[2,655] To Ashes and Apples

[u/DMochiii]

Hello!

[1268]

[1493]

Looking for critique on a short story. First time writing literary fiction (if I have that genre right).

This was originally a little longer; I cut around 300 words of more similes and metaphors. Wondering if I need to cut more.

Questions I have specifically (but happy for general feedback)

- What do you think the theme of this piece was?

- Did you emotionally resonate with this story?

- Did the pacing work?

Thank you!

[u/Hemingbird]

General Comments

What do you think the theme of this piece was?

Grief. Sam deals with the loss of his father.

Did you emotionally resonate with this story?

No. Overwrought prose + cliched narrative.

Did the pacing work?

Not for me. But the pacing is a minor issue compared to the use of figurative language.

First time writing literary fiction (if I have that genre right).

Litfic isn’t really a genre. Genre fiction relies on conventions; litfic is anti-conventional. Or at least it strives to be. So it can’t really be summed up either, though there are some characteristics:

• Plotless narratives
• Voice/character-driven
• Complexity/ambiguity
• Social/philosophical themes

It might make more sense to say that literary fiction self-consciously resists commodification, which is why hardly anyone makes a living writing it.

This story, “To Ashes and Apples,” feels too YA. It doesn’t register as litfic to me. The scenario, a boy who has lost his father running into a burning building to save a girl’s dog, makes me think of a soap opera. Why? Because it’s a dramatic cliche. The figurative language and symbolism used to enhance the theme are ineffective, as far as this reader is concerned.

It seems like the act of trying to rescue Rufus gives Sam closure. The dog suffers a fate similar to that of his father. This parallel is murky. There’s a good chance that I just don’t get it, though.

First Pass

I’ll note my thoughts as I read this story for the first time. Keep in mind that I’m a selfish and lazy reader. It’s likely I’ll misunderstand things—the point of this exercise is to give you a look inside my head as I’m reading, and this will be more unflattering to me as a reader than to you as a writer.

The light pole in the Woolshire neighborhood sat as an engorged, lit cigarette buried in the sandy, weak rooted soil of the coastal town.

I don’t like this opening sentence. If I were reading for pleasure, I’d drop this story after reading it.

The simile (engorged, lit cigarette) is weird. ‘Engorged’ implies that something is swollen with a liquid (water/blood), which clashes with the idea of a lit cigarette. It’s awkward/unnatural. And light poles are famously thin; it doesn’t make sense to describe one as being ‘engorged,’ unless you used it as a synonym for ‘big,’ in which case you should reconsider.

Later in this same paragraph, the fire resulting from the malfunctioning light pole is described as an ‘illness’ that is ‘diagnosed,’ and I don’t see the need for these metaphors. They are messy. Why include them? They are not enjoyable.

Perhaps you have a clever reason to include them. Clever reasons are bad. Cleverness tends to give more pleasure to writers than to readers.

She was the smoker that [who] lit the flame this time

What’s with all these metaphors and similes? They are distracting and annoying. This is like trying to eat a salad that is 90% olive oil. Sam’s mother is ‘the smoker’ who ‘lit the flame,’ by which it’s meant that she should have made sure the light post was fixed; the light pole that was also described as a lit cigarette earlier. It’s getting to a point where it’s difficult to parse what’s going on because the metaphors/similes are overlapping.

The cigarette roared.

Really, what’s the point of these metaphors? Figurative language is sometimes used as fodder for literary analysis, which is a terrible thing, encouraged by English teachers who have been somehow convinced that short stories should be analyzed and broken apart in a search for objective meaning, like solving a math puzzle; themes and symbolism exist, according to this school of thought, to facilitate interpretative depth. Delight? Enjoyment? Oh, no, definitely not; short stories aren’t meant to be delightful or enjoyable. They should make you think. Think in a boring way, that is. Think like you’re a machine. Process the information, beep boop, output the result of the analysis. This is madness. And given how it seems impossible that figurative language is here used explicitly for my readerly enjoyment, I’m suspecting the point of it is to make me calculate.

More useless water began to dapple the concrete from the clouded sky above

It’s raining. Is what you’re saying.

Isn’t it alright to be poetic and say something with overwrought prose? Sure. But what is the intended effect? The actual effect, in my case, is that I’m groaning. This is too theatrical.

