[1563] The Kookaburra's Mate

I like this story, it made me feel feelings and it did it quick. Like the other commenter, I detected some sort of connection between the birds and the protagonist and his father, but I wasn’t quite sure what it was. I also made special note of the exact sentence he/she bolded, and the ending overall was impactful.

Readthrough

That said, I hate your first paragraph. It’s just so boring. Honestly, that’s my main critique: paragraph 1. I know it’s just one paragraph, and maybe it’s necessary set-up, but it’s your very first in a short story, and it’s long, and it’s all backstory, and there’s no conflict until the last line, and your narrator is wordy, and he sounds as bored as I am as he discusses nice boring things, sluggishly repeating himself, using phrases that just feel weak, with a voice that is so casual and unconcerned that I want to slap his face just to get some emotion. The first paragraph makes me feels like you have zero interest in entertaining me and I wouldn’t have made it through without the desire to do a critique. I almost don’t want to quote a particular line because overall I feel the whole paragraph is just too boring, too long, too soon, but I’ll try to pinpoint what I can.

I figured as a new resident I should try to make friends with the locals, so I walked down to the Coles and bought them some ham.

Many of your lines have this Mr. Rogers quality that makes me go “Oh, well isn’t that nice.” Maybe some readers are looking for this, but it makes me roll my eyes because you haven’t even gotten to a conflict yet. The above line is a good example, especially when you make this quip about “I should try to make friends with the locals”— right, you mean the bird. That’s the kind of boring joke that gets nervously told when I’m stuck in small talk. It’s not actually funny or engaging in any way. I’m not saying that nice-guy character can’t work in a story, and in fact it does work for this story overall, but the problem is when it’s combined with the actual content of this paragraph, which includes no conflict, no active scene, and way too many words. Hell, look at the plot movement in this sentence. You went to the store and bought ham. Riveting stuff.

They’d been there to greet me when I’d first lugged my cardboard boxes of books and clothes up the steps, sat side-by-side on the porch’s railing like two old men outside an RSL.

This didn’t hit me right. Is “cardboard boxes” an important detail here? It just makes the sentence a little more cumbersome than saying “lugged my books and clothes” or even “lugged my boxes of books and clothes,” and it doesn’t seem to add anything important, except maybe this “old man” comparison, which I found a little strange. Is it the boxes that are like old men? If so, why would cardboard boxes even deserve a metaphor like that? They’re just boxes, there doesn’t appear to be anything noteworthy or interesting about them to me, and furthermore I don’t really see how they would be like old men. Maybe if I understood what an RSL is, it would help, but I have no idea. Honestly, nothing else here seemed particularly foreign to me at all like your commentary warned, but that one acronym coming so early was a big problem for me. Seems weird to use an acronym like that in only the third sentence of this story, but maybe you are going for niche or Australian crowd or something.

The pair must’ve been getting on a fair bit, but they still managed to be there to greet me each morning, sure as the rising sun.

Getting on a fair bit? Sure as the rising sun? I’ve never found myself giving this exact advice, but can you just try and be a bit more evocative? Plus, I already knew the birds are there because you already told me this:

Before long it became a ritual for us. Each morning as the kettle boiled for my pre-work cuppa, I’d slice off some ham or sausage and leave it on the porch’s railing.

As you tell me yet again in the beginning of the second paragraph;

It’d been three years since I’d moved in and we’d started our morning routine, and they’d been there to greet me each day without fail.

At the very, very least, if it’s not going to be less boring, it can be less long. Other word-efficiency issues:

Eat lizards and mess with the lorikeets, I suppose.

“I suppose” definitely isn’t adding anything, but more importantly I would ask yourself if the sentence itself is giving your reader any reason to read on.

In general, I think you have a lot of unneeded “I”s. As in the word, “I”. You say, I suppose, I figured, I saw, I heard, I think, again and again, and so many of these phrases could simply be cut. Below I think is the most egregious example, but I found it throughout the piece:

I figured it’d been the neighbour’s cat. I’d seen it stalking pigeons on the sidewalk a few times, but I’d always figured that birds like the magpies and kookaburras would be too crafty to get caught. I suppose it finally got lucky.

They didn’t seem too bothered by my presence, so I’d reckoned that the old owner must’ve fed them from time to time.

