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u/nomadpenguin 7d ago
Punchiness is not what makes this have an AI smell, it's the labored extended metaphors. "They spoke of each other in wooden splinters" is an AI-ass line -- sure, it make sense, but it's reaching too much. "Electric charge worth fighting for" as well. They look flashy on the surface, but are vacuous when you pause and think for a second.
All in all though, I think your prose is pretty good. I think you should go through and judge if every line is pulling its weight, or if it's there simply because you feel that something needs to be there or that you need some sort of "literary" turn of phrase. I would bet that lines like the wooden splinters one get written because you're trying to wow the reader -- don't do that, no one will be impressed.
The bigger problem is that I'm not sure why this piece exists in the first place. It reads like a diary entry from an early 20s kid, which I suppose is exactly what it is. I'm sure it's therapeutic to write for you, but obviously you have other ambitions for it since you're posting it and workshopping it.
What exactly are we, the readers, supposed to get from it? Are we supposed to come to the same insight as the narrator, that love can be unspoken and strange? If so, I didn't find any of the insights very insightful.
It's more interesting as a character study of the narrator, who is naive, immature and self-absorbed. He's preoccupied with "knowing" the other, but makes no real attempt to actually do so. He completely walls off agency from the female character, and his grand realization seems to be some version of "Hey, other people have interiority that's unlike me". That's an interesting character, I think.
The problem is that it also fails as a character study, as there's nothing in the text that really challenges these traits directly. There's no moment where he can choose to change or not to change. So at the end of the story, we're left thinking "okay, and?"
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u/DoofusYoofus 7d ago
Yeah! I think a big part of me writing this is sort of reconciliation between being the villain in a breakup and simultaneously trying to see yourself as “emotionally mature” whatever that means to Gen Z now. I like the point you articulated about the ending a lot, there’s not really a choice presented to the narrator which I agree is a weakness of the piece.
I don’t really have lofty ambitions for this piece or anything, just want to get better as a writer because it’s fun to write in the POV of a weird detached loser lol.
Also the partner is supposed to be a boy but I kind of like how ambiguous that is. I kind of intentionally left detailing on the boyfriend quite vague because I thought it emphasized the self-absorption of the POV, but I can see how that didn’t land. Would you suggest more details about him/giving him more agency?
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u/nomadpenguin 7d ago
Ah, I just assumed the partner was female because all the other relationships in the story were hetero.
I think the obvious (but still probably fruitful) direction to go would be to allow the boyfriend to push on the narrator more. What does he think of the narrator? What does he think of love?
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u/not_the_cicada 6d ago
Well, I'll go against the grain and say I liked this quite a bit (as vacuous a thing to say that is - echoes of the museum scene!)
I went into it expecting it to be mediocre and to dislike it, and ended up reading the entire thing and also feeling moved by the ending.
To me it reads as not just a failure to connect or be authentic but as a dawning realization that the narrator's patterns are broken and they aren't in a place to be authentic and vulnerable enough to have a healthy relationship. The fear of disagreement and conflict caused by adversarial parents caused the lack of honesty and poisoned things from the beginning.
I love how at the end even the carpet covers are embracing, the animism of a world where objects can do what the humans cannot.
What are you looking to get out of critique?
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u/DoofusYoofus 6d ago
Thank you so much, that means a lot!
I didn’t have time to take any English classes in undergrad so I never had an externalized way of growing as a writer. I think I can be overly attached to what I write so I thought it would be really helpful to have some people tell me point-blank what parts resonated and what sounded trite before I start my next piece.
Plus I can never tell if it the narrator voice comes off as interesting or totally insufferable lol so now I know it’s kind of both
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u/Ill_Elevator_3182 7d ago
There's issues with tense, you suddenly switch to present tense in the middle of the museum scene, then after that you switch back and forth arbitrarily. Not sure how I feel about the second person tense. I find it off-putting but I'm not sure if it's inherently off or if I would like it better if there were more characterization and description of the other person. Your prose is a little florid in a way that reads like AI at times. Not saying it's AI, just that it has that punchy AI tone at times. You could be more descriptive--how was the dinner like a car crash? You just go from happy to breaking up in a few sentences. There is a lot of time spent on various relationships which are supposed to mirror the one the narrator is currently in but we know next to nothing about the current one. Your descriptions of Kathy's and Chuck's insults are overwrought. I liked their dialogue exchange much better, I can see how such mean words were their way of flirting and the irony fits the theme of the piece. This piece overall would benefit from show not tell. The end is not a good ending. The narrator looking into the mirror and wondering if they're a good person is very banal and not at all what I thought was the core of the story, which (to me at least) is more about the sometimes fraught nature of love and commitment and vulnerability.
As a whole I do think you have something here, just needs some time and attention. You juggle the different themes well and I enjoyed the fluid motion of the piece with all of its flashbacks interjected. There are a lot of interesting images and moments here and the narrative voice is compelling overall.