Matthew Zeimer
Flash Fiction Reflection
“August 1991” was meant to be a realistic depiction of a young
woman in an unhappy marriage who sees what is best for her and her son in
her husband’s best friend. The core aspects of the characters, along with
this theme, appear to have been generally perceived by all of the people
reviewing the piece, which is good. However, there were several points that
I received important suggestions on.
The most helpful criticisms the piece received were about involved
several significant points that I would definitely improve on if I were to
revise the story. One of these was a lack of clarity in an admittedly wordy
sentence: “…reeking of cheap beer and faintly of what she hoped wasn’t a sign
he had fallen back in to his old ways of staying up all night.” This confused a lot
of people. It was meant to suggest that Murat smoked crack cocaine, which has
a very faint odor and is commonly used by students to stay up, and which
would show how bad of a father Murat is. But readers were often found to think
this referred to either Marijuana or another woman’s perfume, both of which
do not convey the correct message, so rewording this somehow to make it more
clear would be very important. Another thing in need of revision is, as shown in
the previous example, some excessively long sentences. I enjoy writing multi-
layered and elaborate sentences because it feels very natural to me, but after
having a few key examples pointed out, I have realized that some portions of
the story could be simplified to improve clarity and avoid confusing the reader.
Some sentences this was suggested for, including the first one, I and other
readers simply disagree with, but sentences like this one:
“He sat up all night with her, long after Justin had dozed off, eating
kung’pao chicken Mike picked up from a great place up the road and
talking about how smart Justin was and about how Mike’s engineering
education and Murat’s med school were going, and eventually to the
future”
are unnecessarily long to the point that it detracts from the message. Another
thing that could be improved on is the shift in style from the first half to the
second. Once Murat leaves, the plot progresses very quickly and the dialogue is
finished for the story. While when I first heard this, I disagreed because I
pictured that scene as a fond memory of two people enjoying a night together
and the story is intended to “zoom out” for that portion to signify time flying
when they are together, but after hearing the input of the people reviewing the
piece, I eventually agreed. The dialogue could be small pieces of the entire
night, but it should be dialogue, not telling the reader that there was dialogue.
Finally, and probably most importantly, I received a lot of advice on how to
properly conclude the story. I knew when I was writing it that the conclusion
was weak and too obvious, but the suggestions that I was given, especially that
Trish should go and sit with Justin or get out of bed rather than just “make a
decision” to make the ending less awkward and more symbolic of things to
come.
In addition to the helpful comments I received, I did receive some
feedback that I disagreed with. This feedback was mainly stylistic choices,
which I disagree with for the obvious reason that every writer has their own
style and while its natural to try to apply your own style to another person’s
writing to see what’s wrong with it, I don’t think that those kinds of changes
make the piece objectively better. There were also issues with a lack of
elaboration on certain points. People wanted what, in my opinion, was a
complete spelling-out of every slightly unclear thing in the piece, and as a
stylistic choice I tend to prefer to leave things vague and ambiguous to allow
the reader to apply their own emotions to the piece.
In general, I think the workshop was surprisingly helpful, and I believe I
could write a significantly improved second draft using the feedback I received
for this piece.