Hey so this is the first thing I'm publishing. It's just a really short story. Please let me know what you think and comment and review :)
Finished. Thank God. I packed my things, picked up my briefcase, and walked out of my office. It was already getting dark outside and I couldn't wait to be home.
"Hey Jack!" Shouted a familiar voice. I turned around to see Nicky, one of my colleagues waving at me. "Luke, Aiden, and I are going down to the pub to celebrate the weekend. Wanna come?"
Oh no. "No, thanks Nicky, I think I'll pass" I replied, walking away.
"Ok, next time then?"
"Sure."
*********
I sat down at the kitchen table and started picking from the bowl of grapes in front of me. I looked across the table at my wife. She was looking off into the distance, seemingly a little preoccupied. Her long chestnut waves tumbled down her face and along her neck, then disappeared under the table. Her bright blue eyes were staring into another world, and she was biting her lip which I'd come to understand meant that she was concentrating very hard on something.
"So how was your day, beautiful?" I asked, waking her up from her dream.
"It was okay."
"Anything interesting happen?"
"Nope"
She seemed stiff and reluctant. I got the feeling that she wasn't in the mood to talk so I got up and gave her a quick kiss before going to the living room to see my children.
They were watching T.V., as usual. I crept up, quietly, behind them and shouted "BOO!" And the room was filled with the high-pitched screams of little girls. Then, they all burst out laughing. That sweet, melodious laughter.
"You scared us Daddy!" Squealed Lulu, the youngest. She ran towards me and jumped into my arms. The twins, Emily and Cathy also got up and started hugging my legs.
"I missed you girls today" I said, a huge smile growing on my face
"We missed you too daddy" they chanted in unison.
I sat down and talked with them for a while, then told them that I had to work and went upstairs to my office.
Yes. This is what I'd been waiting for all day. It's not that I don't love my friends and family, but I really did cherish these moments alone.
I locked the door and, in an excited trance, ran to the back wall. I gently pressed my thumb against the fingerprint lock tucked away in the corner of the room. I heard the familiar click and the hidden door in the wall slowly began to slide open, revealing my secret walk-in closet.
I ran inside and started searching through my racks of clothing for something to wear. There was so much choice! Okay, I thought, I'll start with the dress.
I went to the dress section and picked up my red, silk, Chanel dress. It felt like heaven, sliding through my fingers. I slipped into it then moved on to the coat section.
I ran my fingers over my gorgeous fur coats, picked one up and put it on. Then, I put on my blue wig and my sparkly black hat, anxious to move on to the next section. Shoes.
The smell of pure Italian leather filled my nostrils. I stared at my shoe wall. Yes, I had a whole wall of shoes. In every form and colour. Burgundy, pink, maroon, peach... But I knew exactly which ones I wanted to wear. I danced over to the boot shelf and picked up my favorite pair. Knee-high, shiny, black leather, platform boots. I gently placed my feet inside then walked to the mirror to look at myself.
I looked stunning. I'm not even going to lie. And I felt absolutely sensational.
I picked up the remote control and pressed play. Suddenly the room was filled with loud music. A mixture of oprah and pop with the occasional rapping. Thank God for the sound-proof walls. Oh! My boa scarf! How could I forget? I quickly threw that over my shoulders then gave into the music and began to dance.
I closed my eyes and twirled and twirled and twirled. I felt as graceful and light as a butterfly. As I twirled, I began to imagine myself floating into the sky and dancing among the birds. A beautiful sunrise. A perfect blend of pink, and orange, slashed by golden streaks. A gentle breeze running through my hair and the sing-song of birdlets ringing in my ears. Birdlets... is that even a real word? Oh never mind. I felt calm, relaxed, peaceful. I felt happy. I felt free.
I soared through the clouds, alone in the magnificent sky and crashed straight into a big black pole. Wait, what?! That wasn't supposed to happen. I opened my eyes. It took them a couple of seconds to re-adjust, but then, I saw it. Well, I saw her. My wife.
Shit.
