Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-14054617-20161004012305/@comment-28266772-20161004142303

Below is an annotated version of your story:

 500 [I think this time format should be clearer e.g. 1700/5.00pm etc]Monday was dark and rainy. The kind of day best spent staying home, and enjoying a book, or mindless daytime TV. Clarissa wasn’t too mad about having to work today [the reference to ‘today’ feels weird given the past tense] though. She was only filling in for a co-worker until ten.

 Still, standing in the rain was no fun anytime. The wind was blowing, making her umbrella barely useful, and her shoes were rapidly losing the fight to stay dry. And then there was the walk light.

 The walk light stood across the wet street, its red stop signal glowed [again the tense here feels weird, try it with ‘glowing’ and you may find it reads better] at her like a disapproving glare, daring her to cross against it. On her side of the street was a call button, something to tell the traffic light that a pedestrian needed to cross the street, and in the event no traffic was waiting, the light would change faster.

 Clarissa hit the button in annoyance, to let the light know she was waiting. “Wait”came [space between “ and ‘came’] the sexless automated message that spoke during the ‘Don’t walk’ phase. [that last clause is a bit clunky and awkward]

 Clarissa looked up and down the street in both directions, than [then] checked her watch. 5:06. She was going to be late at this rate, but lately the cops had been cracking down on jay walking.

 She hit the button again, harder than necessary. “Wait” came the reply. It had started to sound vaguely smug to Clarissa. A deviant thing that was enjoying the annoyance it was causing her [this too feels a bit clunky because of the repetition of ‘was’; try ‘it caused her’]. Still the light glowed red, and still the rain fell, seemingly '[seemingly is an awkward word – is the rain only falling harder by appearance or is it actually falling harder? Think about whether this word is actually conveying any genuine content]' harder now.

 5:10. Now she was really getting annoyed. This was the longest walk signal in history, and she was starting to think it was malfunctioning. She punched it several times in rapid succession. “Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait-wait” came the response just as rapidly, sounding more mocking [more mocking doesn’t quite seem right – might be some better ways to phrase that] than ever.

 Looking up and down the street again, Clarissa made a decision. “Screw this.” She muttered and stepped into the street, only to be hit by a speeding garbage truck that, on the rain slicked pavement, never had a chance to stop in time.

 “I said wait.” The autonomous voice said from the call button as the light changed to the walk signal. '[this last sentence is a bit too long and kinda hurts the flow. The most impact is in those first three words “I said wait.” And every word after it just hurts the punch.]'

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 Mechanical issues – bits here and there but nothing a spellcheck won’t fix.

 Style issues – your style is a bit dry and you occasionally rely on some awkward and clumsy wording but for the most part it’s simplistic and it works. For me it did a very good job of painting an image without the need for long descriptive passages. I liked it.

 Plot issues – None. I genuinely enjoyed this, and the twist. I don’t know if other people will like this as much as I did, but I really liked this story. The whole idea is clever, funny, and frightening. I can’t emphasise enough how smart it was to take the core gimmick of this story and keep it short and simple. By doing so you let the twist shine, and have created something original and enjoyable. Good job!