Response to Offutt

Performing Surgery Without Anesthesia is a good title for this essay, because his intention is to show that revisions kind of hurt. It hurts to break off pieces and discard things that you pour yourself into (the first draft).

I actually catch myself doing the same thing he mentions, where you write something and just think it's the greatest thing in the world. I'll write something and then get my room mate or girlfriend to read it because I think its so great, but after a day or two or even just a few hours I come to realize that what I've written is some seriously trite drivel and it needs a total rework. 

All it takes is that level of separation he talks about. You should be able to stop looking at something and come back to it at a later time with new eyes. I'm not necessarily going to adhere to the writers methods he describes about keeping a computer draft and tons of paper drafts, but I understand what he means. Maybe I'll start doing something similar. 

I like how he sets up all these rules and guidelines for the way he writes, but then at the end he just kind of says, "Don't let anybody tell you how to write, just write." Which is good motivation. No one likes being told what to do, but people certainly will at least listen to humble advice, and this seems humble enough.

Response to Place and Ranch Girl

The main idea I got from Place is that storytelling can exist without place (however bland) but place can't exist without story telling. When a writer puts a reader into a scene, and the minutia are described, one can't help but ascribe meaning to it, which leads to a sense that the place is telling the story, and this is what we see with Ranch Girl. The protagonist is relatively inactive, but this place, this uncommon place to us, drives the story with it's characters and its inevitability. Even thought he place is uncommon to many of us, it is made real through the lens of this girl, and the reality of it. We are even placed economically, so our minds eye knows how to fill in the gaps. We see everything she sees through her lens. The personal details are what makes it real. The animals around, the work, the girl up the road who has it better, the virginity. Place mentions sexuality as important, and I feel like this story shows that pretty well. I feel Place may have been a little too sexual though... the writer actually admits to getting sexual gratification from knowing peoples secrets, which lends a whole new creepiness to sneaking into dorm rooms to "figure people out". 

Response to Schappell & Lahiri

I've never seen such a comprehensive guide to help with the writing of endings. We talk about our endings all the time, usually with expressions of grief and annoyance at our inability to end a story satisfactorily, but it's hard to actually categorize what we're doing wrong, making it difficult to troubleshoot. Endings does just that, it is an effective troubleshooting guide for endings. I like that it is a guide for stories that are already finished, but have unsatisfactory endings. It makes categorization and troubleshooting an ending actually a practical endeavor. I find myself regularly writing endings that are either "epiphany" type endings or "Doogie Howser" endings, and I often realize I need to drop the final couple paragraphs.
The Lahiri story is an exceptional example of a story ending itself. The writing is interesting and meandering, and written like a confession. The subtle hints and clues as to the ending are never obvious, and its like the ending ends up writing itself.

Response to "Escort" and "Emergency" and "No Tears for Me, Thanks"

I really like the two stories, especially "Emergency". Emergency had great setting and good imagery, and "Escort" had interesting discriptions and a strange plot. Both of these stories are told from the perspective of people who are kind of directionless. They are also very flat emotionally. Not to say that they are boring characters or anything, its just thatv they don't project their emotions onto the situations and onto the page, that is something that the writers have left for the readers to do themselves. I find this simultaneously refreshing and a little frustrating. Its refreshing because not having emotion and morals and a lesson shoved down your throat is kind of nice, it allows the reader to surmise for themselves what the story means. But it is also frustrating because you want to see the human in the characters and its more difficult to find when you're not explicitly told how they're feeling. In Chuck's story its a little more obvious because of his actions that he is sensitive to the plights of these people he is helping but in "Emergency" the only way to decipher the speakers mentality is by interpreting why he is including certain details, and what the inclusion of those details mean.
I personally like this technique of having a character who is pretty flat emotionally, becuase it leaves room for interpretation and for a story without the burden of a speakers emotion.

Response to Malena

Snake Eyes is about a girl named Emily, at the beginnning she's a pudgy nine year old, at the end a 27 year old young professional. Emily typically has uncommonly good luck, but bad luck when it comes to snakes. This is the common thread, bad luck with snakes.
There was a lot I liked about this story. Ocassionally a descriptor or sentence would make me chuckle, and many of the descriptions of scenery are done pretty well. Danielle with her belly draped over the center console, digging through the glove box, "armed" with a nailfile against boredom. These were the kinds of things I liked, however I wish there had been a bit more. The dialogue was good, but I feel like their relatiuonship should have been explained or shown a little earlier.
Sometimes, sentence structure repeated too much in sequence. The first four sentences of the story start with "I" and three of them start with "I was."

