. After this he had made a feeble attempt to document family history and even after being discouraged by extended family, both in person and over the phone, he pushed on in fear of half formed achievements.....
Here, you have said that Dan couldn't afford even the smallest telescope the store had, it tells the reader that financially Dan is very hard up, however, afterwards you have said that he purchased and assembled a greenhouse to study botany.
I'm not particularly knowledgeable but I get the feeling that assembling and purchasing a greenhouse should be more costly than buying a simple telescope. The story also seems to be in a modern setting, ("being discouraged by extended family, both in person and over the phone"), so this bit of information has got me confused.
Also, in this very same paragraph, you have mentioned that Dan gave up botany because,
"nature’s cycle proved too harsh and inflexible for his ideals and short span of human life...."
I don't understand this? What about plants insulted his ideals? What were his ideals? Was he studying botany from scratch? If so, why? What does his life span have to do with anything? Was he not young when he tried this?
Perhaps if you give us more information or perhaps a hint on what his ideals were and what went wrong this bit would be easier to understand.
This brief exchange, the only time ever it ever focused on the age Dan was presently undergoing, proved to be strong words to Dan, who scorched them as a mantra on a wall against any attempts to rob him of inner comfort.
This is another line that has me very confused, I honestly don't understand this at all, What do you mean when you say "the only time ever it ever focused on the age Dan was presently undergoing"?
This line makes me question Dan's relationship with his mother because it gives me the impression that she did not comfort him often even though he was bullied. This makes me feel like she, perhaps, wasn't the best mother.
And the part where he scorches the words on the wall, is this a literal wall? Or is it supposed to be figurative? Like a metaphor for his mind? If that is the case, I feel like it needs to be clearer.
Dan spent much time hoping Arleen had discovered something similar to that feeling, that he felt their mother had given them and he hoped the best for her and her child in finding it where they chose. Had more substance abuse taken its toll on Dan’s aging mind he would have become accustomed to revisiting the memory in his searching out for the feeling nostalgia has mingled with....
This line surprised me a little, substance abuse? If this was mentioned earlier in the story in afraid I completely missed it. Nowhere did I get the feeling that Dan was abusing substances, so this takes my perception of Dan for a toss, I thought he was an aging man with illnesses who took pain medication, but now..... I'm not so sure what to think of him.
Overall, I really, really enjoyed reading your story, it's a lovely little tale. You have Dan beautifully characterised and the way Dan mused upon his death and the way he planned his burial in such a straightforward pragmatic way and the way it was mentioned in the story, so simple and casual like it was a normal thing to do, gave the story such a delightfully wicked turn! I immensely enjoyed that part, it's a marvellous twist!
Everything expressed in my opinion, accept or reject whatever you want.
Take care!
--KB
Points: 1807
Reviews: 13
Donate