Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-24996913-20140930223902/@comment-25052433-20141002064214

Well, in the spirit of this pasta, let us all stare at this review until our eyes blur.

What went right:

-Just about everything. As usual, your writing satisfies. It's like a Snickers bar for the brain.

-One element of this story that I loved, was how you described the main character, and how you developed her personality. One common trend that I see in many stories, is that main characters, especially women for some reason, are usually written as emotionally fragile emo kids with headphones plastered to their ears and a hoodie. I never got that. What I loved about your story here, is that you wrote a strong, independent woman who knows that she is beautiful and desirable. It was quite refreshing to read an character written as a realistic adult. Sure, she has some mental problems going on here, but she is still fairly well adjusted and behaves as I would imagine a professional woman with desirable features would.

-Staring. We all hate that. People do it to us all the time. I consider myself a fairly average looking man, but I still hate it when people stare at me. I know it's not always intentional, but it still never fails to drive me nuts. In this story, you did an excellent job of tapping into a common irritant that we all deal with. Whether it's some co-worker sizing you up from his desk, or someone in a restaurant that just can't seem to let you escape their gaze, it's always an unnerving situation.

-And those two observations I feel are what really makes this pasta work. You take something very simple, an everyday annoyance, and you masterfully converted it into a story. Very well done.

What needs a bit more staring:

-I would consider one of two options here with the ending. The 'jars' were introduced very late in the story, and therefore had less of an impact. It came across as a bit cryptic as well. While there is nothing wrong with cryptic writing, since the jars were intended to be the closing plot point, cryptic may not be the best way to go with this.

-I would suggest either expanding on the jars in this story, or, as you stated in a previous post, spin this story into a series style and at least write a companion piece to explain more about the jars.

I was VERY impressed with the character work in this one, and would love to learn more about this woman and her past. Either way, this is a great story, and as usual, impressed me greatly.