Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-27838637-20160727122520/@comment-28266772-20160727143822

Okay so after some agonizing I find that the only major critical feedback I can offer is that there's a bit of a dissonance in the main character. Mainly that he is obviously a man of strong morals as is evidenced by his behaviour in entries 2, 3 and 4, but that same upstanding behaviour doesn't really gel with his behaviour in entry 1 where he opens someone else's car and snoops around. I think you might want to find another way for him to find and open the box. You mention that he has children - they might be better culprits. He catch them, scold them, and a box could fall onto the ground from their hands or something else. I can imagine that someone, after holding a box in their hand, might be tempted to inspect it. But I just can't picture someone opening up a car to get to the box.

It's like if my neighbour's package arrived at my house I might be tempted to look inside, or just be curious about it's contents. But I wouldn't go inside his house to get it in the first place either.

Other than that I'm enjoying the premise, and think the diary format is used well. Each section furthers the plot and characters in a useful way. It's pretty efficient in its use of space/wording. I think it's a great piece of writing but it's really hard to give a sense of pace without knowing more about the climax either. Pacing is a very holistic thing - so it's hard to say without everything on the table.

One more thing is that I think this story would benefit from a bit more atmosphere. In my head I read it and pictured a rural garage in Australia which obviously made me think of incredible heat (I'm Welsh; our melting point is around 20C haha). I guess my point is there's an opportunity here to contrast the hot and humid work of being a mechanic straining under the heat of the Australian sun, with the pressing familial and financial concerns of the main character. I think even just a few minor references to things like the weather, or isolated location--is it rural, or urban?-- would do a lot for this story. I guess what I'm trying to say in a real roundabout way is this story could benefit from a better sense of place.

Oh and I've got one really stupid point to make below.

It was just unnatural. -> this is me being real nit picky but I don't think a mechanic, who spends all day in this environment, would describe it as unnatural. Uncanny, or eerie perhaps?