h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is thought provoking.

'Wherever you go, there you are.' are wise words indeed. Reminds me of when someone recently tried to tell me about a mutual friend who had been injured, but instead turned the tale into a description of how they had been injured in the past and it was much worse than what our friend was currently experiencing - definitely a case for separating out the two strands of the story for separate occasions to avoid insensitivity...

It also reminds me of the time I wrote a story for my school homework, and the teacher's feedback was that it wasn't very good because it gave the impression I didn't know what the story was about. However, I had deliberately selected the magazine mystery story genre, where the reader isn't sure how the story will end. The only thing I didn't know when I started writing was what unimportant thing my main character was trying to achieve - I did know it didn't merit the drama of the main part of the tale as he tried to avoid discovery before the big reveal, as that was the point!

Aha! Maybe your teacher as reader needed a hint here and there in the story as to how to read it? Sometimes that's all it takes.

You know, like a mounting sense that the main character's actions aren't a completely reliable indicator of the seriousness of what's going on?

Ah! Yes, I knew my story was in the magazine mystery story genre, but in school homework it was not in a cheesy magazine so the teacher didn't have that clue - something else was needed to tie the ending in with the beginning

I shall ponder that some more

Sometimes we pick up a trick or two, even from seemingly negative feedback.

Story duly rewritten! A87921679 I enjoyed that

That's wonderful! I enjoyed that, too!

Let's see...we can run that on 19 November.

Thank you