My main suggestion for this story has to do with perpective. The descriptions are often very good, and the scenery is laid out well, and although the story is from Emily's perspective, we never really get her thought about what is happening. There are no glimpses into her mind, but rather explications of what she was feeling. It's hard to explain, but there was a distance between the reader and Emily's perspective. Give us more observation from her perspective, use her wit, let her silently comment on things through observation.

The last setting was kind of confusing about when it was occuring, where, etc. The change was abrupt and jarring, especially with no page break and the introduction of new characters. expand this part a bit.

Response to Crystal

Twitch is a story about Joel and Kris, two best friends whose relationship is strained when an old flame, Katie, is introduced. Kris then admits that she has only been friends with Joel to get closer to Katie.
Again, this story lacks a real plot. There is nothing going on here besides an awkward love triangle. Also, the main character is racist, manipulative, heartless (who wants to leave a dog outside in a thunderstorm), and has no obvious redeeming qualities. Also, she kept making digs at Joel, which made me wonder why she liked him, but the reasons for that all became apparent at the end. I still didn't understand why he kept her around, though.
I feel like this story could have worked if there hadn't been some big reveal at the end, but maybe a slow realization on Kris' part that she wanted Katie, or maybe if we knew her intentions all along. This could have been revealed at the bonfire, maybe Kris kind of falls for Katie here and her feelings towards Joel are changed. As it stands, the story is confusing, because it seems like all the characters are directionless, doing what they are doing for non-existent or confusing reasons.
I reallllly didn't understand all the weird "white person" stereotypes and the drawing of racial lines. They were unnecessary and didn't lend anything to the story, and also didn't make much sense. "She was black after all and knew what to do in this scary movie like situation." The inclusion of this information doesn't mean or do anything.  It's really "white" to bring your dog inside during a lightning storm? If you insists on keeping this racial aspect of the story, it wouyld help to make it more relevant, because as it is right now, I was just taken aback by Kris' weird categorizations of black and white and there was no message at the end of the story that warranted these kinds of details. Apologies for the brutal critique.

Response to Preston

"Awkward" was a story about a kid named Mitch who has fallen for his best friend Loki's (Jamie) twin sister, Annalise. He prepares all day, anxious to tell Loki about this transgression, and is finally confronted by Loki himself.
This story does a good job revealing the protagonist's anxienty thoughout the tale. It also lives up to it's title in that it also makes us feel awkward for Mitch when he is put in this awkward situation. Also, the title Awkward possibly hints at a subversive theme of homoerotic tension throughout the story. There are some very awkward scenes between Mitch and Loki, especially in the locker room.
Unfortunately, it also lives up to it's title in other ways.  Characterizations is all over the place. For instance, Jamie "Loki" Turlance. He dresses like "Poison" and he is cruel and nice and understanding and misguiding. I understand the intent is to personify the Norse god, but he just comes off as a chotch. I did like how he was able to misdirect conversation with meaningless banter, that was nice, but the banter needs to be better and more intelligent. Not just: "Your gay, bro?" "I'm not gay, bro. You're gay."
And then Mitch is just a pervert. Who steals a girls bra as a keepsake? If Annalise knew that, she'd probably never touch the kid, and with the unpredicatability of Loki, she'll probably find out at some point.
And then the gym teacher is a pervert. I guess her fetish is highschool boys being intimate? Weird.
All of this perverse and homo-erotic stuff could work, it just has to have some sort of precident. It has to mean something. As it is, it just makes the writing hard to follow and awkward to read.
Also, I absolutely did not get the ending. Why would he put habenero sauce in his undies if he had just been a good friend and granted his blessing for Mitch to date his sister?
There needs to be more plot. If you want all this weird stuff to work, maybe have Loki confess to Mitch that he likes him at the end, and have the creepy gym teacher be watching them kiss or something. I don't know. I feel awkward.