[mpsciuk]

I'm pleased to have my story "A Seat in the Yard" accepted, and I would appreciate the thoughts of you other writers and readers on my effort. Have I paced the story well enough? Any other thoughts...like stop writing!Regards, Mike

[Erebus]

And just to help us all out, you can find the story HERE (http://www.sffworld.com/authors/p/psciuk_michael/fiction/aseatintheyard1.html). http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif

[KATS]

Well, first of all, You have a great deal of talent - so don’t quit writing. http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

***SPOILER BELOW***

Now to the critique. This really was a difficult story to critique. This type of story depends a great deal on the authors intentional manipulation of the reader. I will make a few assumptions and attempt to figure out what you intended.

About the second or third page I began to wonder what the hook was. The pacing was fine and the story interesting, but there really wasn’t a conflict. Without an obvious conflict some readers will get bored.

After considering it for a while, I believe the conflict is Bobby making it out of, is it hell? You can work with that earlier in the story, more than the one reference to parole for good behavior. Use it to foreshadow the ending. Bobby even joked about escaping over the wall. You could add to that a bit too.

There really wasn’t any obvious foreshadowing, or at least I didn’t see any. Perhaps someone or something could remind Bobby of an undertaker, pallbearer, or angle or something. Or there could be some references to black, dark as death, dead of night, etc. I guess it depends on how much you want to tease the reader.

To sum it up, nice story with a great deal of potential, but still needs a little tweaking. Perhaps if you put it away for a few months then read it again as a reader would.