June 3 - Syme - Just Another Pervert (L, S)

[Syme]

All comments and critiques are welcome, even if you've just caught a spelling error.

[ShinNoir]

Syme,

 

Interesting read.  It is not my type of topic but I thought you did a good job with presenting both sides of the issue.

 

As far as the experience goes it was a quick read and I was not bored at any of the parts.  But I did suspect out at about page 9 when the Alan was going up to Roberts apartment that this was a trap, or that a shoe was going to drop.  And when Robert shut the door, I knew it was a trap.

 

And now for my disclaimer, I am an IT geek by trade and just starting in on this writing thing so take everything I say with a grain of salt. 

 

At the end I think I would have made Robert a little more insidious, a little more evil.  Make him to be worse than a pervert.  Say something like, Robert is also an addict but has made a deal with the local cops.  Robert is aloud to feed his addiction just only every time he entraps another pervert.  The positive point for the local cops from this deal is that they get good press for catching perverts.

 

Perhaps this is all meant to be implied.  Either way, good job.

~ShinNoir

[Mandamon]

I pretty much agree with ShinNoir.  This type of story wasn't really for me, and I got the sense of the end shortly after I started it.  I'm seeing a pattern in your short stories, where there's a good idea, good writing, but the end is either predictable or cut short.  Do you outline or discovery write?  Just as a suggestion, you might try the other one on a new story or even on an existing one to see if it makes a difference in how it ends.

[andyk]

I agree with some of what the others said. This was an interesting idea, but the ending was abrupt and predictable. If we'd known more about Robert and his motives that might have helped.

 

I struggled to empathise with Alan. I couldn't find much to like about him, and so many of the views and feelings he expressed early on were negative. There also weren't many details about his experiences - specific examples of bad dates, how he got into sexbots, happy memories and details of his sexbot days, anything to make him feel more substantial and likeable. That said, I liked the shift in his emotional state when he got access to a sexbot - he really seemed to come alive.

 

I liked the hints of menace you put around Robert. There were also some good details that helped build the world up, like the self-parking cars and the ban starting in Japan.

 

I think there's also a problem matching the ending and beginning. For most of the first half, the story seems to be about Alan's internal state, but there's not much sign of this facing conflict or change in the conclusion. The strand that becomes the finale, with Robert and his uncertain motives, isn't introduced until nearly halfway through. I'd have liked to have seen the early focus match the ending, one way or the other. Is the main drive of this story about character and a change in Alan's internal state, or about the event of his encountering Robert? I'm sure there are some episodes of Writing Excuses that'll help with this - look for stuff where Mary discusses Orson Scott Card's MICE quotient.

[Guru Coyote]

I liked the way you handled the issue you set as your topic for this one, it worked much better than the simulation story.

 

The story read easily and I never had any slow moments. It pulled me in and kept me going to the end.

I really liked the 'rebel propaganda' with Robert giving him the 'history' and seeding doubt.

And, well, the end. As others have said before: it was rather expected. Maybe if you try and build more sympathy for Robert... we need to WANT to believe his spiel. You might try and give the MC the idea of Robert being a plant... and then Robert successfully dispelling the doubt... so it actually is an unexpected betrayal in the end. Not sure.

 

The setting for this one was very believable, good work