And this sentence is just so passive and weak. You don’t tell me what they did. You don’t even tell me what they did not do. You don’t even tell me what they did not seem to do. Nor do you tell me what they did not seem to be bothered by, because instead you tell me what they did not seem to be TOO bothered by. You’re spending so many words, and they’re all just adding extra hurdles for my brain to leap to get to your meaning. It waters-down your prose.

Compare it to this:

Against the faded plywood fence a mass of feathers were scattered about, as if some neighbourhood kids had had a late-night pillow fight in my garden. Loose white and brown plumage floated amongst the yard’s scraggly summer-dried grasses, drifting along on the dry turnings of the breeze.

Active voice, no unneeded I’s, and it sounds wonderful.

Theme / Closing Thoughts

The story about the bloke who loved birds, and your mention of why the protagonist doesn’t like cats, combined with the ending of the story, makes me feel like the point of this story is essentially just to point out how irrational or undiscerning emotions can be. They just happen, and not always in ways or for reasons that make sense or are proportional. I feel it’s very possible that I mis-interpreted your intent, or I’m just missing a deeper meaning likely related to the metaphor of the birds and how it relates to the protagonist’s dad, but I’m letting you know what I took from it. It’s a worthwhile message and it made me get all tingly at the end—and I do mean that literally, I felt tingles on the last few paragraphs and that’s not something I get from every story. So don’t get too bogged down in my notes on your first paragraph because you have something great in that transition that begins with the news about the protagonist’s dad. I’m just afraid you won’t get your readers there if you don’t tighten up the beginning.

Great read overall, thanks for submitting!

Edit: clarity, formatting

Edit: I just wanted to add that this story is effectively built around burying the lead of the car accident, and it does that very well, so I can see good reasons that this story would need to start off on a casual or even maybe boring note so that the writer can take the reader off-guard. Furthermore, I could see how the detached voice would be an intentional choice and that ties in with the ending well. Both these strategies are viable, but they are also tricky lines to walk, especially if you are trying to do both (and I could be totally off-base here). So maybe take some of my notes with that in mind. And of course, ignore my blabbering as much as you see fit. Thanks again for the read.

Hi HugeOtter,

I think you have the makings of a great story here. Although I've read the Welcome page and some sample critiques, I'm new here, so please let me know if there are any issues with my feedback.

Australianisms

I'm Australian too, and I think most of what you wrote is fine if you are only targeting this at an Australian audience. I think that a lot of it really adds character to the story and brings the reader to our country. I think things like 'cuppa' are great, although there is the chance that they could throw people off.

If you are targeting international readers, I would consider changing ‘RSL’. I assume people won’t know what they are, and the reference will confuse them. Maybe, just change it to ‘bar’?

Similarly, if you are targeting an international audience, I would consider changing 'Coles' to 'local butcher' or 'supermarket'.

Your prominent use of the term 'reckon' may also throw some international readers off. I think that we tend to use it a little bit differently, although I could be mistaken about this. It's probably best to consult international readers to get their perspective.

When it comes to your idioms, I'm not sure how prominent 'to fly the coop' is outside of Australia. However, I'm almost certain that using the term 'getting on' to describe aging will confuse those from other countries.

You mention a plywood fence about halfway through. I don't think I've ever seen a plywood fence in Australia. Are you sure it was plywood? It doesn't really sound like the longest-lasting material for a fence.

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In saying all of that, most of these things do add colour and bring the reader to our strange land. I just feel like they may be confusing or distracting to some. Apart from these minor things, I think you've done a really good job of describing the uniqueness of the Australian landscape/lifestyle to foreigners. The piece felt very Australian, which I enjoyed, because I haven't been back home for a while.

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Paragraph length

Your paragraphs came across as quite long to me. Perhaps it's because I'm used to much shorter ones on screen (the issue may not be as apparent on paper). For example, I would end your first paragraph after '... I think they really appreciated it', or even '...the old owner must've fed them from time to time'.

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Readthrough

I really like your first sentence. It's strong, and it really made me want to keep reading to find out more.

However, I feel like you start to lose steam throughout the paragraph. Consider:

They didn’t seem too bothered by my presence, so I’d reckoned that the old owner must’ve fed them from time to time.

Against:

They didn't seem bothered by me. I figure the old owner must've fed them.

I feel like the original version lags a bit and takes up more of the readers time, without adding much.

