WOTF: Need Feedback on Short Story.

[Taft]

Another quarter of WOTF is upon me. Again, I need feedback.
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Quote:

I'm about to submit my latest short story to the Writers of the Future Contest (it has to be in by Sept 30th). Because of the nature of the contest, I don't want to just post the entire story here as I'm not sure what constitutes exposure the contest officials would be unhappy with if the story does well and is later published in the WotF book.

So, if you're willing to read it in the next few weeks (it's about 8K words), please post a message here and send me a PM with your e-mail address and I'll send it to you. NOTE: also let me know if you want it sent as a Word, WordPerfect, RTF, or PDF file.

I think it's ANOTHER fairly good story (it's called "The Wishing Well Gang"), and my previous entries to the contest have done pretty well (I was a semi-finalist in Q1 07; haven't got results of last quarter yet).

If you're interested, let me know.

Any and all feedback is appreciated.

Taft
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Thanks to those who critiqued "Madame Travinski's Bracelet" in June. The feedback helped a lot.

[Taft]

Five days. No takers. I guess I need to spice it up a little. Here's the first 13/14 lines:

Thomas sat by the magic wishing well. He figured the beautiful spot and the well must be magic--how else could it make him feel so good.

After two days of walking on dusty roads, this was a the first rest he’d had since he’d escaped the orphanage. He didn’t know where he was going to go, or what he was going to do, but simply being away from that horrible place was enough to make him smile.

Thomas watched two women, two men, and a boy take turns throwing their coins in. One of the women nodded at Thomas. He nodded back. Thomas had no money for the stage or the train. Maybe he could hitch a ride in one of these people’s wagon. Five big, burly men rode up and got off of their horses, breaking the quiet solitude.

“What do ya think, Virgil? Do you think these fine people will allow us a drink?”

Another man laughed and spit some tobacco. He said, “Here’s hopin’ they don’t.”

(Continues...)

I don't even need an involved critique, just some people to read through it and give me general thoughts and impressions.