Short Story / The Walk

Look for the brackets for additions or other suggestions.

Every Monday after school [,] Jason’s father asked him to walk to the store for bread.
[It was an irritating] request because the walks [took at least 30 minutes round trip.]

This went on for about [3—spell out, three. anything under 10, spell out.] years until Jason finally [consider ‘got’ rather than ‘obtained.’ only robots say obtained] his driving license.

[The following Monday, his dad] again asked him to walk to the store. [DELTE:Jason replied]
I have a license.”
it your way.”
ecstatic about using his father’s car, gathered his friends and went to the store. Mike[DELTE, one of his friends, you already said pick up his friends]
“Aw[DELTEw] Jason I see you decided to drive today huh.”
[DELTE:Jason replied,]
sir.”
trip to the store took less than five minutes to and fro, and because of life’s interruptions (parents, siblings, homework, games, girls and TV) it took Mike 2 [spell out two] weeks to tell his story. At the end of Mike’s story, the friends were so built up from their own life, instead of their usual comforting friendship they just told one gloomy story

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One day Jason went to his father and asked to be taken off the football team. [AWKWARD SENTENCE:His reasoning was he never had any time for his friends. CONSIDER: He told his dad he never had time for friends] [The father WHY DO YOU KEEP USING ‘THE FATHER.’ IT’s TOO STATIC. JUST SAY ‘His DAD’] [DELTE: only] replied, “Why don’t you walk to the store on Monday?” Jason confused said, “Never mind Dad.” His father replied, “Have it your way.” [Please consult general rules I copy and pasted on dialog. Your tags are awkward. Just put the dialog in separate]

It took the friends an hour and a half
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to get to the store that day. They shared all of their despairs with one another and even an inside manly cry. When they got the store the clerk said, “Glad to see you guys back here again. I am glad that everything is okay with you Steve. The whole town was worried about you.” Then he said something that he always said, but this time it was a question.

“I see you guys decided to drive today?” the clerk said.
[NEW PARAGRAPH] “No, sir we walked today.Thought we would do it for old times’ sake.” Jason replied.

USE THESE GENERAL RULES:
Start a new paragraph with each new speaker.

Don’t put thoughts in quotes, it confuses the reader as to which lines are being spoken and which are being thought.

Beginning writers sometimes wait until the end of a long speech to add the tag line. If you are going to use a tag line, do so as soon as stylistically possible. If you wait too long, the reader won’t know who the speaker is until the end, and not knowing distracts the reader from what is being said.

Avoid using too many tags. This includes padding with a lot of description or gestures. Sometimes the dialogue must flow without interruption, with minimal tags. If only two characters are speaking, you can let several lines go without any tags.

Avoid adverbs in the tag lines

Don’t overuse names when characters address each other.

This has a really cute plot and a lot of potential, now focus on improving some of the prose. I’ve included some specific comments on the text below. Also, the ending needs a bit of tweaking. If the dad sent the envelope on the day Jason got his license, why didn’t he get it that day when he went to the store? I suggest changing the day the envelope was sent to the day when Steve ends up in the hospital. It would make better sense that way. Work on the prose in this story. I find it wordy and repetitive. Most of the sentence structures are exactly the same, so you need to change them up. Overall, good start.

Comments on the text below:

—[Awkward phrasing wit the “due to”] The usual irritation from this request surfaced, due to the walks lasted 30 minutes both to and fro

—wild boyish adventures. [Say something more specific, like ‘they’d toss rocks at the windows of the old abandoned house on Cooke St. or something something blah blah]

—Your second graf has some wordiness, for example, “one of his friends,” just say Mike, it’s obvious it’s his friend because you wrote he “gathered his friends”

—current issues in life. Right before the core of the story they were at the store. [You need to be specific. This reads like a Congressional report. Say something like, Jason told Mike about the new chick he was seeing, and her annoying habit to  x, y and z]

—the boys spent most of their time with their friend. [more wordiness. we know it’s his friend, you told us already]

—A lot of these sentences are constructed: Jason did this. Jason said that. Figure out a new way to construct your prose, because people don’t like to read stuff like this.

—Perhaps change when the envelop was sent. Maybe when Steve gets in his accident. Because Jason goes to the store on the day he got his license, but no one gave him the envelope then. Continuity issues.

This is a great story/non-religious parable.

I actually laughed out loud at poor Mike finally telling his story after two weeks.

Not quite sure how deep a critique you want as you haven’t specified, but there is a lot to be done on the technical side…but please please don’t touch the story!

(due to the walks lasted 30 minutes) – ‘lasting’?

(Though the there was…) – omit ‘the’?

(obtain his driving license) – the second time around you should really find a different way to say this. Repetition in such a short space of time breaks the rhythm.

(Jason finally obtain…) – ‘obtained’?

(Jason ecstatic about using his father’s car, gather…) – ‘Jason…ecstatic about using his father’s car…gathered’ Just a suggestion.

(five minutes to and fro. Because of life’s) – I’d replace the period with a comma and then ‘but’. These few lines at the end of this paragraph are my favourite, but they’d be even more dynamic if you brought them closer to each other in order to highlight the contrast between these two sentences.

(told gloomy story after another.) – ‘one’ gloomy story…?

(Once day Jason went) – ‘One’ day?

I also like the mystery around the father’s intentions. Did he mean for Jason to learn the value of time spent on foot with friends? Or was is simply his intention for Jason to pick up his new car?

Very well done (don’t touch the story!)