Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-30307610-20170828150610/@comment-30307610-20170901043333

Ok. Well you've actually made some decent points here. You aren't saying general things that don't apply. Saying that I shouldn't rely on my reader to interpret things is different than pointing out that they had steaks every year so there is less impact on the change. You did point out a few syntax parts that I can improve and I thank you for that. Again, this is more helpful than stating "improve your syntax" as a general blanket statement.

The other thing from this is that with your rewrites as shown, it isn't that I have too much redundancy but that I need to reorder my structure. Again this is mostly semantics but it might be something that should be clarified on when you are reviewing a story for improvement.

As far as the avoidable plot and the steaks thing, as I said before, I get that, but I am trying to look at it from a mothers point of view as seen by the child. I am not to imply that the child is stupid and wouldn't notice that they didn't have steaks, or that they wouldn't understand not having it, but more of a mother who didn't want their child to go without. Again I can improve upon this by taking out the steak every year thing, but I am of a mind that this rational still holds up, but there isn't any way to get it hosted here with my own mindset.

Again this is much more helpful than the over generalization of "fix your story it doesn't make sense". Pointing out exactly where it has issues is extremely helpful. I was unaware that one of the main detractors from the story was an inability to figure out that the starting line about being in a restaurant was not being connected with the when I got my food part. Even when it was broken up in the middle by them ordering the food.

As far as debating criticism, I find it extremely helpful when determining where my story should go. If I hadn't done this I never would have teased out the specifics from you. Additionally, the only debate that I had with that admin was the fact that the ending is not shoehorned or forced. Since the entire story was built around that, it worked. You say that "Because all the people who are pointing out these things clearly dont understand the plot." thats not it all. The issue I am having is that people seem to be getting the plot fine and just not thinking that they should make that leap. I have had many people review this story and understand the plot just fine. Even the admin from before and you yourself pointed out exactly what the plot was, but stated "why shouldn't I just make this leap". Also there is no way to please every critic. The issue with how this is structured is I have to please very specific critics in order for my story to be hosted here.

Updated: Bison: I went to dinner with my mother last night. It had been a while since I had seen her. I moved to the city a few years back and had been making some headway at the firm I worked at. We went to this place that sold Bison steaks. I remembered liking them a lot as a kid, but we didn’t get them that often.

See I grew up on a farm. I learned later in life that "taking your dog to the farm" meant something different than what I always knew. We always had dogs. Anywhere from five to twenty at a time. I loved those dogs. If people couldn’t take care of them or they were moving somewhere they couldn’t take them, they always ended up at our house. People would occasionally stop by and adopt some of them, but for the most part, they were either around or ended up running away. I don't remember any ever dying though.

I ordered a bison steak, my mother ordered a salmon salad, and we got some wine. We started reminiscing about life on the farm. We didn’t raise animals or anything just grew some vegetables. With only me and my mom, we pretty much grew enough to sustain ourselves and a little extra for trade. But

When my mom took our excess harvest for trade, she would always try and get bacon for our breakfasts and, if it was a special occasion, she would get steaks. This is what I always had for my birthday. There was one year, I was probably about five or six, where we didn't have a particularly good harvest though. I expected not to get a special dinner, seeing as we wouldn't have much of anything for trade that year. My mother, though, managed to get something new for us to try: Bison. I was instantly in love with it. I still don’t know why. It was a little gamey, but so tender and juicy.

I asked my mom if we could have bison for my birthday from then on instead of steaks. I remember her looking a bit worried, it couldn't have been too hard to get considering she was able to get it this time, but she just smiled and said, “Sure honey.” She always tried to get me the things I wanted.

When the waiter brought our food, I greedily tore into the bison. Expecting that taste was something I had looked forward to for a while. However, something was off, it didn’t taste right. I looked up at my mother to ask if hers was alright. She looked at me, and started to cry.