Talk:Penpal/@comment-25542416-20141015184441

Bravo on the story, really well-written. For anyone wondering, there's a very high likelihood that it's mostly fiction, so you shouldn't lose much sleep over this; chances are, the entire story was an expansion from a singular situation (as most great stories are), and it evolved into this.

If you're having interpretive problems/errors, one thing that will help you a lot (and one which no one is really referencing) is the fact that this story isn't told in chronological order. As I perceive it, the following is the proper chronological order (with its original order enumerated):

(6) Friends (1st Half) - Dathan (narrator) meets and befriends Josh.

(2) Balloons - Dathan's class begins balloon-penpal project; stalking commences, and mother calls police (based on the volume of close-proximity photos Dathan was receiving).

(4) Maps - Dathan and Josh attempt to map the lake/tributary that links their houses; stalker follows them and kills Mrs. Maggie under the guise of a returning Tom (Mr. Maggie).

(1) Footsteps - Dathan's 'sleepwalking' (i.e. kidnapping) incident; right off the bat, Dathan thinks someone lives under their house but chalks it up to his heartbeat. This is the closest Dathan gets to the fate that eventually befalls Josh.

(3) Boxes - After discovering that someone has been living underneath their house, Dathan's mother decides that they will move farther away.

(5) Screens - Post-move, years later, Dathan meets Veronica (Josh's sister) again. She is killed, presumably by the stalker, who later accesses her phone and deceives Dathan.

(6) Friends (2nd Half) - Conclusion - Dathan weaves the entire story together.

I must say, the order in which the story is presented is quite well-done. As a creative writing instructor myself, I can't tell you how many students use flashbacks and time-jumps in an attempt to be clever, yet end up badly confusing the reader instead. Though they are few and far between, I would love to have more students who write like this. Not perfect by any means, but the potential is undeniable.

I have one major issue, and it stems from the kidnappings. Dathan wakes up unaware of his surroundings (as far as we know, he's only had one incident), and Josh briefly admits later on that he's also been 'sleepwalking' (which would imply multiple instances, not just one). So obviously, the boys were physically removed from their houses... but why does the stalker leave them alone afterwards? It seems peculiar to me. Theoretically, this story could have ended after "Footsteps" because, well, he should have killed Dathan then and there.

I could actually talk for hours and hours about this collection because it's very dense (in a good way) and there's a lot here to unpack, but I don't want to make this textwall any bigger than it currently is. Overall, well done and enjoyable.