[1832] The Prisoner (Revised)

-As a general rule, I tend to stay away from present-tense in narrative prose, but there are those who disagree. Present-tense distracts me from the story, as it makes me detached. I feel like an observer watching a movie, rather than someone “in” a story. If this was your intent, that’s great, but if not, I’d reconsider using present-tense.

-The POV is slightly confusing as it’s inconsistent. Joel’s “eyes crack open” which is passive, and makes me feel like I’m watching him. In the next paragraph, however, I’m in Joel’s head.

-Between dialogue sections, the rule is to use a “.” before starting the next bit of dialogue. For example:

“Hello,” says the baker. “I wanted to see how you’re doing.”

You are using a comma. For example:

“Hello,” says the baker, “I wanted to see how you’re doing.”

-You have some relatable moments, including Joel’s description of his home, and his feeling that all his work will be worth it. Descriptions of the torn-up car and other specific elements are strong. Joel’s characterization is strong. These moments show that you have potential as a storyteller. However, your stylistic choices are severely detracting from your ability to communicate your story effectively. You need to do a lot more research on style. It will greatly elevate your writing.

-Lady Liberty should be capitalized.

-Check your tenses. For example: Will be/Would be

-Are you a screenwriter? I ask because I’m one, and I notice a lot of similar stylist strengths/weaknesses in peers whose prose I’m asked to note. If you are one, you likely already have a strong foundation for story and character, but as I said before, need to do some extra research and adjust accordingly. This story reads more like a short film. Use your medium to really let the reader into your characters’ mind. It doesn’t have to be literal, with Joel’s thoughts spelled out, but instead integrated into the prose.

-The overall structure of the piece is solid. Each act has a clear trajectory, purpose, and twist. This is clearly one of your strengths.

-Keep at it! Also consider making this a short film if you have the resources. I think the story is strong and it could be really interesting.

This is a very promising piece and you’ve done a good job of guiding us through Joel’s transition from aspirational careerist to emotionally-dead murderer. The prose is solid and clear, and I never found myself confused about what was happening or why. You’ve also sprinkled in some wry little asides which I enjoyed, although some of these suffer from you labouring the point to make sure the reader gets it.

At a storytelling level, I came away with the feeling that the first half of the story was probably superfluous. Why did you describe the encounter with the landlord, for example? This didn’t really do anything other than tell us that Joel owes rent, which could have just been weaved into the later dialogue without sacrificing anything important. I am also unconvinced by the story’s resolution, for reasons which I have gone into detail about below, but I think this could be improved just by reworking the final scene so Joel does something awful, but still has a realistic opportunity to escape if he chooses. I have made some more specific comments below, which I realise seem much more negative than positive, but I did very much enjoy reading. This is a good, entertaining story, but it does need some more work before it can achieve its full potential.

>Joel is ripped from sleep by pounding on the door.

“Main character wakes up”, as an opening sentence, is a notorious cliche among amateur writers. If you tried to get this published, unfortunately I expect most agents/publishers/editors/whoever would use your first line as an excuse to skip straight to the next thing on their slush pile. You could probably start with Joel opening the door and the story wouldn’t suffer.

>His bleary, sleep-crusted eyes crack open and turn towards his phone, while his stale-tasting mouth tries in vain to produce saliva.

The sleep-crusted eyes and stale-tasting mouth are good descriptions which immediately give us a sense of how Joel is feeling. However, the action in this sentence doesn’t work. Presumably his whole head is turning (not just his eyes), and a mouth has no independent thought and therefore doesn’t really “try” to do anything. The focus on lack of saliva is also an odd choice; the natural thing would be just to tell the reader that his mouth is dry.

>He opens the door expecting to see his roommate returning from a graveyard shift, but is greeted instead by his landlord.

You are telling us who Joel is expecting (and consequently that he is surprised) when you could be showing. Maybe Joel could admonish his roommate for the wake-up call, but stop suddenly when he realises it’s actually the landlord. Also, surely he knows his landlord’s name?