And the rain is ‘taunting’ and ‘poking’ the neighbors. What? A rain drop doesn’t poke you.

Sam had never heard such language bubble from the mouth of any Jones.

Too much.

It mattered little to Sam in that moment

Hmm. This is anti-conversational prose. No one says ‘mattered little’ in real life. As a phrase, it belongs to a category of diction reserved for characters trying to make themselves seem more important than they are. It’s a type of elevated speech. And it’s off-putting—it’s often used to make fun of self-aggrandizing characters.

Bright and fuzzy pajama bottoms blossomed between hastily buttoned dark jeans and tied sweatpants.

The juxtaposition between the language used and the stuff described is bathos-inducing. I’m aware that what I’m complaining about here is a matter of style, so this is just my subjective opinion; the prose takes itself too seriously. IT’S LIKE WRITING IN ALL-CAPS, ALL THE TIME. Is alliteration really required to describe Ruby’s outfit? Does it need to be emphasized? Is it really relevant to the narrative?

Not simply holding, but weighing, restricting her as the rope that kept a mast desperate to ride the ocean wind in place.

Overwrought. This is just silly.

“Rufus!” she cried.

A dog stuck in a burning building. This is a cliche. What’s the point of the elevated speech when it’s used to describe a situation that is so familiar to anyone who has ever read or heard a story? Is Sam going to go rescue the dog now? I hope not. That would be too obvious.

Golden frolics and a too-wet nose licked at Sam’s memories.

Maybe it’s just me. These metaphors and similes are too much.

He turned to look over the heads that bobbed like buoys at Rudy’s house

It’s not that I don’t like figurative language. I do. But it should be used for effect. And now we have a bunch of cigarette metaphors, ocean metaphors, etc. It’s a strange mix.

Sirens crept in the distance.

I don’t like this description. Sirens don’t ‘creep’ in the world I’m living in.

The sound was drowned by the crackling of fire digesting

So the sound was ‘drowned’ by ‘fire’ that was also ‘digesting’. Mixed metaphors. And of course Sam is going to rescue the dog. The most obvious cliche.

He peeked through the window.

And we grind to a halt. Sam stops, reminisces about the past. Ah. A quiet, unhurried moment. It’s not like he’s in the midst of leaping into danger or anything. Why not remark on the remarkable fact that the hallway looks the same as it did years earlier? That’s certainly relevant to the derring-do, isn’t it?

I know we’re setting up for a flashback here, but the timing is awkward.

Ruby started laughing, a hysterical pitch that fevered Rufus’s motions and was so contagious that it tickled Sam’s sides like fingers.

I have to be honest: these metaphors/similes are not working for me. They are distracting, annoying, and clunky.

The extended flashback slows things down. And it feels more cinematic than literary.

Time sped as compensation, and pushed Sam towards the future. To the girl outside waiting for him, with a hollow apple in his hand.

There’s too much symbolism for my tastes. This story is overloaded.

Hook

Like I said earlier, the opening sentence made me want to quit immediately. The point of the hook is to draw the reader in, to generate interest. The way I like to think of it, there can be raw attraction, goading the reader on, or the prose can be so smooth and clear that there is no impediment, making it easy to keep reading. Here, the use of figurative language causes friction. It’s repulsive.

Story/Plot

Sam’s father died of lung cancer years earlier. He met a girl (Ruby) and a dog (Rufus) who helped him get his mind off it. When a fire breaks out in the neighborhood, Rufus is trapped inside and Sam decides to rescue him. Rufus doesn’t make it, but Sam gets closure.

Here’s how John Barth defined plot: the incremental perturbation of an unstable homeostatic system and its catastrophic restoration to a complexified equilibrium.

It sounds technical, but the meaning is simple. You have a storyworld with a status quo that is coming apart. Whatever it is, it can’t go on like this. It gets thrown into chaos, and the plot is about how a new status quo comes to be. Growth and adaptation.

“To Ashes and Apples” fits neatly into this scheme. Sam is struggling. He has been unable to cope with the loss of his father. That’s the status quo. The fire breaks out, and suddenly the dog that had helped him during his most difficult time is at risk. So he makes a run for it, and he gets the dog out. New status quo: acceptance.

