Re: second person. I got the distant first-person feeling. Distancing the first person is usually accomplished through the passing of time but this is present tense. I was skeptical in the beginning but it worked for me.

Hey, thank you so much for the critique! I really appreciate you taking the time to read and call me out for some of the things I like to get caught up in.  If it wasn't obvious, I really like the way that sentences flow with "and," and I guess it's hard for me to see where it can be obnoxious without someone calling me out where it doesn't necessarily work.

Your analogy about the funeral puts it better than I was able to. I really tried to focus a lot on the idea rather than the actual event, and I'm glad that you were able to catch on to that. 

Regarding the choice to write in the second person - it's always gotten me in some trouble as I know how grating it is to a lot of people, and it's often ambiguous as to the narrator, etc. but I guess the ambiguity is one of the reasons why I love it so much. I think it's dependent on the context, for instance, Calvino's "if on a winter's night a traveler" uses it literally to refer to the reader being the main character, whereas something l

I read your entire work and gave some line edits and comments on the work mostly it was just to clean up some of your sentences and flow.


First to answer your question on the MC sounding mopey I am torn on that. In the beginning I was super worried because your right at the start he did sound mopey, BUT he saved himself, or should I say rather that you saved him? Either way as the story progresses and we got to understand the MC feelings more through characterization of things such as his home with his past lover, the conversation between him and his friend over pottery, the game the two shared when together and the ending when the lover  reappears to return a book to the MC. I think if you want to make us sympathize 100% with the MC I would give more insight to the relationship and what really hurt our MC about not having the girl there, pull from his emotions about his lack of a girlfriend  not his lack of a girlfriend. Also you could draw back on him complaining about other aspect

Yea, for me it was really depressing but only because it reminded me of things.  It hasn't even been 9 months since my ex left.  And I was going to marry her.  I mean, she is the love of my life.  No one will ever replace her.  But, she also has some mental problems, (most likely BPD even though she won't get help, so I doubt she will ever be diagnosed.)  And she's also an alcoholic.  She shows up every two months or so and wants to talk about things... she tells me she still loves me.  She acts like she wants to fix things.  Then she just disappears again.  So, my situation is a lot darker than what was described in your story.  Your character comes across as a pretty well-adjusted person and it seems like the women they get involved with are well adjusted too.  I'm a SA survivor.  I was raised in a house full of violence and substance abuse, and so was my ex.  So your story was more like a description of a breakup under the best circumstances.  There was definitely a bittersweet elem

Thanks for critiquing and sharing your experience. It's really encouraging to hear that it touched you in the way that it did.

&#x200B;

I hope it wasn't so dark? I get the impression that you found the piece to be somewhat depressing, and that wasn't my intention. I was hoping for it to be more bittersweet than anything. If it wasn't already obvious by my writing about it, I'm familiar with something similar to your experience, and I'm sorry, it's the hardest thing I've ever gone through, and even now I don't know what would have consoled me in that time, but I do believe that endings also allow for new beginnings, and I hope that was properly conveyed in my piece.

Regardless, thank you for reading.

I like the opposition of the two houses.  The house they shared with their ex had a lot of plants that she cared for, etc.  And then the new house has this dry baron looking yard.  It’s a nice metaphor.  I’m not sure it was meant as that.  But it’s like when they were together there was all this beauty and all this life.  And now they are alone and the yard is ugly and dead.

As much as I loved this and as well written as it was, I did have a hard time finishing it.  This was mainly because it was sad and reminded me too much of my own life and the grief I still deal with every day.  Sometimes something hits a little too close to home, I guess.  But that isn’t anything against you.  I think if anything it’s a compliment because your storytelling is so visceral.

I know so much of this was relating your words to my personal experience.  I don’t know if that is what you want in a critique.  But art (all forms of art, visual art, music, writing, etc) is supposed to draw out emotion in oth

Well, first off I want to congratulate you on being one of two people on RDR who has ever made me cry.  This story was so raw and it really hit home for me because 9 months ago the love of my life left me.  We lived together and I still live in the house.  She left a lot of her stuff behind too, which I had to deal with.  And for the first couple of weeks everywhere I looked there was some memory flooding back.  Oh remember that one time in the kitchen when this happened.  Remember that one night out on the front porch when that happened, etc.  I was planning on marrying this woman, so she was involved in pretty much every aspect of my life for a long time. I am a professional artist and even though it’s been almost a year since she left I haven’t gotten my artistic ambition back.  I have to force myself to create.  So even the stuff about your character writing and submitting a story, the feelings of doing this alone and wanting to text her, etc.  It’s really raw.  I still get the urg

Now lets talk the hardest thing. Voice:

I've heard voice described a lot of ways, but reading through each of these, Ms Pacman makes me want to huddle up and draw my coat closer around my ears. I'm clutching the few things I have, and I feel very there.

