Critique: “One Hundred Thousand
Omelets and a Single Cactus Blossom”
By: Danielle Orner
Through this story, “One Hundred Thousand Omelets and a Single Cactus Blossom”, I find Danielle running over the same road blocks of writing that I myself try to avoid doing. With the plot being great and inviting to a reader, the main aspects of this story that need to be addressed are within the details and some minor structural changes. Along with that there can be things added that will bring about a much more elaborated trail of circumstances for the reader to be guided along with.
My biggest issue with this story is the details. Although they seem to be vivid and a good majority are perfectly implemented, some lack their pertinence to the scene, or require a greater amount of connection for the reader effectively acquire exactly what Orner is trying to symbolize. One example of this “pertinence” issue I am addressing can be seen when the narrator, Ellen, describes this massive vivid memory of a high school religion class and there is this massive focus on that particular picture in the beginning of the story. The problem this draws out is that the only details the reader acquires from this vivid memory is that Ellen is not an unusual person, and the key aspect that she had to drop out of high school in order to help her overworked mother and her crippled father. These two significant details do not require the dream for their explanation. Also the details do not pertain to anything discussed within the chapter/segment. Orner completely turns the reader away from this action pact scene of a wife being left in the middle of the night, which is a golden opportunity to tune the reader in and draw interest. The instances of improper details being added into the story appear common, but not of such magnitude. To avoid further instances such as this in my own writing I have to go through and re-read the sections separately and make sure that I acquire the message I wish to draw from the scene.
I also find the sections, since they are not in a chronological order, to be very hard to read. In one instance a section talks about Ellen bringing her kids to her parent’s place and her talking to her dad, to Ellen flashing back to the diner on a rainy day. Orner only mentions a slight reference to the flash back with no mentioning specifically that there is a flash back. I get lost while re-reading this particular spot, which means that the transaction here is not clear enough to the readers. It is very risky at times to go back and forth with segments, perhaps using the author of Every Night Is Ladies’ Night, Michael Jamie-Becerra’s, model of placing titles on those segments would help the reader understand that there has been a change in the plot’s focus.
Overall, I find Orner’s descriptions to be very vivid and delightful to read. However, there is much confusion with certain details that do not need to be included, or do not successfully describe exactly what needs to be described. She has a lot of potential with this plot, it simply needs to be reorganized with more explanation and more vivid details such as her description she does of the mother’s house and the empty bed; and less like the cactus flower on the truck.