Young Writers Society

This is a short one, but I think this deserves all the good mojo. Congrats. =)

-M.

Good Evening, Apple Core! :p

The introduction was very well done. But why would a genius problem-solver not just invent a coffee maker for home? I get that you're saying he's impatient but you should also keep it true to the character.

Professor Morgenstern built an especially huge robot, personally piloting it, and triumphantly kidnapped the girl from her house. It was all chivalry, of course: the mother was allowed to live in a spacious palace, and she would get full service of Professor Morgenstern's automatons. There was no evil intent there.

This paragraph was inconsistent with the tone of the piece. I think certain causes were words like "triumph," "chivalry," and the last sentence in which you make an odd narrative assertion that doesn't feel right with the rest of the piece. Also I'd like to note that you change tenses.

For the first time in his life, Professor Morgenstern had no answer. So Professor Morgenstern forced a smile at the ever-gazing sun, tore off the shield-device from his arm, and leaped off his tallest tower to his death. 

I think some emphasis is deserved here. I feel like the shield-device-detachment was a plot-consisteny hassle here and you're just mentioning it so there wouldn't be any loopholes. But if you emphasized his departure from his technology in a less off-hand manner it could have more thematic impact.

Last (and least) negative thing was the execution of the execution of the girl [sic]. It was dark, but the humor (that I think you were intending) didn't come off as strongly as it could of. This is all only small, but subtlety is key for this moment. I think having Morgen speak up and saying something here could give it a whole new dynamic. The next paragraph mentions his regret, but he doesn't seem to really regret it.

OK, onto what I liked! (This part is smaller but it outweighs the rest, due to its broad-sweeping nature) Besides what I've mentioned, this piece was very well stylized and consistent in voice and tone. The character was well developed and the storytelling was clever. Even the paragraph lengths were great. The use of time was also careful and effective. The conclusion felt like it was just the right way to end it.

I also loved what you briefly delved into in the fourth-to-last paragraph. His inability to make a different copy of her that was true to the original. That whole concept just intrigues me.

Favorite lines:

When Professor Morgenstern was young, he had a rule: anything is possible with enough time and resources. Then he invented his Matter Converter, and anything became possible with enough time. Then he invented his Time Machine. 

The riddle solved itself without equations, the hole in his heart, though still present, knew what it wanted. There was a girl. 

"Morgenstern, I've made a mistake," she said, again and again and again and again. "I don't love you. I don't love you. I don't love you." 

P.S. Was there any intentional layer of meaning with the Prof.'s name?

Love this story. Keep it up carbs!

-"Idol"

You already have a lot of excellent reviews on this, and more Likes than I think I have ever seen on a literary piece (congratulations, for what it's worth). Because I doubt there is much left for me to say that would actually help you, I'll just tell you what I thought of the piece. Pardon me if you've already heard some of it. And pardon me if it's not as helpful as I may have been in the past.

You say this is a personal piece and not part of your fable collection. Well, I can certainly see how it would be personal (even without pretending to know what is going on in your life right now), but how upset will you be if I likened this to a fable?

In my opinion, this epitomizes the best aspects of your style. It's symbolic, yes, and allegorical--but it is not abstract. It is clever and thought-provoking, but because of its simplicity rather than its obscurity. Your message is, I think, obvious and clear and entirely unencrypted. Your very pro(an?)taginist is by no means a person, but a character. His sole purpose is to be in this story, to illustrate a "moral" if you will. The twist in the end is not so much a twist as an elegant but very explicit way of incorporating that moral.

Understandably, the style is very Vonnegutesque. I think this is what first attracted me to your writing, when I read your Bits and Pieces (about a year ago?!). I was attracted to it because I feel it's unusual in writers today, especially of our general age range. Most of us are trying to be experimental, trying to try new grounds that haven't been stepped on before--and if we do try to mimic an older style, it is just that: mimicry. Cheesy and pretentious. Your language is simple. Your images and symbols are simple. You don't pretend to be what you aren't. And the result is an honest, lucid piece.

One thing that has already been mentioned is the inconsistency of tone. The superhero section didn't fit at all. The killing of the girl was extremely out of place. Not the fact that it happened, but the way it was portrayed. If you don't want to portray emotion in the narrative then don't, but don't make it overly nonchalant by comparing her remains to a mosquito. That seems in very poor taste to me, and it certainly doesn't feel right with the rest of the text. Also, when he kills himself, I don't think there was too little justification for the suicide (I never cared for him and I knew he never really cared for himself that way either) but I do have a suggestion.