How did she get in? I'd locked the door. Maybe she was in the room before? No, that's not possible, I would have noticed. Or maybe I was just too excited to notice her. In any case, she was there.
Various emotions began to sprout inside of me. Embarrassment, shame, fear... I looked at my wife. She was staring at me in bewilderment. Her eyes were as big as golf balls and her mouth was slightly ajar. I could read multiple emotions on her face too, astonishment, sadness, anger, and something else I wasn't familiar with... Disgust, maybe? I couldn't really blame her.
How did this happen? There I was, standing in front of my amazing wife, in a dress and high heels. Great. I bet I looked super macho. Her mouth twitched as if she was about to say something and I couldn't hold it in any longer. I began to cry. As if that would help me look more like a man. Perfect. This is just perfect.
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139,334 Literary Works • 672,537 Reviews
Hey, Sounds here dropping by for a brief (and I do mean brief) review.
You know... I was not sure what to expect judging by the title.
This was a great story, as a fellow short story writer, I really enjoyed it.
Everything else has been covered, so that said I only have a small nit-pick:
This whole paragraph is great, don't get me wrong, but I kind of felt like that one sentence wasn't needed. I would have just briefly touched on the fact it was the protagonist's hobby to collect shoes. But that's just me.
You really do a good job of implying things so maybe it just was not needed at all, which in that case is understandable. But, again, just me.
I look forward to reading more of your work in the future
Salutations
This short story is really well-written. I enjoyed your imagery, and though all but the narrator were flat characters, that is to be expected in short story. In fact, this only proves that you understand the absolute necessity of brevity. The turn your short story took was quite unexpected, but it was, of course, foreshadowed by the title.
Many people, myself included, often stress how important the first sentence of a novel is, and the same goes for every literary work, but especially for a short story. In fact, every sentence of a short story must be carefully chosen; if it does not serve a purpose, it does not belong in the short story. Also, you must try to let your sentences be as powerful as possible, and brevity, as well as subtlety, often helps with this. I therefore advise joining these two sentences with a comma, as they do not merit standing on their own.
All too often I see people making this mistake. You must remember that only if the word which follows immediately after the dialogue does not refer directly back to the dialogue do you capitalise it. In this case, it does, so you should not.
I understand that you want to create an effect of familiarity by naming Jack's colleagues, but seeing as they only feature for those few paragraphs, it is really not necessary.
Your entire office-scene you could have shortened, in my opinion, since I understand that you want to have him leave the office, but nothing in that first "super-paragraph" (I am not aware of what the actual term is, but it refers to that collection of paragraphs the end of which is indicated by a break, an asterisk/asterisks, or any other symbols) is really essential to the theme of the short story. Should you choose to keep it, then I suppose one could say it illustrates Jack's isolation from the rest of society.
There should be a comma here.
Whenever a word is used as a proper noun, it must be treated as such, and should therefore be capitalised.
I think "rousing her from her daydream" would work better.
This helps to depict the wife as someone who is unemotional and unaware, as well as uncaring, of her husband's fantasies, making her seem less human and undeniably flat.
Is the abbreviation for television not usually spelled TV?
Though this is a nice bit of characterisation, it could have been phrased better. Consider: "I quietly crept up behind them..."
The same mistake as earlier. Also, there should be a comma preceding Daddy, which was at least capitalised.
And here we have the climax. Like I said, it was very much unexpected, as I'm sure all the others will agree.
I know not whether or not this was intentional, but I like how you foreshadowed the abrupt end to Jack's ecstasy by using the word slashed.
Once again repeat my sentiments that this is an exceptionally well-written short story. What makes it memorable, however, is the wholly unexpected twist, as well as the theme it carries: how society, especially certain feminists, allows women to give in to their masculine side, but how it is frowned upon when men give in to their feminine side and have certain fantasies, which they also indulge. This is especially achieved by the irony of the protagonist's name being Jack, which is ordinarily considered very masculine, as well as his being a father and a successfull businessmen. I applaud your skill.
