Peter Woodruff writes about...

Sean E. Markey’s “Reconnected”

“Reconnected” appeared in issue 246.

A fascinating, engaging concept: living two simultaneous existences and not knowing when you are going to shift from one to the other. You leave the reader curious and wanting more: will the final ‘reconnect’ have the desired results? What happens to the urbanite’s being?

There’s a gazillion directions you could still go with this. I can even see how you could expand the concept into a novel: the poor dude keeps shifting into other existences, maybe a child, woman, rich, poor, homeless — the possibilities are endless.

Great imagination and well done! I’d like to read more of your work.

Regards,

Peter Woodruff

Copyright © 2007 by Peter Woodruff

Very apt observations, Peter. We may ask whether “Reconnected” is science fiction or fantasy; a short story or a prose poem. Or what elements it has of all four genres.

But in the end, “Reconnected” succeeds by making full use of contrast. Much of the fiction we see today takes a lot for granted culturally. It presupposes that readers will automatically assume that the hero shares their preconceptions and lives in familiar surroundings. Space travel or time travel supplies something new and different, but different from what?

There is a way to make sure your story does not go out of date: make the contrasts explicit; balance both ends of the see-saw, so to speak. Posterity is all the more likely to thank you for it.

Don