Got my hand slapped

As the title say's, I got my hand slapped in writing class.  Our assignment was to read someone else's story, and write an analysis of it.  The stories were given to us without names so we would only be basing our comments on the content of the story, not how we react to the person writing it.  As soon as I read the first paragraph of my assignment, I knew who the author was.  It started off with a description of a man getting ready for work.  The man did not have use of his legs.  This scenario automatically gave away the author as Garage Sale Sally.  The name was changed to protect the truly crazy author.  GS Sally is this Earth Momma type who always wears pretty much the same outfit.  Tie-dyed T-shirt with bib overalls and sandals or,, when she needs to dress to impress, she wears tie-dyed Moo-moo dress with lime green Crocs or some plain Birkenstocks.   GS Sally has read several of her stories in class. I will give her one thing, she is a prolific writer.  She always has something ready.  I struggle to get something out, meanwhile she is churning our stories.  They are all the same basic plot.  The main character has a hurdle that they must overcome.  Some times it is a physical defect, something like paralysis, or a deformity.  Usually the circumstances were industrial accidents or car accidents, and occasional birth defect.  The drama of her stories usually revolves around the physically challenged main character having to overcome a challenge.  Things like a new job, falling in love, facing a fear or tackling some angst ridden confrontation.  One time the fear was a steep hill that a wheelchair bound person kept avoiding.  The majority of her story was about how the character would take Main street one day or Willow street another day.  Luckily the city where the story took place was small and we only had to hear about 5 different routes before the main character finally made it down the hill.  I think the story would have been better if she would have had her heroine freefalling down the street, careening off of buildings and cars before she safely coasted to a stop at the bottom of the hill.  Not our luck, GS Sally described the ladies slow agonizing trip,, one block at a time, describing every crack in the sidewalk and even the "urine soaked doorway's"  that she passed.  

 

The story that I was fortunate enough to critique was about a paraplegic who was working through his daily activities as he got ready for a job interview.  All of his challenges  and then the anxiety of getting geared up for the interview.  He was trying to get a job at a shipping company,, yes,, a shipping company as a delivery driver.  It was not with UPS,, but a fictional company named,, ready for this,,,,"VQT".  In case you did not get the significance of this name,, VQT is made up of the next letters after U , P and S.  GS Sally had our hero, "Hal",applying for a job as a VQT driver. She described his thought process as he got himself ready to respond to all the negative reactions that he expected at the interview.  She had him plan his very own special delivery truck and how he would hire assistants to help him out with tough deliveries.  She never did explain the economics of this,  Economics and cost justification had no room in this story,, this was about the noble human spirit and how man can overcome anything.

 

In my critique, I wrote "This story seems to be plagiarized from several stories that have been submitted in class throughout the year.  Substitute "paraplegic" with "Burn Victim",  change "delivery truck driver"  to "sports agent" and "Messenger of the Year" with "the most successful sports agent of the year" and this story is identical to "Burned no more" that someone else wrote.  I went on to say that the story lacked originality, and was not very creative.  Here is where I probably went to far,, I suggested that the title be changed from "In-Time and On-Time"  to "Stand and Deliver"