Similarly:

I figured as a new resident I should try to make friends with the locals, so I walked down to the Coles and bought them some ham. They snapped it up with gusto, hopping over as soon as the plate was placed on the beam. I’m not one to read into the behaviours of animals too much, but by the tone of their laughter as they flew off back to their gum tree home, I think they appreciated it

vs.

Wanting to make friends with the locals, I bought some ham from Coles. As soon as I put down the plate, they snapped it up. I'm not one to read into animal behaviour, but from the tone of their laughter, I think they appreciated it.

When you use great, descriptive verbs like snapped, I don't think there's much need for 'with gusto'. I just feel like in the early stages of the story, you have to get as much across to the reader in the shortest amount of possible, otherwise they'll drift away.

Minor thing - you mention 'porch's railing' a couple of times. Consider just changing it to porch railing. Also, I believe else's should be written else'.

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So when I carried out their plate of snacks on that scorching midsummer’s morning, I knew that something must’ve happened.

Why did you know? From my reading, I think you explain it further down when you talk about the kookaburra's sad laugh. However, I think you should mention your awareness or the kookaburra's sad laugh earlier in the sentence. Something along the lines of:

On that scorching midsummer morning, plate of snacks in hand, the familiar cackle sounded different. Straight away, I knew something had happened. I never thought something as bright as a laugh could sound so sad.

You mention pardalotes, which I've only just learned about for the first time today. As someone who has never heard of them before, the word sounds so unbirdlike and threw me out of the story. I wanted to look it up. If this is fictionalized rather than straight memoir, I would consider changing it to butcherbirds or something like that.

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She was so casual and offhand that my first thought was that she was talking about somebody else’s father, that she’d just misspoken and that I finally could let go of the breath that was caught in my throat.

Does it make sense to talk about finally letting go of your breath when you didn't mention sucking it in in the first place?

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You mention the respirator whining. Do they really? I've never heard one before, but it would surprise me if they made a whining noise.

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I didn’t cry as we sat in silence in the all too empty kitchen while the kettle boiled

I really like the detail of the kettle. It adds a nice touch of how Australians cope in crises. The line about the wrinkles is great too.

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But I did cry when I came home and saw the dead kookaburra on my front step.

I really like this final line. I think it wraps up the weird contradiction really well. But, it did leave me kind of confused. From what I remember, when you talk about the kookaburra dying at the start, it's on your porch. I don;t think you specify, but in my mind, it was a back porch.

At the end, you say 'your front step'. When I first read this, I presumed you meant that the other one had died too, and you found it on your front step, some time later. Upon reflection, I think you mean the one that you buried throughout the story. If this is the case, I would consider making the location you found it in more consistent. By this, I mean either just conclude with '...saw the dead kookaburra from my porch.' or by mentioning the front step earlier on in the piece.

Overall impression

I feel like the bones of your story are solidly in place. I really like the way you contrasted the story of watching a kookaburra die with your dad, especially when you mention his love for birds, that he teared up when they got killed, and yet you didn’t when he died. You have something really powerful with those elements interacting with each other.

I'm a little curious about why one made the protagonist cry but not the other, but I suppose it's good to leave the audience wondering in a short story.

While I think that the basic structure and themes are great, I do think you need to tighten up your writing at the line level. Considering you've already done the hard work of coming up with an emotive story line that pulls in the reader, these issues should be pretty easy to fix as you make passes to edit. I would just try to make each sentence as efficient as possible, cutting out the words that don't add to the description, character or plot. The 'so's, the 'I suppose's and the 'I figured's should be eyed carefully on the chopping block.

Overall, I really like the piece, and think it has potential if you take care of these relatively minor things.

General remarks

My mind went blank for a second when I read the part about MC getting the phone call, which means you did something right with this story. The emotional component felt raw and genuine -- never forced -- so great job on that. Also, the use of language, and the story itself were both refreshing and original, so also, great job on that.

Mechanics/Prose

Try to find lines you like during the second read through.

They’d been there to greet me when I’d first lugged my cardboard boxes of books and clothes up the steps, sat side-by-side on the porch’s railing like two old men outside an RSL.

Had to think about exactly who was doing the sitting here. The subject is unclear. I get that’s what you’re going for, but for me, it felt a little clunky.

The meat’d be gone in a flash and they’d cackle out their thanks as they flew off to do whatever kookaburras do with their days. Eat lizards and mess with the lorikeets, I suppose.

