Angler Part I

removed by author

Hey Ryanx!

You may be wondering, "Why has no one reviewed this?!" The answer is simple: on this site, we have a rule that you must review at least two pieces of work before posting your own work. Any member of this site who clicks on your story sees that you have done no reviews, and they don't feel like they should read your story as you haven't done this. Once you do reviews yourself, I'm positive that you will receive reviews in turn!

~ Clo

Hey, this story is pretty good.

I really liked the voice of the narrator, edgy agressive, it was good. I really like how the narrator gets to work, its a cool idea and it makes you like the narrator more. I'm guessing this story is meant to be set maybe forty years ago on account of the service station attendants and a guy chewing hickory tobacco but you could make that clearer maybe. Try to avoid using to many cliche's, like "easy street" makes everything seem a little lame. I won't nit pick anymore because it is a really good story, probably the best one I've read on this website so far. You should definetely keep at it, you have a likeable, funny and interesting main character which is probably the hardest thing to get in a story.
Keep on writing an message me when you've got another section!

Thank you for your reveiw.
I will certainly listen to your comments.
Oh and the reason why he can work at the service station is: all New Jersey gas stations are required to have a part of them service staion.
I'll try make that clearer when i revise.

Here I am, as promised!

I don't have time for a full grammatical review-- but you especially wanted comments on voices and characters anyway.

Overall, your characters were good. Milen and Kiara were likable, the boss was realistic, the parents... not so much. I would prefer you cut them out all together. You can show him being angry because they occasionally send a letter with a bit of money. Also, names, names, names. They're much more important than you might think. When i saw Kiara, I assumed that they were black, not Caucasian. (I don't mean to sound racist, I'm not, but its true.)Then Milen has a vaugley Asian sound. Maybe their parents just liked unusual names, but you need to say that somewhere in there. Dialog time!

I liked the way you had them speak. Very New Jersey. However, the boss sounded more stereotypical-Aisan immigrant than Hispanic. Typically, Spanish-speakers are more fluent than how you had him speak, unless they're just learning the language.

Also, fix this scene:

I turned over from lying face up and pulled a pillow over my ears. Two people- a man and a woman- had joined the rush not so long ago with eager minds and eyes half-way open. They weren’t new to the crowd, hadn’t been new for three years or so, they’d just rolled back into what was steady. Two people, ages thirty- four and thirty-three, both much older than me, but the same age at heart. If the tables turned and they were the ones busting their ass six days a week, babysitting their little sister 24/7, they’d change in the long run.

Get rid of it if you have to, it makes no sense.
this one needs work as well:

She nodded, sitting up, but as Liandra clicked shut the lighter, she came out of my view.
“You guys staying for dinner with us?” I betted the worse, knowing they were already ready to get up, get out of town, and make a break for the easy street. The best thing to say, though- I could get out more scratch when the tension was higher on the other side.
For a couples of minutes, no one spoke. The sole sound was the fork scraping against the metal as I served ravioli into a bowl.
Finally, Neil spoke. “We stay for two minutes minimum.”
“Two minutes to the twenty I’ve been keeping myself here,” he continued, the scent of beer was filling my air from inches away. “It drops by the second.”
“But it can’t drop too much more. We don’t got light,” I faced his direction wishing he could see my expression. “We don’t got heat. We don’t got any electricity. Damn you guys, I don’t even see how we still have this place.”
I pictured the indifference on his and Liandra’s face that moment and wondered what made them keep coming back. There was nothing here for them but us. There was nothing here they gave a damn about.
“You keeping track of time? Two minutes the most. Give me the number or I’ll decide for ya.”
There was motion from his area. I wanted to reach in the drawer on my left and pull out the flashlight I kept for times like this, but resources took from the desperation.
“Just give ‘em five twenties, Neil,” Liandra said.
“Two hundred,” I said immediately. “If you guys run off for two months again even that much won’t hold.”
Their number was low, so I doubled it to get out the most.
“We ain’t stupid, honey,” Liandra said. “You pay the light and heat-that’s about thirty or forty. The rest is food.”
“I know that’s right,” Neil said. “What’s two hundred for? You goin’ around the neighborhood?”
“Two hundred,” I repeated.
He walked past me and outside. It wouldn’t be long before Liandra followed. If he did leave money, it’d be somewhere on the counter and I wouldn’t be able to tell if it was a good amount.
I called out for Kiara to see if she followed him out to say goodbye. I can’t look back and remember a single time she hadn’t.
There was no response, which is okay, I guess, since she’s a little kid. She didn’t know any better, didn’t see the whole picture enough to see what assholes they were.

its not a bad scene, but a little confusing, A little rewording, and it'll be good.


Overall, great work. Just remember to keep your posts shorter in the future-- this one took a long time to read, and even longer to review.

Keep Writing!

--Dreamy

Thank you so much for keeping your promise Dreamy 115. Sorry that it was so long. I appreciate how you went out of your way to review the whole thing. I'll try to remember to keep them shorter in the future. Those passages that you said were confusing, could you tell me what was confusing about them please? I guess I can see what you mean about the names, although I don't understand how you envisioned Kiara as a black girl when I said there was a "faint redness in her eyes and cheeks". By the way, the boss, Angelo, is an Asian immigrant, hence the word Filipino. Filipinos are from the Phillipines, which are a series of islands in Southeast Asia. But I guess its my fault that these things were not clear. Thanks again for your input!

Ah. Filipino. I feel stupid. In that case, nice job on his dialogue. I don't have time now, but ill come back and point out what was wrong later. And i dunno, Kiara just isn't a typical Caucasian name, so she didn't really strike me as white. If you wanna keep it, that's fine, but you might wanna say something about how the parents are eccentric namers. I dunno. Just one of my quirks. Nice job, and ill be back later.