Salad Ahoy!

Tadd Adcox, "Substitutions," Fiction Volante

Another Feedback Friday. Catch the fever.

Did I listen when kfan and distorte said how brilliant Fiction Volante was? Yeah, but I thought, “Oh, I’ll get to that when I have some time” and when I did, it wasn’t there any more. But thanks to the good people at the Google cache, I was about to read maybe 30 percent of the stories, including “Substitutions.”

The thing I like best about this story is the way the title engages with the story. The first time you read it, there seems to be a clear correspondence between the story and the protagonist’s actions, and then at the end suddenly the title refers to a different substitution entirely.

Another way to get at this is to note that the story balances two main topics: a relationship and the actions of the protagonist. The first two (short) paragraphs are about the relationship, the third paragraph is about the actions (with one reference to the relationship), the fourth is about both, and the fifth is entirely about the actions. Both are interesting and there’s a fairly even balance there. But then the last paragraph comes and the title smacks you upside the head again and suddenly that balance between the relationship and the actions has changed profoundly.

I’m overanalyzing, maybe, but to see something structured this precisely and feel the way that it works on you emotionally is a nice thing.