>“Hey Joel,” says the landlord, “I wanted to catch you before you left for work. I hate to be an asshole, but I need my money.” Joel’s landlord wears a dull expression.

This dialogue sounds very forced. “Hello, protagonist. Here is the reason I just woke you up. My relevance to the plot is that you need to give me some money.” This would be more interesting if you weaved in some kind of hint as to the landlord’s character (other than him outright stating “I hate to be an asshole”). How is he standing? What is his voice like? Does he have any verbal tics? So far you’ve only told us that he “wears a dull expression”. Dull how? Bored dull? Stupid dull? Tired dull?

>“It won’t happen again, I’m getting a promotion at work soon.”

This whole conversation suffers from the same problem as above - it’s two characters without very distinctive voices just explaining backstory to the reader. This line stood out to me as particularly clunky exposition. With some slight tweaks, you can still do your worldbuilding without it being quite so apparent. Having Joel say something like “As soon as the boss finalises my promotion…” sounds more natural while still conveying the same information.

>I hate you, thinks Joel.

>“I hear you,” says Joel.

Okay, I like this. A sly piece of character building in just ten words.

>They have to offer the promotion to him. After six years in an entry-level position; after six years of demeaning work for depressing pay, getting snubbed is an impossibility. It’s finally time for Joel’s star to rise.

Again, this is clearly exposition but it’s done much more smoothly here. You’re not just explaining the backstory, you’re also giving an insight into how Joel feels. Maybe don’t labour the supposed inevitability of Joel’s promotion quite so hard, though - I am writing this segment before reading any further and I already know that Joel hasn’t got it.

>Joel creeps along the congested city street in his car, an ancient thing that breaks down at the slightest provocation. As he drives over a shallow pothole, the vehicle begins to shake and shudder.

“City street” is an odd choice of description for Joel’s surroundings. Which city is he in? You’ve also fallen back into telling, rather than showing, that his car could break down at any moment. If it’s ancient, and it begins to shudder after passing over a pothole, the reader can deduce (particularly in the context of Joel’s reaction) that it is a very unreliable vehicle. “Shudder and shake” is redundant - in this context both words mean almost exactly the same thing.

>A small group of people holding signs, maybe a dozen, are standing on the steps of city hall. Higher up on the steps, a single portly police officer stands, his thumbs tucked into his gun belt. One of the protesters, a tall woman with a red scarf, is addressing the group with a megaphone while they shake their signs in agreement.

I don’t like your use of passive voice here - “are standing” and “is addressing” sound less immediate than “stand” and “addresses”. I would get rid of “One of the protestors” - if you tell us a tall woman with a scarf is shouting through a megaphone, we can tell she is a protestor already.

>Joel doesn’t bother reading the signs.

Again, this is a pithy and slightly underhanded comment on your narrator. I like it.

>He settles into his chair, blows into his styrofoam coffee cup, and glances around the office one last time, taking in his surroundings. He sees a sea of workers, sporting business casual and dark circles. An ambient symphony of sniffing, shuffling, and ringing emits throughout the floor, so constant that most no longer hear it.

Why is Joel glancing around the office “one last time”? It’s clearly just an excuse to describe his surroundings to the reader, and comes off as clunky. Joel doesn’t necessarily have to be looking at something in order to describe it for the reader’s benefit; this is one passage where a simple description, rather than filtering it through Joel’s perception, would probably come off better.

>His work never takes up all of his attention, so as he types Joel begins to fantasize about how much his life will soon change.

What is his work? I don’t know whether you are deliberately making a point about Joel’s work ethic or about the dreary nature of his job, but given how important his promotion has been so far to the plot it is surprising that I still have no idea what he actually does for a living.

>On her desk are three books, all about management. They are arranged with the titles facing away from Theresa, so that anyone sitting opposite of her could clearly see them. They are far too immaculate to have ever been read.

The first sentence is a delightful little sideswipe at Theresa's personality (or lack thereof). The second sentence hammers home the point. The third is overfeeding it to the reader - maybe just mention (in the second sentence, when talking about the titles) that the spines are immaculate and let the reader fill in the last blank for themselves.

