The Critical Eye: 6-10

Once more we open the Critical Eye and cast it on five more stories. As always, your feedback is welcome. If there were things







06: Abduction (110 words)

We do love our twists, don't we? And that's pretty much all this one was.

I actually had this idea a few years ago--my friend Shane was participating in a 24-hour challenge from the Theater (theatre?) Department at USD--the goal was to write a play, and put it on a day later (and the writer, director, and actors were all different people.) There were certain themes you had to include, one of which was the opening line "Did you just see that?" While I was sitting in the crowd, I had the idea of tying that line to a game show, and the "lightning round" gag sprang instantly to mind.


07: Obituary (83 words)

After a few "lighter" stories, I wanted something with a bit more darkness to it. Obviously, this piece is about the long-term effects of child abuse.

Also, I find it somewhat interesting that I almost never write about traditional horror elements--zombies and monsters and such. Probably because I find regular people to be far more terrifying.

(It's not autobiographical, by the way. Y'all can calm down.)


08: Evolution (11 "words")

Thanks to a weekend trip to Las Vegas, I'd fallen well behind, and needed something nice and quick to get caught up.

I like this one, but it would not surprise me at all to learn that someone else had done it. Also, if you don't know how binary works, it's not going to make any sense. ("There are 10 kinds of people...")


09: The Long War (167 words)

A lot of short stories are just about describing things from a different perspective. In this case, the tale of a child playing with his toys (from the perspective of those toys.) I could probably stand to tweak a word or two, but otherwise I like it.

I hope that kid finishes his Social Studies soon, because he's going to feel kinda shitty if those toys get left out in the rain.


10: The Hoax (51 words)

I got the idea from a special we aired about the famous War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938. What if someone had taken the panic too far? (Interesting note: apparently, it wasn't nearly as big a deal as we like to think. The actual response was pretty minor, and exaggerated for effect by the newspapers. Kinda disappointing, actually.)

I think I could have added a sentence or two, or maybe added some blood to the knife, just to make things a little clearer. Regardless, Arthur's in a lot of trouble.