Post-Game Analysis

So, what do I think about my little story that I’ve bared for you?

First of all, the title. I’m not sure where I was going with it. I think it was supposed to be a play on the last name of the poor unfortunate miner. There’s two versions of the story on my laptop, one being “Carson Fells Nevada” and the other “Carson Falls Nevada.” I think Carson Falls evokes, to my weird mind anyway, black-and-white 1950s news reels of a-bomb tests. And “Falls” or “Fells” implies something bad happening. I don’t know. But I think the story needs a better title.

To summarize, we watch these two G-men types assert themselves quite forcefully in a clinic somewhere out in the Nevadan desert. They’ve been somehow alerted to an injured miner whose been brought in the night before. Something’s odd with the patient, and we learn that he’s possessed in some way by an alien being. One of the agents is a thug, but the other is on the thoughtful side, perhaps in the process of developing a conscience despite enthusiastic promotions up the chain of command. However, they both intimidate nurses and doctors, but through different means. There’s talk of an atom bomb range and a scouting vessel shot down, and the agents are interrogating the beastie for the location of the mother ship. But something unspecified is different about this alien, or this encounter, though the protagonist has dealt with such possessions before. Ultimately, things quickly escalate out of control, and in the blink of an eye we think the agents lose their lives.


What’s good about the story

* 2,600 words – perfect length! (It is my shortest short story, to date.)

* Hints at the time period involved (1950s): “man from Mars”, “Atomic Energy Commission” (1946-1974), doctors smoking in hospitals.

* The contrast between the two agents. Charles is black-and-white, whereas Gilchrist is flexible. Charles is more brute-force, whereas Gilchrist is more tactical. (However, Charles’ efforts work where Gilchrist’s don’t in intimidating the doctor.)

* Naming their boss “Mr. Gray” conveys the shadiness of the organization they belong to. It also calls to mind the “Grays,” those big-eyed big-headed aliens certain people believe exist.

* I like the way we’re in an “undeclared war” with the hints that this is going on in a worldwide way (“Bolivia”)

* Charles, true to form, in a burst of testosterone thinks he blows away the bad guy. I think his “compliments of the Atomic Energy Commission!” line is pure genius.

* How the aliens refer to themselves in the plural – “we might ask the same of you …” (However, inconsistently, I switch it back to singular a couple sentences later. That hast to be corrected.)


What’s not so good …

* As stated, the title doesn’t really mean anything or make sense.

* Should’ve including the words “flying saucer” – more “period” – what else spells out the 1950s better?

* Perhaps the miner’s condition could be described a little more graphically to pull in the reader with sympathy or to cause the reader to dislike the alien more viscerally (though it does get a bit more graphic near the end).

* The interrogation of Dr. Heywood doesn’t really add anything pertinent to the storyline.

* Does Carson’s fast heartbeat really clue the reader in to a possible possession? Couldn’t something better be thought up? And I should do a little research to see what would actually be done in an ER to stabilize and speeding heart instead of making up a drug (“diginamin”) and a treatment.

* Gilchrist’s Coke-bottle glasses come up once, near the end. They should’ve been introduced earlier in the story. What says more 1950s, though: Coke-bottle glasses or Horn-rimmed glasses? Hmmm.

* Should describe this serum that drives the alien critters batty a little more.

* Charles seems a bit uninformed at the end of the story … might there be a better way of conveying facts to the reader than through one supposedly experienced agent asking another one basic questions?

* The seemingly cautious and intelligent Gilchrist seems to take an unnecessary chance at the end of the story that fatally backfires.


I don’t know if the ending, meaning the last paragraph, is good or bad. On first reading, it seems very rushed, almost as if I said to myself, hey, LE, you’re coming up to 2,650 words – time to end it now! But after some thought, I think I understand my initial gut reaction writing it. I wanted to convey something happening lightning-quick, inexplicable, and completely unanticipated. How else to kill these two (hopefully portrayed) competent government agents? And ten years ago I was in a very anti-climactic rage. Everything I wrote had an anticlimactic ending. The bad guys won, the good deed gets punished, and the earth explodes. I would like to think I’m more nuanced now, but I decided to keep the ending as originally written.

You know what? I should do this sort of thing to all my short stories. Maybe one’ll be good enough to get published!

What do you think?