Health Is Wealth

Hello!
I'll start off by saying I like the idea of this story. I like that you wrote about a modern-day problem that unfortunately many are choosing not adress. Your story is an excellent reminder to those who are choosing to ignore the warnings from their family and doctors that what ever we put into our bodies has a powerful affect on our health. Kudos to you on that.

I had trouble with the pace of this piece. I feel like because of the pace it, there was not much for me to get out of . If this is supposed to be a warning story to the smokers out there, or just a story to get the reader to think twice about his or her own health, then there's going to have to a lot more feeling added to this. The plot is great; there's rising action, falling action, and solution. The rising action is that the guy keeps smoking. The climax is that he has a heart attack. The falljng action is that he talks to the doctor and gets lectured by his wife and daughter to not smoke anymore. The resolution is that he does not smoke anymore and lives a happy life. Thisbis all great, but you see how that can all be told in just a few sentences? There was nothing in there about what kind of man he was. Is he pompous and arrogant? Helpful and considerate? What inspired his (presumably) young daughter to tell him to stop smoking and to lecture him about the dangers of it? It isn't just that she knows it'll damage his liver, but is that she cares about him too?

This can also be seen with Fiona. We see that Fiona likes to tell her husband off, but is because she cares that much about him or that she's a naggy wife? And how old is she anyway? Why does she react like she's never seen her husband smoke before?

About the daughter: I don't think.much needs to be said about her, but how come she suddenly appears in the room after her mother speaks, but we never know her name until the end of the story?

Technical Stuff: I was confused about Sam's medical history. So he had been hospitalized or cared for for his smoking habit before? There was a brief line about this, and I didn understand it.

You say Sam goes into the room to think for a while, and then that he wakes up... Perhaps it should be clarified that he passes out.

His own daughter "lectures" him? I'm starting to question the age and maturity of this guy. Is he young? Is that why he has to get lectured by everyone? Or is he just really hard of hearing? I imagine him to be some midaged bearded stubborn man who was a bit on the chubby side. There should be more about him.

And this heart attack business... Shouldnt he have had some like, HUGE realization that he would lost his life and family just because he smoked? And if my wife immediatley started lecturing after I ALMOST LOST MY LIFE, I don't think I'd care to stop smoking. Well,.maybe I would but her lecture wouldn't be my eye opener.

I didn't know that smoking damages the liver, I always thought it was the lungs. And if is the liver, how come he gets a heart attack instead? Does his liver shut down?

A tiny mistake: I think you spelled "apparent" wrong earlier on in the story.

So that's my review. You have a great start here, and if you tweak the things like helping the reader know who these characters are and let the reader get inside their heads, then it'll be really good.

Keep going.

Hello! To start off I have to say that I really like what you portrayed. Now, you can say I'm older than you and have thus more 'reading experience' so, what I'm about to say, I say because I think you have Massive potential! Please don't take it any other way...Hmmm. Here's my review:
I honestly didn't 'feel' anything. I tried to. But I didn't. It felt more like a short-story you would see in a health advertisement. You failed to draw up a 'scene' of the situation in the readers mind, an accurate personality of the man (we didn't even get to know his name, what does he look like?) and thus a failed moral altogether. What you have here is a skeleton, but no 'meat'. Hence it's not alive or soulful. It was rushed and abruptly ended. Now I know it's a short story but you've got to pay attention to some details sweetie. Slow down your mind. Think about the five senses. What did the room temperature feel like? How much joy did one cigarette give him? How dim or bright was the lighting of the room? Most importantly, think about how the 'heart' would feel given the situation.
Hope you take my pointers in to account. Don't stop writing. You have potential!

Timmyjake here to give you a review!

My grandfather is a heavy smoker, so I know what its like. I'm trying something new here. Never done real quotes before. Lets see if it works!

[quote]Quote[quote] I sat on my favourite armchair smoking a cigarette. My wife , Fiona, yelled "Oh that's disgusting!" , she paused for a second to to turn away from me and inhale fresh air before continuing, " I honestly do not know when you are going to realize that".

I don't know if I got that right, but hopefully. Anyway, this whole paragraph is one long sentence. It should be, "I sat on my favorite armchair, smoking a cigarette. My wife Fiona yelled, "Oh, that's disgusting!" She paused for a second to turn away and inhale fresh air before continuing. "I honesly do not know when you are going to realize that." Just a few more periods, commas and the like will sharpen you entire piece up! No I am done with punctuation! Onto content!

Your piece seems to move along too fast for me. I know that there isn't much to tell while he is in the hospital, but the way you write it tells me that he was only in the hospital for a short while. I know that a heart attack is a big enough deal to stay in there for longer.
No correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that drinking too much liquor damaged the liver and smoking too much damaged your lungs... Am I wrong in that? If it damages both, you should put that in there as well. I have actually heard of and seen lungs blackened by the smoke, so much so that it results sometimes in lung cancer.

Now my only other critique is his coughing. I know that smokers cough and you do mention that, but he doesn't ever cough during the story so far as I can tell... Maybe he should cough while he is talking? I also know that something in the throat is what causes the coughing and that its an irritation. When smoker wake up in the morning after not smoking all night, they are coughing and coughing because of the irritation. Once they begin smoking again, the irritation is soothed, etc...
This is just me rambling on now. xD
So even though this might seem harsh to you, although I hope it doesn't, it was really good. I always like seeing stories with morals to them, as most these days seem to have a lack of them, with not point to the story. I really enjoyed this! You have a knack for writing! I could visualize perfectly what was happening while you told it!
~Timmyjake

This piece makes a really good point about the dangers of smoking.
In a very dramatic way. XD
'and inhale fresh air before continuing...'

I must comment on the fact that your dialogue of speech for your characters should be on separate lines, as with:
'"I like it", I insisted. "Daddy, you are damaging your liver!",'

I am in love with the ending of this piece because it makes me think.
'I am now a non- smoker free with less risks of some deadly diseases but are you?'
The use of a rhetorical question hammers home the point to the reader that you are trying to make.

Good job.