Annie, The outer story is about a mother who dies and watches her funeral in Heaven with her husband Stan. The inner story is both about Sylvia’s daughter Helen having to deal with her mother’s death and the kindness of Dorothy in helping Helen connect with her mother.
There is a lot of deadpan humor in this piece that is particularly funny. I like how Sylvia wants to die just like a cartoon, with her tongue out. I enjoy Sylvia and Stan’s discussion of her funeral, especially when Stan teases that his wife had “more than came to mine” (1). I also enjoy how Sylvia can observe her own funeral so objectively, which gives rise to interesting inspection. For example, I love how Sylvia notices that her daughter is wearing, “a sharp black pantsuit.” I think even more details like this could make the scenes more vivid and humorous.
I feel that the story doesn’t really take off until Dorothy dies and comes to Heaven to meet her friend. The first half of the story seems to me, more than anything, to be a critique of funerals and boring eulogies. Although you are introducing lackluster but hurting Helen and the spunky Sylvia, I am not sure I need so heavily a critique on current American death rituals. I want to see more interaction between your main characters.
However, by the end of the story, I am confused who the main character(s) are. It seems at the beginning that Sylvia is the most important, as she views her funeral and reflects on her mortal life. However, when Dorothy gives up her right to return to Earth in order to ease Helen’s worries, the story becomes about the love and sacrifice of Sylvia’s closest friends and family, and Dorothy seems to steal the lime light. However, Helen seems to be the only one that (perhaps) changes, since she now believes in Heaven. However, it is unclear if Helen didn’t believe in a life beyond before Sylvia and Dorothy’s death, so it is unclear if Dorothy’s message changes her.
I think you have set up a unique situation and cast of characters, but I wanted to see one woman of your trio be truly altered. There are two deaths and a message from beyond, yet even these dramatic things don’t seem to be the impetus for a character’s transformation. I think you set Helen up as the character most in need of change, with her boring eulogy, so make her really respond to these events. Also, I wanted some background to Helen-- is she an atheist? Is she angry at her mother for committing suicide? Let me see and feel Helen’s emotions, and then I think her speaking to the sky will be a more potent action in the end of the story.
Also, lastly, I have trouble gauging Sylvia’s reaction to Heaven. When Dorothy meets Sylvia, she is confused and surprised. Did Sylvia react the same way to seeing Stan? Sylvia remembers that she hoped her husband could hear her eulogy…so did Syliva always somehow know what Heaven would be like? How did Sylvia get to understand all of the rules of Heaven so quickly, like you can’t give signs to alive relatives, etc. Additionally, I am dying to really see what Heaven is like. Is it all white? Is it exactly like Earth? You have creating a funky, funny eternal paradise, and I wanted to get even a few concrete details of what it is like. Do the dead watch their funerals on giant big screens? Do their faces appear on special clouds? How is it done?
You have a really interesting story and I look forward to revisions, Katie
Hey Annie, I saw the outer story as being about a woman who watches her own funeral (from some posthumous realm) with her husband, including the accidental death of her best friend who then joins them. The inner story is about the mother's attitude towards her own death and how she's depictde at the funeral and then how her daughter Helen is dealing with the death.
I think you have a really great set-up here. The posthumous narration provides a really great opportunity for a unique and honest perspective on one's own life and the people around them, and I think the character you've created for the narrator herself is really great- appealing, funny, and not overwhelmed by the circumstances of the situation so as to distract from having a real story that isn't totally dependent on her disbelief. You also did a good job of making her a character whose uncommon apathy towards her death makes a lot of sense, and reading her sort of happy-go-lucky, carefree narration was a real treat.
I think what this story really needs is just more. It's pretty brief, and afterwards I was left wishing I'd seen more of these characters, especially in terms of development. Everything just breezes by pretty quickly- she's dead, cool with it, her funeral's not great, but then it's okay because her friend fixes it, and then her daughter's sad so her friend just goes and fixes that. I think it's that the way Dorothy just sort of goes and fixes things takes away from any of the conflicts of the story, and makes things a bit too easy. I think drawing out a bit more plot in the story would be really helpful (and I really don't think you have to worry about it becoming dull at this point, given how enjoyable the language is).
While the sort of carefreeness of the narrator really was great, I think you could go a bit more into the emotions of the characters. For instance, Dorothy doesn't really seem to mind much that she just died, and her meeting up with the narrator is confusingly natural. Even though these people might be okay with their deaths, I would think that they would recognize them as much bigger deals then they do. I'd like for the narrator to be a little less emotionally distant, especially when it comes to her daughter. Helen is obviously very sad, and while I get that the narrator would want her to not think of it all as such a big deal, the way she sort of takes Helen as a joke seemed too unsympathetic. I wanted Helen's sadness, especially at the end, to really affect her. Instead, she sort of dismisses it, saying she wished she could help but couldn't, so that was that.
I like the characters of the story and the way you tell it a lot, I just think that you need to make more of an indication of what it's really about. After the early expository narration, it runs through everything pretty quickly and I think there's a lot of good stuff going on there just under the surface that you could bring out more and use to the story's advantage. As it is, I think you've got the framework for a really good story here, and all you need to do is flesh out the interesting piece you've already put together.
Annie: The outer story is about Sylvia watching her own funeral and her friend jumping back between the world of the living and the world of the dead in order to convey messages of love. The inner story seems to be about how we are remembered: whether mourners rely on the generic in times of grief, or hold onto the very specific. Do we suppress memory or are we consumed by it?
