Hi The Solarised Night. I’m Eripsa. Pleasure to meet you
smile I’d like to critique your short fiction story “Virtual Obsession.”
I like this piece. I feel like I don’t have to comment on any local issues, so I’m going to focus on the more global aspects, if you don’t mind. I like the internalization throughout, and the relatability of the story. Case in point: it’s 3:24pm and I’m still in my pajamas. Of course, I’m waiting for my job to start so I can start making the moolah, and that’s the first question I have about your character. What I wanted from the piece was all about the character and about the external world of the narrative. You have the internal thoughts down great, and I say keep these because I get a great sense of the personality and motivations of the character. However, there’s still a lot I don’t know, and as a result I felt quite lost reading the story.
I realized that I didn’t know if the main character is a male or female, not even by the end of the piece.
EDIT: I reread the story, and I have concluded female as a result of this line:
Quote:
“I am isolated and alone; no one is going to see that I haven’t shaved my legs in weeks.
Only girls shave their legs! Right? Unfortunately I wrote this entire piece assuming the character was a male...I'm sorry. Just imagine I'm talking about another, exact same story in which the main character is a dude.
Back to the point: Gender is also alluded to when bullies call the character gay, but that’s a common and unisex insult, so I’m not inclined to tend one way or another. This story is about a human: a very interesting human's psychology. Gender is very relevant here, same for the character's name, or identity, also unknown. As well as the question of gender (and I’ll refer to your character using the pronoun ‘he’ for simplicity’s sake) and name, I am not sure what you mean when you say:
”The Solarised Night”
When I left school, I lost my purpose.
“Left school”? I would really recommend being very specific here, because this is essentially setting the stage for his descent into virtual reality. Did he drop out? Did he graduate? Was it high school? University? Which university? The fact that there were bullies leads me to think high school. If it was, then why isn’t he applying to universities? Or looking for a job? If it is University, why isn’t he looking for a job relevant in his field?
Along that vain, I have questions about his living situation. Where does he live if he no longer goes to school? Can he afford an apartment without a job? From all of his free time, I’d guess he’s living at his parent’s home. The impression I got at first was that he couldn’t find a job graduating college and so he moved back to his parent’s place until he could. Towards the end, however, it’s clear that he lives by himself or with some very, very passive aggressive and silent roommates. He could be in a house, or an apartment. Either way, how can he afford it after school if he has no job? All of this is quite unclear, and equally valuable to the reader in order to get a sense of the main character’s situation pre-virtual reality. You can use this opening scene in which he struggles with the boredom to show his life before the internet. These are all details that could serve to provide context for the internalizations. Mix internal thoughts with external actions. Provide that context for the reader, and I think it’ll really draw them in to this character’s world.
As an example of my curiosity about the main character’s world, this line:
Quote:
It no longer mattered that I was in a desolate coastal town.
quite struck me. Desolate coastal town? I’m from a coastal town! We can so relate about all of the crappy, boring things about coastal towns! And then alas, it was never mentioned again, making that line wholly irrelevant the way the story is currently written. Except I know that it’s relevant to this character. There’s a certain kind of person who grows up in a coastal town and never leaves. I know several of those people. Is this main character that kind of person? I’d need to see him going about the town trying to find something to do, or at least thinking about stuff he could do and shooting the options down. Memories of going to school with the same people over and over could work very well. I see that’s something you plan on working in later. I say go for it. It’s actually a pretty interesting quality of small cities that you grow up with the same people through primary and secondary school. I’d love to see how it plays into the main character’s desire for both stimulation AND escape.
I know that’s what the conflict of the story is, but it ends so abruptly...how do you plan the story to play out? I know that’s a focus for future revisions, but if I may, I ask you consider what the story is building up to. Is it building up to an incredibly unhealthy addiction to the internet, like so obsessed he’s starving himself, and then he has to decide whether or not to eat and it’s so difficult? What will the climax of the story be? Is there drama? Drama=danger+desire. If you want to create drama, you have the desire, but what’s the danger? Something in the real world that your main character is afraid of? Or, if there is no drama, what is it that your main character really wants, and either gets or doesn’t get by the end of the story? So far I see that your main character only wants something to do, something to stave off boredom, though I can’t see why any options other than the internet, like a job or more school or even a hobby, weren’t satisfactory.