Thewriter13 here for a review!
just work on more description and showing us what is happening rather than telling us.
Before I go into serious critiquing/praising, I noticed you had a curse word in your story. Now I don't mind them but I think there was a rating you could put for 16+ language to give a heads up to younger readers. I'm just saying next time with a story that has more mature language, put that advisory.
Okay, moving on *cracks knuckles, adjusts glasses*
What a wonderful little story! Well written and well thought out
"Hey Jack!" Shouted a familiar voice. This sentence seems a little odd. Perhaps you could use a more descriptive sentence here. Because first off you have "shouted' capitalized and this isn't even a complete sentence.
So perhaps "Hey Jack!" The familiar voice stopped me in my rush.
That's only a suggestion but it fits better, I think, than what you had before.
"I got the feeling that she wasn't in the mood to talk so I got up and gave her a quick kiss before going to the living room to see my children." This seems a bit run-on. I mean it flows well but it's just so long and I feel you could break it up or such to make it more interesting.
"I missed you girls today" I said, a huge smile growing on my face
"We missed you too daddy" they chanted in unison.
Both of these sentences don't have commas before the quotation marks and after the sentences! Please fix that
Anyway I'm not going to point everything out as previous reviewers have done so. Overall it was a great piece! You did well
Great job
and Keep writing!
This surely was an interesting piece, I've never read anything about a cross dresser before so this was kind of new to me. First thing I really noticed that you did was a lot of telling instead of showing. You use the word 'I' a lot and it kind of gets repetitive. However, I did like the description used to describe the wife, I just wish she there was more interaction with her in the kitchen and more description of other things as well. Also, other than his time in his secret closet I feel like his interactions with everyone else is cut too short and it just seems to transition way to fast. One minute he's in the kitchen, and then the next he's basically flipping out with excitement in his secret room. Um, at times it start to sound a bit formulaic when he's picking out what he wants to wear. Also I wan't exactly sure if the narrator was talking to the reader or not. Other than these things I thought the idea you were trying to get across is pretty unique and with a little bit of polishing I believe you could get this story to its full potential
Hello This is notresponsibe here to review.
First off, welcome to YWS!
Now on to your story. That was very unexpected but the delivery was great! It seems like the review below covered some of your mistakes so I am not going to repeat his suggestions and corrections. Great job. I look forward to reading more of your writing.
Whoa -well, I was not expecting that...
Overall, pretty good. Some of your word choice was just: "yay!"
-"Her long chestnut waves tumbled down her face and along her neck then disappeared under the table." -Nice, this gives a good description. However, I feel like there's something with the grammatical structure... hmm... maybe there isn't... (Oh well!)
Now, small issues:
-"I packed my things, picked up my briefcase and walked out of my office." It's no big deal, but this sentence lacks a comma between "briefcase" and "and"
- "'Luke, Aiden and I are going down to the pub to celebrate the weekend..." There should be a comma between "Aiden" and "I"
-"No thanks Nicky, I think I'll pass" can be changed to "No, thanks Nicky. I think I'll pass." Using "no thanks" implies that they're was no gratitude.
-"'Sure'" should be "Sure."
(There are a few other problems with punctuation, but they aren't too hard to fix. My suggestion would be to reread and search for errors)
-"'You scared us daddy!'" "daddy" becomes "Daddy" because it used as a proper noun.
-"The smell of pure italian leather filled my nostrils." "italian" --> "Italian"
(Again, just reread)
-In the "How did she get in?" paragraph you begin switch tenses:
"In any case, she's here now." --> present
"Various emotions began to sprout inside of me." --> past
"Here I am, standing in front of my amazing wife, in a dress and high heels." --> present
"Her mouth twitched as if she was about to say something and I couldn't hold it in any longer." --> past
*This can be easily fixed. "In any case, she was there." "There I was, standing in front of my amazing wife..."
This certainly wasn't bad. The story line was definitely unique and you were quite descriptive. Again, I'll "say": "Reread!" ^-^ Keep writing!
Thanks a lot for the advice, really appreciate it