Response to Series of Omissions

Matt,

First of all, I want to say it’s a pleasure to read your writing. This story is great.

“Series of Omissions” is a story about the death of Norman O’ Connor. It examines both his positive and negative characteristics and explains the impact his life had on those people around him, what he left behind, and essentially how it’s affected his family, especially through the relationship with his wife.

What I love most is the concept of this story. The idea that no one is perfect. Norman O’ Connor was hated and he was missed. The conflict is powerful and you played it out nicely in slightly over three pages. The scenes and background information worked well and I believed the life you created for Norman. I loved how you contrasted things like his pornography collection and his painted model planes. Both of those details tell a lot about his character in a few words, he had secrets both good and bad. I also liked the contrast between details such as “The Belt,” raising his hand to his wife, angry over his daughter’s Black boyfriend and music degree, with positive things like sneaking candy to his grand kids, buying his wife the fur coat, potting the cactus, etc.

One of my favorite lines were, “It placed something ugly between them, like a pane of dirty glass, that did not go away,” because it shows the impact threatening your wife can have even on a “loving relationship” or knowing he has that “in him” to hurt her and it stays with her even when she remembers why she loves him. I also thought the scene of the sons beating each other up after the funeral was super effective. I shows how they dealt with the death of their father, sadness to anger, which slightly indicates this is a coping mechanism picked up from their father. Very cool.

The transitions were fluid, and the story was easy to follow due to its effective symmetry. I liked the opening of each new paragraph with the repetition of, “He was survived by. . .” blank.

As far as revisions, I don’t really know what to say because everything was working for me. I’m sure I’ll think of something in class because I always do. Haha. At first I thought maybe I wanted more. I don’t know if that’s just because I enjoyed the story so much though. I think the length works though because in a way it has this sort of short obituary feel, almost like Norman’s personal life story crammed into just a few pages. The ending is awesome.

Again… it was a job well done, Matt.  :)