This is a postmodern short story 1429 words long. It is complete, but only as a first draft.

Will you read the rest (If so, let me know where to email it)?

How well do these 13 lines work?

Thanks,

lerxster

“Tag! You’re it!” Ian yelled, running to the huge tire tunnel lining one side of his elementary school playground. He felt a brush of air as Rachel swiped her hand to tag him, missing his leg. He scrambled on his hands and knees through the tunnel and out the other end. Jumping up to his feet, he ran as fast as he could. He looked over his shoulder to see if she had left the tunnel yet. Ian grinned and giggled as she left the tunnel and jumped to her feet.

He looked forward to see where he was running. He felt pain. His head rang. A bright flash of light completely filled his vision. Everything went blank. No sound. No sight. Nothing. Time stood still as Ian fell to the ground.

Surge of joy and emotion arc between him and Rachel sounds very awkward. Could you tell me what that means? I think I know what you were going for, but aside from blatant telling, I just don't buy it. They're playing tag, and then you pause long enough to show these two kids sharing a connection? It's too abrupt, it doesn't work.

Also, the style is too sharp a change. You start out with thick sentences, then move into minimalism.

There are also some grammar errors.

Openings like this can work very well. In Updike's Rabbit, Run he explained a pick-up basket ball game in emaculate detail. I think that's what you want to do here but are afraid of boring us so you skip ahead to the protagonist getting into trouble when we still don't know him or Rachel. Don't worry about it. Let us see the game of tag. The point of a hook isn't to literally hook with a shocker, it's to keep the readers reading. If it was written well, I'd read about grass swaying in the breeze.

A game of tag between kids is a good start.

My advice is to go with it. Show us some character development. Some dialogue. Some actual fun, then spring whatever you meant to spring on us.

You tell me there is something between the two characters, but I don't feel it. it's supurfluous to me. Then the second paragraph hits you like a frying pan to the face. I don't want you knocking me out of the story, I want you to pull me in.

I don't care about the characters yet, but something serious has just happened. That causes me not to care about what happenend, and I probably wouldn't continue to the next page were this coming to me in a slush pile.

To set this scene you need to get inside the POV character's head and make me feel those feelings for his girlfriend. Then, instead of the frying pan to the face, let me feel the character's change in sensory pereption, and his sudden change of emotion. Make it come alive for me.

By the way, don't take this as overly harsh. There's nothing inherently wrong with what you wrote, except that it isn't appropriate for the first 13 lines where you are trying to hook me as a reader. In another part of the story, this same description might be totally appropriate.

So, bottom line, I'm not saying you can't write, just that you didn't hook me, and I was fairly explicit why.

I can see what you're both talking about. I'm going to have to make some major changes.

I'm curious about how you would perceive the whole story. It's not that long, and I think the style I'm trying at might work (I'm new at this, so maybe it won't).

Thanks,