Life Is Strange by Ben Fiore - Short - A chance encounter between a young, uppity businessman and an aggressive, homeless beggar takes on a bizarre twist as their roles are eventually reversed. 5 pages - rtf, format 8)

This story really needs some padding.  It's so straight-to-the-chase that it makes me wonder if you thought of it, wrote it, and submitted it all in one afternoon.  There was no character developement and the dialogue was very forced.

I don't see why such a busy business man would waste his time lecturing a homeless person when he's on a business call.  Normally, the business man would just keep going and not say a word to him.  Why the conversation?

The phone conversation, regarding selling stocks should be researched a liitle.  No one is going to lose a fortune in selling dot-com stock.  In fact, most people have lost fortunes by keeping it.  And don't call it 'dot-com stock.'

If you want to do anything with this story, I would say to make it longer.  Develop the characters a little and show a little bit about what happened in that year since they first met.


Phil