Rider of the Storm Discussion

It was a bit choppy and hard to follow in places. Everytime the tension got about right, a weird cut would happen and kill it. I'm not sure if it was a formatting problem or what but some things seemed to be missing.


The overall tone was right and with some clarification I think it could be a much better story.

I found the overall story very confusion. I can get the sense of suspension but because I was having so much trouble keeping track of the story, I had to go back a few times and read over some of the paragraphs.

There is some, probably, unintentional humour in the descriptions too:
So his truck is his best friend and the road is his girlfriend? There's something going on there.

"the sun was dying like a dog in a microwave" is a really fun description, but are you suggesting the was exploding? or that it was getting really hot around the edges but still frozen in the middle? seems like it was put in because it sounded cool, without being thought through well enough.

also the film references (like mentioning that this was where 'the thing' was filmed) seem out of character. maybe a trucker would have an encyclopeadic knowledge of john carpenter films, but it's unlikely, and certianly isn't justified in-story. it reads much more like a film-geek projecting his own knowledge onto things. Always stay in character, if character building is what you are trying to do - keep cultural references to things the character would know and care about.

I also have a thing against pop-culture references in general, as they limit the reality of the story you are writing, but many disagree, so make of it what you want.

and, as with the others, it did feel choppy and a little confused. it read like a condensed feature film script. Now a two hour film should have highs and lows of tension, calm moments before, you know, storms. But in a short story, and certianly this short story, it destroys any tension created, and then you have to start over.
A short story is like ONE scene or sequence, not a whole film. the tension should build steadily to the end with no let up.

So that's my contribution. i did enjoy reading it, honest. I just think constructive criticism is always more useful than 'it was alright' comments.