Workshop came and went. It’s always nerve wracking. I don’t care how many years you’ve been writing, or what you’ve won. You sit with a group of people who’ve read your work, you keep your mouth shut, and you write everything they say. It’s a flood of information as an hour is spent going over your story. What works, what doesn’t work? Why this, why not that?
Needs Work
Title:
First off, the title needs some work. I’m going to hang onto it for something. When I decided on it, I was thinking of cloud storage. There’s a few sentences talking about people being reduced to records. Also, Nick has Audrey’s voice saved as a message in the cloud, at a telecommunication server farm. This only made sense to me. For now, I’ll refer to the story under the working title: The Transcendental Taxi.
Nick/Emerson:
A few people thought he was the same character. They’re not the same character, but I might be able to add some more in there. Not really an issue though.
Time:
This was a major issue going in. I knew it was going to seem confusing. For some readers it was a problem, for others, not so much. I can clear that up though.
Haziness:
What’s vague because I wanted it vague, and what’s vague because I didn’t have a good answer at the time? I need to clear up these issues.
Positive Feedback
Settings:
The apartment = Nick’s past.
The Someday Cafe = place where Nick’s past and future commingle.
Transcendental Taxi = Nick’s future.
I’d never thought about that, but it makes sense. It’s cool.
Another great thing that was picked up on is that Emerson is sort of a Charonesque character. He’s in a between place ferrying Nick among realities.
Random praise:
Haunting, cool settings, great characters, story has a pulse, great images/descriptions, appropriate ending, surreal, successful present tense, blunt, raw, a haunting dream.
For now, I’m going to revise the story as it is. People seemed to like it, and I got a lot of encouraging comments. After I revise it though, I’m going to look at re-writing it as I mentioned before, but give it a different title, and treat it as a different story.
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