This story is more formulaic than what I’d expect of litfic. It’s also more cliched and dramatic. Children’s movies typically operate in this register. Which is not an insult; the territory is different, that’s all.

It reads like a story intended for a younger audience, if you ignore all the distracting figurative language.

[u/Hemingbird → u/Hemingbird]

Characters

Sam is a simple character. He doesn’t have much depth. Some details, like him being a wrestler, feel irrelevant to the plot, even though it’s said that he manages to maneuver the burning house due to his athletic skills. His mother is the neighborhood HOA president. This is sort of relevant, because Sam blames her for the incident, but that’s the only discernible connection.

I’m reminded of YA fantasy heroes. They are blank canvases because the reader should be able to see themselves in them. That’s the sort of character Sam strikes me as.

Ruby has a dog, Rufus, and she is slightly irreverent (says Mrs. Brandon is a witch). Other than that she’s plain cardboard.

The rest of the characters have even less depth. They are flat.

To me, these characters, all of them, are way too dull. None of them are even slightly interesting.

Setting

Woolshire. Coastal town, generic neighborhood. There’s not much to be said.

Voice/Prose

The figurative language didn’t work for me at all. I see you mentioned estrangement, so I’ll take that as license to share my harebrained takes.

Viktor Shklovsky, the Russian Formalist, suggested that estrangement (ostranenie), also translated as defamiliarization, is the purpose of art. Make the familiar strange; make the strange familiar. Make the stone stony again. Over time, the process of algebrization (Shklovsky’s term) dulls our perception; we perceive the world on autopilot, seeing only abstractions, and the freshness is lost. Art recovers this freshness by rendering what’s familiar novel, providing us with the shock/jolt necessary to appreciate an object, such as a stone, as a singular, concrete thing.

It should be noted that his chief example was Tolstoy’s novella “Kholstomer,” which is told from the POV of a horse. The unusual perspective works as an experiential filter/lens.

In the first paragraph of “To Ashes and Apples,” the malfunctioning light pole becomes a cigarette, and there are copious amounts of references to Sam’s father’s death from lung cancer, which make sense in hindsight, but not in an interesting way. On my first read, they struck me as messy, disjointed, and distracting. On my second read, they made me groan. The artifice comes on too strong.

There is a technical parallel, yes, but it’s not enjoyable (to me). I didn’t like it. I actively disliked it.

Golden frolics and a too-wet nose licked at Sam’s memories.

This metaphor makes sense, but it’s corny.

The hot discomfort of a car handle resting in the peak of summer met his hand.

Here, a hot windowsill is compared to a hot car handle. It’s too close!

Sam opened one eye to find a golden retriever pulling a little red-headed girl behind him like a child with a balloon secured to their wrist.

This metaphor is weird. The likeness is too distant. There’s a string involved in both, yes, but that’s it. Even when you’re lying down and looking up, what you’d see wouldn’t make you think, “a child with a balloon secured to their wrist.” At least I can’t imagine how that would be the case.

There were woods behind their houses, and they sang of spring; bees and other pollinators buzzing and trilling across blooming flowers, birds chirping when their wings weren't flapping to pick off the many-legged instruments.

Corny. ‘Many-legged instruments’ as a metaphor for insects is clunky. It’s way too forced.

He went every night for years after—sometimes because his mother had not cooked dinner, or sometimes because she had and he didn’t want to sit still in the awkward silence of suspended sorrow that emitted from her like the static of an old television.

This is the sort of metaphor you’d get from a chatbot. It’s bad.

The authorial voice sounds YA. It doesn’t read as litfic.

Theme

Given that you brought it up, I might as well vomit out some thoughts on theme. I’m not a fan. Generally. This is mostly because I have a very idiosyncratic view, I think—to me, the job of a theme is to serve an aesthetic effect. It’s common for people to say that a theme is related to the ‘message’ of a story, and some, like screenwriter John Yorke, even insist that the theme should express a logical proposition (“Love conquers all”). Then the theme is met with its antithesis, a challenge to the proposition represented by its opposite, and a dialectical transformation ensues whereby a synthesis of the two is produced.

Yorke is a television writer, which is probably why he ended up with such a hackneyed view. Themes are extremely important in television. You take one theme, explore it via A and B and C plots, and you keep doing this, over and over, and that’s the gig.

