My parents don't understand me and for that I feel bad for them. They shake their fists and stomp their feet, yelling up the stairs, like little unattractive gremlins, "Kevin, wake up!" I can't help it if I sleep a little longer than most people: I need my strength, Mom, because some of us actually have jobs.
My mother is unsupportive: she thinks that selling encyclopedias isn't a career but it's just something to pay the bills until I can get out of this Podunk town and make a name for myself. I have big dreams and they will not be held down by things like taxes or laws or oppressive, Nazi parents.
As for my father, he's worse; he comes home every day, storming up the stairs and kicking open my door, sending my People magazines flying everywhere.
"Did you take twenty dollars out of my wallet?!" he roars, baring his little rounded teeth, "Did you? Did you?!"
Here, I am, forty-seven years old, and my privacy is worth nothing in this household. What did I tell you about the Nazi thing?
My father yells more, "Did you make long-distance prank calls last month? Did you?!"
To avoid my parents' banal existence, pervading my very soul, I confine myself to my room nearly all day. It gives me time to think, sort through the myriad of insightful things that pop up in my head from time to time..
It's hard to escape, though. My parents have made it a habit of theirs to barge into my room every once in a while, brandishing self-help books, all the while reciting the "encouraging" words paraphrased from the Dr. Phil they'd watched just that afternoon. They say things like, "Your younger brother Jared is in Harvard! Doesn't that make you want to do something?"
Yes, it makes me want to slit my wrists in the bathtub.
My intelligence will not be measured by society's ruler of mediocrity. Harvard is just another place the zombies of America gather to repeat the crap fed to them by their dumb yuppie professors. I will not be lured into conformity.
When I am famous and living in the Playboy Mansion, they'll come to me, shivering in the cold and holding out old soup cans filled with change. Jared too, because the stock market will have failed or something and he will be out of a job. I'll answer the door with a cocktail glass in one hand, laughing, "Oh, Brad, Angelina that is so funny but don't let any of your kids touch my authentic Rembrandt. It cost a fortune." Then I'll give my family a look like I don't know who they could possibly be.
"Please," they whisper in breathy voices, reaching out their dirty hands to me, "Let us stay in your house. It's so cold here. So cold. We cannot survive the winter."
I'll consider it for a while, hum and tap my toes and they'll quiver in anticipation.
"I guess I could cancel my nightly orgy," I'll say, "To accommodate you."
Jealousy will wash over their features but they'll say nothing.
And, yeah. They'll be sorry.
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125,011 Literary Works • 672,841 Reviews
Yeh, coming back to my point in the first place - "despicable" characters are fine, but it is a lot harder to make the reader read on. I'm not saying you cannot do it, i'm just saying it's harder.
I mean, an annoying character that just annoys the reader isn't going to make them read on.
And i have just realised that the character is 47. It looks like he's still living with his parents .... ? Is that right? I'm not sure, it seems a bit unrealistic - please let me know what is going on with that.
So basically, change the character so he has some (i'm not saying all) aspirational qualities.
I think this story was quite effective.
Leaving it here or using it as some prologue is up to you.In no way should this seem incomplete.Plot really is no big issue.Its fine to have short stories some time with no plots like this.Some people do it in third person and some in first person.It really does not matter.
Coming to the main part of the story-your main character.With everything he described about himself and his wishes you might want to change his age.Its generally messed up teens and not 47 year olds who behave like your main character.But again,that's up to you.
Coming to the part about liking him or hating him.Its totally fine if you make him despicable.Many people also find this guy quite a hero if they are just like him.All that dreams and sweet revenge part is typical of such dreamers or daydreamers.The playboy mansion dream and his revenge was written quite well.Its that classic case of a looser turning into a hero which makes him a hero or a likeable villain.
Classic last line.
I think joshuapaul and lorrilakeet have some good points:
To make this story better you should make the narrator less interesting (a narrator ALWAYS has to be likeable) take out all the witty lines (because exaggeration is ALWAYS bad), and make the piece unnecessarily long with some tired plot line.
Or you could leave it like it is, your choice
'Give the reader a reason to keep reading' - that is constructive. I apologise if I was harsh; I didn't enjoy the piece. I'm not doing the author a diservice by being harsh. You had an insight that is offered to no other reader so how can you look at it with objectivity? Again I apologise but being unbiased and perhaps at times a little cold is not being obnoxious. Unjustly calling someone obnoxious is being obnoxious. Dextro PM if you have any questions or if you make changes and want me to take a second look.
JP
Sorry Josh. Joshua. Paul.
But I happen to be a good friend of Andrea's and have been hearing about the production of "a comedic short story with an unreliable narrator."
And although your post was true to your reaction; it does not help Andrea's purpose, if that makes any sense. You don't like this story because of the narrator-- but the narrator the set up, and his condition is the punchline.
And even if this had been a vent from a teenager who was angry with her parents; you comments were still all criticism with nothing constructive.
Perhaps mention this as a foreword. I still don't know what the reader could possibly take from this. Empress could you open my eyes a little, for you are the only one who did not post an 'obnoxious' response?
Andrea, post more because right now no one is getting that this is a comedy; no one is getting this post at all, actually. (read rather obnoxious comments above me.)
I don't like the character. He's too full of himself and hates life.
Make the character aspirational - why do we idolise him? Why are we seeing the story through his eyes?
What's the plot? What is actually happening?
From my point of perception, i'd say this was just a chance for you to vent your feelings after a row with your parents. Maybe, maybe not.
Make something happen, dont over-exagerate, and make the character someone we admire, not despise.
I had to keep myself reading, I wanted to stop after the irst line but I soldiered on with no reward. This story has no plot and if it did it would collapse under the weight o the cliches. Begin with:
'Sometimes I think about slitting my wrists in the bath.'
Give the reader a reason to keep reading. This piece offers me nothing, if there is a plot introduce it using the writing conventions you have, dialogue, narration, character. Build a frame and hang these elements of it because right now I feel unfulfilled, some kid just moaned about his parents then expressed his dream to have sex with lots of woman in the playboy mansion. sort it out, edit and repost.