The premise of your story is really intriguing, I’m just not sure you exploit it to its fullest potential. While I appreciate how you keep the tone light and somewhat comical, I would be wary of falling into writing traps of preconceived notions. Death and the afterlife have been explored artistically in great depth, and I think you want to make sure that your piece leaves a novel mark on the issue. For example, on page 5, when Dorothy enters the afterworld, and says, “Does that mean…? Oh my god. I’m…? Oh my god. Hi Stanley. This is insane!” The dialogue almost feels like a parody, or a cartoon of old people up in the clouds. I think by keeping details and characters specific, you successfully avoid this. Yes, they’re old, but how are they old? Yes, watching your own funeral is “strange” and “fascinating,” but how is it strange and fascinating?
I also wonder if you meant this piece to stand on its own. Rather, it feels like a vignette in some sort of family character study. I did not really feel any structure to the story in the sense of conflict, building up drama, climax, or resolution. This might be a result of having most of the “plot” told in Dorothy’s eulogy. And, I think you went with a good instinct, which was to keep it pretty concise, otherwise it might evolve into something Chekhov-like. This is limiting, however, because only so much plot detail can be revealed. I wondered if Sylvia could reminisce as well, while she watches her funeral. Right now, I see a glimpse of humanity in an interesting cast of characters. Sylvia’s own nostalgia might connect these characters into a larger web, with a more complex history, and consequently, produce an emotionally heavier story.
“My Funeral” is about the death of the narrator, Sylvia, and her reactions to her funeral. During the funeral, Sylvia’s best friend, Dorothy, also passes away. Both deaths take their toll on Sylvia’s daughter, Helen, who is later comforted by Dorothy’s ghost. On a deeper level, it is about looking at death in a happier light, as a transition to a better place.
My favorite part of your story was your choice of narrator. I really liked the idea of Sylvia telling her own story, especially since she seems like the type of woman who would want to do so if she was alive, if that makes sense. There are a lot of great moments in this work; for instance, I loved the interaction between Stan and Sylvia, especially when Stan says, “I liked the part about how even in old age I was great in bed.” That tells me so much about their marriage, but also about who Sylvia was. I also liked how Dorothy has this “thick smoker’s laugh” and how Helen is incapable of giving an original eulogy. These things are very realistic and add a lot to the story. I liked that the main conflict in your story wasn’t the protagonist versus death, but rather the protagonist versus her daughter. How does Sylvia, who is very open, very ready for her death, interact with her daughter, who is not ready for her mother to leave her? That is a much more interesting conflict than Sylvia being scared to die, which is a common fear. However, because this conflict is a more original one, I wanted a lot more backstory about how the two main characters got to these different places in life. Sylvia is presented as always being this character, unabashed and unembarrassed, which I really like, but I felt like I needed more to convince me that she can carry this type of character all the way through her own bitter end. Is she so ready to leave because of her confinement to this hospital bed? because she believes she is going to be reunited with Stan? Similarly, why isn’t Sylvia more understanding towards her daughter? Does Helen usually take things in stride like her mother does and does Sylvia just not understand why her death would be different? For instance, when Sylvia says, “I couldn’t believe, after a lifetime of motherhood, this was the best she could come up with: cliché after cliché,” I read that as pretty harsh criticism. I don’t understand why Sylvia wouldn’t feel more pity for her daughter, wouldn’t feel even just the tiniest bit of sadness that she is putting her daughter through this pain. Helen has just lost both parents in less than five years and Sylvia needs Dorothy to tell her that Helen’s really hurting? It seems unlikely for such a good-natured character to be so unable to read her daughter. Also, and this is just a small thing, what are the situations surrounding Sylvia’s death that she can ballpark the moment within seconds that she is going to die? I guess I was uncertain how to read Sylvia’s comedy in her last moments—is this bravado born out of physical suffering? is this tongue-sticking-out thing really something she would put her daughter through? Again, I just wanted more out of their relationship together. Also, I’m not quite sure how I feel about the ending of your story. While I appreciate the sentiment of Dorothy’s actions, it felt too easy, too neat. You have set up what has great potential to be a really complex conflict: mother and daughter and what it means to both die and grieve, and I don’t think your ending really does that conflict justice.
Overall, I thought “My Funeral” was entertaining and fun to read—I just wanted more details and backstory surrounding Sylvia and Helen, who I saw as the two most interesting characters in your story. Thanks for sharing, Annie, and best of luck with revisions!
I read the outer story of “My Funeral” as one in which the narrator dies and ascends to some sort of heaven-like afterlife. She meets her husband there and they watch her funeral together. At the funeral her best friend gives her a great eulogy, while her daughter gives a very clichéd one. Then her friend slips and dies herself. She ascends to heaven with the two, they talk about how bad of shape her daughter is in, the friend descends back to earth, tells the daughter that the mother misses her, and dies again. I read the inner story as being about what the narrator enjoyed in her life and how she felt so grateful. It didn’t seem that she really wanted anything other than to have people feel the same way about her death as she did.
I think that the beginning of this story and the overall premise are very strong. I liked her ruminations about how she used to idealize death as a person with x’s over their eyes and their toungue stuck out. I was very confused by the sentence, “I had said my goodbye, warned my daughter Helen about my plan…”. Did her daughter know that she was going to die, did she commit suicide, does this only refer to the tongue thing? I was confused. I really enjoyed the whole idea of a story being narrated from beyond the grave and I thought that it was interesting how flip and upbeat the narrator was about her own death. In a lot of ways I liked her for this.
