Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Pavlov's Final Research

The first line of "Pavlov's Final Research" jarred me a little.  "The front doorbell jingled."  It jingled?  I guess it's accurate, but it felt strange to me and threw me out of the story for a moment.  The next sentence failed to pull me back in, attempting to utilize "reflexively" to build character quickly, yet falling flat.  After that the sailing was much smoother.

The characters in this story are real.  They feel fairly real in the context of the story as well.  One line of dialogue bothered me.  However, it was forgivable.  Character was very important to this story; I think it was done with adequate expertise.

This story has a strange plot.  It caters to the characters in a way that thrusts dialogue to the foreground.  The whole of it lasts just a few minutes.  There's really only one event.  For me, the plot wasn't large or emotional enough.

Setting played little part in this story.  The doorbell jingling is a setting detail, I suppose, so setting is probably the worst of the three main story attributes.  I can't really blame the writer a whole lot.

I've read worse.  I've read better.  This story is middling.  I'd still give it a read, my dear virtuous followers.

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