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@taylorclogston

Okay, first off, great work tackling this topic! I love how honest the whole story is. Losing an unsaved loved one is definitely a very painful thing to go through, and I appreciate how you handled it—in showing the peace we can have through trusting in God’s righteous judgement while not presenting an illusion of comfort in the false hope that, “Oh, maybe they were saved after all or God just let them into Heaven anyway.” But also, I like that you showed how the narrator and Ashley’s father wrestled with that, and how real and painful the struggle is to accept it. The narrator’s struggle with jealousy is very realistic and relatable. Also, the fact that he seems to be attracted to Ashley because of her kindness and compassion rather than primarily her beauty is…frankly, refreshing. 😛 I always respect that in a character, and that makes him likable in my opinion.

My first bit of critique would be that the beginning few paragraphs (before the first asterisks) don’t seem to fit with the rest of the story. I think I see where you were going with it, but on the whole, it feels kind of detached. It’s almost like it was a different narrator; the phraseology doesn’t match that of a modern-day young man from Maine (which the style of the rest did). After reading those paragraphs, my expectation was that the story would be in a historical setting with a totally different feel (forgetting that you’d said it was contemporary). Also, it kind of gives away that someone is going to die of heat stroke, which maybe you intended. However, if readers have no idea that it’s coming, they will experience the shock with the character and thus identify with him more.

Second, you’ve written it sort of like a memoir (which I rather like even though I wouldn’t write that way myself), and the prose style you used fits that fairly well. However, it does allow quite a bit of leeway for telling. Now, your use of telling doesn’t just sound weak and lazy as it does in other styles. However, SE puts a lot of emphasis on eliminating telling and how much more powerful showing is (which I agree with).

So, I think you could improve it by livening up the scenes a little, focusing on the details and experience more. Weave in information instead of explaining things straight up. For example, instead of having the narrator describe what Randy is like, you could show that through his thoughts of him as Randy walks outside. I think even just Randy’s action of taking the hose when it wasn’t his turn and the narrator’s thoughts of his mother blaming him for it would offer a fair bit of insight as to what Randy’s character was like. Readers are smart. See how you can show the narrator’s emotions (e.g., his guilt) and cause the reader to pick up on it/feel it himself rather than simply having the narrator state that he felt guilty. If you’d like, I could point out specific things in the doc (just take my suggestions with a grain of salt, as I’m far from a show-don’t-tell expert and am still flailing about trying to grasp the fundamentals of eliminating telling myself xD).

Good work! Again, I loved the theme and the honesty in the way you approached it. It ended with hope that he was on the right path, but without everything being predictable and happily-ever-after. The story definitely felt like it meant something to you. That’s good. Keep writing stories that are like that. It makes such a difference in both your experience and the reader’s.