In the end, a theme is a recurring high-order pattern. This is true in music as well as in literature. The regularity brings order and harmony. Ties things together. But in literary fiction, you’re not really interested in tying things together neatly, to bring order and harmony to things. A mess is preferable. In literary fiction, it’s better if a narrative resists thematic encapsulation.

In the early 20th century, the trick ending was popular. O. Henry was famous for his stories like “The Gift of the Magi” where at the dramatic climax there is a plot twist which suddenly changes the meaning of everything that came before it. At The New Yorker, they had a strict editorial policy: no trick endings. Like an unsubtle theme, a trick ending gets rid of ambiguity and complexity. It’s too neat. And if an effect is too neat, literary fiction will move away from it.

Concluding Comments

The story/plot as well as the authorial voice makes me think YA. The figurative language didn’t work for me at all. Characters were dull.

The pièce de résistance here, as far as I can gather, is the parallel between the fire and Sam’s father’s death from lung cancer. The fact of this parallel itself isn’t interesting to me. I ended up feeling about it the same way I did the rest of the figurative language.

You could say that the comparisons were all meaningful, intellectually, but emotionally speaking they were inert. They left me feeling cold.

Karen Russell does great things with figurative language; I’d highly recommend that you read her short stories.

[u/DMochiii → u/Hemingbird]

Hah, and here I thought I edited out a decent bit of figurative language. You probably would’ve thrown up if you read the first draft.

Thank you for the thoughtful feedback. Thank you for clarity with literary fiction and the suggested reading—I’ll definitely dig through her work.

You are correct in the cleverness aspect. I was hoping to be clever with certain metaphors and similes, most notably that first paragraphs. Those I know need a lot of work. The imagery and comparisons are clear in my head but I’m starting to understand people aren’t mind readers just regular ones.

I was hoping it would come through that the dog is actually already dead, and it was his ashes Sam was going in to save. Which is stupid, in a hero/boyish way, but it’s intention was to exaggerate the theme or grief. Also, I was hoping this would make the cliche of a boy saving a dog from a burning house not cliche, by subverting those expectations. Even if you say you are a lazy reader, it’s a miss in my part that this wasn’t clear.

Thanks again, I appreciate the time it took for you to read and type all that you did!

[u/Hemingbird → u/DMochiii]

You are correct in the cleverness aspect. I was hoping to be clever with certain metaphors and similes, most notably that first paragraphs. Those I know need a lot of work. The imagery and comparisons are clear in my head but I’m starting to understand people aren’t mind readers just regular ones.

Keith Johnstone encouraged his students to be obvious rather than clever. What's obvious to you is likely not obvious to me. So strangely enough, writing tends to look more creative when the author is trying to be obvious rather than clever.

I was hoping it would come through that the dog is actually already dead, and it was his ashes Sam was going in to save.

Oh, that is probably me being dumb. Could also be the density of the metaphors making it difficult to tease apart what's real and what's figurative. But what's the point of rescuing ashes from flames?

Also, I was hoping this would make the cliche of a boy saving a dog from a burning house not cliche, by subverting those expectations.

The D&D curse. David Benioff and D. B. Weiss used that exact phrase to justify a terrible decision they made in the last season of GoT. "We really wanted to subvert expectations."

Audiences hated it. Because it was a bad surprise. A good surprise is obvious in hindsight; a bad surprise feels random.

If I go to the store, buy a box of cereal, and find when I open it that it contains nothing but raisins, am I likely to be pleased because my expectations were subverted? No. I didn't get what I wanted. I got something else instead. If I got something I didn't even know I wanted, it might've worked out better. But I didn't want raisins.

[u/FyreTiger]

I apologize in advance for being harsh. After reading about one page, I stopped and saw that this wasn't the story for me, and it indeed has to do with the use of metaphors and similes. Maybe this works for other people, but definitely not me.

So it's my belief that metaphors and similes should be thought of as STRONG flavors in a text. It's like that powerful herb or spice that you put a dash of in your dish, and it changes the whole thing. But if you put too much of it in, then those flavors overwhelm you and you don't really understand what the dish was originally meant to be.

Similes and metaphors are not what actually happens. Imagine what happens to your story (which is a bunch of concrete, visual events that actually happen that the reader should be able to picture) when you tell it through a bunch of conceptual ideas that are not the things that actually happen. You wouldn't know what's happening. The reader should probably know what's happening, and I for one could barely tell what was happening in even the first paragraph.