>At this, Joel’s dread mushrooms throughout his body. He feels hot. His head feels like it’s spinning, gravity draining the blood from his brain. His hands shake, and he hesitates to speak because he fears his voice will shake too.

Very clear, very evocative. The only change I would suggest is to say that “His head is spinning”, to avoid using the word “feels” twice in quick succession.

>Joel hadn’t allowed himself to consider this possibility.

The problem is, the reader has known it from very near the beginning. There has not been much tension up to this point because we already knew exactly what Theresa’s decision would be; it is only here that things start to become unpredictable, as it is not obvious how Joel will react.

Some initial comments I wanted to say before even finishing the first page:

The Present Tense: It is a hard tense to write in. This story falls into the biggest pitfall of this tense which is to have "is" where it is not necessary. Highlight every use of "is" and see if you can replace it with something more active, even if it means rearranging the sentence. Sometimes it is necessary to convey something specific, but the very opening line, for example, could be a lot more active if it was rewritten without "is." I liked you use of the word "lurches" just a bit later. I would consider using that sort of verb to rewrite that.

The Beginning: The beginning is cliche. A character waking up is common, also not ideal for a short story. There is a literary term for how short stories should begin: in media res. It means, "in the middle of things." Short stories are short. Yours here is actually considered Sudden Fiction, which means a very short story of 2000 words or less. The whole part of him waking up to this conversation seems unnecessary and does nothing except tells me he is not a morning person. Beginning your story in the middle of a conversation with the landlord would even be better.

Starting Sentences: You start a lot of sentences with Joel, He, There, etc. Boring words that you use a lot. I would go through and identify where you can vary it. You do have chunks where it is varied really well, but those are usually description or Joel's thoughts/perspective. As soon as action picks up, I notice you go back to those words to begin sentences. \

Grammar: The grammar needs some work. I would put it through an actual grammar checker. There are a ton online that will point things out. I made comments in the documents regarding what I found, but I know I probably did not catch everything.

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Now for more general categories with those specific thoughts out of the way:

Dialogue: Your dialogue was clunky and awkward sometimes, but so is everyone's at first really. Otherwise I loved how you are not afraid of the word "said" or it's variations. It matched the pace of the story and it was always clear who is talking. I commented about it in the document when I noticed it specifically, but generally, you do use Joel's name a lot. There are not really many characters in this story, half of which are female. And the longest conversation is with a female. There is not really a worry about the reader mixing up Joel with someone else or not knowing who is saying what if you just use "he." With the size of your paragraphs (and the fact the only other male appears for only 5 lines in the beginning), you only need to use his name about once every other paragraph and at the start of dialogue exchanges. I noticed, when reading a couple places out loud, there was a weirdly poetic beat to this because of how you used his name repetitively.

Mechanics: I love your choices in action words. Creeps, mushrooms, lurches, rasps, etc. I felt they were all used appropriately. Like I said, there were grammar issues, but a free online grammar checker can spot those. There was three instances of passive voice I found, but one was in dialogue so that is fine, but I pointed the other two out (which were in the same sentence). Any free checker will find those too though.

Character: I did not feel like I knew him or a huge connection to him as I read. While describing his home, I would use that to double as characterization. Show what it looks like through his eyes instead of describing the reality of the situation. Someone commented on the doc that it sounded like it was heading towards "melodrama" but that would actually really fit with how I perceived him. He views his home as a prison. A jail. Same with his work. Draw it out. You have great diction, so I would utilize that in these parts. His whole life (home, car, and work) are such constrictive prisons that he killed someone in grief. Honestly, that would help a lot because the ending seemed so sudden.

There is a concept of Chekhov's gun: "If in Act One you have a pistol hanging on the wall, then it must fire in the last act." Because there was no "gun" sitting in the first scene, by the end I felt floored. I have not gotten raises before, but never drove over anyone. So what sets him apart? What makes this moment so crucial that a stranger's life literally depends on it? he did not seem as desperate as he so clearly was. You are still under 2000 words which is a real short short story, so you have the words to spare to revise some of the description to reveal more about him.

