General

it was meh
prose was ok, felt like a bad imitation of a good style
show not tell
interesting concept but the message is nothing if it is not delivered well
lacks subtlety

@omegathorion: The whole point of this was that the focus isn't on the story but the message. I wouldn't want to focus on the story since that would detract from the images and direct ironies which are supposed to be the focus of the story. I do see what you mean by repetitive sentence structures. I'm going to take a look into it. I like some of the repetition. It's meant to be a story with unconventional structure so some of it may work. But what I will maintain is that there shouldn't be a story or focus on character motivations. I don't care much about the characters. The characters are more a reflection of the ills of our world and that is the focus and that is the beauty of a short story. I don't have to care about a greater plot if I don't want to.

@Clementz: Ever read The Wasteland? It was directly inspired by it, which may be part of why it seems so familiar. Other than that, I wrote that this week, so no way you ever read it before. Glad you got the message. If you could point out to me what were the most awkward phrases and words, it would be tremendously helpful! And yeah, it is a very, very depressing story. I was feeling really depressed and disillusioned when I wrote it.

I feel like I've read this before.
I felt the wording and pacing a bit odd in places.

Not a bad story, but one that depresses me.

@nindow: haha its fine xD

@juxos: oops. i didnt do anything since its not a huge announcement that requires spoilers, such as video game leaks.
@wontpostmuch i see. i believe that you should expand more on the characters in order to for the message to reach the reader more clearly.

So what I always like to say with any kind of writing is to read it aloud. I kind of feel like you tend to err on the side of longer sentences, which is okay in moderation, but after a while it becomes kind of predictable. Some of the more interesting moments happen when you break your sentence structure into small snippets instead of rambling with conjunctions and commas. If you try reading it aloud, you can see that it's easy to stumble over paragraphs with repetitive sentence structures.

I also wonder why you didn't separate the priest conversation into paragraphs the way you did with the psychic. Conventional wisdom says that each dialogue happens in a new paragraph, and I can't tell if you're intentionally trying to break it or not.

Finally, I feel like you are trying too hard to clobber the reader over the head with a message. In other words, I think that you are spending too much time telling rather than showing. I can see that you're playing around with omniscient/limited narration, but in my opinion you're sacrificing the story by doing so. Rather, I can hardly see a story. What are the character's motivations? What are they trying to do? What are their obstacles? As far as I can tell, none of these questions really get answered. You may as well have written it as a nonfiction essay/article rather than a short story.

I see the film Happy Go Lucky as a storified version of what you are trying to say ([url=https://filmcrithulk.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/hulks-favorite-movies-vol-ii-happy-go-lucky-2008/]here's an analysis about it that I like[/url]). It's also about the contrast between cynicism and innocence, but it does so through a much more personal lens. This would be a dramatic shift from your style, but I think that you could make some good headway if instead of writing about all these grand global things, you just focused on one small moment. Take one of the many things that you throw out in their giant lists and write it as a full scenario in the character's life. Less quantity, more quality.

That said, you clearly know that your message is, which is the most important thing.

@wontpostmuch I just read the excerpt and then I assumed based on the other trash you usually spew

@nindow: Well tbh, the story isn't really much about the narrator or grandmother. At face value, yes that's what happens but there's a much greater point in there.

@nindow: Really? REALLY???? Can you learn to use spoiler alerts when you're going to spoil something!

@fradddd: It's not even remotely anti-religious, rather a story of irony more than anything else. I fail to see why anything that mentions "God" in a creative writing paper has to suddenly be either anti-religious or pro-religious depending on the person reading (rather, not actually "reading" ) it.

skimmed through the story. kind of weird for my taste but i think i get the gist of it. basically, the narrator became like his grandma in the end? cause he went through a lot of phases before eventually having the same mentality she had.

@fradddd: Dude, seriously? How can you read that and think the focus of the story is on religion??

So is this some anti-religious thing?
Typical.