Thank you very much for taking the time to read and critique this.

There's a lot to digest here, so I won't respond to all of it.

I specifically stretched out revealing the car accident, because I thought I was being clever. Two out of three commenters have called it confusing, so it clearly didn't work.

I like the one-line summary you gave (Old grandad gets himself in a pickle. His adult children want to sell the car. The daughter is crying. The son is angry. In the end they all hug.) Of course, that's not what I was going for, but I think it's fair. The issue I have is that a twist ending wouldn't make sense for this story, so I need other ways to increase the impact of the story. Your ideas for improving the dialogue sound good, and I'll give it a try.

Thanks again.

GENERAL REMARKS


So I ended up not feeling anything in particular after reading this piece. There's nothing wrong with it per se, the words are smooth and the sentences varied, but there's nothing to really grab my heart in it. To me, the intervention and the whole thing with the MC not being able to drive anymore, doesn't reach through the screen.

MECHANICS

The first two paragraphs are a little confusing. They should serve as a hook and immediately lure me in, and they serve that purpose, after I have reread it a couple of times. It takes some passages to reveal this is a car accident, but by then we know what kind of car Frankie arrives in. You can strip the piece of such meaningless information in order to 1) Hammer down the initial scene and 2) Make us care for grandad.

Saying there will be little empathy is not necessary as the following text shows Frankie not having much empathy for his fathers situation. And not until the fourth passage is it obvious (to me at least, but I'm

Thank you for the detailed critique, with lots of actionable advice. You should definitely do more of them ;)

I found it interesting that you mentioned my use of past tense. It was an experiment, as I normally write in third person limited POV with past tense, or first person with present tense. I like past tense when writing in third person, but when I used it with first person POV, it seemed to encourage telling over showing. I'm going to change that.

**DIALOGUE**

It definitely wasn't terrible, but at times I found the dialogue to be slightly unnatural and a little on the nose. Like you said, there's definitely a little more tell rather than show too, and it comes across in things like  "You’re an eighty-two-year-old man". Definitely plausible, but in reality I imagine most would say something closer to "You're, what? An eighty-something-year old man?  You have zero business behind the wheel of a car." Or alike.

Once again, if I read the lines out loud, some of them come out a little flat. I think it partially relates to the lack of imagery too. I need little breathers between the important sentences so they sink in before the next one. Some of the longer dialogue pieces lack emotional impact because of this.

\- When Frankie first mentions selling the Honda, his intentions immediately become pretty clear to the reader. With the added "He stared at me in apparent disbelief, as if he couldn’t comprehend how I can be so dumb. " we'r

I'll start off with the obligatory "This is my first critique", "I'm not a writing expert" and "These are just my opinions". So now that that's out of the way...

**GENERAL IMPRESSIONS**

I was eager to read and critique this piece because it seemed like one of the few non-fantasy or scifi pieces out here. So right off the bat I was happy to notice your writing and its context was simple and easy to understand, which kept me reading more. Of course I understand this is mainly just a personal preference thing but I digress.

Overall the quality of writing seemed alright and it was fairly enjoyable, but I will say the shortness of almost all your paragraphs gives off an amateurish vibe to me, especially at first glance. I understand that you worked with a word count limit, so I get how that probably influenced the structure. But what I mostly find is that it feels like the word count restricted you a lot and kind of dulled the edges of your story, and I'd rather like to see you work *wit

Thank you for the comments. I have some head-scratching to do.

I think you should cut the first line. 

>I had phoned Kristin, because she was the empathetic one. But Frankie came to pick me up in his white BMW, and I knew there would be little empathy.

I would just say Frankie came in his white BMW instead. That implies you won't get empathy without having to be redundant. 

>I waited in the passenger seat of his car and watched as the driver of a pale blue tow truck yoked the front wheels of my Honda and hoisted the nose up. I looked away when he drove off.

Why? This is another 'movie' scene, where if it were in film the actors expression and lighting and music would show his state of mind, but since it's a book we don't see any of that because you haven't told us. What does it mean that he watched the tow truck? What is he feeling? Tell me, because I want to know. 

The son distracted by his phone at the hospital and the young doctor is a beautiful scene. So is the failed attempt at conversation. I absolutely got a sense of a man imprisoned b

I'm so happy that someone commented on the old man referring to his grown children by childlike names. You nailed the characters exactly the way I had envisioned them, so I'm taking that part as a win.

My multi-paragraph revelation of the accident was a choice that clearly backfired. I'm going to have to work on that.

Thank you for taking the time to critique my story.

It’s ok, though some of the early sections could use more description. The conflict was somewhat interesting because of the dialogue, but it felt fairly predictable. I’m bad at picking out grammar mistakes, so I’ll focus on the narrative side of things.

I did not really mind the telling rather than showing early on. Obviously, if you had more words to work with it would be better if it was more fleshed out, but it doesn’t really damage the reading experience to justify using up more of your word budget. What I did mind is that I had no idea what was going on in the first scene. I originally pictured the protagonist being in front of his house getting picked up by Frankie, but I got confused when the traffic cop and towing service were mentioned. My second theory was that the protag was still at his house, but his car was getting repo’ed. I think I figured out that it was probably a car crash around the mention of the xray. Admittedly, that isn’t a long time, but it’s still a 5th of th

No problem. It's pretty good. I'm glad I can help..

