Lance opened the door to his filthy, one bedroom, one bathroom apartment. In the living room sat a big screen TV, various DVD’s sprawled across the floor; some in cases, most not; two black leather sofas, and a cheap black and white thrift store coffee table. He tossed his keys onto the coffee table and made his way through the mess to the bedroom, which looked even worse than the living room.
Lance took his brown coat off and threw it to the floor. He was aiming for the large pile of clothes, but it landed closer to the half eaten week old pizza. There were crumpled pieces of paper, soda cans, beer cans, and random household objects lying on the floor. It took him almost and extra half hour to get ready for work each morning, simply because he could never find anything.
The cockroach that was crawling on the wall before lance left that morning was now feasting upon the pizza on the floor. He was going to kill the bug when he first noticed it while getting ready for work earlier that day. However, he changed his mind when he though about the woman who ruined his life.
She hated cockroaches. She thought of them as demons sent to the earth by Satan himself. They were the cursed souls of humans that were now shunned from the beautiful kingdom and forced to wander hell (earth) for all eternity with absolutely no purpose, and no way to die other than being squished…even then, they would simply be reincarnated into another cockroach. Every day, she would clean the house so thoroughly just to avoid them. She made the bed every morning just in case one happened to be crawling around in the bed. That way he wouldn’t be able to hide in the wrinkled white sheets.
So that morning, lance did not make his bed, nor did he throw away the week old pizza on the floor. Instead he left everything just as filthy and messy as it had been for days, named the cockroach Eduardo, and kept him around, just to spite her.
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I get the feeling that Lance the the woman have broken up, and he is hurt. Or, could the woman be his over-bearing mother? This isn’t quite a story, it sounds more like an idea for one. I want to hear some dialouge between Lance and this woman. Even a phone call. Maybe she needs to come to get something. Or, maybe his mother makes a surprise visit. It could very funny. You already have the built in conflict between the two characters. All you need is dialogue and a good beginning and end and you’ll have the story.
This is more of a character description, which is what I’ve been told about some of my work a few times. Ultimately, I’m indifferent to the character still. I understand he’s going though some things right now – the woman hurt him somehow and he hasn’t recovered but that’s not enough, I don’t think. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t bored. I was very interested in why his apartment was filthy and you gave a good reason, I think but that’ just…not enough.
I also thought the language was awkward and overstating in some places. For example:
Every day, she would clean the house so thoroughly just to avoid them. She made the bed every morning just in case one happened to be crawling around in the bed.
Instead, something like this:
She cleaned the apartment often and as a result, her fingers stripped from frequent exposure to bleach and other cleaning chemicals.
I also had an issue with the first sentence. For one, it’s long – too long; cut it up and get rid of one of those semicolons. The second one is used incorrectly. I don’t know that there’s on apartment on earth with one only bedroom but multiple bathrooms so why mention it only had one bathroom? If you wanted to say the apartment was small without saying, “the apartment is small” then just say he lived in a studio. You also don’t need, ”...than the living room” in the last sentence of that paragraph. Another thing – there is no such thing as just one cockroach. So the fact that he came home to see the same one is something I’d expect to see only in a Disney TV movie where the cockroach would talk and get in trouble with humans. That rules out naming it too.
Good luck, it’s a good start.
There is too much telling in this story. I mean you have description, but you tell us of the woman and the reaction of Lance. Why not show us of her? Show us scenes as they play out. Show us how the characters interact.
I know nothing of Lance and therefore I don’t care about him or for him. So I don’t care about his decision. You need to develop your characters more, make them real and flesh them out so that we can connect with them.
Good luck!
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