Response to "The Bleeps and Blips of Life"

On the whole, I felt like Shelby's story was very good in that it was well constructed and truly moved and acted as a compelling piece of literature. The story is about a woman named Anna who is with her comatose and cancer infected father in the hospital. While she is there, her younger sister, Karen, comes to visit her and their father. It is revealed through their conversation and narration that Anna has a poor relationship with her sister and their mother and has detached herself from them for the most part, remaining close to only her father. Karen tries to convince her that she should pull the plug on their father and at first Anna is disapproving but at the end, the change comes when she decides to go along with her sister's persuasions.

There were a number of things in this story that I really enjoyed as far as the writing itself is concerned. For one thing, I really thought it had very good transitions from point to point that made the story not seem long and helped it flow. This held true throughout much of the piece but the one place I felt like it lacked was on page 8 when the reader is introduced to the memory with the glass. I think it would have worked better to actively have her thinking back to the memory, which would be something that would help lead her to her decision. I also thought that the story had some really good tension building and that the dialogue seemed worth putting on paper. As I wrote on the paper's notes, I though that there were scenes that were worth making into a story. I found that there were some inconsistencies with the voice a little bit throughout, where at times it was very high diction with elaborate description and at other times it seems sparse and almost hateful. I also would have liked to be introduced to the name of Anna earlier, as well as specific age. The story itself has some points that I consider to be oddities but for the most part well polished and good.