Short Story / Morning Coffee

How about puncuation and regualr form for a story.
I like the idea, but I don’t like reading it.

There is just on period in this writing. You need more.

The best part of this piece is when you do things like

“driving on top of the person in front of me only seems to make me go slower”

which could be read

driving on top of the person in front of me    AND
the person in front of me only seems to make me go slower

If you could write the whole piece like this, it would be more artful.

this is a nice start. stream of consciousness writing can be used for many mediums. i don’t mind the length of the paragraph or lowercase – it could use some punctuation to help with the flow. as an exercise i would suggest – if i may – re-writing this.

punctuation or dashes suggestion. you want the reader to not have to back up and insert their own punctuation.
music and sing the song
music and sing – the song

I’m not sure what the author’s intent is here as his story lacks from a severe running on of words like he is impatient as hell to use the punctuation “rules of the road” as it were.  Shape this piece up.  It is clearly a characterization of personal experience that has the potential to be a well written short story…but first you have to follow the traffic signals and ensure your readers know where the starts and stops are.  H.

for me, the manic fluidity is incongruous with both the traffic jam and the alleged pre-coffee lack of alertness.

so, no: doesn’t work for me, sorry.

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January 24, 2008

by Protagoras

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by the way, I should also have said:

”...but if you applied this writing style to something with which it WAS congruous, then it would be extremely effective”

I’m thinking amphetamines, or mania, or perhaps both.

best,
Oliver

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I like it.  However, it comes off, not as being in someone’s head, but someone writing about being in someone’s head.  I liked the non-use of punctuation, but if your gonna do it that way, i feel like you should break it up in some other way.  Dashes here or there, larger gaps, just to fragment the piece.  Afterall, its called a stream of consciousnous, but that doesn’t mean we don’t pause every once in a while.

Also, since we’re in the narrators head, lets hear the words of the song she’s singing, and then see how she loses that song to other thoughts.

Good work,
james

Very dry beginning, middle and end, and I think stream of consciousness works better when there is more thought and less telling about the doing. But one could say that this does represent the same old same old of the morning coffee. Perhaps Monday Morning would be a better title.

Not sure what you mean by “testing the waters”, but it works just fine as a stream of consciousness.  I wonder if you even need that period at the end.  Folks can relate to this vignette, and it’s well told, but it isn’t quite a story.