O beautiful gunpowder wings -- jeez right? thats pushing the limits of language for sure.

Now yours, I kept waiting for the voice to kick. Its fine, nice and easy as is, but I think it fits more a cozy story than this, and partly because of the second POV choice. The POV constantly constantly draws attention to idea this is a story, and the implied narrator but that also draws my attention to the language. And to the plainness of the voice.

Why/why not second POV:

I mean this and only this: I'm not sure 2nd is the necessary choice here. Try it out in 1st?

I don't think the narrative distance of this second as distant 1st POV is the only way forward? Could a deep POV (IDK why they call it that, its like blended 1st and 3rd limited 

Part 1 of some.

I’m going to be using voice to text dictation for portions of this, so if there any weird typos, please let me know, happy to clarify.

Pre work:

So you were writing literary fiction in the second person point of view, I’ll be honest not something that I would describe myself as an expert on.

So I did some back ground reading to find comps:

Bad news/good news I found comps but the bar is super high.

[the compartment](http://gulfcoastmag.org/journal/25.2/the-compartment/)

[ms Pac-Man](http://prismmagazine.ca/ms-pacman-by-josie-sigler-excerpt/)

Interview with the author of these

[which happens to include why second person](https://gulfcoastmag.org/online/25.2/2012-barthelme-prize-winner-josie-sigler/)

I will try to reference each of these when appropriate.

Overview:

Meta-fictional writing about writing?

So there’s a piece in here then includes a writer writing about writing aspect. In general the advice I have seen about author characters or the sort of loop o

Hey, thank you so much for your kind offer! I would love to take you up as it seems like you give tons of good advice in this area, but honestly I haven’t pinpointed any journals that I really think this would mesh with (a part of that being my unfamiliarity of many that publish this kind of stuff), not to mention that I just don’t know if it’s quite ready in its current state. I have a feeling that this will be a story that I want to try my luck with, but right now any and all tips or info or critique would mean the world to me :)

Heyo, I read through, if you have a market in mind I can do this sort of crit:

[market comps](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/u6x9i6/2729_tallymarks_nsfw/i5kuxhj/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3)

Otherwise it’ll be the usual more wishy washy stuff

**Overall Impressions:** I loved your story. You’re very good at conveying the cycle of a breakup and putting yourself back together. I sincerely think that with some edits, this could be publishable. You write so emotionally, I found myself reading for pleasure and had to remind myself to critique, absolutely beautiful. It was so personal and honest. One final time, I fucking loved it.   

I had a little bit of a problem with the narration in places. Honestly, I don’t have a lot of experience with second person, so as I was reading this, I really wanted it to carry back to a physical narrator that was retelling this story to the main character, like Fried Green Tomatoes or Forest Gump. As the story progressed, I became increasingly confused by who the narrator could be. Was the narrator a physical person like I initially thought? Or, were they a figment of the main character’s head, narrating events as they happened? Or, are they some blanket persona floating in the wind? This ended u

First of all, good job! It was a very well written story. I see that the comments shares the same opinion as I do.

On regards to the MC being mopey or whiny, I believe that it isn't the case because the emotion portrayed by the MC was believable, being supported by clues on why he is sad instead of outright telling us that "The MC is sad because that's just the case," If that is the case then I will believe he's just being whiny.

You did well on portraying the emotions in the story, just the right enough. Like: "You’re twenty-seven and six years is longer than you’ve felt comfortable in your skin." instead of, "You are uncomfortable for having a six year relationship."

The Characters are well written, specially the friend, or I might just like her. They portrayed emotion like a human, the story felt real as if I was simply reading someones biography. Also the part where he asked her about who she want to sit with on a dinner, I grinned at that, it was pretty sad and funny.

Pacing o

To be clear -- it's not that it's a bad scene, I just don't think this story has the right setup for it. A spoonful of paprika is a perfectly valid cooking decision to make, but it will taste out of place in a pancake.

I also don't think the tone is as big of a deal as you seem to think it is -- it's natural that someone will be feeling blue after a breakup. I think readers can accept that. The more important thing is that (at least with the current ending) it seems like MC is moving through the grief and figuring out how to live again. 

It would seem over the top if we went through 12 pages of sad stuff, then MC concluded that his life was over at 27 because he'd never find somebody as important as his ex. 

