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The story is told from the perspective of a five year old and I really tried to capture how little kids (who are like real people on amphetamines) see the world and process information. My question is this: Are you laughing and eager to read more, or thinking that if this goes on for 8,500 words, you're going to shoot someone, preferably me.

Second, I have a six year-old and work with "at risk" children in that age group, and though they do ramble, they also pause frequently. Their vocabularies do not typically include words such as "heirloom breakfront" nor do they speak with frequent idioms i.e. "for God's sake" - if they do, their speech is more adult-like.

Third, consider who your audience is. Hopefully, it is not five year-olds considering the expletives you have included. If it is adults, consider how you should introduce your characters (with or without dialogue), but limit long speeches as much as possible.

I don't read writer explanations until after I've commented on the first 13 because, well, an agent or reader outside the forum won't get that information.

You are really fond of run-on sentances. I couldn't do 8,500 words like this. 13 lines was tough.

There a few problems for me, while it sounds like you are trying to write like a child, the actual words are clearly written by an adult. My kids have fabulous vocabularies as a result of my husband and I both being lawyers. This means they tend to use words far above thier apparent age. BUT, even my kids wouldn't say "heirloom breakfront" unless it's a direct quote from me. "Re-lash" would never occur to them and it would be unlikely that any adult used it in a sentance.

My other issue is even very small children with ADHD don't speak in this type of rush for this long. Ah, I see from your comments that you think of little kids like "real people on amphetamines." Seems like that's spoken by someone without kids. If you are going to use a 5 year old POV, spend some time with a group of 5 year olds. The 5 year old isn't going to care WHAT the adults are yelling (other than it interupts what he/she wants) because he/she is going to be focused on browbeating mom into letting him take the treasure chest.

Rather than tell me this scene - show it to me. Have the kid react when mom yells at him to put the treasure chest down. Also, since it's "moving day" do you really mean the kid has to abandon it and not take it wherever they are going? Let me hear the dialog.

My take:

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And Boy starting with an "and" really rubs me wrong. I know you are trying to drop us in the middle of an Event but I'll get that without the "and." Momma said that I could take my treasure chest but then she said I couldn’t. Oh, I've had those moments

She said that she’d never said that I could take it and I said that she said I could at dinner and she said that she couldn’t remember what she’d said at dinner but that she was sure she’d said no and for God’s sake Sally could I get out of her hair because it was moving day and honest to God she had a million things to do and Hamish can’t you look after her? EEEEKKK!! This would be much more effective if you did it as dialog. Show me the fighting. As it is, by telling me about it, there's a lot of repetition "She said"/"I said." Also, I know no parent that would leave a child's treasured toy behind on a move. Even if we are severely downsizing because of ill fortune, we find room for THAT

And then Daddy started to say what the— because Momma had just ordered him outside to re-lash Grandma Edith’s heirloom breakfront which Momma said Grandma Edith had brought all the way from Earth and was our best piece so for God’s sake Hamish just check the damn thing again because I don’t like the way it was lashed to the cart, and Momma said not you Goddamn-it, Hamish Jr., and Daddy laughed because...
EKKK!!! You could probably get away with one stream of conciousness run-on per short story but this is too much. Presumably something important is about to happen. Use some of your word count to get this information ITD (In The Dialog). Dialog IS action and by using dialog you can set the scene. Right now I know nothing about where they are other than it's not Earth. Are they moving from a house, apartment, hive, concentration camp, what???

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When we talk to people, we generally only get 2-3 sentances out before we are stopped unless it's a lecture, debate, argument or some other formal speech. Use that natural tendancy to cut the other person off to break YOUR habit of rambling.

Try to slow down and set the scene without these run ons. The way you show the 5 year old POV is to use words she would use. If you want a 50 Cent word, you need her to hear it or establish that she reasonably has such a remarkable vocabulary.

There are some great touches of humor. I say "touches" because they are getting lost under the onslaught of words.

Slow down. Most readers don't want to read like they are on speed. I don't want to be exhausted at the end of the story.

There's some great bits, now you need to polish and edit and rewrite to bring them to the front. All you have right now is a family moving and some mild humor and that's probably not enough to get the story read.

I will definitely have to rewrite the first paragraph. I wanted to shove the reader right down into story, but now I see that the rabbit hole was a bit steep, and perhaps a bit deep as well.

I think the challenge for me is to figure out a more palatable middle ground between conventional writing (with grammar!) and what I've got now. While the writing style "isn't the story" so to speak, it's absolutely not neutral here. The act of reading the story is supposed to be exhausting, overwhelming, as well at times confusing and frustrating, because that's the way Sally (the 5yr old) is experiencing the events. But of course if it's not enticing then it's not enticing and I may need to go back to the drawing board.

I found the comments on swearing and 50 cent words to be interesting. That was not a criticism I had anticipated and I'll have to put some thought behind it. My first thought is
that kids (and yes I do spend time with kids!) are a reflection of their environment. They don't swear like sailors and use terms like "heirloom breakfront" because we don't swear like sailors use terms like "heirloom breakfront." But then there's Sally's Mom, and Sally's Mom is the kind of Mom who can't just say, "I told you not to bounce a ball in the living room." She has to say, "Goddamn it, Sally Baker! If I've told you once I've told you a hundred times not to bounce that thing in here. Do you know what that is? What is it? <pause...Sally mumbling> That's right! That's grandma Edith's heirloom breakfront and it came all the way from Earth and if you so much as scratch...." Anyways, those were my thoughts there.

Sure kids pick up the language used around them. My oldest use to ride with my husband a lot while he talked to his clients (criminal defendants) on the phone. Because of who he was talking to my husband used lots of colorful language. HOWEVER, that stopped the first time the kid repeated it (although Daddy was proud that the usage was proper - a very soft "s***" from the back seat when the car stopped short ). But that's probably why showing this aspect through dialog is a better way to start. Once we know Sally's mom uses those words it is easier to accept that a 5 year old would naturally use them.

The little bit of dialog you did in your response was more compelling and enticing than the 13 lines you posted. It shows me so much more about Sally, her mom AND thier relationship than the dry narrative did even if both versions conveying the same information (Be careful, that's the heirloom breakfront from Earth). Does that make sense?

South Park draws a certain audience because a certain section of the population thinks 8 year olds swearing like truck drivers is very funny. I'm not one of those people. A five year old swearing has the potential to turn off readers.

The writing style or, more accurately, word choice is the "Voice" for the piece and it IS a large part of the story whether you mean it to be or not. The act of reading shouldn't be exhausting. I won't read if it is. Feeling the character's confusion, exhaustion and such is expected.

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I don't read writer explanations until after I've commented on the first 13 because, well, an agent or reader outside the forum won't get that information.

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Yeah....but...see...the whole point of this forum is to discuss our work with people that we CAN give that information to, in order to improve it for those that can't. Otherwise, we might as well just send everything right out to the editors.

To be readable you are at least going to have some punctuation, otherwise peoples eyes will start bleeding.

I think all the generalizing about how children are or arent is a little pointless. Children are simply young human beings. They are all different, just as all adults are different. I've encountered people of all ages that think in rushed streams like this, but it has to be executed in a way people can read without their heads exploding.

I think first person POV from a child's perspective can work. Look at Born of Man and Women :-)

Plenty of critiquers read "writer explanations" "after" they've come up with their feedback, but they do read them, and often comment on the explanations as well.