I thought that the crisis of the story didn’t really live up to the beginning that was set up. I thought that the premise of the story was great, but the events leading up to the end of the story let me down. After telling the story about how they went to Las Vegas and did their act, I just did not buy the moment when her friend suddenly slips and dies on the spot. It felt much too forced and unrealistic. Then she and her friend have this conversation, which is nice, but the friend goes back down to earth, says one sentence and then dies again? Again, I just didn’t really buy this. There was a little bit too much of a cheese-factor in the whole ordeal. I also felt like I needed more in the way of backstory and development in order for the force of the story that her friend tells to really carry the weight that it needs to. As is, it is just kind of a nice funny story, and I felt like it needed to be more than that.
All in all, it is a light, breezy story with an interesting premise, but one that fails to deliver on a lot of what it sets out. I think that more needs to happen, or different things need to happen, but you have a very good starting point to work with here.
Annie, the outer story is about an elderly woman, Sylvia, who dies, and is then able to witness her own funeral (with the company of her already deceased husband). She watches her daughter give what she perceives to be a cliché eulogy; then she witnesses her good friend Dorothy tell a story about their wild times in Vegas. After delivering the eulogy, Dorothy dies, and encounters Sylvia. Dorothy then comes back to life, and tells Sylvia’s daughter that her mother loves her. The inner story is about how people want to be remembered, and the lasting power of family and close friendships in life and death.
I think the premise of your story is fascinating. It’s something that I’ve definitely thought about before, how interesting it would be to witness your own funeral—to see who showed up, to hear what they had to say, etc. And so instantly I was drawn in by this great idea for a story.
As far as Sylvia is concerned, there are aspects of her character that I like and dislike. I really liked her wit and humor; she’s a very quirky character, and I loved the fact that she mentioned her husband was great in bed even at an old age and the anecdote at the beginning where she mentions that when she would pretend to be dead, she would scrunch her eyes and stick out her tongue, like they did in cartoons. My favorite section is in the middle of page three, where Dorothy mentions all the wonderful moments they had together over the years (I especially liked the detail about giving their children coal for their birthdays). However, I was kind of turned off by the coldness she exhibited towards her daughter. Criticizing her eulogy as “cliché after cliché” seemed incredibly cold and out of character. And even later, when she’s talking to Dorothy, she calls Helen’s speech “generic.” In the end, Dorothy seems like the most endearing, motherly character, sacrificing the perks of the afterlife to deliver a message to Helen. Sylvia could have saved herself, in my opinion, if she had responded better to the moment when her daughter is most vulnerable and sad—when she whimpers, “Mom. I need you. Mom.” But instead, Sylvia seems rather indifferent: “I wished there was something I could do, but I really couldn’t.”
In terms of Sylvia’s husband, he kind of just enters the scene, says a line or two, and then disappears from the piece, without his exit being noted. I wanted him to play a more active role—possibly come into conflict with her. As things stand, the piece seems to lack any discernable conflict until perhaps the very end, when Helen is crying.
Overall I thought this was a very funny, entertaining piece with a great premise. You’re off to a good start; I just want to see more conflict and better development of your great characters.
My Funeral was a really interesting read. I read the outer story to be about a woman who is looking back on her own funeral; I think the inner story has something to do with her inability to comfort her daughter.
I liked the structure you chose a lot. Sylvia had a great voice and I liked hearing her describe events that she’s not actually in. I also like the potential for insight—what people do when they can’t see her, and how she reacts—and think this will be really interesting as the story gets more and more developed.
I think you’ve done a great job with characterization, especially of Dorothy and Sylvia. These aren’t normal grandmas wishing for normal things, and the story of the can-can in Vegas is great. I loved that Sylvia’s “wrinkled ass” is referenced, especially because Helen’s speech is so normal. I wonder what Helen’s face looks like at that moment.
In fact, Helen was the biggest unresolved question your story posed for me. I never completely understood the relationship between her and Sylvia. Sylvia certainly doesn’t seem to want to stick around for Helen—she doesn’t choose to stay alive, she pretends to be dead before she is, and she sticks out her tongue. It’s Dorothy’s idea to go back and send Helen a sign at the end of the story, and Syliva doesn’t even try to comfort Helen, or show any emotion in the process.
So, it seems like there’s a fun loving (deceased) Mom who isn’t particularly empathetic, and a daughter who is a little tightly wound, and needing help. Whatever the case, I wanted to see more of that relationship; what does each person think of the other? Why does Helen need help—is this something new or old? Has Sylvia dealt with it in the past? Why does Helen turn to Sylvia and not Stan or a friend? There seems to be a special quality to their relationship—some sort of back-story—that I’m missing. What does it mean to everyone when Dorothy goes back and sends a sign?
I also had some questions about where Dorothy, Sylvia, and Stan have ended up. Not only did I want a better sense of what they were surrounded by (Harps and clouds? A white room? A parallel sort of universe?), but I also wanted a better sense of what their world’s rules are. Who can they communicate with? Do they have any influence? Is there a corresponding hell?
I think that the structure and characterizations in your piece really drive it, and I can’t wait to see more of the relationships between characters in this world. I really enjoyed your piece!
I understood your outer story to be about a recently deceased woman observing her own funeral. I understood your inner story to be about Sylvia reflecting on her life, and coming to terms with the way she is remembered and eulogized, particularly in relation to her daughter Helen.
