Critique of Gabrielle’s “How to Make Friends”

“How to Make Friends” is exactly what the title makes it out to be: a step by step instructional manual for how to gain a companion.  The piece is more technical than the average self-help book and is experimental in its use of diagrams and the overall format of a manual.  I like the thorough breakdown of every aspect of friendship and the unexpected use of casual terms such as “stalkerish”.  While it is an interesting piece, it lacks any elements of a story.  Perhaps the relation of two characters, whether conflicted or successful, could be interspersed throughout the text as a recurring example.  This would provide an underlying narrative in the piece and make it read more like a piece of experimental fiction.

Critique of Elle’s “Here Lies Love”

The title mimics an epitaph and suggests that the piece will one way or another deal with the death of love.  The story is divided into sections by roman numerals, which fit the poetic tone of the piece as though they are separating prose stanzas.  Though I read the first couple of sentences of part II like lyrics to a Cake song, I like the elegant and ambiguous language of the overall piece.  I also like how the characters and other scene elements are reduced to geometric shapes, colors, and other sensory details.  While the ambiguity does benefit the story, I am not sure what to make of the overarching conflict with Katherine, who is apparently the character as the one before with the “evil inside of her.”  I cannot tell if she is now independent of her lover or a tumor, the latter of which would be supported by the title and other details.  Some aspects of the story could be made clearer, but the piece is very well composed.

Critique of Laurel’s “My best friend is going to prison”

The story, through a variation of chronologies, traces the development of the narrator’s friendship with an individual who has recently been arrested for possession, though the charges are apparently debatable.  It offers a wide range of experiments with text, including enjambed lines leading into a dictionary definition, a newspaper article, a single expletive with its own page, text messages and journal entries interrupted by sequential phrases in caps, prison visitation reviews, and instructions for sending mail to inmates.  The rapid change in format successfully reflects the narrator’s anxious uncertainty about how to handle the friend’s fate, but the shift is too drastic to follow at times, especially with the reverse chronology on the second page.  I did enjoy how the piece  forced me to flip between the pages to figure out what was going on, but the ambiguity could be a little more subtle.  Still, this is an interesting piece and is worthy of expanding.

Critique of Ashley’s “Application for Employment”

At first the piece seems to be an ordinary barista application for a 16-year-old Pendledton Roberts, but as soon as it is revealed that the applicant has an impairment that would interfere with her to perform, the experimentation begins.  The narration, told from Pendleton’s point of view in the response boxes, clearly demonstrates that the applicant is emotionally unstable and hints to her hiatus from school.  The explanation for her impairment is withheld until the final page, where the reader realizes that the former high school student experienced a breakdown after losing her position in the student body government, attempted suicide in the art room, and was subsequently asked to leave school.  Though she will likely not get the position, Pendleton’s job application makes for a great experiment with text.  The story, however, only covers a small portion of the whole text, so it may be beneficial to spread it across several applications to the same establishment.  This would allow for more narration and reinforce Pendleton’s instability.

Critique of Yvonne’s “Notes on a Kitchen Table”

Placing notes on the kitchen table is a practical way for busy housemates with differing schedules to communicate on matters related to the home.  Either resident will cross the table at some point in their day.  In Yvonne’s piece, a disgruntle Ally has left a note accompanied by a flow chart on the table to tell her flaky boyfriend that it’s either his drinking problem or her.  Both the notes and flow chart pose creative ways to write a story around a couple’s conflicted relationship.  Ally’s devotion is strongly evident her familiarity with Danny’s daily routing, as Danny’s problem is very apparent in the red path between bubbles that reveals chronic neglect of his girlfriend.  Since she stayed up until 4am creating a flow chart to incite some change in Danny, it is obvious that Ally sees some positive attribute in him that outweighs his alcoholism and justifies her tolerating the habit, but the reader is not exposed to any redeeming qualities.  Even when Danny says he is “trying” in his late response, he admits to going out (most likely for a drink) in the next sentence.  The piece could use some details that make the reader sympathize for Danny as Ally does.  Also, the image of notes on kitchen table is not evoked much further than the title and the handwritten font in the notes themselves.  Perhaps the first portion of the piece could be photographs of these notes written on notebook paper and left on a table?  It would make sense for each character to have different handwriting too.

Critique of Sarah’s “---- The Explorer”

Though this psychological evaluation of the children’s cartoon character only includes a portion of the average data sections, it is surprisingly thorough in identifying symptoms of a number of mental disorders.  Based on Sarah’s attention to detail, I would find it interesting to read the full evaluation of Dora the Explorer, however frightening the fact that this unstable patient is a tool for encouraging development in young viewers would be.  I was able to decipher Dora’s name beneath the black ink, but still commend Sarah for deviated from an entirely clinical approach and adding a guessing game to her piece.  This made reading a psychological evaluation more entertaining.  The story could use more sections, but overall it is a success.