Commentary on "Renewed" by Whitney Pugh

Whitney Pugh’s story “Renewed” is about a man named Gerard who is interviewing a religious extremist who is incarcerated for an unknown reason. The story was very successful in its short length; it accomplished a full story arch in a short amount of time and didn’t leave the reader with too much left out.

What is lacking is description and setting and imagery. “Fully dressed in water” is an image that I enjoyed on the first page and anticipated more of, but as the story progressed then ended there are very few additional images. I was lost and not firmly placed in any setting for most of the story as I found out the protagonist was a man and that Daniel was in prison.

A minor detail that I noticed because I am constantly struggling with it is the inconsistency in tense. It bounces from past to present a few times and took me out of the story.

The dialogue in the story works in the beginning because of the unique interview setting, but the casual dialogue still feels like and interview and not like home life.

Another thing that can be improved is the passing of time. On page three, between the conversation on the couch and interviewing Daniel the next day, there is no feeling of passed time. A good way to pass the time and show that hours of sleep and night and morning routines had passed is to document the transit of the protagonist. That gives the writer a place to describe scene and setting and also a way someone travels is very telling about their character.

One of the details that I couldn’t really believe was that Gerard had a horrible home life. He may have been internally frustrated with the way his wife did and didn’t treat him, but the way it shows up on the page is not horrible at all.

Great as flash fiction, as a whole, the piece works.