short story - Củ Chi to Edinburgh

[Julia]

Hi all!  Sorry I've been MIA.  I got a new job a few months ago.  I'll be catching up on reading people's stuff.  Here's a short story I've been working on:


Cu Chi to Edinburgh 20170211.docx (8.87 KB)

[justin1023]

Hey Julia! Welcome back I'll get started on this today.

[Charlie Allison]

Feb 12, 2017 22:59:25 GMT Julia said:

Hi all!  Sorry I've been MIA.  I got a new job a few months ago.  I'll be catching up on reading people's stuff.  Here's a short story I've been working on:


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Julia! Huzzah! On it like a glutton on a smarty

Oh, since you're local, we're trying to get a flash fiction reading going in march at National Mechanics--interested?

[justin1023]

Feb 12, 2017 22:59:25 GMT Julia said:

Hi all!  Sorry I've been MIA.  I got a new job a few months ago.  I'll be catching up on reading people's stuff.  Here's a short story I've been working on:

Alright, just finished. I love how you captured the paralyzing feeling of disorders that most people would just cast aside as unimpactful. Your narrator is lost in her own partial paranoia of what might happen but partial reality of what has likely happened to her in the past. You show the pain it causes, the splitting of relationships, the isolation—all of the emotion involved there is really well done.

But I have some questions about the story arc: 

Why are we jumping time so much and so far? Is there a rhetorical purpose to it? Perhaps to show that she doesn't really ever get better and is still alone 10 years later?
It's tough to say that the narrator doesn't have agency because she DOES make a choice. But her choice is inaction. And for a story, that's right along the lines of a lack of agency. Things happen to her rather than her asserting herself on the world. That is not to say that the narrator needs to overcome her conditions, but I think she needs to try at some point. The good news with that is you don't have to change much of the story. The ending can be the same. The beginning. The losing of the boyfriend. But you would just add a bit to the middle. 


Beyond those questions, though, I think this is a pretty great draft. I like the circling back you do with travel. She travel abroad when the stomach issues are still pretty new. She won't travel abroad to see her boyfriend. She does travel at the end, but domestically where she is afforded much more control over the times she needs to succumb to her bodily functions. Well done, Julia!

Attachments:

Cu Chi to Edinburgh 20170211.pdf (91.93 KB)

[Charlie Allison]

Feb 12, 2017 22:59:25 GMT Julia said:

Hi all!  Sorry I've been MIA.  I got a new job a few months ago.  I'll be catching up on reading people's stuff.  Here's a short story I've been working on:


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Charlies Feedback on Cu Chi to Edinburough.pdf (93.46 KB)


Hey Julia!

I love the feel of this story. The concept is strong and you use your language precisely:

Even the video we watch in the guide hut is upbeat. It celebrates the ingenuity of the Viet Cong, their engineering skills, their ability to kill American soldiers. We make our way down a wooden staircase into tunnels that have been widened for tourists’ comfort. The tops are open so we are never fully underground.

You weave a vibrant picture of Vietnam, and it compliments rather than undermines Cu Chi's personality and issues. We see her resonating with her environment:

The tunnels lead into a series of rooms. The school with rows of desks. A kitchen where a volunteer gives me a piece of a boiled white yam, a staple of the tunnel dwellers’ diets. It tastes of nothing. I like it.

The part for me that was hard to work with was the ending--the breakup conversation was done beautifully and naturalistically, from a prose-standpoint. The ending feels unforecasted--that is, we aren't necessarily prepared as readers for it. Luckily, with how you set up the story, you have options:

- You could end with the break-up call and self contain the story if you felt so inclined.
- You could add a prologue, not much, a line or two, talking about how things weren't always so severe, gastrically, but...this would foreshadow the jump from Vietnam to Maine a bit.

Line notes attached! Keep up the amazing work and I can't wait to read more!