I think it's a matter of inertia, you know? Like your characters are wind up cars. Where is there inertia taking them even after the pages end?

Thank you for the book suggestion! I took a brief look at the first page on google and it seems you've effectively nailed the exact kind of short story collection I love to read. I don't know if I should be impressed that you read me so well off some 12 pages of text or embarrassed that my writing immediately puts that type into your mind lol. Either way, I'll definitely be picking it up soon.

Thanks also for calling me out on the ceramic scene. I think your comment on the doc nailed it perfectly - the story was developing in one direction and I think I may have put my hand in to steer a little too much. (Although I still like the sentiment behind it) I do feel like it's the weakest portion, and you calling me out encourages me to change it. I just am having trouble keeping the tone not too depressing is all :) 

Anyway, thank you for reading and I glad you seemed to enjoy it!

Not going to do a full review, but I just wanted to suggest Raphael Bob-Waksberg (Bojack Horseman)'s collection of short stories [Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory](https://www.amazon.com/Someone-Will-Love-Damaged-Glory/dp/152473201X) \-- your writing styles are quite similar, so maybe you can learn something from how he arranges his stories an organizes his sentences?

I didn't feel that MC was mopey -- grief is a natural thing -- and I was enjoying myself until the scene where MC and their friend start making ceramic mugs. I feel that there's something *you* want to say with this story, and that at around that point, maybe you felt like the story wasn't saying what you wanted to say, and you kinda started forcing it. The things being said were from you, not your characters, and it took me out. 

I think that your writing style and the story works, but you're a bit too heavy-handed in certain places. Almost like you say something, then you're not sure that readers wi

Some short story authors who do an amazing job with details, and whose work I have always found to inspire my own to become better:   


[Amy Hemple: In the Cemetary where Al Jolson is Buried](http://fictionaut.com/stories/amy-hempel/in-the-cemetery-where-al-jolson-is-buried.pdf)  
[A Manual for Cleaning Women - Lucia Berlin](https://www.google.com/search?q=a+manual+for+cleaning+women&oq=A+Manual+for+Cleaning+Women&aqs=chrome.0.0i355i512j46i512l2j0i512j0i390l4j69i64l2.257j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)  


And for a look into someone who made second person work so well:   


[We The Animals - Justin Torres](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10306358-we-the-animals)

I think that there is a lot of good writing in this piece and I can see overarching themes of loss, finding oneself, considering what love is, and considering what art is. You have some great sentences in here. I especially liked "As the water boiler whistles and whirs, the first autumn storm pours out of the sky in warm and bulbous teardrops, creating large gooey puddles in the empty yard."  


  
I get the sense that this is closer to auto-fiction than fiction. If that's true, then I think you'll need to do a few exercises to give yourself distance from the main character until the story can stand on its own -- right now it feels very enmeshed in thoughts and actions that the audience doesn't get access to. For instance, we are told that we ("you") feel loss, but we never get to see the loss and actually feel it. We aren't grounded in happiness or heartbreak. Because of that, the whole short story is more of a tell than a show.  


  
Auto-fiction is a great genre, but it can be real

Hello RDR,

Long time no see. I've been working on this piece for a while now, and I think I've gotten it about as far as I can without outside eyes.

I honestly don't know if it "works." \`I've been very cognizant that I run the risk of making the MC mopey or whiney, and that it's difficult to feel for a relationship on paper when you don't necessarily see much of it: I feel like I've tried my best to stay true to my vision of this story while avoiding these pitfalls, but I guess that's up to you guys to decide.

It's kind of heavy on the italics.

Hope you enjoy it anyways.

&amp;#x200B;

[\[3203\] To All The People You've Ever Loved](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nKB6IZyFRbK3iQ1peRjX7DPMLFS5YQRYqHLCI8zJ-LE/edit?usp=sharing)

(mods, I've removed line breaks from the total word count.)

&amp;#x200B;

Critiques:

[\[1560\] - Breakfast Table](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/uf0a1g/comment/i799pf0/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3)

[\[422\] - Killing a Mansion Full of Demons in Style](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/ug646x/comment/i74cf4k/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3)

[\[161\] - Mother](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/uftrqo/comment/i749xqh/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3)

[\[3348\] - Beneath the King's Mountains](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/ufze20/comment/i744i8e/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3)

[\[1285\] - The Starmaker and the Lesser Angel](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/ufoexv/comment/i73qwpq/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3)

= 6776

[3203] To All the People You've Ever Loved