I’m not sure why, but I really like this line. It’s well written. It succeeds in making the narrator feel detached from the world around him because he can’t even wrap his head around the lives of a couple of birds.

It’d been three years since I’d moved in and we’d started our morning routine, and they’d been there to greet me each day without fail.

This line is repetitive, at least everything after “moved in” is repetitive. We already know they have established a routine with the man. If might make more sense if it was written like “Then for the first time in three years I walked out on the porch and my fat feathered friend was not there to greet me.” I don’t know. It depends on how you want to set it up and frame it, but this line definitely needs to change.

So I’d reckoned that, I figured as a new resident

Lots of thinking verbs that don’t really add much to the narration here.

a wandering cat dug up their burrow, lazily breaking the eggs nested inside while the distraught parents flitted around its head.

I don't love this use of a gerund, especially a gerund preceded by an adverb. I see what you're trying to say, but in my opinion the logical sequence of events should be dig up the nest THEN break the eggs, not doing them at the same time. But that may just be a personal preference, not sure.

It laughed and laughed for what seemed like minutes, filling the garden with a bittersweet tribute to what had been but was no more

I really like this line

POV

It really draws out the character and it feels distinctly Australian. As an American, the language was unique and refreshing -- far from something I’d normally read. I actually love the winding, stream of consciousness storytelling style.

I think the drawback is that occasionally the language is so colloquial that it’s easy to write lazy, or at least, unliterary sentences. Take, for example, “it was unsettling, to say the least.” I’m not going to sit here and preach about show don’t tell or whatever because you obviously know how to write; however, I’d say that just because your character is speaking casually and isn’t a “literary” type of person, don’t get lazy or fall into the trap of not making your writing as good as it can be. I love characters that speak nothing resembling the queen’s English, yet are still crafty with their words. Take, for example, this sequence.

The absence of my fat feathered friends struck me with surprising gravity. It was like that feeling when you wake up in the middle of the night at somebody else’s place and you’re all confused about where you are or how you got there. It was unsettling, to say the least.

The first sentence here is okay. The second is great! It provides detailed characterization and also demonstrates how the narrator feels right here right now. The third sentence pales in comparison. It's a bit lazy and a bit repetitive, which brings me to my next point: although the story is told through the narrator’s stream of consciousness, the narration still needs to be concise. There are too many instances of unnecessary repetition or wordiness, especially in the beginning of the story. I think it would benefit greatly if the narration was just a little less wordy and the story moved just a little more quickly. I hope I don't sound too harsh here, it's not a major problem, just something that can be improved imo.

Characters

Father: The story about the cat digging up nest eggs could have been more impactful if it was shown, not told. I hate to use "show don't tell" but these few sentences are the only characterization we get about the father, and they are a bit lost because we are simply told "he was devastated" and "he really cared about birds". Improved characterization here would make a tremendous improvement to the overall plot of the story.

Plot

Some people will criticize this story because there isn't much conflict, which I get, but to be honest that isn't something that generally bothers me much. I love a good slice of life story. But I do think the story would benefit if there was just a modicum of conflict at some point before the last few paragraphs (even at the end there isn't much real conflict). It doesn't have to be much, but maybe if the neighbor's cat was around a little more often, or if the narrator was working through some sort of internal dilemma about the proper way to perform a Kookaburra burial. Idk.

Also, I absolutely love the final paragraph, right up until the last line. I honestly just don't get it. Did the other bird die? But the use of repetition of "I didn't cry when" felt like an amazing crescendo, and I was so excited for the last line. Then unfortunately it fell flat. On the bright side, it shouldn't be too difficult to fix a single line :)

Pacing

I already talked a bit about pacing in the POV section, so I'll just add one other suggestion here. You should consider deleting the fourth to last paragraph after "bittersweet tribute to what had been but was no more." I think this would really improve the pacing of the story, and it would provide an exclamation point on the most emotionally impactful parts of the story. As it stands, lines like "In retrospect, the whole situation looks a bit silly" and "the kookaburra didn't fly over to indulge in its favorite snacks" (though it is recalled in the subsequent paragraph) only distracted me from the bigger picture. You do a great job making the death of the bird an emotional one, but it sort of gets lost in a lot of the ramblings of the narrator. Wow, this really doesn't belong in the pacing section. But you get my point.

Tone

You definitely achieve the sort of the detached, empty, grieving tone right off the bad. And it’s consistent throughout. Really nice job there, word selection and characterization combine beautifully to achieve your goal.