That brings me to the unrealism of not first considering the internet to ease his boredom in the first place. I don’t know what year this story takes place in, but these days I would call the internet “The Boredom Destroyer.” It is known that if you got boredom, pay it to the internet and it will give you entertainment gold for hours and hours and hours. How can he, as a student who had to use the internet during school, not have known the powerful, terrible allure of the internet when trying to complete an assignment?
Quote:
Maybe I have some old lecture notes I can read, I mused and turned to the dusty computer on my desk. I only ever used it for my studies, but surely there would be something on there to do. The internet is a big place after all.
That’s all that’s said about the character’s previous relationship with the internet. It strikes me as so utterly alien that in this modern day and age a computer could ever collect dust. This moment immediately threw me out of the story. I don’t know a single student who ever used the computer for their studies only. At the very least it doubled as a porn machine. And yet this character had the focus and self-control of a Buddhist monk when working on assignments? Occam’s razor means the simplest answer is most often the correct one. You could argue that this is the case with your character, but it would be such an uphill battle, it’d be easier to say that he didn’t own a personal computer outside of college because he couldn’t afford one. Or that he had a hobby that took up all of his time and broke his leg, then turned to internet. Or basically some other reason why he didn’t consider the internet first when he was bored.
The character’s first impulse when faced with boredom is to read books he already owns, and once he’s done reading all of them he reads them all again rather than buy more.
Quote:
I needed something, anything to distract me and ease the boredom. I scoured through my meagre supply of novels and devoured each one. They became stale and bland after the fourth or fifth read. There had to be something else. My fingernails had worn thin from the excessive compulsion to drum them on every surface. Tap-tap-tap-tap. One-two-three-four.
Why not go buy more books? Can he not afford it? That’d be understandable, but I just don’t know as a reader if that’s the case or not. It’d be worth noting here why he doesn’t pursue other things. As it is, the character strikes me as very unimaginative with his time. If he likes books, it seems reasonable that he’d try to find some old books in a used book store, or live in Barnes and Noble, or something like that, rather than sit at home tapping his fingers. He needed something, anything to distract him? Why not write, or become a book hunter, or try to build a library, or join a book club, or go to poetry readings, or catalog the birds he sees in his garden, or start a garden, or start cooking, or cleaning, or any number of other things an adult could do with spare time? His thoughts go right back from the crux of exploring more about his personality to school. I yearn to know more about his personal life and interests! Why is it more reasonable to him to lose himself in the internet than to pursue any of these other things? If the reader is aware of the travails and failures finding something to do, or something to keep the main character interested in motivated in these options, then the turn to the internet and the subsequent obsession with it becomes that much more powerful. I know that’s a possibility here, and I’d really like to see it.
ANOTHER EDIT AFTER REREADING: One last thing I want to make note of is the tense. It's currently in past tense, which tells me that this character is reflecting on something that already happened. This always poses the question: where is the narrator in the present? Why is she reflecting on this period of her life? I'm not sure what narrative structure you want to use, but you can consider alluding to the present in the telling of the story if you need to, or even have a scene showing us the aftermath of this obsession. Using the past tense and not referring to the present at all is like showing the gun in the first scene and then not using it. If you'd like for the narrative to play out in a linear fashion, consider the present tense. It's all the rage in first-person short fiction these days.
So, all that said, this is a psychological piece examining the interiority of a person who loses himself in the alluring web of the internet. There’s tons and TONS of potential here for this story to grow into something dark and compelling or fun and light-hearted. As it is, the tone could go either way. I think you have the talent to deliver the story to us readers in whatever light you choose.
I am really glad you posted this. I can really feel for this character right now for a lot of reasons. I want to see more about him, and what resolution this story comes to. I hope my critique lends you some help and direction over the course of your next revision. Best of luck to you, and thanks a lot for the read
smile
Sincerely,
Eripsa
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