This is a very daring story, and I admire your choice to move between the realms of the life and the afterlife. I think it’s a wonderful premise, and I was especially delighted by it because I can relate to wondering how people will behave at my funeral. I really enjoyed the way Sylvia reacted to Helen’s eulogy, and her apprehension and curiosity about the funeral in general. I think those moments epitomize something that you do very well here, which is to lend humor and levity to the discussion of death and funerals. I also liked the opening paragraph, when Sylvia describes her expectations of dying, and I found it very funny that she stuck her tongue out and then had to wait for her actual death to transpire. I thought the way Sylvia responded to and related to the other characters, whether they were dead (Stan), living (Helen), or both (Dorothy), was very good, and this is definitely something I would like to see more of.
In general, I felt like your story came close to delving into a lot of great stuff, but rushed through a lot of it. Accordingly, I feel like fleshing out the characters, their relationships, and the inner story will help strengthen this piece a tremendous amount. Details such as the New York New York dance have the potential to be delightful and moving, but right now they feel more like devices. I’d like to see more of all Sylvia’s relationships. You’ve created four very distinct and interesting characters, but I feel like I just barely get a sense of them. I start to get a sense of what her marriage was like with Stan, which is great, but I want to know more (or at least feel like I know the characters well enough to draw my own conclusions). What kind of a mother was she? Did Stan and Dorothy get along? Why did she never tell Stan about the Vegas trip? What were the four years as a widow like for her? It might be difficult to conceive of or describe, but I think you need to establish the afterlife realm more clearly. Where are Stan and Sylvia? How can they see the funeral? How does Dorothy respond to it when she shows up? I think there’s room here for a lot of great creativity and humor, and I’d love to see you describe a physical space that is totally different from what we might expect.
Nice work with this. I feel like you’ve got all the elements you need, and now it’s just a matter of expanding and delving deeper, and I think that your great humor can facilitate this, rather than precluding it.
This story is about a woman who in spirit, soul, ghost form gets to watch her own funeral. The woman wants to see what people will say about her. Also her daughter is really upset and needs some kind of comfort. This story had a couple of different tones to it that confused me. There is a really funny opening and the story about las Vegas continues this, but the ending of the story has a much more sentimental tone. I reread the story and tried to put this together, but these elements need more to tie them into one story.
I thought that the daughter’s grief should have played a much more prominent role in the story. At the end of the story, the daughter really loses it. I think that this element can build up throughout the story and remain, underlying even through the points where things are pretty humorous. This seemed to me the most interesting arc of the story and I think that it can really add a narrative drive to the story. If there is more of the daughter’s grief, then it could make the mother constantly be thinking about this and worrying for the daughter. I really enjoyed Dorothy. She was a great character and her death, comeback, death again worked really well. I think that she might be either more or less surprised when she actually dies. This scene could be more played out. I wanted to know a little more about their general state. Are they discorporate, are they floating above the scene or are they actually just standing there but invisible? Also, you mention that they cannot interfere. Who makes this rule? How long do they have to be in this condition are they only allowed to watch the funeral and when do they have to move on?
Some awesome images here. I really enjoyed the story about Las Vegas and If these could come together more I think you would have a really strong and also touching story.
The outer story here is about a woman who dies and then comments on the proceedings of her own funeral from the afterlife. I think the inner story is about how people deal with grief and remembering loved ones. Sylvia herself didn’t seem to have any particular goals other than being remembered as something other than boring, but I felt that Helen was really affected by her mom’s death and wanted some kind of
This is a really inventive piece with an interesting premise. I really like the idea of the narrator commenting on the goings on of life after she has died. It’s great that the narrator doesn’t have any particular wisdom or insight through having passed into the hereafter—she’s a disembodied spirit, but her voice feels down to earth and natural. I think the strongest parts of this story come in the incongruities between how people talk about a deceased person and how that person actually lived. The moment when she is upset by Helen’s boring eulogy is tantalizing, and I would have liked to get more specifics from it. How does Helen whitewash Sylvia’s life? Have Sylvia comment on the shortcomings of this eulogy, and it will tell us a lot about both Helen’s and Sylvia’s characters.
I had a hard time gauging the tone of this piece. The opening anecdote about how people die in cartoons was vivid and funny (and maybe a bit creepy), and Dorothy’s story was quite lighthearted. Additionally, Sylvia seemed to be talking her own death pretty much in stride, and Dorothy was more surprised to have died than sad or angry. At the same time, Helen seemed to be very upset and deeply affected by the whole affair. The climax of this story is actually quite sad and poignant, but it jarred with what had come before. Dorothy was more worried about Helen’s welfare than Sylvia, and to me, this made Sylvia come off as kind of a jerk. She’s upset that Helen’s eulogy is bland and boring, but she doesn’t seem at all concerned with how well Helen is coping. If the story were entirely lighthearted and humorous, this would be fine, but I think you were going for greater emotional depth here, and in that case, I think these emotions and issues need to be brought into the fore.
To me, the fulcrum of this story is Helen, who is the one who really has to deal with this loss. Sylvia almost by definition can’t really be a dynamic character, since she’s in some sort of heaven/limbo/paradise, reunited with all her loved and looking down beatifically on it all. However, it would be interesting to see how Helen is actually affected by all the proceedings. I thought it was interesting that near the end of the story Sylvia mentions, “I wished there was something I could do, but I really couldn’t. Once I was out of the living world, I couldn’t interfere.” I’d like to this non-interference play a bigger role. Maybe Sylvia really wants to comfort Helen, but she can’t. What kind of insights can a deceased person give into how people deal with grief and mourning, either in a lighthearted way a la Dorothy, or in a more serious fashion? I think this is potentially the central issue of the story and I’d like to see it explored in more depth.
10 comments:
Annie,
The outer story is about a mother who dies and watches her funeral in Heaven with her husband Stan. The inner story is both about Sylvia’s daughter Helen having to deal with her mother’s death and the kindness of Dorothy in helping Helen connect with her mother.