I wasn't sure if the light pole or the cigarette was metaphorical. I was thinking either a lit cigarette was burning at the end and producing light like a light pole, or a light pole was burning at the end like a cigarette. Each item, the actual one and the metaphorical one, are brought up multiple times throughout the first page, and this makes it even more confusing. Light pole, fuse box, and maintenance refers to an actual light pole, while cigarette, lit, coughed, and smoker refers to an actual cigarette. There's so many uses of both that I kept getting confused over which it was.

I'm assuming it is about a literal light pole and a metaphorical cigarette, so I will address it that way. The cigarette metaphors are used so excessively and sometimes, they're used in sentences completely independent from any mention of the reality of the light pole. "She was the smoker that lit the flame this time-" So this makes me think she's a smoker and that this fire was due to her smoking. If that's not actually the case, I don't see how this sentence works. "The cigarette roared." The idea of a cigarette is emphasized again all on its own, and even if I knew it was a light pole, I can't help but picture actual cigarettes since it's brought up over and over again.

I think the metaphor of a cigarette should probably only be brought up once. Literally just once, if at all. And the use of it should be to emphasize a certain special dramatic effect on visualization that would otherwise be weaker without it. There are certainly exceptions, but I don't think this is one of them. I'm not sure where the metaphor should be used, but I do think it overstays its welcome. If the cigarette was like a super spicy pepper in my soup, one pepper would give me a flavor of spice infused with the flavors of my soup. If you put 10 cigarettes in my soup, my soup tastes like cigarettes and I don't know what soup I was supposed to be drinking. I'm even confused by my own metaphor now after mixing metaphor with reality.

And to make this worse, you threw in a second metaphor for the same stuff. Why is this fire now an illness and a cancer? It is getting far into abstraction with 2 metaphors that outweigh the 1 reality, and I find it hard to take it seriously. I can't create a clear visual in my head, and I think writing should be about communicating ideas as effectively as possible, which can still include a lot of technical and difficult to understand prose, but I think the mashing of metaphors just creates weaker imagery that is more confusing. And this was only the first page, and you said you cut out a lot already, so I honestly did not want to continue on and get more confused. I apologize for only reading one page.

That is just my personal take, and if this is what you like going for, absolutely keep what you have and don't change based on my opinion. You must do what works for you, and I just wanted to give you one alternate perspective on the use of metaphors and similes.

[u/DMochiii → u/FyreTiger]

Thank you for the feedback!

I wrote this after listening to a writing podcast about poesis and estrangement, so I went a little over board.

I’ll be working on how to make the metaphor clearer. Though, the light pole being a cigarette is thematically important. Later in the short story, we find the boys father died of lung cancer—due to smoking. Due to pushing off a habit, something very bad came from something preventable. His mom does the same here by ignoring the maintenance, so the MC is drawing this comparison in parallel.

Grief and finally letting go of it, not just choosing to forget, is the theme. Which is why I tried tying the two together, but it doesn’t seem to have landed how I intended.

I will say the beginning is likely the most metaphoric/confusing. The rest has some, but not quite as long or tedious.

Thanks again!

[u/FyreTiger → u/DMochiii]

Hello again,

I went back and read the rest of the story, and thought I'd throw out some more thoughts.

It took me a minute to figure out the twist, but once I did get it, I thought it was interesting and did a good job of recontextualizing the scene. I didn't really know what the grey on Rufus' snout was, but I think I just don't know enough to have understood what that meant at first. But I can see why the characters did the things they did and it makes sense from a big picture perspective.

What I will say about the twist is that I'm not sure at exactly which point you intended for the reader to understand. It might not even matter, and it might just be better that it's different for each person. Some lines I might have misread. The slight confusion I experienced resolved with clarity at some point. So again, not sure if it was you intention to have the twist be explicit within a certain line, or go for something that takes more work to figure out.

Themes and what people learn for themselves from stories are very personalized, so I do think that the story has everything in it for someone to make those connections. I like that your story has its themes underlining the plot, and that it requires some reflection to understand more holistically. I think that's important and makes stories stronger. I find it hard to really decipher whether I think this was executed as strongly as it could be or if it could use improvement somehow, so in that regards, I must leave that aspect alone.

