Shoutout to the woman who caught my awkward transition in my short story

I was writing a scene about a diner in Austin and thought jumping from a pancake order to a breakup confession felt natural. A beta reader pointed out it read like two different stories stitched together. She suggested adding a line about the jukebox skipping to smooth it out. Anyone else have a random detail save a rough draft from falling apart?

2 comments

2 Comments

maxpalmer15d ago

oh man, i don't know if a jukebox is really gonna fix things that easily lol. like if the scene is that disjointed maybe the problem is bigger than one random detail. i've definitely had beta readers point out stuff and i slap on a bandaid but then the whole thing still feels off. the pancake breakup thing sounds like it could be funny if done right, but one line about a skip seems like it's just covering up a bigger issue. you might end up with readers forgetting about the jukebox and still wondering why she's crying into her syrup.

river_fox1815d ago

Jumped straight to thinking that jukebox line is genius, my stories usually just fall apart and stay that way.