There is a lot of deadpan humor in this piece that is particularly funny. I like how Sylvia wants to die just like a cartoon, with her tongue out. I enjoy Sylvia and Stan’s discussion of her funeral, especially when Stan teases that his wife had “more than came to mine” (1). I also enjoy how Sylvia can observe her own funeral so objectively, which gives rise to interesting inspection. For example, I love how Sylvia notices that her daughter is wearing, “a sharp black pantsuit.” I think even more details like this could make the scenes more vivid and humorous.
I feel that the story doesn’t really take off until Dorothy dies and comes to Heaven to meet her friend. The first half of the story seems to me, more than anything, to be a critique of funerals and boring eulogies. Although you are introducing lackluster but hurting Helen and the spunky Sylvia, I am not sure I need so heavily a critique on current American death rituals. I want to see more interaction between your main characters.
However, by the end of the story, I am confused who the main character(s) are. It seems at the beginning that Sylvia is the most important, as she views her funeral and reflects on her mortal life. However, when Dorothy gives up her right to return to Earth in order to ease Helen’s worries, the story becomes about the love and sacrifice of Sylvia’s closest friends and family, and Dorothy seems to steal the lime light. However, Helen seems to be the only one that (perhaps) changes, since she now believes in Heaven. However, it is unclear if Helen didn’t believe in a life beyond before Sylvia and Dorothy’s death, so it is unclear if Dorothy’s message changes her.
I think you have set up a unique situation and cast of characters, but I wanted to see one woman of your trio be truly altered. There are two deaths and a message from beyond, yet even these dramatic things don’t seem to be the impetus for a character’s transformation. I think you set Helen up as the character most in need of change, with her boring eulogy, so make her really respond to these events. Also, I wanted some background to Helen-- is she an atheist? Is she angry at her mother for committing suicide? Let me see and feel Helen’s emotions, and then I think her speaking to the sky will be a more potent action in the end of the story.
Also, lastly, I have trouble gauging Sylvia’s reaction to Heaven. When Dorothy meets Sylvia, she is confused and surprised. Did Sylvia react the same way to seeing Stan? Sylvia remembers that she hoped her husband could hear her eulogy…so did Syliva always somehow know what Heaven would be like? How did Sylvia get to understand all of the rules of Heaven so quickly, like you can’t give signs to alive relatives, etc. Additionally, I am dying to really see what Heaven is like. Is it all white? Is it exactly like Earth? You have creating a funky, funny eternal paradise, and I wanted to get even a few concrete details of what it is like. Do the dead watch their funerals on giant big screens? Do their faces appear on special clouds? How is it done?
You have a really interesting story and I look forward to revisions,
Katie
Hey Annie,
I saw the outer story as being about a woman who watches her own funeral (from some posthumous realm) with her husband, including the accidental death of her best friend who then joins them. The inner story is about the mother's attitude towards her own death and how she's depictde at the funeral and then how her daughter Helen is dealing with the death.
I think you have a really great set-up here. The posthumous narration provides a really great opportunity for a unique and honest perspective on one's own life and the people around them, and I think the character you've created for the narrator herself is really great- appealing, funny, and not overwhelmed by the circumstances of the situation so as to distract from having a real story that isn't totally dependent on her disbelief. You also did a good job of making her a character whose uncommon apathy towards her death makes a lot of sense, and reading her sort of happy-go-lucky, carefree narration was a real treat.
I think what this story really needs is just more. It's pretty brief, and afterwards I was left wishing I'd seen more of these characters, especially in terms of development. Everything just breezes by pretty quickly- she's dead, cool with it, her funeral's not great, but then it's okay because her friend fixes it, and then her daughter's sad so her friend just goes and fixes that. I think it's that the way Dorothy just sort of goes and fixes things takes away from any of the conflicts of the story, and makes things a bit too easy. I think drawing out a bit more plot in the story would be really helpful (and I really don't think you have to worry about it becoming dull at this point, given how enjoyable the language is).
While the sort of carefreeness of the narrator really was great, I think you could go a bit more into the emotions of the characters. For instance, Dorothy doesn't really seem to mind much that she just died, and her meeting up with the narrator is confusingly natural. Even though these people might be okay with their deaths, I would think that they would recognize them as much bigger deals then they do. I'd like for the narrator to be a little less emotionally distant, especially when it comes to her daughter. Helen is obviously very sad, and while I get that the narrator would want her to not think of it all as such a big deal, the way she sort of takes Helen as a joke seemed too unsympathetic. I wanted Helen's sadness, especially at the end, to really affect her. Instead, she sort of dismisses it, saying she wished she could help but couldn't, so that was that.
I like the characters of the story and the way you tell it a lot, I just think that you need to make more of an indication of what it's really about. After the early expository narration, it runs through everything pretty quickly and I think there's a lot of good stuff going on there just under the surface that you could bring out more and use to the story's advantage. As it is, I think you've got the framework for a really good story here, and all you need to do is flesh out the interesting piece you've already put together.
-Matty
Annie:
The outer story is about Sylvia watching her own funeral and her friend jumping back between the world of the living and the world of the dead in order to convey messages of love. The inner story seems to be about how we are remembered: whether mourners rely on the generic in times of grief, or hold onto the very specific. Do we suppress memory or are we consumed by it?
