Fruit by me. (Eat atleast 5 a day.)

Any chance of breaking it into smaller ...more manageable chunks? The lenght is likely to put people off reading it. I for one have the attention span of an aphid. I will try and read it when I have the time. For the moment the strong cloudy mix of cider in the village hall caught my eye. Sounds really provincial but comically so. You might want to reconsider naming Mr Pye... I can't help but think of Mervyn Peake's character of that name. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

A bit difficult to read through in such a large block, not because of attention span but because of the proximity of the sentences. I bunch things together in the excact same way though. Anyway, excellent story. Very creepy, the repetition helps add a touch of...paranoia, for the lack of a better word. It keeps you suspicious without divulging too much. GREAT READ! To my KAIROS Brothers and Sisters: Doubt, Cry, Trust, and Live! KAIROS LX forever!

bbFrancis. That is a totally fair point. I do feel bad about this. I have read commented in the past, but I have been working extra long days recently and have not had the time (that old excuse). I have wanted to get the most recent two finished. I do appretiate this point, and I am sorry. This last week has been read OR write. (Work should be a bit slower today so Ill try and do that). Though as a first offence maybe I was repremanded a bit harshly? Thank you to the others for the comments. I have been wondering about the 'Splitting up' thing. I am working on a 'reading' layout at www.5000wpm.co.uk. Is the recomendation here to post the story as two separate stories but Part 1 and Part 2? The name Mr. Pye - yes it is like M.Peaks but for me it is very relivant for the village. I appretiate that no one else knows that. I was indulging myself. ;)

bbFrancis. Good to know. I don't bruise easily but I try my best to say what I think. The world for me is better that way. I totally respect what you say and am now reading alot and being ultra slack at work. :)

You don't have to follow this advice, but my suggestion would be to break the story up into two parts: the first being the character's childhood memories, and the second being the adult portion and the climax of events. Redrecon

OK, I have split this into 3 chunks. http://www.abctales.com/story/phil-harvey/fruit-part-1 http://www.abctales.com/story/phil-harvey/fruit-part-2 http://www.abctales.com/story/phil-harvey/fruit-part-3 the main one is still there. Cheers

http://www.5000wpm.co.uk/writing/f/f.html I have just formatted "Fruit" to fit into my website. Breaks it down into 16 chunks there. Cheers Phil.

Phil having just read part 1 - it strikes me as a very long intro. It is all backstory and though i haven't read the other parts yet, i would suggest that you start in the action and add this backstory in as you go. There is little in Part 1 that makes me want to read on. It is also very much 'telling' and lacks a distinct voice that draws me in. But just my opinion, others may disagree. Juliet

Fair enough, Its odd that you say that though. Someone just read the website version (www.5000wpm.co.uk) which is split up into 16 parts and said they found it to be a 'page turner'. Maybe its all to do with HOW I split it up. The first part of it is a little more 'telling' I suppose. The long intro was important to me because I didn't want the piece to be just about the ending. I wanted a 'country life' feel to it to oppose the ending. Thank you ver much for your comments. I would be interested by what you thought of the other two parts (shorter), to see if it 'picked up' for you or not. General: It appears that the version on my website has had all of the quotation marks and apostrophies stolen. Woops, ill have to fix that.

I understand your need to place the story in context, but the country feel can be interwoven throughout, rather than thrown at the reader in one chunk, which slows the pace. Long intro's i find are usually for the writers benefit rather than reader (getting into the scene), and once written you have to be quite harsh at editing out the preamble and getting to the story, otherwise you are likely to lose your readers interest. will check out other two parts sometime soon, and give you my thoughts. Juliet

the wordiness of the first part for me continues into the second two. This story could be told in about a third of the length. There is too much description about tiny things, e.g. getting up, going outside, watching TV that are not relevant to the plot. What i do like is the narrators voice, but i would like to see his individual take on the world strengthened, so that i care about what happens to him. In terms of plot, again for me it was too obvious. I had barely started part 2 and yet i knew how it was going to pan out. Apple tree needs flesh to grow, reminds me a little too much of 'Little Shop of Horrors', and therefore lacked orginality. In terms of developing this, i would take these three parts as notes and rewrite this afresh, concentrating on developing a tight plot that builds and builds and maybe a more interesting twist at the end. I apologise if my comments seem harsh, but you did specifically ask for feedback, and praise does not bring about improvement. A lot of the prose i read on here, suffers from overly long intro's and too much tell. Short stories really need to be tight if they are to sustain interest, and show, show, show. Juliet

Fair point. ;) Does not seem harsh, the 'little shop of horrors' thing has been mentioned by others. The plants eating humans thing has been done alot by others. Very kind of you to take the time to read and I really do appretiate the comments. My take on 'the process' is to write something new and try and do better. I agree that a long preamble can be for the writers benifit but in this case I have been told by others that they liked the build up. One day someone will write the perfect story that pleases everyone. Then we are all screwed. Up until that point we all do our best. Thanks again, Phil.