Response to Shelby's "Beyond the Line"

          Shelby’s story, “Beyond the Line,” is about a soldier, Isaac who is in a foreign land fighting for the United States. At the beginning of the story we meet Isaac’s wife and see his struggle to leave her and go to war. In the story Isaac makes clear that he misses his wife; she is the glimmer of happiness in his situation. Isaac is ordered to fire on three different enemy locations, one of which he realizes is a school. Isaac is faced with this life-altering choice at this point in the story and he (thank gosh) decides not to fire on the school. By the end, the story is resolved because he refuses to follow orders and gets to go home to his wife.
         I really enjoyed the detailed descriptions and actions in this story. It was never difficult to visualize the scenes in my head. The story was easy to follow, and it had a very clean structure with smooth transitions. The dialogue was in the right places and the scenes were all well proportioned. Also, this may be a weird complement, but I really liked the names. Isaac and Sophie I thought were interesting names that were not too bizarre, overdone, or bland. In addition, I thought the speaker was overall pretty knowledgeable about the subject and the sort of “soldier jargon” if that makes since which made the story believable.
        I wanted to know a little more about Isaac. The story is centralized around him but I feel like I don’t know who he is apart from the honorable soldier that misses his wife. I learned that he is respectable, and wouldn’t kill a whole school of children regardless if he was ordered to do so because he stands up for himself. The scenes and setting are all there. I just think that I’d like to see more depth to Isaac’s character. What sets him apart from other soldiers aside from deciding not to take fire on the school? I want to know more about his personality. I’m sure it’s difficult to develop the character of a soldier since he has a certain person he has to be around the other officials. Maybe you could include in the scene where he’s trying to fall asleep him reminiscing on a memory he had in the past with Sophie. She seems to be an important character in that the story begins and concludes with her.
      Overall, I love everything you’ve got. Again, it was well set up and the descriptions were very detailed and you worked nicely. Maybe just consider adding one other scene so we can get another glimmer of light (Sophie memory?) before he’s challenged with the decision. It would add to his motivation and struggle.