The premise of your story is really intriguing, I’m just not sure you exploit it to its fullest potential. While I appreciate how you keep the tone light and somewhat comical, I would be wary of falling into writing traps of preconceived notions. Death and the afterlife have been explored artistically in great depth, and I think you want to make sure that your piece leaves a novel mark on the issue. For example, on page 5, when Dorothy enters the afterworld, and says, “Does that mean…? Oh my god. I’m…? Oh my god. Hi Stanley. This is insane!” The dialogue almost feels like a parody, or a cartoon of old people up in the clouds. I think by keeping details and characters specific, you successfully avoid this. Yes, they’re old, but how are they old? Yes, watching your own funeral is “strange” and “fascinating,” but how is it strange and fascinating?
I also wonder if you meant this piece to stand on its own. Rather, it feels like a vignette in some sort of family character study. I did not really feel any structure to the story in the sense of conflict, building up drama, climax, or resolution. This might be a result of having most of the “plot” told in Dorothy’s eulogy. And, I think you went with a good instinct, which was to keep it pretty concise, otherwise it might evolve into something Chekhov-like. This is limiting, however, because only so much plot detail can be revealed. I wondered if Sylvia could reminisce as well, while she watches her funeral. Right now, I see a glimpse of humanity in an interesting cast of characters. Sylvia’s own nostalgia might connect these characters into a larger web, with a more complex history, and consequently, produce an emotionally heavier story.
-Michelle
Dear Annie,
“My Funeral” is about the death of the narrator, Sylvia, and her reactions to her funeral. During the funeral, Sylvia’s best friend, Dorothy, also passes away. Both deaths take their toll on Sylvia’s daughter, Helen, who is later comforted by Dorothy’s ghost. On a deeper level, it is about looking at death in a happier light, as a transition to a better place.
My favorite part of your story was your choice of narrator. I really liked the idea of Sylvia telling her own story, especially since she seems like the type of woman who would want to do so if she was alive, if that makes sense. There are a lot of great moments in this work; for instance, I loved the interaction between Stan and Sylvia, especially when Stan says, “I liked the part about how even in old age I was great in bed.” That tells me so much about their marriage, but also about who Sylvia was. I also liked how Dorothy has this “thick smoker’s laugh” and how Helen is incapable of giving an original eulogy. These things are very realistic and add a lot to the story. I liked that the main conflict in your story wasn’t the protagonist versus death, but rather the protagonist versus her daughter. How does Sylvia, who is very open, very ready for her death, interact with her daughter, who is not ready for her mother to leave her? That is a much more interesting conflict than Sylvia being scared to die, which is a common fear. However, because this conflict is a more original one, I wanted a lot more backstory about how the two main characters got to these different places in life. Sylvia is presented as always being this character, unabashed and unembarrassed, which I really like, but I felt like I needed more to convince me that she can carry this type of character all the way through her own bitter end. Is she so ready to leave because of her confinement to this hospital bed? because she believes she is going to be reunited with Stan? Similarly, why isn’t Sylvia more understanding towards her daughter? Does Helen usually take things in stride like her mother does and does Sylvia just not understand why her death would be different? For instance, when Sylvia says, “I couldn’t believe, after a lifetime of motherhood, this was the best she could come up with: cliché after cliché,” I read that as pretty harsh criticism. I don’t understand why Sylvia wouldn’t feel more pity for her daughter, wouldn’t feel even just the tiniest bit of sadness that she is putting her daughter through this pain. Helen has just lost both parents in less than five years and Sylvia needs Dorothy to tell her that Helen’s really hurting? It seems unlikely for such a good-natured character to be so unable to read her daughter. Also, and this is just a small thing, what are the situations surrounding Sylvia’s death that she can ballpark the moment within seconds that she is going to die? I guess I was uncertain how to read Sylvia’s comedy in her last moments—is this bravado born out of physical suffering? is this tongue-sticking-out thing really something she would put her daughter through? Again, I just wanted more out of their relationship together. Also, I’m not quite sure how I feel about the ending of your story. While I appreciate the sentiment of Dorothy’s actions, it felt too easy, too neat. You have set up what has great potential to be a really complex conflict: mother and daughter and what it means to both die and grieve, and I don’t think your ending really does that conflict justice.
Overall, I thought “My Funeral” was entertaining and fun to read—I just wanted more details and backstory surrounding Sylvia and Helen, who I saw as the two most interesting characters in your story. Thanks for sharing, Annie, and best of luck with revisions!
Jessamyn
Annie,
I read the outer story of “My Funeral” as one in which the narrator dies and ascends to some sort of heaven-like afterlife. She meets her husband there and they watch her funeral together. At the funeral her best friend gives her a great eulogy, while her daughter gives a very clichéd one. Then her friend slips and dies herself. She ascends to heaven with the two, they talk about how bad of shape her daughter is in, the friend descends back to earth, tells the daughter that the mother misses her, and dies again. I read the inner story as being about what the narrator enjoyed in her life and how she felt so grateful. It didn’t seem that she really wanted anything other than to have people feel the same way about her death as she did.
I think that the beginning of this story and the overall premise are very strong. I liked her ruminations about how she used to idealize death as a person with x’s over their eyes and their toungue stuck out. I was very confused by the sentence, “I had said my goodbye, warned my daughter Helen about my plan…”. Did her daughter know that she was going to die, did she commit suicide, does this only refer to the tongue thing? I was confused. I really enjoyed the whole idea of a story being narrated from beyond the grave and I thought that it was interesting how flip and upbeat the narrator was about her own death. In a lot of ways I liked her for this.
