Response to Malena

Eden is a story about an old woman (Mrs. Moore) who has a fabulous garden sanctuary in her back yard. The rest of the story is mostly a flashback to her younger days when she and her husband had bought the house, and eventually about how they came to have the garden (by stealing clippings off of other's plants and cloning them).
The characterization of the characters is pretty good, especially the husband who is kind of a tight-ass and cheap, but still loves his wife dearly. We do need to see more, though. We don't really know much about Mrs. Moore besides the fact that she wants a garden and her husband is cheap.
The descriptions of scenes were often good, but sometimes got a little bit wordy and clunky, and sometimes the words didn't really fit what was going on. For example: the scene where she is scrubbing a pot describes the bubbles as escaping their metallic confinement, or something along those lines. This is a very cool way to describe it, but it doesn't work in the setting of a cozy old home with a wistful wife. This kind of description would be more at home in a sci-fi or something more technical. The first paragraph had similar issues with clunky-ness. There were just too many adjectives. It paints a pretty picture, but it takes too much effort to read. Sometimes we must leave parts of the image up to the readers imagination.
Could be a good story with a little bit of work on flow and characterization.

Response to Lydia

This is a story about a girl who visits her best friend Rose at college in Albany. She hasn't seen her in two years, but they are still great friends. Rose introduces her to her new man Jared and she doesn't like him. Rose becomes pregnant and Jared leaves her, resulting in Rose's suicide.
I like that this story is told in a confessional manner, similar to the Lahiri story we read. Often form can constrict the way a story is told, but I don't feel like this form does, its very open and useful. The descriptions of scenery are very strong, especially at the beginning, where she finds everything beautiful, and towards the middle of the story when she describes the snowy landscape at the "end of the world."
I do wish that this descriptive voice carried over into some of the other aspects of the story, however. Description of the characters needs to be broadened. I have a good idea of what Jared looks like, but a very unclear image of Rose and especially the speaker. You have some great and interesting descriptors of scenery, so I'm sure you could do a good job with characterization.
I liked the general arc of the story, but I wish the last third had been a little more fleshed out. We learn that Rose becomes pregnant, and we learn the speaker regrets her distancing, but there isn't much of a change.
Well written, could become very good with a little more work on plot.

Response to Alia Martin

Out for A Drive is a story about a woman who recieves a phone call from a sheriffs office because her dad has been found wandering down the road in another town, and needs someone to come pick him up. He seems to be suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's.
I thought that this story was executed pretty well as far as the back and forth dialogue went, even throwing in an extra character (1-900 only had two) didn't make the progression of dialogue confusing at all, which is quite an accomplishment. I also liked the characterization of the dad, he keeps saying he's fine, etc. but it's obvious the cop is holding him like a child, feeding him pizza and letting him watch movies until his "parents" show up.  The sheriff also had some decent characterization, a nice guy who is willing to help without judgement and is willing to put aside his daily duties to do so. But the main character, the daughter needs some more work as far as characterization goes. Also, we don't know where she is, so I can't place her anywhere. In 1-900, it was easy (and surely intentional) that the characters were in pretty stock locations, the guy in a hotel room, and the girl laying in her bed at home or alternatively in a call center. These are places we can easily visualize, because they're all the same, and this style of writing lends itself to stock locations because its hard to get setting across in pure dialogue. The characters also need a little more change. The main character kind of realizes she has been a little negligent of her old dad, but I think she has had that deep seated feeling for a while. I was impressed at the clarity of the dialogue and the lack of confusion about who was speaking, but the characters could use some more development.

Response to Chad Oliver

"Dead Mandolin" is a story about a guy named Andrew, a highschool teacher who we are initially led to believe is a mandolin player and coffeeshop goer, who really just goes there to grades his papers. When he is confronted by the angelic Audrey, he lies his way into a corner, but he likes her so much he decides to learn to play mandolin enough to play three songs at an open mic night. When asked for more, he is stumped.
I liked how the story started, it was a little misleading, and we go back to find out how he has come to walking down the street in a rolled up plaid shirt with a beat up mandolin.
This is kind of the standard "play it cool" story but with a twist. The guy likes this girl enough that he has taken a week off of work and bought a mandolin, learned to play it well enough to play three songs and even dresses the part. But there is a conundrum. When she finds him out, and I assume she will, there is one of two options. She will either find it incredibly flattering and sweet or weird and stalkerish. I feel like this story has the ability to confront the issue of love in modern society. Grand acts of love are considered weird nowadays. There used to be a time when people could say they love someone, even if said someone wasn't interested, and they could try and try. But in this story, in modern times, it will be interesting to see how it plays out. Will he confess that he only learned three songs to impress Audrey? Will she think he's weird?
Of course this isn't the only direction this could go. Maybe he could improvise a song.
There were a couple of awkward sentences, and some of the language could be more creative (a few cliches in there) but overall I liked it.

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.