Smoke Break

Deleted and embarrassed.

This isn't bad. There tends to be an excessive ammount of descriptiveness. Your telling us things that we either already know, can conjecture on our own, or don't need to know. The first paragraph especially.

This particular line does not fit the piece at all. You could stand to get rid of it. If we are to believe that this is an office building of some kind, the punk/emo non conformist/rebellious youth attitude doesn't work. Since to a true non conformist, such a job is counter intuitive to their philosiphy.

"He scratched his neck with his one hand, pulling at his collar. They were always trying to keep a man down. Ties were just another form of restriction. What was the purpose of a tie? To choke yourself into submission, that was what. But he didn’t really mind ties, just the principle behind ties."

The first sentence is another example of a little too much description. He was scratching his neck, we understand that he was using a single hand to do it, rarely does anyone scratch their neck with both hands at once, especially if one of them has a cigarette in it.

You make only a single reference to the main charachters name at the beginning, and come back to it later, and when you do, it almost sounds like he's talking about someone else in the office for a second. We could use something like "he stepped back into the bathroom..." just to solidify that he is done spying on his coworkers.

about a quarter from the bottom of the page "He pushed pen the door. " I assume you mean open. Just a spelling thing.

Offices don't generally tell their employees that they have two weeks left to work there. That leads to problems.
The bathroom should have reaked of smoke, I was confused when she didn't mention it. Smoking is not permitted within any office building I've ever heard of.
At the end, it almost feels like they're in school, and not in an office. She seems like the angry teacher, and he acts like a student.

Other than that, it flows nicely, and there is a good sense of charachter. Aside from the glorification of the cigarette, which I will have to whole heartedly disagree with, it works very well.

I, for one, thought the level of description was very appropriate for the piece. It left no questions as to the condition of the setting. Gross bathroom, got it! Well done! It seems that the description was very vital to the piece and I thought it was well done. Probably, you should mention that the bathroom reaked of smoke and Rita should have mentioned it as well, but that would be one of my only critiques.

The last few lines border on cliche, but they're not bad at all.

I think you handled the character of Dirk very well and I like how the characterization fit in the story. It seemed to me that the main point of this was to describe a character in a setting/doing something natural to him, and in that respect I think you did a great job.

You write at a very good level for your age! Quite frankly, I was surprised to see that you were only fifteen! The writing and style of this piece reflects a maturity beyond your years!

Kudos to you! And the glorification of smoking? Perfectly fine subject matter!

Cheers!

It's pretty good. It does flow really nicely, everything was well described which I thought was really good. The only problem is - Is that your main character sounds a little crazy... Only probably that is just me.

Emma wrote:It's pretty good. It does flow really nicely, everything was well described which I thought was really good. The only problem is - Is that your main character sounds a little crazy... Only probably that is just me.

No. He is supposed to be a little crazy-obsessed with his individuality.

P.S. Did not mean to glorify smoking. Thought that it fit the character, since he's basically obsessed with himself.

Aaah, got you now. Sounds fun.

QiGuaiGongFu wrote:
This particular line does not fit the piece at all. You could stand to get rid of it. If we are to believe that this is an office building of some kind, the punk/emo non conformist/rebellious youth attitude doesn't work. Since to a true non conformist, such a job is counter intuitive to their philosiphy.

Unfortunately, most nonconformists are also hypocrites. There is no true nonconformists. Unless you pee yuour pants, you are conforming to your potty training. But your point well taken.

There is good and bad to this. The good is that I liked it, and it was very entertaining. I think glorifying smoking is ok just as long as it fits the character. I- for one- like a lot of description. The fact that people did drugs in the bathroom, and that Dirk took so little regard of the bathroom by spitting on the mirror really made it seem like this wasn’t a high and mighty office. So smoking in the bathroom was over looked.

The first thing I thought of when I read the first paragraph was: “What kind of office hires people who do drugs?” I mean I’m not saying that you can automatically tell if someone does drugs, but it doesn’t fit with reality. Offices do background checks, they drug test if there is suspicion of drug use, etc. The second thing that really irked me was, why was Rita knocking on the men’s room door? Do bosses usually hunt down their employees and follow them into the bathroom?

Well, for one thing, he doesn't do rugs, unless you mean nicotine is a drug. So, I would have to say, many offices would hire smokers. not out of preference, bbut necessity. the second thing, about her following him into the bathroom, is easily explained. She's his supervisor, and she has noticed his frequent departures to the bathroom. The smoking is not the big thing, it's his slacker attitude to work, and his elitism which he thinks alleviates him of the necessity of working.

peace!