I thought that the crisis of the story didn’t really live up to the beginning that was set up. I thought that the premise of the story was great, but the events leading up to the end of the story let me down. After telling the story about how they went to Las Vegas and did their act, I just did not buy the moment when her friend suddenly slips and dies on the spot. It felt much too forced and unrealistic. Then she and her friend have this conversation, which is nice, but the friend goes back down to earth, says one sentence and then dies again? Again, I just didn’t really buy this. There was a little bit too much of a cheese-factor in the whole ordeal. I also felt like I needed more in the way of backstory and development in order for the force of the story that her friend tells to really carry the weight that it needs to. As is, it is just kind of a nice funny story, and I felt like it needed to be more than that.
All in all, it is a light, breezy story with an interesting premise, but one that fails to deliver on a lot of what it sets out. I think that more needs to happen, or different things need to happen, but you have a very good starting point to work with here.
Annie, the outer story is about an elderly woman, Sylvia, who dies, and is then able to witness her own funeral (with the company of her already deceased husband). She watches her daughter give what she perceives to be a cliché eulogy; then she witnesses her good friend Dorothy tell a story about their wild times in Vegas. After delivering the eulogy, Dorothy dies, and encounters Sylvia. Dorothy then comes back to life, and tells Sylvia’s daughter that her mother loves her. The inner story is about how people want to be remembered, and the lasting power of family and close friendships in life and death.
I think the premise of your story is fascinating. It’s something that I’ve definitely thought about before, how interesting it would be to witness your own funeral—to see who showed up, to hear what they had to say, etc. And so instantly I was drawn in by this great idea for a story.
As far as Sylvia is concerned, there are aspects of her character that I like and dislike. I really liked her wit and humor; she’s a very quirky character, and I loved the fact that she mentioned her husband was great in bed even at an old age and the anecdote at the beginning where she mentions that when she would pretend to be dead, she would scrunch her eyes and stick out her tongue, like they did in cartoons. My favorite section is in the middle of page three, where Dorothy mentions all the wonderful moments they had together over the years (I especially liked the detail about giving their children coal for their birthdays). However, I was kind of turned off by the coldness she exhibited towards her daughter. Criticizing her eulogy as “cliché after cliché” seemed incredibly cold and out of character. And even later, when she’s talking to Dorothy, she calls Helen’s speech “generic.” In the end, Dorothy seems like the most endearing, motherly character, sacrificing the perks of the afterlife to deliver a message to Helen. Sylvia could have saved herself, in my opinion, if she had responded better to the moment when her daughter is most vulnerable and sad—when she whimpers, “Mom. I need you. Mom.” But instead, Sylvia seems rather indifferent: “I wished there was something I could do, but I really couldn’t.”
In terms of Sylvia’s husband, he kind of just enters the scene, says a line or two, and then disappears from the piece, without his exit being noted. I wanted him to play a more active role—possibly come into conflict with her. As things stand, the piece seems to lack any discernable conflict until perhaps the very end, when Helen is crying.
Overall I thought this was a very funny, entertaining piece with a great premise. You’re off to a good start; I just want to see more conflict and better development of your great characters.
-Nick
Dear Annie,
My Funeral was a really interesting read. I read the outer story to be about a woman who is looking back on her own funeral; I think the inner story has something to do with her inability to comfort her daughter.
I liked the structure you chose a lot. Sylvia had a great voice and I liked hearing her describe events that she’s not actually in. I also like the potential for insight—what people do when they can’t see her, and how she reacts—and think this will be really interesting as the story gets more and more developed.
I think you’ve done a great job with characterization, especially of Dorothy and Sylvia. These aren’t normal grandmas wishing for normal things, and the story of the can-can in Vegas is great. I loved that Sylvia’s “wrinkled ass” is referenced, especially because Helen’s speech is so normal. I wonder what Helen’s face looks like at that moment.
In fact, Helen was the biggest unresolved question your story posed for me. I never completely understood the relationship between her and Sylvia. Sylvia certainly doesn’t seem to want to stick around for Helen—she doesn’t choose to stay alive, she pretends to be dead before she is, and she sticks out her tongue. It’s Dorothy’s idea to go back and send Helen a sign at the end of the story, and Syliva doesn’t even try to comfort Helen, or show any emotion in the process.
So, it seems like there’s a fun loving (deceased) Mom who isn’t particularly empathetic, and a daughter who is a little tightly wound, and needing help. Whatever the case, I wanted to see more of that relationship; what does each person think of the other? Why does Helen need help—is this something new or old? Has Sylvia dealt with it in the past? Why does Helen turn to Sylvia and not Stan or a friend? There seems to be a special quality to their relationship—some sort of back-story—that I’m missing. What does it mean to everyone when Dorothy goes back and sends a sign?
I also had some questions about where Dorothy, Sylvia, and Stan have ended up. Not only did I want a better sense of what they were surrounded by (Harps and clouds? A white room? A parallel sort of universe?), but I also wanted a better sense of what their world’s rules are. Who can they communicate with? Do they have any influence? Is there a corresponding hell?
I think that the structure and characterizations in your piece really drive it, and I can’t wait to see more of the relationships between characters in this world. I really enjoyed your piece!
James
Dear Annie,
I understood your outer story to be about a recently deceased woman observing her own funeral. I understood your inner story to be about Sylvia reflecting on her life, and coming to terms with the way she is remembered and eulogized, particularly in relation to her daughter Helen.
