Pet Rock by Mike Doyle (personalnumber123864) - Short, Comedy - The gypsies have a curse - "may you get what you want". Katie wants a pet that doesn't die. Unfortunately that's exactly what she gets. 21 pages - pdf, format 8)

Wow Mike, what a bizarre little story.

Some of the lines were genuinely unexpected and hilarious, such as 'I can roll for you since you don’t have arms. Or hands. Or a soul.', and 'I really don’t like you having knives in your room. Especially ones that have been cleansed with the blood
of the righteous.'

The way the father speaks to the little girl is also very funny in places. I love his character, most amusing.

Some of the action scenes don't quite read right in places, but overall I really enjoyed it.

A good, quick and very funny read.

While I felt it was written sharply... I couldn't get past how redundant and annoying the names being thrown around were. It was like someone driving a point home and then when the point landed at its destination, you began to crank on it with a screwdriver.  We get the fact the dad likes to call his girl weird names... Just tone it back. It made nearly every scene with the father and daughter painful and predictable all the same.

As for the story, it was a nice little story. I felt the creativity spilling over the brim more than once and that was a nice change of pace for once. It was a cohesive little tale that covered some nice ground.

I think that much of the dialogue could've been taken out and with it about 7 pages, though. The story is still there within a lot of your over stepping and speaking, basically.  But for extensions sake, yea... it still works at the 21 pages it's set at.  I just wish I didn't have to wade through the amount of hits and misses along the way.

Dialogue, for the most part = sharp.
Story, for the most part = good
Flow and content = passable.

So all in all, you write well... take some of your inside humor and tame it down a bit. Take out some pages of jibber jabber and add more substance to the overall "story" and not the "characters" ... Why? Cos I think you have the characters down pretty good. It's the story and content that suffer a bit here and there.

Nice, funny and original.  
You use puddles as her name a couple times in a row.  If youre gonna go with that kinda gag it needs to keep changing.  Though overall I thought it was funny enough, not quite in the cranking on it with a screwdriver realm.
Don’t think you should have nick talk at the end.  I liked his character fine, I think that last little bit kinda kills it.
Other than that, all interesting characters and plenty entertaining.  Nice work.

thanks all for the reads and feedback. i truly appreciate it.

craigcooper: would love a bit more color on your comment re: the action scenes. some specific examples would be most helpful.

baltis: my heart started racing when i saw you read this. i've seen you shred some folks on here (rightfully so in most cases) so had to read your comments with one eye closed. glad i made it through okay. you're probably right about the pet names. i'll go for quality not quantity on the next draft. any chance i could get you to pinpoint the "jibber jabber"? i'm trying to get this sucker as tight as possible and would love to know where the dead spots are.

ophelia: agree with you 100% on the pet names. that'll need a retooling for sure. sorry the nick line killed it for you. guess i need to rethink the tiny tim ending.