Comments on: Critique #99 — Adam B. Shaeffer

By: Adam B. Shaeffer

Adam B. Shaeffer — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 05:47:38 +0000

Thanks for the commentary, I appreciate it

By: kateelliott

kateelliott — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 06:46:06 +0000

I would turn the page to get the explanation for the 5×5 cubicle.

I perhaps might wish for a line or two of more specific detailed description of how the furniture in the room is in the right spot - that is, more visual detail since it seems to me there is a clue in all this somewhere.

By: Kevin Andrew Murphy

Kevin Andrew Murphy — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 18:33:11 +0000

Ditto on cutting “from his diaphragm” and likewise ditto on the rest of what Sherwood said.

I’d also cut the repetition of “central” because it’s implied the second time.

What intrigues/confuses me is the 5 x 5 cubicle, since I thought he was in his home rather than an office, and I’m not certain if this is odd description or a way of describing the alien cell he’s being held in by some observer. I’d turn the page to figure that out, but if I didn’t find an intriguing answer on the next page, I’d probably stop.

By: Sherwood Smith

Sherwood Smith — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 01:24:02 +0000

I’m intrigued, but mostly by wanting to know who is watching Stephen. Someone can read his mind because the narrator is telling us what Stephen looks like in the first line (brow furrowing, which is nothing we ever think about ourselves, unless we’re watching ourselves in a mirror) and that last graf was definitely someone else watching him and reporting on what they saw. (I do think you could cut ‘from his diaphragm’). If we were really in Stephen’s POV, we’d see what he found funny before he fought against and then gave in to the laugh.