Response to Matt's "Fortune"

Hey, Matt.

So this story was about a man who isn't all that happy with his life getting robbed, and having to overcome his habit of not taking action in order to escape (at least, I think he escapes.) We don't know much about the narrator except that he is very attached to his dog, that someone who used to live with him left, that his job stresses him out, and that he cares about his niece.

I like how you incorporate somewhat scholarly diction into your piece, such as "sternum" and "concupiscence" on pg. 1 (I had to look that last one up), and "analgesic" on pg. 5 (I had to look that up, too). Even though these terms struck me as scholarly and I didn't know half of them, you balanced it with very conversational syntax. For example, on pg. 2 the sentence "There are two men and they are in balaclavas and they are in my living room and one of them is holding a gun" is constructed of very short clauses that are pasted together, calling the reader's attention to these details as the narrator becomes aware of them. Even the lack of contractions feels normal. I don't feel as though your narrator is talking down to me. I just feel like his day to day vocabulary is somewhat larger than mine. I really appreciate the voice you create.

There are also some awesome comparisons that you made. Likening the robber's eyes to the eyes of the dog struck me the most, actually (pg. 2), especially when the narrator wonders if the robber is also missing some important part of his head. I also appreciated the description of the robber acting as though "he wants me to have an excellent home invasion experience" (3). Also, the description of the second robber after he got shot as scratching at itch was very effective.

I like how you incorporate the television in the background, too. I don't know if that grew out of our earlier exercise in this class or if you'd had this idea long before, but I especially find the woman's screams to be chilling.

As far as suggestions go, there are a couple typos that are easily fixed. They mostly appear on the second page and the fifth page. I marked them all in my copy, at least all the ones that I found. As far as the actual content of the story goes, I think the only thing I would like changed is maybe a bit more information about the narrator (Mike). Particularly, I want to know why someone important left him. It seems implied that Mike is overly passive (sitting on the cough eating Oreos, never got rid of the posters his niece gave him, can't seem to fight back until the very end). Was that part of the reason this important somebody left?

Kay, that's all I got. As always, good job! I like reading your stuff and I want to read the final product of this story once you get it all nice and polished.