Real Life Diagnostics: Is This Narration Confusing?

Critique By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Real Life Diagnostics is a weekly column that studies a snippet of a work in progress for specific issues. Readers are encouraged to send in work with questions, and we diagnose it on the site. It’s part critique, part example, and designed to help the submitter as well as anyone else having a similar problem.

If you're interested in submitting to Real Life Diagnostics, please check out these guidelines.

Submissions currently in the queue: One


Please Note: As of today, RLD slots are booked through September 15.

This week’s questions:

Can I jump around in time (and some POV) in a short story? 


The narration has both present and past tense. Does this confuse the reader? 

Does the title work as a play on the day and the outcome to the story? 

Am I asking the reader to intuit and deduce too much. For example, the man wants to kill himself on a Sunday because that is the day his wife died? The wife helped the man make decisions, and he recalls her words because of the sunshine, and that forces him to make a decision. Too much?

Market/Genre: Short Story

On to the diagnosis…
Written by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com
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Published on September 08, 2018 05:41
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