Short Story / Mariah

I liked this story a lot. I thought that you used the space that you alloted yourself very well. You added enough detail, and succeeded in conveying a sense of anticipation. I also liked how there was a little twist at the end when the girl turned out to be his daughter.

I like the sentence “Laptop men, Shop tired Tourists, Home for the Holiday relatives.” However, I think that the capitalization of some, but not all, of the words awkward. You could either capitalize everything or use hyphens.

Considering I work at an airport, I see scenes like this quite often. It’s very heartwarming and cool to see parents and children, friends and whoever meeting again after being so far away. I don’t have children, so I can’t exactly relate TOO perfectly with this piece, but it resonates just the same. Very well told, flowing with emotion and brief. I especially like how you capitalized certain descriptions as proper nouns, like Shop tired Tourists and Home for the Holiday relatives. Thumbs up!

the story is cute, but the tone and the emotion is so uniform – it would work if the twist at the end were big, but i don’t know that it’s big enough. the piece feels more like flash fiction to me, because it’s so focused

I don’t know.  The repeated line of “Pretty just like her name” isn’t very effective when used just twice.  Or if you didn’t intend to use it twice at all, get rid of one of them.

I realize it was supposed to be a twist, or at least an unexpected ending, but flesh out why he hadn’t seen Mariah for so long. Was he in jail?

The old man who at once seemed creepy, seems more sincere when you find out it is his daughter.  But him asking, “how long has it been?” and saying, “Don’t let that one go.”  seem a little odd, and a bit contrived.

Anyways, I didn’t see the ending coming.  So good work on that.

Keep writing!

Not sure if ending with “her” is a mistake. I’ll assume so.

Overall: simply written, but reasonably well written. Not earth-shatteringly suspenseful, but i was, as I read it, interested to learn of the climax.

I thought the “7 years” was actually going to be played with, and that you would then say he had been in the AIRPORT 7 years.

It’s a good enough fragment, but something of this length for me should offer something more memorable: superb style; humour; a cleve climax, or all three.

If I’m honest, I am just left thinking “what is the author trying to achieve with this story?”.

this does a nice job of capturing a tense and nervous moment, even joyously sad moment.  in the end to learn this is his daughter not seen for most of her life is a depressing conclusion and i’m not sure the reader shares in his joy.

imho i’d suggest more poignancy.  this could be a great start to learning more about the situation and where it was and where it goes.  is he now the full time father?  did mother just die, is that why Mariah is with the grandmother?

i’d like to read more.  thanks

very stinking sweet story. nice ending too. your age belies your wisdom. you might expand this a little here and there. add a little more description. good job. didn’t think you needed to repeat her name so much, especially at the end.

I like the story but not the structure. Every sentence does not need to start a new line, it is distracting.