Hi Harry,

Well, I read the whole costume series.

I felt that you intended this to be a longer piece than the 1024 character format that ficly limits us to. One of the things that the format does is to force me to tighten my ideas down to the essentials. Extraneous details, exposition, etc, have to be whittled away. What you are left with is the barest bones of the story, and in that story you try to portray the essential truths.

For example, in this story, descriptions of the room, the other girl with the hookah, even the clown lighting a cigarette, or who you were mistaken for in your suit were described. Were these essential to the story? If the story was to be about alienation, loneliness, and coping, then no.

I try to have each ficly story stand on its own as something independent. This isn’t to say I don’t reference things in past stories or point to future events, but I try to make each ficly stand on it’s own. That is were I feel this series fell a bit short of the mark. A good try.

whoa, the dramatic meanign you intended for your readers to understand here is lost, completely, there wasn’t enough of a set-up, even in four ficlies, why? because you TOLD us about the people instead of showing us, endearing us to the characters. The metaphor is well set-up here, but take out the line about the kids, it doesn’t help at all.