The parts I liked the best were all bits that revealed his emotion and who he was. I pointed out one paragraph in particular but I also liked the whole part where he sees the protesters. It gave an insight into his characterization.

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Overall, I did like your story and would read it again if you posted again with revisions from everyone here. You are good at writing.

So I'm completely new to this, and I likely will end up parroting a lot of what's already been said here, but here are my thoughts anyway. I won't get better at critiquing if I don't practice. Take all that I say with a grain of salt, I am not practiced at this.

I like the story. It has a clear idea to it, and it's ending really does a good job of wrapping up the ideas of the story in a nice finish. The story, as it picks up pace and begins using the ideas setup in the first half, really becomes somewhat interesting to read. I must praise you for that. The surreal moment of horror as Joel runs over the woman is also well captured, and though direct, his ending ideas really do work for me.

While I do like the ending, and think the dry internal deadness was perfectly conveyed in the actions Joel took, but I was not a big fan of

His mind should be racing, but it is strangely blank. He should be reevaluating his ideology, finding his footing in a newly unfamiliar world...

because it is too direct a statement of Joel's mental state. His coldness is captured through his actions pretty well, and with a change of this section to be less direct, I think the ending could be improved. This might just be my opinion, but it's clear to me from the setup in the first half that Joel's worldview has been completely challenged and destroyed. I don't think there should a sentence talking about how he should be destroyed completely and is instead cold/emotionless, but rather just a description of him being cold/emotionless. The reader can connect that this coldness/emotionlessness is a result of the events themselves.

(That was a lot of words for one innocent line, I should work on that. Keep in mind I really quite like the last section of the story, this part just stood out to me from it.)

However, while I quite like the ending of the story as a whole, I think the setup for the ending could be improved quite a bit.

The story, in my eyes, begins with a cliched opening (mentioned in google docs comments by others) of the character waking up. However, I think the cliche in this case somewhat works. There's a reason a character waking up is a cliche; it throws the reader right into their life. That being said, I also think there might be alternative story openings to begin with that would be less common and still achieve the same effect of throwing you right into his life. Starting with something else—like his commute (which does sack the apartment/landlord scenes, more on those later), a meal (a perfectly boring and horrible dinner/breakfast like bland oatmeal would be perfect for the tone/ideas of the story), or a better idea than those that you clearly are good enough to come up with—would be a great way to achieve the same effect while not using the "he woke up" intro.

Next I see the landlord/apartment scenes. I like your theme of boredom and the hollowness of society/work/life. And I like the idea of the landlord/apartment scenes, but there's something just off in their execution. I love

I hate you, thinks Joel. “I hear you,” says Joel.

which really is a great way of showing off Joel through thoughts rather than overt statement, but I do not love the general awkwardness of the dialogue with the landlord. It feels just slightly stilted to me, and is a weird combination of confrontational ("I could kick you out") and non-confrontational ("sorry to bug you").

As for the descriptions of the apartment and Joel's lifestyle, I half love them, half less love them. The small things, like Joel's stubble and the wind that bugs him, are great and setup who Joel is (and his upcoming fall) well. On the other hand, lines like

Joel creeps along the congested city street in his car, an ancient thing that breaks down at the slightest provocation. As he drives over a shallow pothole, the vehicle begins to shake and shudder.

are interesting, but are in stark contrast to the rest of the story's tone. It's too exaggerated and almost cartoonish in a story that's meant to feel like a real man facing real ennui in his life. If Joel's view were constantly expressing this type of exaggeration, then I would get it, but this sticks out as an exception.

After the opening, which does setup important ideas, I really think the story comes into it's own, especially towards the ending. The dialogue with the boss feels natural and Joel finally gets to break in a way that the story has clearly been building up to. It feels good. I do think the whole "man gets promotion pulled from him" plot is cheesy, but it ties into the ideas of this story pretty well, and you can't really remove it without fundamentally changing the story structure.

