Flash Fiction / Drowning Is Better

Excellent piece. The way you mix the feelings of “do i deserve to live?” and, “whats the point in living” make me eager to read more. I believe a writing like this is what draws even the ordinary person in because many I’m sure have felt this way once or multiple times in their life.

“Flirting with the idea that pops into my head,”  is a favorite sentence of mine. It’s a strange way to get out what’s trying to be said but in the same way a very creative and unique way of describing the current situation.

“Water streams out, and I pull the thing up to clog the sink.”
I like this sentence as well but saying “the thing” doesn’t seem to fit in this sentence. I honestly don’t know what to suggest to fill its place, maybe you might?

In an overall review I enjoyed this very much. You took on a hard topic but did a wonderful job bringing this character to life. It made me look over my life and review the certain things that have made me feel similar to your person. It was a way I connected with your text and understood what this character may be feeling. Two thumbs up!

In the third line you don’t need to say ‘I think to myself’, the italics imply inner thought here.

‘hideosity’ is awkward here.  I don’t know if it’s the word itself or the alliteration with ‘head’ but I would tidy this sentence up with ‘reflection’, you wouldn’t need ‘looks back at me in the glass’.

Suicide is a good topic for a flash.  The character sounds like your typical hormone-driven, dramatic teenager screaming at the world.  Maybe a little peek into a recent event that triggered the mood?

what pains has the narrator gone through to bring her(?) to the brink of the sink.  why does the reader care so much that this may or may not be the last thing ever mentioned about the character?

present tense is a good choice for the piece.  it gives a sense of immediacy that the past obviously can’t convey.

I’m curious as to the title.  I almost read this as “well, she’s (he’s…) drowning anyway, so how could what he or she is doing be better than drowning, but then i saw what drowning was better then…

But not clearly.  all i saw really was the drowning.  if the piece is about depression, in revision you should work on making that emotion, that mental state, more of a character.  why is its grip so tight “why do i push people away…”  i almost wanted an “alas” at the beginning of that line.  It doesnt tell the reader anything they havent heard before.

Good work so far, expand exoand expand.

James

     i like the extremes here. Dieing gives her stimulation. She hates to look at herself but though out the story her eyes are wide open. She also talks about what fate has to bring her but yet she’s not letting fate do its job and in the end you figure out it’snot her actual looks but who she is..i thought this was good

The idea of drowning one’s self in a sink is creative and almost as interesting as the actual suicide attempt. I like the internal dialogue and would like to hear more about the struggle/conflict. Perhaps using another character or voice carried out in the mind of the speaker could be a dynamic ‘prelude’ to develop your character’s dimensions. An intentional movement of physical action and emotional chaos. Suicide attempts/plans/ideations imply severe intellectual collapse or altered mental-state. A glimpse of the psychological would be interesting. You give a carefully detached account of the sequence of events Using the same objective tone construct a calm logical retelling of events including the extreme emotional nature of the topic. As you did before, use mechanical devices, descriptive actions, and thought processes to weave the speaker’s psychotic actions and physical sensations. Imagine the conversation the speaker has with reflection in mirror over the sink? Overall your mechanics, structure, and technique are very, very good. This piece has great motion and urgency without becoming frantic. I’d like to know more about the character/speaker.

Good hook (opening sentence). It served its intention to entice someone’s curiousity to stop and begin reading.

I am impressed someone your age had chose to write this actually. This is hardcore stuff. Bold is the word. Though I must say I shivered at the thought if this was written on the account of personal experience. I hope not.

The insight of what goes through the mind of a person committing suicide, the inner-conflict is written with empathy; she wanted to die, but at the same time, she also wanted to live. Interesting. Good.

This piece need some rewrite. Work more on conveyance, on how to get your meaning clearer. Rephrase some sentences, rewrite some descriptions to make it clearer on how you mean (a good tip is to always ask, whether it will make sense to someone else besides yourself). Make it flow better (Tip: read it aloud to see if it sounded as good as it is read quietly).

Aim for that. Clarity. Clarity. Clarity.

Don’t waste a potentially good story. Make it extraordinary.

1. The story lacks clues to allow one to really understand what the person have experienced.

There’s questions left unanswered (a story, is written to answer the question of WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHO & HOW, though not in any particular order, neither if it is necessary to include all; it depends on the story’s needs).

When that happen, there’s what is called plot hole—things that made the story puzzling, misunderstood, incomplete.

1. Your mission, as a writer, is to fill in the gap, to satisfy the curiosity of the readers. To give them the entire spa experience, instead of merely nail polish.

For example, the motivation that provokes the suicide attempt. Explain what brought the person to the act of committing suicide in the first place. Was she a victim of abuse? Did she gone through something terrible? etc.

What did the person had went through that is so bad, which make her choose to drown herself?

Then why in the middle of it, she decided not to? What did make her finally withdraw? What did suddenly came to her mind? Did she have someone she cared about, whom she is afraid to hurt should the person learn that she is gone?

1. A story that is character driven (like what you have written) serves to show how the character change in the end. Show the change.

1. What is the conclusion of the story. What lesson has been learned from all this. That life is after all precious? or, life isn’t that bad after all?

1. There’s some grammar inconsistencies.

“What happens to me is for fates to decide”. As you can’t count it, its “fate” (minus the s’) in singular.

1. Also work on punctuation. ie: Why am I doing this, again?

A comma indicates a short pause. Omit it from the sentence. Should be: Why am I doing this again?

Overall, this story has ambition. That is good. It takes on a topic (a challenging one at that) that is synonymous with modern society: teenage suicide, it does make one wonder, where did we(society)had went wrong, to have such a person, which he/she had felt so, secluded. Alone? And that is sad.

Keep up the good work writer. And happy working.

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January 17, 2009

by throughxthexfire

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No. of Reviews	Overall Quality	Comment Followup
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Thanks for the review! And, to answer one of the first things you said: No, this isn’t written from experience. I hardly ever write from personal experience.

I’ll try to work on the things you said, but I can’t promise I’ll get it on here.
But thanks anyways!

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great title. excellent way to draw attention. got mine.

“water lightly, shivers”—semi-colon might work better.

very visual opening. good good. spare and direct.

“the fates to decide”—fine, but odd. sounds too mythological. simply “fate”? up to you.

“Halting airflow”—excellent. you don’t see enough “halting” these days. well done.

“Because life hurts more… but it doesn’t have to.”—great show of ambivalence.

“splashes the walls.”—hm. until this point, i assumed we were outside, at a lake maybe. you could consider setting up your scenery earlier so i can carry the proper image throughout.

“my almost death”—rings very odd to me. you could cut it completely. it’s driving home something we already know: that the narrator almost died. closing with the simple, “I finally feel alive,” might stand stronger on its own without the forced contrast. again, up to you.

overall-

bleak turns hopeful. tight, tense scene. well done.

criticisms?

you could expand if you like. show me more of this person. who are they? why are they so hopeless? Is it a man or a woman?

With more tangibles to hang onto, the piece will carry more weight.

Ok, the thrill makes you feel alive but is that there is to this?  If so, this is really lacks a punch. It is just a anecdote telling of a person’s experience.  Therefore you broke your promise to me.  You promised me a change in the narrator as you tell me about his/her depression and hurt and the solution they come up with.  Since they decided to revoke the solution – what change caused that?  The desire to live? Ok – so?  What is to prevent the narrator from feeling the same as before once after the adreline rush is gone?

This can be fixed by simply having the narrator connect to a memory or a desire from his/her life that caused him/her to really want to live.

Also,if the body fights then what prevent the body from actually winning? Explain.