Published July 13, 2020
Hours after calling my son Worthless, among other names, I enter his room and find his inanimate eyes looking back at me, from the ceiling.
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Yikes... that sentence left me feeling pretty sad. It definitely served its purpose in giving the reader emotion, especially fear and sadness for characters we don't even know the names of.
People have already mentioned a few of the small errors like needing 'worthless' in quotes and the deleting the comma after 'me'. But I have one suggestion.
When you describe the boy's eyes as 'inanimate', my first impression was that the narrator's son was a stuffed animal. Words like 'lifeless' and 'non-seeing' might be a little clearer and grab your readers' attention better.
Overall, this was an interesting piece of nano-fiction. It generates much more emotion and response than a simple, "And he died."
Thanks for the review. Really appreciate it.
So my impression from reading this was that a parent and son had a terrible fight, in which the parent (I couldn't tell if it was the mother or father) insulted the son and called him worthless, and afterwards the son committed suicide. :'(
I was taken aback at how short it was, and how sudden, sad, and chilling the ending was, but it's definitely realistic. This has probably happened more than once in the real world.
When it comes to the writing of the single sentence, I don't believe "worthless" should be capitalized, and I don't think the comma at the ending was necessary. I feel like the ending part would more correctly be written, assuming it's supposed to be in present tense, "I enter his room to find his inanimate eyes looking back at me from the ceiling." Still, not much change needed.
Thanks for the review!
So my impression from reading this was that a parent and son had a terrible fight, in which the parent (I couldn't tell if it was the mother or father) insulted the son and called him worthless, and afterwards the son committed suicide. :'(
I was taken aback at how short it was, and how sudden, sad, and chilling the ending was, but it's definitely realistic. This has probably happened more than once in the real world.
When it comes to the writing of the single sentence, I don't believe "worthless" should be capitalized, and I don't think the comma at the ending was necessary. I feel like the ending part would more correctly be written, assuming it's supposed to be in present tense, "I enter his room to find his inanimate eyes looking back at me from the ceiling." Still, not much change needed.
Hello, Tawsift. I want to leave a review on this short story.
I interpreted it as someone to pay mind in what they say because they never know how they are making the other person feel or react to it.
I thought it was going to take a turn for the better yet it did not.
The end still took me by surprise.
You should take into consideration to make your stories longer than just a couple of sentences, even though it was very short it still encouraged me to read till the end, and if you make your short stories a bit longer it might keep us readers hooked for your upcoming works.
In my opinion this short story needed a little bit more context for us readers to understand the plot. At the same time it doesn't take a genius to understand what happened...
Overall I look forward to your works in the future, keep up the good work. =)
Thanks for the review. Actually, it's a new genre of fiction, called 'nanofiction', in which stories are typically one sentence long. The idea is to deliver the deepest of meanings in the least amount of words.
OOh I wasn't aware. I enjoyed it overall and it kept me hooked.
Please keep up the good work! =)
Thanks!
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
And I'm back to review another nano fiction of yours. Got to say I've reviewed quite a few of your works in the past week or so.
First Impression: Sheez...this one is dark. The previous one was open to interpretation but this one can take no direction other than the the path of the darkness.
Anyway let's get to it,
Okay...grammar wise I see no issues there, a tiny bit clunky but the meaning is clear enough.
So...let's take a look.
This one isn't as open to interpretation as it well quickly and very shockingly delivers a pretty startling image there with the son seemingly having been saddened so much by his father's tirade that he has taken his own life.
Alternatively maybe his son is a cyborg or something and they're usually chilling on the ceiling but somehow, if the previous stories you've written have taught me anything, the darker alternative is probably what you were going for.
And that's about all that is to be deciphered from this one.
Overall: The wording works really well to give the shock value although if you change that and to to that might smooth the overall flow a bit more.
I'm looking forward to more of these from you.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Thanks very much. I like the way you mention "Always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest" at the end of each review. It's so nice of you.
Your Welcome!!
And good to see that you like my little tagline.
Huzzah and greetings Tawsif,
I'm intrigued by this micro-fiction piece. It's a teeny-tiny story, contained in one sentence. I'd love to hear a bit more background on why you're writing this, it's context, intention etc.
I think this story can be interpreted a couple ways ->
1) After the son was called 'worthless' they committed suicide by hanging themselves -> thus the "inanimate eyes" hanging from the ceiling.
^ From that interpretation, it's a really tragic story. Especially because it's told from the point of view of the father. I think the detail of "inanimate" is the most catching - it's brutal and sad..
2) I suppose it could be interpreted as the son being some sort of non-human that they were somehow able to be on the ceiling? I don't think this one makes as much sense.
A suggestion -> when you say, "calling my son worthless" you should put "worthless" in quotes since it's a quote.
Also I think you're intention of writing this story is to be very concise, but I think this story begs more context - I want to know so much more about their relationship, about why they called them worthless etc.
In the end I think the moral of this very short story is to consider the power that ones' words have on others, which is a perfect moral for a story with very few words, where each is written out so precisely.
Good luck in your future writings - I'd like to see a whole collection of these short stories!
- COMMANDER
Thanks so much.