Response to Cary Bayless

                To me, this story was about a guy who is trying to get over his girlfriend’s murder. It seems that his girlfriend was murdered on a night that might have been a formal, but it was also the night that he was going to propose. When he arrived at the house the police were already there and it seemed his girlfriend was still conscious, however he was not allowed to see her. The girlfriends end up dying and the story basically goes through his memories of that night, along with trying to get over what happened. He has a friend, who is trying to help him through the entire thing, and at first he is unsuccessful but towards the end of the story Beau (the roommate) seems to get through to Chad.

                The one major thing in the story that I would suggest re-working would be the opening. I didn’t really understand how it opened up the rest of the story because it goes from talking about living in the mountains to talking about the murder of Chad’s girlfriend. I might suggest something like “I’ve always wanted to live in the mountains, and now seemed the time to do it. I had things I had to work through and get over in order to live a normal life…….”. Another thing I might suggest is to add a little more about the night in question. I thought it was very well written, but I just wanted to know more. I wanted to know if the others murdered were Chad’s friends, or if the killer had done this sort of thing many times before. I also really wanted to know how Julia got away and the others didn’t. Another thing is did the killer get away, or did Julia escape because she killed the murderer. Basically I just wanted to know more.

                I really like your descriptions of certain things in the story. In the beginning you talk about how Julia’s hair is normally blonde, but the blood dyed her hair brown. I felt like it gave me a very clear picture of what Julia looked like. You could as more about the state of her dress and the rest of her body, but the image of her hair was a good one. I also like how you kept referring to yourself as jello and not being real. In is situation like that I’m sure it would seem like a dream so I thought it was a very appropriate way to describe someone going through a situation like that. Overall, I thought the story was entertaining and well written.