You have a tremendous gift of setting the scene. Your description of George's apt and getting dressed were detailed and helped drive the mood of the story. It was the same when you gave details inside the club from gestures to breasts. The details gives a sense of peer pressure to the main character, which goes to the heart of the story. In your story, setting was the protagonist, all other characters, including George, bounced off of it. It also creates the conflict. while a few supporting characters brought it up (the operation) it wasn't their conversation that created conflict, it was the environment of the bar (setting) as a whole that created conflict. The performance, the male attention, the brushing of the breasts, and other details infused the conflict.
This type of story is one of the most difficult to execute, because it's harder for a reader to conceptualize an environment as being a sufficient opposing force. Consequently, the result is often that the reader feels like a story hadn't been formed. I get it, your style. But it still makes me feel like i'm dangling on a cliff and waiting for season two to fill in the blanks. At the end of the story, i felt like I was only in the rising action phase of the plot.
In addition, I felt like the narrator interfered with my getting to know the characters or it prevented me from forming my own opinion about things at times. "She had always seemed more tolerant, but how many times had there been pain and sadness in her eyes?" you write. This is too forced. If the reader could be SHOWN this instead of told, it would be more effective. If you are going to TELL, it should at least be from a character's voice. Using the narrator in emotional details to me is counterproductive.
The part about his punishment as a kid for dressing up would have been a great way to introduce his mother wanting to intervene in his father's punishing of him, but didn't. that shows her pain. you could have also connected the reader to Ginger better that way, too. The reader understands how Ginger feels, but doesn't much care because the story isn't character driven, it's setting driven.
Overall, I guess I just wanted to connect to the character a lot more than I did. I wanted to get inside of Ginger more without the narrator telling me how to feel all the time. I wanted a different kind of conflict. I wanted to really, really love this story.
Just about every story I write is man vs himself because I'm a junkie of characterization, so I'm biased. It may just be that I prefer something different. But I hope you take it all very constructively because I really do think you have a beatiful gift of writing, especially the details.
i love the creation of moonflowers and the contrast of a serene, beautiful moment turned juxtaposed to the squirrel's death. it works. The only thing that bothers me is the spacing and choppy lines. I think it reads to contrived. That stop and go simeple language is a little overused in poetry. The poem as a whole is outstanding, though
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