Response to Shelby's "A Flicker in the Night"

Hey, Shelby. Yours is my last blog post for this class. Sad day.

So, this was a short story detailing the going-to-bed ritual of a young girl and her mother. And at the end, that ritual is broken.

So there were a lot of things that were really working about this story. To start with, the description in the third paragraph on pg. 1 was great and engaged a lot of the senses. I also loved the comparison on pg. 1 of her eyelids "sliding slowly over my eyes like raindrops down a window". Also, the details about the squeaky floorboard and the perfume made the story feel really authentic, so good job with that!

As far as suggestions go, there were a few minor word omissions such as "night" on the end of the opening sentence and " it" on the end of the first sentence on pg. 2 (I marked both of these for you). Also, there was an extra comma between dim and TV on page 1 in the third paragraph. I wonder why the mother's dialogue is in italics. I'm not sure that is necessary. I already get the sense that she is whispering just from the context and the italics distract me a little. Finally, the ending is a little bit confusing to me...I don't understand the significance to the little girl not waking up when her mother came in. Is she just growing up and growing out of the rituals of her youth? Or is there something darker that I'm not getting?

Thanks for writing!!!

CK