Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Response to Jeremy Hare's “Dreams”


“Dreams” is a story about a girl who finds a boy sitting down in a karate club after it had closed for the night. The girl, Hikari, confronts the boy, Sora, and asks him why he is laying on the floor of the gym. Sora proceeds to explain himself. He had been bullied and the leader of the karate club had saved him and then agreed to teach him karate only after Sora could defeat the leader himself. The catch 22 had caused Sora to be brutally beaten every day and he was recovering from one of his beatings. The next morning Sora returned and once again fought the leader.
                I really enjoyed the mystery in this story. The slow build in the first part of the story added good and effective tension.  The dialogue seemed natural and for the most part believable within the context.
                This story is written with a third person narrator. The dialogue takes up much of the story as well. I think the third person view works but it would also be interesting to see this story from a first person perspective in order to get inside the head of the characters.
                The characters in the story seem to be interesting but I would like to see a little more about Hikari, not through exposition but with some other method.
                This story is told in one scene using dialogue to fill in the rest. This could work fine but I would also like to see a little more movement with the scene to break up the dialogue.
                The story could use more scene and character description. There is not enough imagery within the narrator’s description or the dialogue.
                The structure is basic but works very well.
                The setting is understood to be a karate club of some sort but some detail on its appearance would bring me inside the story more.
                The opening does allude to a back story with Hikari but not quite enough. The title does not do the story justice and should be played with to be less generic.
                The closing works for the story logically but does not introduce any level of change in the characters.

No comments:

Post a Comment