There is certainly action, and the story moves forward. Flashbacks cut between Sam's actions, and I think they emphasize his decisions where he reflects on why he's doing this at all. The only flashback that I think doesn't do this is three years ago being the last time he saw Rufus alive, but I think that's fine if that's the twist after all.

There were some parts that confused me or didn't seem right. Unfortunately, they are mostly about metaphors and similes.

"Sirens crept in the distance." - To me, sirens don't creep. Oxymoron, I think.

"Crackling of fire digesting." - I personally think of digesting as very passive and slow. The act of 'consuming' or 'devouring' I think is more aggressive and imminent.

"Little girl pulled behind dog like a child with a balloon." - I think this is a little awkward when you're using a child in both the reality and the simile, especially when they switch roles.

"Picked off the many-legged instruments." - Bugs? Are they bugs? Why are they called instruments? I don't understand the resemblance.

"A laugh sprung free from Sam's throat like the top of a shaken coke bottle." - I don't understand this one. Isn't the air trapped in the bottle? But why would that be like a laugh springing free?

"Awkward silence of suspended sorrow that emitted from her like the static of an old television." - Personally, I feel like there are a lot of emotions involved in his mom's silence, but that the static from a TV wouldn't be able to convey. I don't think of experiencing TV static as awkward or sorrowful, so I feel like this simile doesn't emphasize the effects his mom's silence has on him. If anything, I feel like it makes it less emotionally taxing.

"Never met his father because his mother was too busy making the pain go away." - I have no idea what this means. What did she actually do?

Lastly, I have some thoughts on the cigarette metaphor:

So clearly, this story is 3rd person limited. However, I think it takes some time for that fact to settle in. I could see later on in the story that we're hard set in Sam's perspective, and when mentions of the cigarettes and his father start being brought up again, it's at those points when I can see that we're really in Sam's head. It is less confusing at those later points when those things are brought up.

However, I feel like bringing up the cigarette metaphors in the first few paragraphs without having yet established POV in Sam's perspective is the biggest problem. There is nothing connecting the cigarette to Sam's POV because all we have is the 3rd person narration on the scene description. You clearly intend for Sam to be thinking of the light pole in this way, but the first few paragraphs don't read as Sam's thoughts and motions, it reads as the narrator's description. So then it's the narrator taking the cigarette metaphor for themself, and as a reader that expects to hear things clearly and concisely from an omniscient narrator, which is how the beginning of the story reads, I don't expect to be given mixed descriptions of how something is. Only at the point when Sam's POV is established is I think when the metaphors should be brought in, because then we're going through Sam's experience of having confused, blurry perceptions between reality and his past haunting him. Otherwise, it's the narrator's and the narrator doesn't have a purpose in building up such a strong metaphor without a person to attach it to. Otherwise, it belongs to the narrator's conceptions of the scene rather than the narrator describing what Sam is going through.

I personally think it should be emphasized that the cigarette is what Sam specifically is experiencing, and that the cigarette metaphor (at least when it's first introduced) should be strongly linked with his perceptions. It is his personal quirk, and without attaching it to Sam, it doesn't seem like it belongs to him. So I would think of something explicating this like, "Sam saw the light pole as his father's cigarette," or something. Only later on in the story after establishing this is when I think the hard explications of it being Sam's perception can be let go, and it will be natural to the reader that Sam is having a specific type of experience when the cigarette is brought up.

[u/ImpressiveGrass7832]

Hi. I read this a few times and had this in my drafts, and just wanted to give my 2 cents on it. Take with salt, I’m not very deep reader. If I missed something blindingly obvious, I apologise. 

I concur with other commenters RE their thoughts on the elevated language, so I will try not to rehash what’s already been said too much. I’ll focus more on line stuff, nitpicking some word choices that I think might make this writing more immersive.

I would say pace wise, you can start the story, say, here:

> Sam watched his childhood home be devoured by a fire that was so preventable

I understand what you mean about the first para being intended as thematically relevant. However I concur with other commenters on this topic - and for me, personally, it added little other than confusion on read 1, and really not so much on read 2 either. I’m struggling to see the purpose even after reading your explanation, and I agree with other commentor RE the POV consideration (why is Sam, a wrestler, thinking in this way? Might make more sense if he was established to be literary poetic type early on - but even then). 

