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Flash Fiction / unusual food combination (Analysis)

John Palmer walked in the door, whistling cheerfully. He put the bag from the Asian market on the kitchen counter. Every Monday, early in the morning, the Little China Asian Market of Portland, Maine receives a fresh shipment of sea food, especially squid.
John took a half pound of squid, and placed it on the cutting board. He chopped it up using his sharpest pare knife, and put it in a small bowl.
He then opened the freezer and took out a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream. “Ah,” he thought, “a meal made in Heaven.”

A drabble by
Allen

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DCAllen avatar General Stranger

October 10, 2009

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Lillie_M avatar General Stranger

July 22, 2009

Lillie_M

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jakuper avatar General Stranger

May 16, 2009

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REVIEW QUALITY: 100.0%(1 vote ) personal info reviewer stats
jakuper reviewed Version 1 - Read 100% of the Item

Where is a story? Ice cream with  slices of squid? That’s the story? it’s unusual food combinatyion, but that’s what your title says. You should bring something more than just telling us what is unusual – this isn’t even funny unusual like sipping hot coffee and licking ice-cream in between.

drbailey avatar General Stranger

May 05, 2009

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drbailey reviewed Version 1 - Read 100% of the Item

This is an interesting drabble. Most of the ones I have read thus far involve a bad man and a vulnerable woman. So this is somewhat of a pleasant change.

Is it bad that I think squid and B&J would be good? Hrm. Regardless, this made me laugh. I think you could place with the word economics a bit, if you wanted. For example, you have one sentence that refers to the asian market bag, then mention it again in the next.

You could use the first sentence to just say “bag” and get a few extra words to put someplace else. This would also potentially add mystery (what kind of bag is it that he has?) to keep the reader guessing and wanting to read more.

Regardless, I enjoyed this drabble quite a bit and it wins the drabble award for the pieces I’ve read today.

MisterP avatar General Stranger

April 29, 2009

MisterP

REVIEW QUALITY: 33.3333%(3 votes ) personal info reviewer stats
MisterP reviewed Version 1 - Read 100% of the Item

I’ll think twice before accepting an invitation to dinner!

Culinary skills to one side I thought this was a great diversion.

squarehopper avatar General Stranger

April 29, 2009

squarehopper Prolific-icon-medium

REVIEW QUALITY: 100.0%(2 votes ) personal info reviewer stats
squarehopper reviewed Version 1 - Read 100% of the Item

Change title to something more clever.

Change from past tense to present to make this more active.

You have a character, you have a scene but you don’t have a plot nor a conflict nor a resolution – so this fails as a story.  

You may consider writing this with a plot/conflict.  Have him be distracted by something and not realize he put the ice cream in with the squid and discovering he liked the taste?  But of course show us the reactions as though he was about to get sick?

Good luck!

Gavinswar avatar General Stranger

April 28, 2009

Gavinswar Prolific-icon-medium

REVIEW QUALITY: 66.6667%(3 votes ) personal info reviewer stats
Gavinswar reviewed Version 1 - Read 100% of the Item

Its fast and interesting. Given the parameters I would shorten the information given about the market and when they get squid and use the words to describe something else instead.
The concept of combining presumable raw squid and ice cream is fairly gross by any standards.
Gavinswar

Matthewtuckey avatar General Stranger

April 26, 2009

Matthewtuckey

REVIEW QUALITY: 100.0%(4 votes ) personal info reviewer stats
Matthewtuckey reviewed Version 1 - Read 100% of the Item

Hm. Well, the title does say all…

A story, no matter how short, should have an obstacle that the protagonist tries to overcome. As weird as the story is, this is what it lacked. Maybe trying to think of what to have it with and settling with ice cream  might work.

Also- is ice cream measured as a fluid, i.e. a pint? Isn’t it measured in grams as it is a mostly solid material?

He didn’t actually eat the sandwich, which would have paid off.

The title of the drabble gave away the punchline. If you called it “The Kitchen”, or something ambiguous like that, it would have more shock value.

urbanrenewal avatar General Stranger

April 24, 2009

urbanrenewal

REVIEW QUALITY: 100.0%(4 votes ) personal info reviewer stats
urbanrenewal reviewed Version 1 - Read 100% of the Item

My word count shows 99. You need one more word to make this actual drabble. Add it in somewhere and then it’ll be fine Word count wise.

Content wise: Good. You’ve conveyed your story effectively using your small max/min of 100 (with one more word added) But that’s where it stops. It’s only good. With Drabble it needs a hook. Something to hit the reader over the head and make them go wow. Good drabble writers convey a story in no more/no less than a 100 words, great drabble writers captivate their audience and leave the reader sitting there thinking…Wow…how the hell did he do that in 100 words?

For a first story, this is great! Just think of a hook, a catch, a thrill that will set the reader off on the same journey you want us to go on.

Spelling and punctuation wise, absolutely nothing that I can see, so top notch effort there. Good grammar.

Thanks for the read (and the complete gross out with this combination of foods)

snarfus avatar General Stranger

April 23, 2009

snarfus

REVIEW QUALITY: 75.0%(4 votes ) personal info reviewer stats
snarfus reviewed Version 1 - Read 100% of the Item

This doesn’t really feel like it has any kind of conclusion or point. To put it in perspective, I could write about making bacon and toast for breakfast, with nothing else happening. Sound exciting? Just because you have weird things he’s eating doesn’t necessarily make it more interesting.

Also, do you really need to use the brand name ice cream in the story? You could just write “pint of ice cream” and suddenly you’ve saved up 5 words you can use to add more depth to the story.

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apb148 avatar

apb148

Age: 43
Loc: South Portland, ME
Gen: M
Last Login: May 16
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