> I'm more of a fantasy-sci-fi/mystery/thriller reader 

And I'm more that kind of writer, so I love that you took the time to read it.

I haven't paid attention to the paragraph formatting at all; what you see results from a copy-paste from Scrivener. It's still something to look into. Thank you for pointing it out.

You're also the second person to point out that Kristen's " Oh Frank..." line sounds like dialogue from a black and white movie. I didn't pick up on that at all, but we ask for critique so we can find our blind spots. Thank you for highlighting this and the other issues.

General Remarks

Overall, I like it. I'm going to preface this by saying that this is not the kind of fiction I normally read. I'm more of a fantasy-sci-fi/mystery/thriller reader, so I'm not sure how well I'm suited to review it. That said, It's pretty good. If I'm not mistaken, this is meant to be more of a character piece. It certainly works. I certainly get a sense of who everyone is.

My biggest criticism is the way it's formatted. There are no indentations and the paragraphs have an extra line in between them. I would advise changing this by adding indentations and removing the extra line breaks. The way it is now makes it seem amateurish. In it's current formatting, it seems a little more like some kind of fanfiction rather than an actual story.

*Characters*

The characters are good. My only criticism is that I wasn't sure how old everyone in the story was. For some reason, I assumed that everyone was middle aged adults until they started talking about how old the dad was.. Eve

Thank you for the excellent feedback. I'm definitely going to take you up on the offer to read the next draft.

I would appreciate clarification on two things you said:

>It's also kind of funky when you do it switching between dialogue. you're not really transitioning between ideas, so it comes off as somewhat fragmented. I'd definitely suggest reformatting this to follow standard prose structure. 

What are you referring to in the first line: *do it switching between dialogue*? Is this related to the short paragraphs, rushing the pacing, or something else?

Also, when you suggest "reformatting this to follow standard prose structure," are you referring to the formatting of the document, the paragraphs, or a formal structure like the Fichtean curve, or MRUs?

**General Remarks**

All of it was very competent. I think the prose is a bit on the bland side, and some of the dialogue comes off as odd, but overall, I was pleased with the piece.

**Mechanics**

As I mentioned, I feel like the prose is a bit on the bland side. i don't think there's anything inherently wrong with this, some people enjoy and value prose that is "invisible." I am not one of those people, but I won't knock you for playing it safe. It does a competent job putting us in the mind of the protagonist, and I appreciated that it flowed smoothly.

That being said, I'm not a big fan of the really short paragraphs in this one. I'm of the opinion that short paragraphs should be used in prose-focused pieces because the brevity makes each sentence pop. Using short paragraphs to move the plot forwards struck me as rushing the pacing, and if you need to excessively use them to move the plot along, you might have a pacing issue. Especially in the beginning, you breeze through the firs

Thank  for the great feedback. I love how you analyzed the relationships between the characters, and I agree that building out the father-son relationship will add more to the ending.

The "martial problems" comment intrigued me. I assume that's because of the "caged bird" line? That was actually his way of saying that if he can't drive, he'll be trapped at home and be at others' mercy.

I was thinking of throwing out that line as part of a broader effort to make the dialogue a bit less on the nose (along with sweetie and the other terms of endearment).

Other commenters also mentioned the need to build out the dad's desire to drive. I suppose to me personally that bit was so obvious, that I left it as an exercise to the reader - I can't imagine not being able/allowed to drive when I feel like it. Perhaps it makes sense to expand the first section to help with this. After all, he was driving somewhere when he had the accident.

Thanks again for sharing your insights.

Impressions after first read:

The ending fell a bit flat. There wasn't really any background that convinced me that losing his driving privilege would be so devastating, and the late intro to the dad's marital issues felt a bit out of left field / fluffy as a reason for me to resonate with his "caged bird" assertion. Considering your prompt was about this sense of "freedom", I think there needs to be more character development to make me empathize with the dad's protests. 

Some moments that I really enjoyed:

Not sure how constructive this section will be, but from personal experience I like finding the lines/themes/images I really like and try to rework parts anchoring around them / make sure I don't lose the forest thru the trees during the editing process...

- the way you reveal who a character is thru a new bit of information revealed in speech... The father son relationship reveal was neat at the beginning, not sure if you need to follow the same pattern for Justin at the end t

Well, hello there.

I wrote this based on the writing prompt "Freedom," which is somewhat ironic. The total word count is meant to be exactly 1200, so I'm one word short.

I'm eager for any feedback at all.

This is the story \[[Link](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HHuqiUNnI4SFhY2QPEj0PenoTR7eZwb59PGJs5EQ7lk/edit?usp=sharing)\]

And instead of using some of my other unused critiques, I did another one tonight: [\[1867\] That's not a shooting star!](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/kr640u/1867_thats_not_a_shooting_star/gix0tvp?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3).

A final note, which includes a mild spoiler:

I know that the first part is more tell than show, and that's a creative choice I made so I could spend more of my allowed word count on the "meat" of the story. I also wanted Frank's character to be aloof, and I think that choice helps with it. Please tell me if you think that detracts from the story.

[1199] Intervention