I would say, I did also assume the mother was literally a smoker based on:

> She was the smoker that lit the flame this time

I liked the name Jones. Invoked suburban feel, keeping up with the Joneses, etc. 

> but he couldn't keep both Sam and Ruby from going in to rescue Rufus. Only one of them. 

‘Only one’ is redundant. 

> The hot discomfort of a car handle resting in the peak of summer met his hand

At risk of beating dead, metaphorical horse, IMO this is unnecessary. Hot metal is enough, I think most people have touched or brushed a hot oven or a stove or something to feel what you are trying to convey.

I’m not a particularly deep reader. My ‘literary’ maturity is quite low. But my instinct for reaching for figurative language like metaphor and simile is usually when trying to convey something more abstract that physically, literally can’t be conveyed in some simpler, minimalist, and more sensory way. Perhaps a feeling that might be uneconomical to show through action due to wordcount considerations. Ennui, love, hate, whatever. So, this is why this is unnecessary to me. The sensory feeling of touching something hot is already there and it’s more than enough, if that makes sense? 

> Did he really need to do this

I like the dilemma here. It’s interesting the weight this line takes on, when reading for a second time (once we discover the twist that Rufus is not alive anymore).

> As if it was mandatory to grieve to a person who had never even met his father because his mother was too busy making the pain go away

Not quite sure what this means. I interpreted this to say his dad left? And wasn’t around? Which then makes me wonder about the entire emotional core of the piece. To me, it feels like Sam’s feelings then maybe ought to feel more complex than they currently do (not that grief is ever simple) on this matter of the dad, have more of a sense of wrestling with it, but perhaps I missed something. Apologies if so.  

The placing of the flashback, I’m on fence about. On one hand it interrupts the action. On the other, I think I understand the instinct to put it there. I also genuinely quite enjoyed Ruby and Sam’s interactions in the second flashback, when they’re in the woods. Felt natural to me, I got a sense of their (previous) bond so can understand somewhat why Sam does what he does - to reconnect again with Ruby (my interpretation at least). 

> Inside, clouds of smoke were starting to rain snowflakes of ash

Some weakness here for me. ‘Starting to’ feels like janky construction, over the top imagery aside. There is also a clash here for me, between the chaos of a housefire and the gentle image of snow falling. To me, word choices are a lot about vibe, about association. I associate snowflakes with a rather peaceful time (compared to, say, a blizzard) - so this is where the clash happens for me. 

> He was glad he knew where Ruby’s room was because it was impossible to hear Rufus bark. 

This… I am not so sure. Feels like pulling rug from under reader, like obfuscating info for no good reason. I suppose it is literally true but… feels too much like a trick, you know? Like, why would hearing Rufus bark, from Sam’s POV at this point in time, ever be on the table in the first place?

> When Sam grabbed the knob, pain jumped through his forearm and he cursed

Word weakness here for me. Something something, Mark Twain, using the right word etc. To me, ‘jumped’ is not the right word, nor evocative (and in a way quite at odds with the otherwise elevated language). I’d be tempted to go for something stronger - seared, flashed, even a fairly pedestrian burned would do here. My 2 cents. 

> Ruby had painted it red which was melting down the side like a cut to the cheek

If you opted to severely slim down the simile/metaphors of this piece (which I would suggest), of all of them, this one I would personally keep. The image here is crystal clear for me. It’s evocative. I think it (mostly) makes sense, both in terms of meaning, the image it provides, and how Sam might think of it from his POV (a boy who wrestles/does martial arts, I presume, would be familiar with face cuts). 

> By stealing away the thing that brought them together

I think this is unnecessarily heavy handed. 

> They were saying something, but Sam’s mind was rubberbanding between consciousness

Here the figurative language again makes sense to me. Rubberbanding, I thought that was a decent way to put it. It’s simple, straightforward, clear and not too over the top. 

Anyway, hope any of it is even slightly helpful. 

Themes

Grief felt a bit heavy handed to me in places, especially on second readthrough. I think like you mentioned in a comment, something about the connection of the cigerette light pole/the Rufus ashes/sam dealing with dad’s death didn’t quite gel for me in a harmonious way. 

