: Re: Is this stylized writing successful or gimmicky? This is a ~3000-word piece, with deliberately stylized writing. Is the style of this piece successful or gimmicky? Does it read smooth or choppy?

@Lee1909368

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Maybe I'm not the best person to comment on this since it's not my usual cup of tea, but I have to admit, I had trouble getting to the end. So many thoughts and feelings, but nothing seams to actually happen. My thoughts just wonder off while I read.

I like the image you start with, cars going too fast to see what's happening around them, but I don't think those first three paragraphs are gripping enough to engage reader's interest (your question's been up for more than 24 hours and the only other person who wrote an answer admits to just skimming it). When a reader starts reading a new piece of fiction, the first thing he's going to ask himself, after reading the first few sentences is "so what?". You start with the intimate thoughts of the character without giving a reader time to connect with the character, we have no idea who's thoughts those are (and by that I don't mean the character's name), so how can we connect? A random person is thinking about something, so what? And also, nothing happens. It's a bit hard to read something where nothing really happens. I strongly believe this first three paragraphs should be cut down into one. The fourth paragraph is the first one that actually aroused my curiosity, but it faded out very quickly.

Then, all this point of view switching made me feel like I was on a roller coaster. And you're not just switching points of view, you're switching types of points of view. After the son's point of view, you switch to the mother's rather abruptly, but I can live with that. It's when you later switch to the mother's POV again, you also tell things that mother doesn't know, which is a different type of point of view - it's almost as bad as switching from third to first POV. Later again, you have both son's and mother's POV in the same chapter, which is very confusing. You also have neighbour's POV for just one chapter, which looks totally out of place to me.

I realize what you were trying to accomplish with the repetition of the sentence “You will not sneak around as long as you live in my house”, but to me it feels like someone is rewinding a movie that I'm watching over and over again. The first time I was even confused, had to return to the previous paragraph because I thought she was in some kind of a trance and repeating herself or something. It's generally not a good thing to go back in time, much more to branch scenes like this, not without at least some warning, some clear structure that would make it clear what's going on. All in all, I like the idea, but the execution needs to be smoother.

Also, what's the main theme here? Is it drugs, mother-son relationship, son being friend-zoned, fact that no-one cares what goes on around them? You have too many of them in here I don't know what's it about.

I like the ending, though, and how you connected it with the beginning, that a nice touch.

I hope you don't find my answer too harsh. It's not a bad story, it just needs to be cleaned up a bit. Pick one theme and give it more emphasis, tone down the others. Try to be more concise, like user5438 advised, and try to cut down on the word count, say more with less words. Try, if you can, to add more action. Not events, but action, like what characters do while they talk, think, sit and so on. We're a fast moving society these days, we need action to stay focused. It's also very hard to imagine a scene in your head when there's nothing actually happening. Ever noticed how rarely two characters in a movie just stand while they talk? They're most often walking or doing something while they talk, rarely standing still. For most of the piece, you're telling us what they're thinking, is there a way you can show that through their actions?

Again, I hope you don't find this answer too harsh. It's not given in with bad intentions. It's also just my thoughts and views, you can take them or leave them as you like.

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