Overall my primary issue with the story, if it was not obvious, is its excessive directness at times. I do acknowledge you can't cut out all of the directness or it becomes too indirect to a point of damaging the ideas of the story, but I think it's all too clear cut, and a lot is said to us instead of shown to us. And when it is shown to us, it is sometimes shown through somewhat tropey devices.

I do quite like it, especially the last lines, which really just work for me.

EDIT: I may have more specific suggestions later, but this is the most I can do for an overall right now. I might respond to this comment later (and ping you so you can see it) with more specific things I find on another look through.

General Remarks

Just a quick critique this time. Not gonna get quite as in depth as I did last time. But I'll just start by saying I'm genuinely impressed. This is such an improvement in such a short time. I liked the first version but I think this version, while it still has its own issues, is much better. But I'm going to stop gushing and give you some actual critique.

Characters

Joel feels much more like a person in this version. Him having a name this time around does help. He still feels a bit generic though. I get that he is supposed to be a kind of everyman but if we got to know who he is, it would help to improve the impact of what he does later.

[His work never takes up all of his attention, so as he types Joel begins to fantasize about how much his life will soon change]

I think this section is a good opportunity to give the reader an insight into the kind of guy Joel is. What kind of things does he want? Does he want the power of the promotion or is it all about the money?

Theresa

I see you kind of rolled The Dissident and The Warden into the same character and I think that really works. Having Joel have the moment of standing up to this authority figure only for her to make him realize the futility of it is a strong beat. It makes his dejection and despair feel more real. Her speech is also really good, it's believable and helps reinforce the cog in the wheel theme of the piece.

Landlord

The landlord unfortunately falls into a few of the same traps as The Warden does in the previous draft. He just feels like a tool to establish another reason why Joel hates his life, which is accomplished by pretty much the rest of the piece. That said I do like a lot of the individual elements and lines that make up the scene.

[There better be a goddamn fire.]

Good line that establishes early on one of the most important things about Joel. That he's angry.

[ I hate you, thinks Joel.         “I hear you,” says Joel.]

I remember this from the first draft, and it's still really good.

Overall I would actually suggest using Joel's interaction with the landlord not just to push that his life is unpleasant but that it's unfair. Show that his landlord, maybe unintentionally, has been helping slowly push him towards the edge. As of right now I think their interaction could be really interesting, but currently it doesn't really tie into the rest of the story.

Plot/Theme

The theme while less so than previously is still a little heavy handed.

[Joel suddenly imagines himself running inside a human-sized hamster wheel]

This line for example while I think it adds to image of Joel's spiraling mental state at that moment, it's a little on the nose.

I also think that you spend a little too long telling the reader how excited Joel is for the promotion. I get that it helps drive home the disappointment when he doesn't get it. But it also telegraphs it to the reader pretty aggressively.

[Joel smiles with self-satisfaction. In his mind, the promotion is already his.]

This is bout halfway in story and the second or third time he makes it clear he is absolutely certain that he's going to get that promotion. By this point as a reader I'm thinking there are only two real options either he gets the promotion and then I'm not sure what the conflict of the story is. Or the more obvious option of he isn't getting it. I would just recommend cutting down on the amount times he says he knows he's going to get the promotion. Or maybe make him a little unsure of it.

Closing Remarks

This story has a lot going for it and you have a lot of skill as a writer. This story definitely has room to improve but is already a big improvement from the first version. I especially love the change in the ending. The ending of this version feels sudden but like the rest of story was leading to it. That last line is a great wrap up to the rest of the story and is honestly a better use of the title than the naming gimmick from the last version. Good job man. Thanks for the interesting read and I hope you keep improving.

Sidebar: this didn't really fit into the rest of the critique cause it just kind of an idea. But I think that adding some subtle similarity to Theresa and the woman might make Joel's motivation a bit more clear. Like they're both wearing red or something. Just a idea feel free to ignore.

I'll approve, but your critique is borderline. Several of the critiques on the piece are more in-depth and higher effort than yours. You should check them out.