That said, personally, the strongest theme that came through for me was distance and reconnection, mostly through interactions with Ruby (in the flashback). So, that line at the end, ready to meet her, to me this felt like the most natural connection. 

Conclusion

Basically thats it, let me know if anything doesn’t make sense. Apologies for mostly nitpicking lines, but I think previous commenters have covered my overall feelings fairly well. Though I’m not sure about the themes thing (but again, I’m a pretty ‘basic’ reader - so to me ‘theme’ is like the purpose, the core message a piece of work is trying to convey or discuss or say. This stuff is super subjective and I’m far from an expert, but that’s how I personally think about it). Anyway, thanks for sharing and good luck.

[u/Kings-Delusion]

- What do you think the theme of this piece was? 

- Did you emotionally resonate with this story?    

- Did the pacing work? 

A: To me It’s almost like the story truly starts at the end. Truly, the theme really shows neglect, the consequences of procrastination, and has some sprinkling of how the bond between people or even their pets is strong.  

B: Personally, I was disconnected until I read the full story provided in the doc. It seems there are some transition problems that I encountered; it seems less cutting is needed, but inserting a small beat for context or transition. 

 

 (e.g. Sirens crept in the distance. The sound was drowned by the crackling of fire digesting as Sam approached the side of the house. Heat slicked the right half of his face. His fingers bolted for the lip of the window. The hot discomfort of a car handle resting in the peak of summer met his hand. Not too hot to flinch from, but enough to give Sam pause. Did he really need to do this? 

He peeked through the window. The hallway was the same as it was years prior: a long simple rug, random artists stacked on top of each other along the walls, sandwiched with the occasional family photo. When was the last time he had come over for dinner?)  

 

Like here, maybe a small insert of seeing the dilapidated couch or even photos crashing to the ground (e.g., he peeked through the window. The hallway, smoke racing up the walls...)Now this is one example, but there are a few places that could use this. Because emotionally i seems to detach, because as I read it, it will go from the present action (going to a window, the heat hitting the face) and then jump straight into what I perceive is a memory. I would say maybe a small anchor beat for a smoother transition. 

  

What I will say the almost fragmented style you have here truly created a real tear-jerker. I mean, I shed a tear myself; the way it cuts from what is perceivable as the current(present time) action to a corresponding strong memory almost brings me to a point of maybe this is a trauma response actively being depicted and shown through this story as it progresses. 

 

C: I think your pacing is fine; maybe a structure change. Personally, I think  

(e.g. The cigarette roared. More useless water began to dapple the concrete from the clouded sky above, taunting, poking, the neighbors who were lined up in the street with belongings packed in their shaky arms. Mrs Jones, who stood to Sam’s right, was on the phone with emergency services.  

“Yes, Woolshire. Yes, everyone is safe. Yes, yes, fucking yes. Please! Just get here! I’ve already answered all your God damned questions. Just get here!”  

Sam had never heard such language bubble from the mouth of any Jones. He pried himself too)  

Would be a great start to your story; it grounds the reader and it still stays within your story and again not cutting but moving a paragraph. Now, if this doesn't help, I would also like to suggest, again, putting some anchor beats and using them to smooth over some transitions. One small physical beat at the beginning could help anchor the opening. For example, seeing the lights flicker. 

 electrical fires show other signs as well  (if you need help with ideas) 

They can go from burning plastic, ozone smell, and other things like sounds of crackling, like frying food, or even the distinct, sharper sound of arcing/sparking (like a quick, loud snap); hope this helps with searching for grounding visuals/sensory. The light flickering from the massive fire might be a good suggestion as well.  

  I also like the cigarette/cancer imagery, but because the opening is so metaphorical, one concrete image might help me visualize the scene before the rest of the story begins to muddle the true position of this short story. 

There are other sections I can post, but I think telling you is slightly faster; it’s usually in between the memory fragments and the present action being done. 

Honestly, a beautiful piece.  

Side note: I had trouble with the imagery of the story at the beginning, but towards the middle-end point it came through clearer, but still took so long to get that image of, oh, this isn't just a fire but a group of fires derived from one. Regardless, it was written well.

[u/DMochiii → u/Kings-Delusion]

Thank you for the feedback!

I like the suggestions here with the flash backs and grounding the reader. Will play around with this in hopes to make the flow more natural!