Hi Billie! I'm the poetry judge for "Newbies ONLY Short Story & Poem Contest" , but I decided to read the short stories for June. Why not? I thought that you might like some feedback.

Things I Like:

You pack quite a bit of detail into this piece! That is a good thing.

The plot had some pretty interesting twists. When that package came to the door, I was pretty surprised!

Observations & Suggestions:

You told the reader over and over what a horrible day this woman was having in the beginning, but it didn't seem like a terrible day. She left her purse someplace and had to cancel her credit cards. That's a hassle, but it isn't exactly a tragedy. Then there was a big car accident that inconvenienced her. Again, not the end of the world.

Actually, hearing about the car accident and having the woman exclaim, "Just great!" made me not really like her. It struck me as a bit selfish. So she'll be a little late for work... people might have died! It was a bit callous. If she had at least muttered an "I hope no one was hurt" as she turned to do something else, it wouldn't have sounded as self-centered.

The motivation for this guy to harass the woman seemed... false. First, she left the purse on a seat in the bus. No one stole it. So why would someone who found it and thought, "Cool! Free credit cards!", then make her life horrible just because she canceled them? It makes no sense. Even if it had been a thief, would he waste tons of his own time (and money sending that package) just to harass someone? There was no hope of gaining anything from it, and it would increase the likelihood of getting caught. Like I said, what's the motivation?

These were my bigger issues with the actual story, but there are a few technical areas that could be improved as well. The first (and most important if you choose to edit or revise this piece) is an extreme overuse of "She" -- both in general and as a subject. This is just an example:

"She walked past the answering machine to go to bed, but figured she better check the messages before going to sleep since she was waiting for a reply to a normal nine to five job to call. She had two from solicitors saying they were returning her call from later that day. She didn’t call anyone that she could remember. Maybe it was in relation to the package she thought. She now thought she was watching too much crime TV because this isn’t related at all. I’m being paranoid, she thought."

Every single sentence: "she" is the subject. The one sentence that doesn't begin with she is still a "she" subject. Are you ready for this?

98. You used the word "she" 98 times in a piece less than 2000 words! Over 5% of the words in this piece are "she". This causes a readability issue. It makes the reading monotonous and gives a 'talking at me not to me' vibe. She did this. Then she did that. She said this. She thought that. It's too much. Pronouns can get the best of us. I've had the same type of issue before. It can be difficult to fix, but it needs fixing. I would try to remove as many as I possibly could.

There are some grammar issue also (your use of "she" isn't wrong-- but hard to read). Missing commas and things like that a sprinkled throughout. Nothing horrible or hard to fix if you know what to look for. There are classes on WDC for commas and things. Let me know if you're interested and I'll try to find one for you.

I will point out this one:

"She can’t believe someone would send her pornography. Who could do this she thought to herself. It is addressed to her"

This story is in past tense. The "can't" and "is" here are present tense. The tenses need to match. "she could not believe" and "It was addressed".

Overall, I didn't really enjoy reading the story. I wanted to! It was just hard. I didn't find the character fun to read (that one callous moment set the tone for me), and the mechanics were difficult and didn't really engage me. I wasn't satisfied at the end either because the motivation didn't seem realistic to me. I do think that the story shows promise and could be really good with lots of effort to revise. I don't mean to discourage you at all! The story could be really good... it just isn't quite there yet. If you decide to revise it, I'd be happy to give it another read at change my rating if appropriate.




My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .