Love Letters by PC - (Persian Walnut) - Short, Drama - Things begin to change for the worst when a Postman starts to receive love letters. - pdf, format

This one was pretty good and fit the challenge well.  I thought it was going to turn into the red shoe diaries at first.  I had a feeling that Bernard was going to be set up and the meeting at the graveyard made that pretty obvious.  Maybe if the meeting was at a home or an apartment it wouldn;t have been as obvious.

This was well written and Bernard was not a likable person, I don't know how Edna ended up with him in the first place.  I wish she had a little more spice to her but things did turn around in the end.  All in all this was a good entry and it was amusing as well.

This was good. I loved your writing style. Your descriptions were first rate and I didn't feel like there were any flat spots in the story.  

SPOILERS

Sure Bernard was a prick to Edna and during the story I thought to myself, this woman is pathetic, why is she putting up with this rubbish? So that was well done.  

Through out the story I felt that Bernard was being set up, because there was no way a hot young chick could fall for a slob like him but I didn't really foresee it ending the way it did.  I also liked the fact that the insensitive gift Bernard gave Edna actually ended being used on him. That was a nice piece of irony.

The only suggestion I would make is that instead of having Billy Bob in on the scam, perhaps Tom could be in on it with Edna. I think ending it that way would be better than using Billy Bob, because Billy Bob is a new character who sort of arrives out of the blue, whereas Tom has already been introduced. I also think having him and Edna in cahoots would be plausible especially if it was because they wanted Bernard out of the way, so they could be together.  

But apart from that one suggestion, (and that’s all it is, because I think it works fine as it is) I thought this was an enjoyable and interesting read. You nailed the genre and the line/theme was seamlessly worked into the story. Well done.    

Good stuff.

The story flowed really well from start to finish and the descriptions and dialogue were very good.

The way Bernard oppressed Edna really made me hate the guy so I was delighted when the power shifted at the end.

I thought the meeting place was a bit odd and out of the blue but it's all good.

As Chris Reid said, Billy Bob was an odd choice to be in on the scam because he hadn't been introduced yet so it is a bit of an anti-climax.

When Bernard is moving towards the figure in the shadows he says, ''Reba?'' But, unless I missed it, the name of the admirer hadn't been mentioned either by the charactors or in the letters.

I thought I had the ending sussed when it was revealed that he was going to meet up with his admirier in the graveyard but it didn't turn out how I thought it would, so the ending suprised and therefore went down well with me.

Not bad, but not outstanding either. Both Edna and Bernard come off as pretty stereotypical, with Edna to an almost comic extreme...(Who really wears an apron anymore)...

Buxom of a woman? She's just buxom woman...

Use the description "A Bulge in his pants, uncomfortable, he adjusts his crotch"...twice. Once on page 5 and then again on page 9.  Might rewrite it as:

With an uncomfortable bulge in his pants, Bernard adjusts his crotch...

Tom Neitche...Why so formal? If he's a work buddie, he'd call him Bernie or the Bernster, something other than just Bernard.

Where did Billy Bob come in? I assume he was the shapely woman in the cemetary, or at least dressed up as one...Needs a proper capitolized character introduction.

The plot device of Edna all of a sudden wanting Bernard dead because he doesn't pay attention to her doesn't work for her character.  If she's a submissive, mousey woman, as she is, she would figure she deserves to have a shmoe like Bernard to have to take care of- she needs him, as a nurturer-

She all of a sudden changes her whole life to become a self realized Amazon in a matter of a few pages?

Nah. Now, had she tried with great effort to get him to show her more affection, or was asserting her self more in her home life,  then maybe this route would be more appropriate as she goes over the edge. but as it is they are completely different people...

Quoted from Grandma Bear This one seemed like it was written by someone tipsy or drunk even, on the eve of the deadline.

Nah. The formatting and writing was too polished for that to be the case.

The story was funny espeically at the end. But I think the quote could have been better used at the end when he sees the girl. You allowed Bernard to satisfy his goal too quickly, which I saw as him getting the other postal guys to know about the good looking girl. I think that could another driving force for him to go rather than pure pleasure.  

Gabe

I was enjoying this, right up to the end. I think you should really go back to this and change the ending. Who's Billy Bob? He came from nowhere and to be honest he wasn't needed at the end. Edna sent the letters and has a gun so why does he need to be there?

I think you developed the characters well and the story was good - I was just hoping for a better, more imaginative way to get Bernard back.

Ste

Wow. This was excellently-written. Sharp and concise, buy visually evoking at the same time.

It was extremely predictable though. I seriously doubt there was a single reader here that thought Bernard was really getting laid.

Billy Bob didn't work at all. He shouldn't be there. Just change one of your existing characters' physical appeareance to that of Billy Bob (Tom maybe) and throw him in there. I mean, seriously, Billy Bob? Who the heck is Billy Bob?

And I must say, even though Bernard was an asshole--he did not deserve his fate, At all. If your goal was for me to hate him, you failed. I profoundly *disliked* him but nothing he did made me literally "hate" him. He was a verbally-abusing drunk and nothing more. If anything, his fate made me dislike both Edna and Bernard.

--Julio

I gotta say it too: No Billy Bob. When he is mentioned, it's like pulling the emergency brake on the highway. You just go "where the hell did this guy come from?" You go back... no that other guy was Tom. It just screeches to a halt.

Up until the turn, which you might as well use as you title (Bernard Gets Tricked) because everyone sees it coming, it's really good. More comedic than dramatic but it fits enough. The line worked well.

Redo act 3 and i think you got something really good here.

I enjoyed reading this and it is structured well and works as a complete story. I agree with the other comments here about some of the draw backs.

I’d suggest Bernard needs to be more vain and a little less repulsive to make the thing less predictable.

I know this is me being stupid but when I read “Clear blue sky and trees explode in fiery colors.” I briefly thought the sky had exploded!

As everyone else mentioned, saw the twist coming and Billy Bob should be changed to Tom.

Still it was a very enjoyable read, glad to see Bernard get what was coming to him, and it was a very smooth read also.

I wonder if you changed Billy Bob to Tom, and then had Tom be a little younger, if she could serve as a love interest to Edna. It'd be funny to see Bernard's demise come about because he thought he had a young admirer, when in actuality Edna was the one who had a young admirer, which caused her to carry out her plan.

Just a thought, as I said, enjoyable, if not predictable read.

So this was more of a comedy rather than a drama...dramedy, then...

Bernard is an asshole. And I was wondering what was really going on in Edna's mind about him. She did the right thing.

But I knew from the very beginning that when he started to read the letters, the woman wasn't going to be that pretty, and that it was either going to be some really ugly woman or a man...which I was very confused about when we saw Billy Bob (whoever that was, considering the fact that we were never introduced to him in the first place), because first you describe the lady as a really ugly woman, and then it turns out to be a man. If it's going to be a man in the first place, just say it's a man when we find out.

There were some grammar mistakes, plus missing words, and some words that were in the wrong place in the sentence, such as: "What? You reading fuckin' my mail now?" unless Bernard is too drunk to place his words in the right place.

Any way, it was funny and predictable...

Sean

Quoted from Grandma Bear This one seemed like it was written by someone tipsy or drunk even, on the eve of the deadline...

This sounds less like feedback and more like an admission of guilt to me....

Quoted from bert This sounds less like feedback and more like an admission of guilt to me....

I think you could be on to something, Bert.

It struck me as being a fairly odd review.