It's about the various versions of the girl that he creates after her death. What if, rather than just making him realize that the real girl was irreplaceable, they actually taunted him somehow--made him regret what he did? Of course, that depends on whether you actually want him to regret it. At this point I can't tell and I can't tell if you want me to be able to tell or not. As I see it, either he killed himself from loneliness or he killed himself from guilt, or both. The loneliness is portrayed well enough but if you want to get the guilt across you may want to somehow make the "clones" remind him (verbally) of what he did to the real girl. That would be a way of portraying guilt while preserving the emotionless narrative voice.

Or maybe I've been listening to too much móðir mín í kví kví.

Anyhow, good work. I like this style on you better than when you try to be cryptic, I think. It suits you better and you seem to have an easier time of doing it to its full potential, or very near to it anyhow. Yes, it has parts that I would change if it were up to me. But I can't write like this, so maybe if it were up to me the piece would be ruined. Well, that's for you to decide I suppose.

Took a little while, but here I am.

So. There wasn't a whole lot wrong with this, in my eyes. The symbolism was crisp and simple, and the prose complemented this with its sturdy, steadfast structure (alliteration >.<). So many people equate complexity - or simplicity, even - in "deeper level" writing with complexity in prose, lose track in their ostentatious style of what it was they were aiming for in the first place, and end up sounding terribly esoteric. Needless to say, you didn't fall victim to this trap. Taking the top-down approach, if you will - that is, knowing and valuing above all else the endpoint of a story - is vital in pieces like these.

Overall, I have next to no complaints. I could tell you to expand it, but expanding it would stretch out the storyline and the prose, potentially leading to unnecessary detail or obscurity, yadda yadda. Furthermore, expansion would precipitate a distortion of the voice, causing numerous blips in said voice which would have to be accommodated for by more or less rewriting the entire piece.

The only part in which I could see some development to be beneficial would be the beginning; namely, the opening paragraph. I think you will agree when I say that quite a bit of emphasis is placed on the normal setting of Morgenstern's genius at the end, for a great many reasons, the most noticeable of which is the link it provides between the origins of the two alternate endings. It also acts as a whimsical cooldown, preparing the reader for a more lighthearted ending than suicide. While this link is fairly strong, it is not perfect - and what are we as writers to aim for if not perfection? This in mind, some expansion in the beginning would serve this story well, as it would further empower the connection.

Other than this, I really had nothing to comment on in the way of macro criticisms. Your story, like I said before, is very solidly construed, and the moral is both simple and powerful. To be completely honest, I'm a bit hesitant to tamper with the story for fear of disbalancing the moral outcome; in regards to recommending additional scenes or severely editing existent ones, I'm afraid I'll not be of much help. I do, however, have some nitpicks for you to consider.

Then he invented his Time Machine.

But then there was a girl.

This is really nitpicky, but the consecutive use of "then" to begin these sentences might be best altered.

mind-bending maths

Um....

There was a girl.

This repetition came across as slightly off-balance. You already told us that there was a girl, so why tell us again? The line sounded like something you might find in a lyrical poem, or the chorus of a song, even (because song choruses are so unnecessarily repetitious) - but not in prose. Frankly, I think the paragraph would sound better without it.

At first, Professor Morgenstern wanted to erase her mother's mind and make her think it was alright for them to be together, but the girl was rather against the idea.

Meh. A bit trivial, yeah? At this point and with this style, irrelevant pieces of information tend to do nothing but get in the way. Besides, it gives the girl personality, and the girl is more of a mere tool in this story than she is a character. Applying personality is unnecessary.

On whichever alternate timeline, on whatever attempt, he gave up and left her but a bloody mark in his bed-chamber.

So he lost his temper ("became inconvenienced," as you say) every single time? Did he try reasoning with her?

He yelled profanity at the reckless driver, but wasted no time because he was yet to build his time machine.

As I mentioned previously, the link between the beginning and ending is important. It seems like you're rushing this sentence too much.

That's about it, I think. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to shoot me a PM.

-Kafka

I'm afraid I don't have any decent advice to give after all of these outstanding comments and reviews and analyses before me.

You are a gifted prose writer. This story makes me sit in the quiet sun on a little green grassy hill and feel the breeze take me nowhere but at the moment I am in, and laugh at my sheer stupidity.

There is a world out there, and if I am so caught up in my selfish ambitious desires, I miss every possible facet and manner to enjoy that world, whether that world be good, bad, or something in-between we all must find incredibly difficult to reconcile and accept, but in time grow and slowly understand; and then maybe it is not so bad, none of it.

I see now, your perspectives and your intuition with prose. Your desire to depict the world in an entirely new way, and the vibrant life within it that makes a person want to get up and do something, makes a person learn something. Makes a person regret something. And occasionally, reduce them to tears.

I'm afraid I can't give you a real review, except that there's nothing to review any further. This is professional quality work, or darn near close to it. I loved this.

I feel foolish.