Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-35711173-20180828001306/@comment-5733573-20180829194300

I love most of this. You've done a particularly great job of grabbing me and pulling me in. I kept wanting to know what would happen next. And several of the characters are so clear and fully realized. Nice job there.

I do think this could use some reworking in a couple of ways. First, the ending feels tacked on. It doesn't really feel like it goes with the rest of the story, and it muddies whatever point you've been trying to make up to that point. I'll be honest and tell you that I have no idea how else the story should end, but I hope you've got something else up your sleeve for this.

Secondly, I never felt like I got to know Trayvon's character. There were times when he felt like a cold and logical man, and times when he felt like an overwhelmed young boy swept up by circumstance. Consider the following sentence:

Smoking inside workplaces was banned under Directive 1010.15 and Executive Order 13508.

The only reason I could imagine for including this information was that it was intended to give us a glimpse into the way Trayvon thinks. This led me to believe that he was a stoic, cold, logical sort of guy. Now, look at the following:

''Trayvon thought they would take him to Area 51 and plug him into the machine that turned Steve Rogers into Captain America. ''

This is the fantasy of a nervous young boy. To me, these personas don't match up, and this leads to another problem. Without having a clear sense of his character from the start, we're unable to appreciate how being newly immortal---and suffering immense pain---has changed him by the end.

On a related note, the point of view throughout the story seems inconsistent. There are times when I feel like we're seeing through Trayvon's eyes, but there are others where it almost slips into a documentary- or scientific paper-style narrative. This leads to my next concern for this story, and that is that some of the bigger, weirder moments, such as the details of the ritual, feel a bit too matter-of-fact and therefore understated. I think framing these segments of the story more emotionally will help them really pop.

And, finally, because it wouldn't be a review from me without something nitpicky, I noticed that your spelling of "Trayvon" is inconsistent. Sometimes you use an E in place of the A. Just something to look out for.

As I said, I really like most of this story. The idea is nothing short of brilliant, so I'm excited to see how this develops.