Category Archives: Dogfight

by Dogpatch Writers Collective | October 24, 2012 · 8:29 pm

Group Writing Critique: “Abandon Hope” by Jilanne Hoffmann

Welcome to the dogfight! Here’s a snippet from a short story by Jilanne Hoffmann, followed by critical comments. Dogpatch Writers Collective occasionally posts these excerpts of our group critiques of work in progress, and your comments are welcomed!

From “Abandon Hope”

I flip through the pages until I find the map of hell I’d been trying to draw. I trace the outer circle that says “Limbo” with my finger and then spiral through the circles until I reach the Circle of the Violent and remember Henry memorizing, “But now look down the valley. Coming closer you will see the river of blood that boils the souls of those who through their violence injured others.” I look up quickly to see if Henry is sitting in a dark corner of the basement waiting to jump out and scare me, but he isn’t. I haven’t seen Henry for two days, and I’m ready for this game to be over. Maybe if I just sit and wait he’ll surprise me. So I slam the book shut, squint my eyes real tight and sit there, trying not to breathe. Then I turn off the lights and stare up at the constellations. In the dark I can pretend he’s right here with me.

Comments from the Dogpatch:

Dear Jill: This story is sick! You’ve created a truly tragic scenario in this story, made more so by the restraint with which it is told and by the narrator’s own lack of understanding of the true implications of her own innocent actions. Pile on that her mother is completely shattered by her own historical grief and unaware of who her daughter is, and this is a story that sticks with a reader long after the pages have been put down. You do an amazing job of allowing the reader to correctly intuit what the narrator herself doesn’t know, and that makes the heartbreaking effect of the story even stronger. Nicely done! I hate you! Continue reading →

3 Comments

Filed under Craft, Dogfight

Tagged as Baseball, Constellations, Dante's Inferno, Family Relationships, Lizzie Borden, Orion, point of view, writing critique

by Dogpatch Writers Collective | August 31, 2012 · 3:44 pm

Group Writing Critique: “National Pastime” by Wes Pierce

Welcome to the dogfight! Here’s a snippet from a short story by Wes Pierce, followed by critical comments. Dogpatch Writers Collective occasionally posts these excerpts of our group critiques of work in progress, and your comments are welcomed!

From “National Pastime”

They sit in their usual seats. Tony has season tickets on the front row of the first balcony, right alongside third base. ‘Best seats in the house,’ according to Tony. Her husband makes a lot of money, so he can afford the best seats in the house. But for Beryl they are not the best seats in the house, they’re the worst: she is afraid of heights.

Tony knows this. ‘We’re only twenty feet up. Thirty, tops,’ he says, whenever she brings up her fear of heights. ‘What’s twenty or thirty feet?’

‘But couldn’t we sit just a few rows back?’ she says. ‘Couldn’t we sit lower down?’

‘I don’t want to sit a few rows back. I don’t want to sit lower down,’ Tony says. ‘You can’t take in the whole field lower down. I want to sit right here.’

Tony says she only has to be logical about it.

‘You’re not going to fall, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ he says. ‘And besides, we’re only twenty feet up. Thirty, tops. So even if you did fall, you’re not really going to get hurt, you know. Not if you keep your head. If you were to fall from up here, but you kept your head, you’d be all right. Oh, you might break a leg or an arm. But you wouldn’t die or anything.’

Comments from the Dogpatch:

Wes,

You’ve got a harrowing story and a parent’s nightmare—being seated next to an obnoxious drunk at some “family” event they’re attending with their child. They don’t want to leave the seats they’ve paid good money for. They don’t want to make a scene. They want to make nice while maintaining a psychic distance from the annoying ass and hope that nothing gets out of hand. Until it does. Continue reading →

3 Comments

Filed under Craft, Dogfight

Tagged as Baseball, drinking, Francine Prose, national pastime, point of view, writing critique

by Laurel Leigh | June 29, 2012 · 10:48 am

Group Writing Critique: “No Vacancy” by Laurel Leigh

Welcome to the dogfight! Here’s a snippet from a short story by Laurel Leigh, followed by critical comments. If you want some context for this excerpt, you can read another story of hers, “Shoeless,” published in The Sun, in which the character Ralph appears. Dogpatch Writers Collective occasionally posts these excerpts of our group critiques of work in progress, and your comments are welcomed!

From “No Vacancy”

Ralph took a key off his belt ring, meaning to hand it to the guy. He’d been getting more used to them, but the floaters in his eye suddenly turned into lightning streaks and zoomed across the edge of his vision. He dropped the key, fumbled to pick it up. Then he stood blinking, feeling dizzy after the guy took the key and walked away. His eye hurt like hell. He rubbed the spot just below his eyebrow. He lit a Doral and took several long puffs. Back in his office, he swallowed aspirin and squirted eye drops in both eyes. Then he locked the office door, went into his back room and stretched out on the pullout bed. The aspirin started to kick in, but he still felt shaky and sick to his stomach. And tired—of everything. Of the pain in his eyes. Of worrying about it. Of guys like the one just now. Who made him feel even smaller than he felt most of the time. And those types of guy always got women by half trying, whereas Ralph was lucky to cop a feel once in a blue friggin’ moon. And a guy wanted more than that, you know? Someone to spend a night with, or even talk to. And, he was tired of waiting. One day, his uncle would have to retire and the motel operation would belong to Ralph, or so he hoped. But that day was a long ways off.

Comments from the Dogpatch:

Laurel, Love, love, love this story! It stands on its own, and fits almost seamlessly with “Shoeless,” the story published in The Sun. In this story, we’re looking at a man who longs to have something more in his life, to feel like part of a community instead of an outsider and to be with a woman he cares about, but he can’t quite figure out how to make these things happen. He can’t even make a doctor’s appointment or manage a small hotel. He’s so lost in his vague dreams, in the tiny aspects of his life that are beyond his management capabilities, that he’s only capable of taking action when desperate. And even then, his action is really inaction. What he ends up asking for (and paying for) lies far below what he truly desires. A heartbreaking story. You noted that you were struggling with the ending, and I’d have to say that I think the first ending is far superior to the alternate. But I would suggest that you cut the first ending slightly at the parts where you provide a little too much internal dialogue, Continue reading →

8 Comments

Filed under Craft, Dogfight

by Dogpatch Writers Collective | June 9, 2012 · 1:54 pm

Group Writing Critique: “Can I Get a Witness?” by David J. Marx

Dogpatch Writers Collective will occasionally post excerpts of group critiques of work in progress. Here’s a snippet from the middle of a short story by David along with comments. Feel free to join the fray!

From “Can I Get a Witness?”

(photo from flickr.com)

. . . I carried a different route every day and got lost several times in the first month. I’d just ask a shopkeeper or a bum on the street for directions. Most days nobody really cared when or even if I brought them mail. That is, except for first and fifteenth of each month, when welfare checks were scheduled to be delivered. On those days, the check recipients, who otherwise rarely rose from bed before noon, were up with the roosters, awaiting checks. Continue reading →