This is a very daring story, and I admire your choice to move between the realms of the life and the afterlife. I think it’s a wonderful premise, and I was especially delighted by it because I can relate to wondering how people will behave at my funeral. I really enjoyed the way Sylvia reacted to Helen’s eulogy, and her apprehension and curiosity about the funeral in general. I think those moments epitomize something that you do very well here, which is to lend humor and levity to the discussion of death and funerals. I also liked the opening paragraph, when Sylvia describes her expectations of dying, and I found it very funny that she stuck her tongue out and then had to wait for her actual death to transpire. I thought the way Sylvia responded to and related to the other characters, whether they were dead (Stan), living (Helen), or both (Dorothy), was very good, and this is definitely something I would like to see more of.
In general, I felt like your story came close to delving into a lot of great stuff, but rushed through a lot of it. Accordingly, I feel like fleshing out the characters, their relationships, and the inner story will help strengthen this piece a tremendous amount. Details such as the New York New York dance have the potential to be delightful and moving, but right now they feel more like devices. I’d like to see more of all Sylvia’s relationships. You’ve created four very distinct and interesting characters, but I feel like I just barely get a sense of them. I start to get a sense of what her marriage was like with Stan, which is great, but I want to know more (or at least feel like I know the characters well enough to draw my own conclusions). What kind of a mother was she? Did Stan and Dorothy get along? Why did she never tell Stan about the Vegas trip? What were the four years as a widow like for her? It might be difficult to conceive of or describe, but I think you need to establish the afterlife realm more clearly. Where are Stan and Sylvia? How can they see the funeral? How does Dorothy respond to it when she shows up? I think there’s room here for a lot of great creativity and humor, and I’d love to see you describe a physical space that is totally different from what we might expect.
Nice work with this. I feel like you’ve got all the elements you need, and now it’s just a matter of expanding and delving deeper, and I think that your great humor can facilitate this, rather than precluding it.
Zach
Annie,
This story is about a woman who in spirit, soul, ghost form gets to watch her own funeral. The woman wants to see what people will say about her. Also her daughter is really upset and needs some kind of comfort.
This story had a couple of different tones to it that confused me. There is a really funny opening and the story about las Vegas continues this, but the ending of the story has a much more sentimental tone. I reread the story and tried to put this together, but these elements need more to tie them into one story.
I thought that the daughter’s grief should have played a much more prominent role in the story. At the end of the story, the daughter really loses it. I think that this element can build up throughout the story and remain, underlying even through the points where things are pretty humorous. This seemed to me the most interesting arc of the story and I think that it can really add a narrative drive to the story. If there is more of the daughter’s grief, then it could make the mother constantly be thinking about this and worrying for the daughter.
I really enjoyed Dorothy. She was a great character and her death, comeback, death again worked really well. I think that she might be either more or less surprised when she actually dies. This scene could be more played out. I wanted to know a little more about their general state. Are they discorporate, are they floating above the scene or are they actually just standing there but invisible? Also, you mention that they cannot interfere. Who makes this rule? How long do they have to be in this condition are they only allowed to watch the funeral and when do they have to move on?
Some awesome images here. I really enjoyed the story about Las Vegas and If these could come together more I think you would have a really strong and also touching story.
Thanks for Sharing,
Michael
Annie,
The outer story here is about a woman who dies and then comments on the proceedings of her own funeral from the afterlife. I think the inner story is about how people deal with grief and remembering loved ones. Sylvia herself didn’t seem to have any particular goals other than being remembered as something other than boring, but I felt that Helen was really affected by her mom’s death and wanted some kind of
This is a really inventive piece with an interesting premise. I really like the idea of the narrator commenting on the goings on of life after she has died. It’s great that the narrator doesn’t have any particular wisdom or insight through having passed into the hereafter—she’s a disembodied spirit, but her voice feels down to earth and natural. I think the strongest parts of this story come in the incongruities between how people talk about a deceased person and how that person actually lived. The moment when she is upset by Helen’s boring eulogy is tantalizing, and I would have liked to get more specifics from it. How does Helen whitewash Sylvia’s life? Have Sylvia comment on the shortcomings of this eulogy, and it will tell us a lot about both Helen’s and Sylvia’s characters.
I had a hard time gauging the tone of this piece. The opening anecdote about how people die in cartoons was vivid and funny (and maybe a bit creepy), and Dorothy’s story was quite lighthearted. Additionally, Sylvia seemed to be talking her own death pretty much in stride, and Dorothy was more surprised to have died than sad or angry. At the same time, Helen seemed to be very upset and deeply affected by the whole affair. The climax of this story is actually quite sad and poignant, but it jarred with what had come before. Dorothy was more worried about Helen’s welfare than Sylvia, and to me, this made Sylvia come off as kind of a jerk. She’s upset that Helen’s eulogy is bland and boring, but she doesn’t seem at all concerned with how well Helen is coping. If the story were entirely lighthearted and humorous, this would be fine, but I think you were going for greater emotional depth here, and in that case, I think these emotions and issues need to be brought into the fore.
To me, the fulcrum of this story is Helen, who is the one who really has to deal with this loss. Sylvia almost by definition can’t really be a dynamic character, since she’s in some sort of heaven/limbo/paradise, reunited with all her loved and looking down beatifically on it all. However, it would be interesting to see how Helen is actually affected by all the proceedings. I thought it was interesting that near the end of the story Sylvia mentions, “I wished there was something I could do, but I really couldn’t. Once I was out of the living world, I couldn’t interfere.” I’d like to this non-interference play a bigger role. Maybe Sylvia really wants to comfort Helen, but she can’t. What kind of insights can a deceased person give into how people deal with grief and mourning, either in a lighthearted way a la Dorothy, or in a more serious fashion? I think this is potentially the central issue of the story and I’d like to see it explored in more depth.
Really interesting story,
Michael
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