Characters, Dialogue and Setting - Writing a Short Story

Giving and Receiving

“How can people live with this stench?” Kevin thought to himself as he walked into the lobby of the Xavier Springs Nursing Facility. strong opening line He couldn’t identify the source of the smell, but the feeling of nausea was overpowering. Despite being twenty-three, he’d never been in a place like this before. In addition to the odor, which he finally decided smelled like a combination of turnips and Lysol, he also was uncomfortable with the way so many of the patients just seemed to be sitting in wheelchairs doing nothing. He went to the front desk and asked what room his Aunt Rita was in. While his she was his favorite aunt, Kevin couldn’t wait to get out of this place.
As he walked down the long corridor of towards his aunt’s room, he heard someone asking for tapioca pudding. The odd thing was she kept asking for it over and over again. He looked in the room where the sound was coming from and saw there was no one in there but a small woman in a big bed. “Just ignore her,” said a girl who looked much younger than Kevin. “That’s all she says all day long.” “Wow, that must be annoying.” “Well, you get used to it after a while.” Finally, he got to his aunt’s room and knocked on the door. A very weak voice beckoned him to come in. Despite the low volume of the voice, he recognized it and walked in. He was immediately struck by how sad she looked. Rita had tried really hard to stay in her apartment, but after a fall her niece Carol (Rita had never married and had no immediate family) had decided that she couldn’t take care of herself anymore and the only place she could afford was this facility. As soon as he came toward her, she started to cry. “Please get me out here Kevin, I hate this place.” comma splice Kevin immediately wished he’d never come. What was he going to say? She went on to tell him that while everyone was very nice to her she felt like she was in prison. He could certainly see what she meant. The cinder block walls were barren, and the room was very dark, even with the lights on. People had come to visit her, but she wondered how long that would last. “People have their own lives; they don’t want to come see a decrepit old woman.” Kevin asked where all the stuff from her apartment was. “Carol put it in storage for me.” “Well, maybe it might be more like your apartment if you had some of your things in here.” Rita agreed and gave him a list of things she’d like to have in her room. Kevin promised to return the following week with the items.
Week after week Kevin came; he even began to tolerate the smell, though he never got used to the “tapioca woman”. place period inside the qmarks One time he was asking Rita about her life when she was little. He found himself fascinated by things that happened when she and her brother (Kevin’s father who had died a few years earlier) were growing up. He’d never been particularly close to his father, and was both sad that he didn’t know much of what she told him, but happy to finally be getting so much insight into his father’s life when he was little. Kevin continued his periodic visits to see his aunt until she contracted pneumonia and died after three days. [ later. omit] At Rita’s funeral, his cousin Carol handed him a package. She told him that she had found it in a drawer at the nursing home. He opened the package and saw that it was pages that she had taken out of one of the photo albums he had brought her from storage. They were all pictures of his father growing up. In addition, she had included several pages of reflections on each of the pictures. It appeared that she had been working on it for some time, but hadn’t finished it before she got sick. Paper clipped to the first page was a note that said, “Kevin, I know you miss your father. Hopefully these pictures and my ramblings about them will bring you a little happiness. Goodness knows your visits have brought me more joy than you can imagine. Think fondly of me whenever you have tapioca pudding! Love, Aunt Rita.” funny and perfect last line!

Instructor Feedback

Hi Jim: Your Kevin's certainly an ordinary character in a very ordinary setting (though I'd like to see the setting be a bit more symbolic of what he discovers or learns) who finds something extraordinary that changes his life in a small but very significant way. Your story has a strong sense of plot, characters, and setting. Overall, strong work. But review how to handle / format dialogue. Notice models in our text. See how each exchange of dialogue typically gets its own line. Dialogue is handled as though it's a new paragraph, which means line breaks. Contact me if you need help. The revision module is activated so that you can start thinking about how you'd like to re-see this piece for your portfolio / blog. Oh, and about the two page limit: well, that's to make sure students don't ramble and say a lot of nothing:) Two pages means you really have to think about what goes into your story and what doesn't belong. Word economy and purpose are very important. W/out them your readers may get the sense you're wasting their time. Make sense? --Gary