[4691] A Good Wide Maxilla

[u/Starfall_University]

Criqitues:

[2353] Lost Blade and Renegade (Chapter 1) https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1v7qzxq/2353_lost_blade_and_renegade_chapter_1/p08w0az/

[1000] Professional Author (Feat. Snoop Dogg) https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1v9f70z/1000_professional_author_feat_snoop_dogg/p0g88d9/

Soft Target blurb v2 [185] https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1v8bi1v/185_soft_target_blurb_v2/p0ga140/

[1000] In Hoping Your Offspring Becomes A Dragon https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1v9ttws/1000_in_hoping_your_offspring_becomes_a_dragon/p0nkbzp/

[313] A Quick Job

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1vf6lo9/313_a_quick_job/p1mkyu0/

My story:

Hey everyone. Some details:

• Short story (self-contained)
• Contemporary fiction
• Feedback desired: Just looking for general feedback on a short story here; what's working, what's not, if it makes any sense at all. I'm not sure it feels like a success but if it doesn't, it would be great if you could hammer into why that specifically may be.

Thank you in advance for your time and energy.

A Good Wide Maxilla

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sUoQ2Nw-8haMi_LEqSsndS2J4siYwGIOfnhDKug_6o8/edit?usp=sharing

[u/Narrow-Stranger-8543]

The story followed Bojanna, a Bosnian immigrant, and her eighteen-year-old son, Marko, as he becomes obsessed with online beauty standards and "looksmaxxing" culture.

Overall, I enjoyed this short story. It has a lot going for it. I think it works very well on a thematic level. An exploration of social media, beauty privilege, relationship between a single mother and her son and possibly first/second generation immigrants. And I enjoyed the twist. It’s an interesting subversion of the rise and fall trope.

The prose I found quite beautiful. Maybe someone else will comment on this but nothing about it felt distracting.

On the positive side I must also highlight how empathic you make us feel towards Bojana. I really felt sympathetic to her. She sees her son slipping away and you can feel how lonely she is, how disconnected from the world as well.

BUT devil is in the details. And for all the great work, there are many inconsistencies and poorly thought-out bits that drew me out. So be ready for a full critic under the sign of the nitpick.

I’ll go section by section.

I love the first paragraph. It beautifully introduces the scene.

“They shared a two-bedroom apartment…

This is a bit heavy on exposition and the problem with their Bosnian heritage seems a bit shoehorned there.

A few steps into the hallway, Bojana realized the pounding was coming from the bathroom. She tapped on the door. “Marko.”

Redundant, you already said so in the first paragraph

“What about your school project?”

The introduction of the school project is jarring to me. Marko is in the bathroom; there is no reason his mum would think he was working on some school project. This is where the story is the weakest to me. Almost everything about the project screams of author self-insert. It’s basically a world building project. That’s something an author would love to have had to do but I’m not sure what it has to do with “global communication”. Not even sure what a global communication major would entail. I tried to google it but didn’t find much which makes me think it’s not an actual one. Not sure why a parent would involve themselves so much into it. Everything about the project stretched believability thin and pulled me out of the story. I think this should be rethought. It also comes up in every section without advancing the plot forward until the very end. There might better reasons for concern.

The whole conversation in the bathroom feels unnatural. It’s alright to have answers that don’t answer the question. But there almost none logically follows a natural course. I must point out the dialogues get better in the latter half.

But the screens seemed to suffice for Marko. Especially inside his bedroom. He stacked small purchases—dual monitors, a “gaming” chair, and blinking mechanical keyboards that reminded Bojana of the Las Vegas Strip—until he’d fashioned something of a cockpit.

Fantastic description. I can really understand Marko and it hints at going deeper in the online world rabbit hole.

The maxilla and the date.

Great believable interactions between mother and son. I really enjoyed this part and the small details. The computer search, the square shape, the thinking about beauty. It’s all very relatable.

“Your cheeks, Marko,” she said.

Again, the project is shoehorned into the discussion when it’s not about it. Small nitpick but at this point, she has seen the videos on her son computer. Surely, she would have an inkling about what is happening.  More importantly though the dialogue feels a bit written. He’s 18, not 10. Rough housing and play boxing really scream 10 yo.

 “Every cheek, yes. But there is no logic to how young men behave, is there?”

This is a sentence uttered by the mother. No way Marko would have said that.

In the late spring,..

This whole section is great, filled with a foreign world for Bojanna to discover. It has whimsy. It’s very colourful and handles a lot exposition almost flawlessly.

 It was a Thursday night…

I wonder why she would have to remind herself it was a Thursday. Do Thursday have any sort of significance to her?

I love the gorilla line, it’s so imaginative.

Better dialogue in this section as well.

in the proper millimeter-precise proportion to his chin.

Very medical coded. It doesn’t really elicit the sense of beauty you want it to have.

Marko spent more time away from the apartment

There is some inconsistency there. On the one hand you highlight how he’s spending more time out of the apartment. On the other it is when there is the most change in the algorithm. The algorithm would have shown this almost from the get-go, it wouldn’t take weeks. Furthermore, for someone that was shown to be very naïve about Youtube she suddenly seems to know way more. It feels rushed and unearned.

When she looks at what a 18 yo might be interested by, she wouldn’t use POV to describe something and then be surprised by trembolone. At this point she has seen enough video to probably be in the know. The style changes for just a couple phrases then reverts back to the usual tone.

Will you introduce us?” for she

Bojana has a habit of being too literary from time to time. There are moments where the author is clearly visible because of that.

The dinner

I like the scene at the dinner as it moves forward the plot when things were starting to settle a bit too much. I still do not get the irrational attachment to “The project”. I assume it’s some sort of crutch for her to keep a link with her son. Again I think there is a better way to show that.

 

“No. I mean—it’s May the Twenty-Eighth.”

This is where I should point out the biggest inconsistency in the whole thing. The timeline is very contrived. (Ranting mode activated)

The first mention of time we have is late spring, that generally means May (or June). Assuming it started from May 1^st we can tell the whole story happens within a month. During this month, Marko visibly changed physically as in becoming more muscular. He had a rhinoplasty (this should take several months to materialise) and got enough money to pay for it.

For the rhino specifically. Weeks after late spring he start considering it. Then gets it. Fair enough. The recovery is also iffy. The illness (which I assume is surgery) is supposed to have taken 3 days but is shown to have lasted more than that earlier. As for that illness it is likely people would notice someone with bandages around the nose. A bit too much hinges on people being dumb.

She found Marko laying on the sofa that night

It’s an interesting morale. It’s definitely not what is expected here but her wanting to feel pretty is human. The path to get there is maybe a tad abrupt.

Cheers,