Descriptions

Definitely one of your strengths. I really enjoyed lines like

fat feathered friends

and

a mass of feathers were scattered about, as if some neighbourhood kids had had a late-night pillow fight in my garden

Closing remarks

Overall, this is pretty good work, and it could really stand out of it is cleaned up a little bit. As always, take all advice with a grain of salt, and keep writing!!

Your submission caught my attention because it sounds like what I am working on currently. I typically try to do third-person limited, but my latest piece I am working on I’m doing in the first person, which is also going to be a short story. So, critiquing you will help me lol.

First Impressions: To start out with, I thought this was a good story. I enjoyed it. It is short, yet it really illicits and packs a lot of emotions into it. I always feel that if you make your reader feel something you probably did a good job.

Your metaphors stood out to me as being really good. I put some examples below.

As the reader I got the sense there was definitely some kind of parallels going on between the Kookaburras (weird name lol) and the main character's relationship with his dad.

The Last Line: The last line was interesting. As I said, it makes me feel like there is some kind of parallels going on between the birds and the dad but leaves me not knowing what it is. If that is what you want then you could leave it that way. If that is not what you want then you could add to it a little to guide the reader. Depends on your intentions.

First Person: I didn’t really notice any problems with your first-person use. Hopefully, someone else will be able to catch something.

Small knit-pick:

“So when I carried out their plate of snacks on that scorching midsummer’s morning, I knew that something must’ve happened.”

(It may just be my personal taste, but I would suggest flipping this sentence to how it is below. I feel like it flows better)

“I knew that something must’ve happened when I carried out their plate of snacks on that scorching midsummer’s morning.”

Good use of metaphors:

“The absence of my fat feathered friends struck me with surprising gravity. It was like that feeling when you wake up in the middle of the night at somebody else’s place and you’re all confused about where you are or how you got there.”

Here was a nice way to bring it all back around: “But as she continued to fill in the details, that indulgence vanished like meat scraps before a kookaburra”

This paragraph was my personal favorite:

“There’s a million different anecdotes and expressions out there. None of them are wrong. Each of our experiences of death are different, so each of our words to describe it are different too. My experience of death sounded like the whine of respirators, and smelled of neoprene and disinfectant. It tasted like burnt coffee from the hospital cafeteria drank at odd hours of the night, and felt like the layers of sweat behind my face-mask and mandatory scrubs.”

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Conclusion: Good job! I really do not see much feedback to give. This annoys me since I will probably not be able to count this critique in the future lol. Let me know if you have any questions.

As an Australian, I liked it. As a cat owner, I've double checked the collar's bells are working. As someone who has magpies come down every morning for their handful of dogfood, I understand.

Readthrough

The first person sounds strong and has allowed you to dive into the essence of the main character. However, the key hooks and feels get lost in the long paragraphs. It’s a strong analogy between the feelings the character has with a bird, also the inability to process the grief of his father.

As an Australian, I understood the language, but would recommend broadening it:

- RSL ‘two old veterans shooting the breeze outside their club’

- Coles ‘deli’ or ‘fought for a car park at the local supermarket just to get them slices of cheap ham’

How did feeding them become a ritual? Do you live alone and it was a habit to make them laugh? Did it give you something to look forward to? Or was there a day you forgot and they punished you by …?

There’s a subtlety of the relationship the father has with birds and cats, that deserves to shine.

Opening para

Strong first sentence. Moving the next sentence to a new paragraph would build intensity.

Characters

I wanted more feels. Was it the first time the character had touched a dead creature? Was there an unspoken bond between the character and the kookaburra? Had the kookaburra seemed to trust the character to look after its mate?

A little more about the relationship with the father – more about not understanding the intensity of the father’s feelings towards cats and birds until it was too late.

Loved the touch about three cups – but again the event is lost inside a large paragraph.

Editing / Style

The paragraphs are very long. Suggest you read aloud and you’ll find the natural breaks.

Read aloud will also identify the overused words. You ‘reckon’ and ‘figure’ a lot.

Tense is a little mixed. Starts in the present, then moves back to how it started – fine. The para “It’d been three years” seems off. It needs a short, stand alone statement. “I never expected it to last, and I never expected to miss a bloody bird, as much as I did.” Then move into the Three years of feeding my feathered friends …