Response to Nate's "Lemon Drops"

            “The Summer of Lemon Drops” by Nate Lundberg is a story about a teenager’s unfortunate summer doing community service in Florida. He works under the eye of the park ranger John, a half crazy man whose face gives no clues about him, according to the narrator. The narrator, on the other hand, describes his face as one that gets him into trouble. Judging from the narrator’s freely voiced thoughts and some details about drug use in college, he seems like the kind of person who would occasionally find himself in a fix. Ultimately, it is the lemon drops that make the summer bearable.

            I think the conflicts in this story are a little tougher to locate, like a buried treasure in the sand, but I do think they exist, and I think the fact that they’re not startlingly obvious makes it such an interesting read. I think the main conflicts going on here are the college-educated young man being deceived and outwitted by the non-intellectual, but more experienced park ranger. On the second conflict, we see the narrator’s internal struggle with his bad luck, which becomes a conflict of the narrator versus the universe. I think the dialogue is really well done. I can really see these two characters conversing, and I am getting a strong sense of their personalities, even though we know nothing about John. In fact, since his face offers no description of him, we must judge him from his dialogue, and I thought you did a good job of accomplishing this. I also liked the writing style, as I think it reflects the narrator’s personality very well: a college student most concerned with having a good time, having money, seeing girls, etc.

            There are several grammatical errors throughout the story. There are missing apostrophes, “there” that should be “their,” missing commas and other missing punctuation. I would also like to see something that gives more depth to the narrator. You could do this by delving into the relationship with the sister, his frustration with the universe, or his perception of John, focusing on how he thinks John sees him in more detail than simply “college student.”