"Support Group"

“Support Group”is a story told from the perspective of Jules about his masturbating problem to a support group who we don’t hear from (and don’t need to really hear from!). The story examines a young man’s hatred towards himself because he cannot stop masturbating and he has no one to talk to.
    I think I love this story in a very, very weird way, Paul. One of my favorite elements of the style is the voice. I can really hear this kid stammering and digressing and trailing off. The subject matter was clearly an uncomfortable one, and I am a huge fan of audience uneasiness! Ha, as you already know. I think one of the strongest parts of the story is how you’ve built Jules character and manner through his unconventional means of speaking. We get a pretty good sense from Jules the audience’s reactions to the absurd things he’s saying which I think is really effective usually very difficult to do. When you ended each paragraph with things like “I’m calm now. Sorry, everyone. I promise I’ll try and make it not happen again. See, I’m just like everyone else here.” However, he knows that’s not true. It was sentences like this that convince the readers of the audience’s negative reaction without just assuming because it’s a disturbing subject.
    As far as suggestions, one of my concerns is that Jules didn’t change a whole lot throughout the story. I think part of the reason this is difficult to show is because we only get to hear from him. However, that’s also my favorite part. I think that Jules has a big problem and he knows it, because he tells us how “fucking stupid” he thinks he is time and time again. So in this case, I suppose for him to overcome a masturbation problem within one support group meeting and 7 pages is pretty unrealistic. BUT, you could have him somehow deal with his problem in a way by recognizing that it’s more normal than he thinks. Because his problem is clearly more than the obsessive masturbating. It’s more of an internalized issue. Self-loathing and fear of his addiction and that’s why he seeks out help. So maybe you could have him learn to love himself more mentally than physically. HA.
    Paul, this is an interesting story. I think it’s got a lot of good qualities and the potential to be something pretty great and unusual. I think you need a little more depth to Jules background history, something that let’s readers make a connection between the masturbation stories and his life other than that to see why he his so socially dysfunctional. I think you’ve got room to expand on background information.
Overall, goof job!