Dear Cole,
This story is about two guys trying really hard to be grown up Men, and failing. The main character is a college-aged guy with a lot of ideas who likes to brainstorm with his buddy, Connor. However, neither one of them are as good at putting these ideas into action as they are at coming up with them. During the course of the story, they try to put their schemes into action but it doesn't work out as they had planned. Their attempt at being Men, and men of action, fails.
The dialogue in this piece was very well executed. I think my favorite line was, "...I have been preparing for this for like three weeks now, and have three weeks' worth of unshaven chest hair to prove it. Beat that sucker." The whole idea of the two guys going back and forth, trying to one-up each other in manliness, really amused me. Also, the dialogue when your narrator is describing "dying in the cold winds of Siberia" and Conner replies, "We're in Wisconsin". That little dialogue snippet was very effective, and felt very natural and authentic. There were also a couple of descriptions that really caught my attention: "Godforsaken creation that is Facebook" on page 1, the phrase "flaunt our masculinity" on page 3, "goliath of a vehicle" on the same page. And finally there were three or so sentences that really the captured the kind of voice I think this piece calls for throughout: "I was ten; the name stays" on pg. 2, "After all, men don't need sleep" pg. 3, and the concluding sentence.
As far as suggestions go, I felt like the narrative voice was sometimes a little too stiff. Maybe the narrator is trying to sound grown-up and mature beyond his years, but it feels too much like it's trying to be scholarly and that doesn't fit with any themes of the story. Why not just call "messages on a computer" emails on pg 2? Also, "the remembrance of the sense of accomplishment and freedom was inspiring" on the same page is quite a mouthful. These kinds of descriptions happen frequently in your piece. I tried to mark all of them, because they felt out of place to me. They didn't sound like the way a college-aged kid on a quest for manhood would describe his emotions. In fact, I didn't really feel that the narrator should describe his emotions that much. We should be able to figure that out from the things he chooses to describe, and from his actions and dialogue. For that paragraph on pg. 2, "my heart would race" to "behind my old house today" could probably be cut. The transition into the memory would be a lot easier if it started with "I bet I could still find a hidden structure of logs and rocks behind my old house: Fort Batmans." Or something to that effect. I marked all the areas that felt a little stiff or awkward, and I put some suggestions on some.
I also wish there was a little bit more characterization. What separates Connor and the narrator besides the fact that Connor was a Boy Scout? Why are they trying so hard to be men? Did something before this challenge their manhood? I would also like to see some more specific details about their earlier friendship, things like Fort Batmans. What else did they do in grade school? Why weren't they that close in high school if they hung out in grade school, and are really close now? What kind of "haunted" places did Connor find? I would enjoy this piece so much more if details like Connor's knack for finding haunted places was replaced by an memory of a specific haunted place. These are all suggestions. They aren't necessary to the message of your piece, but I do think they would enhance the art of it.
Thanks for writing!
CK
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