So you've read the story (and if you haven't that's okay. This section should still be helpful). It's kind of sweet in a geeky "you don't know what you're missing until it's gone" way. So let's start with my goals for the story. My intent was to create a story of how a geeky and unpopular boy creates a time machine so he can go back and live his life differently so that he can become popular. But I also wanted to show that sometimes what you have is better than what you want. Things I needed to accomplish: Establish that Chip, our protagonist, is deeply unhappy and that he blames this on his lack of popularity. Illustrate that Chip is dedicated and driven to accomplish his goal of becoming popular. Make it clear that just being part of the crowd isn't enough for him. He needs to be the most popular kid in school. And, in the end, show that this process has given him the self-awareness that being popular does not equate with being happy. I'll address all of these points in detail as I go through the comments.

First, however, let's look at the comments that were unhelpful:

"A lot to like here, and I like the overall message, but...I don't know. There's something slightly off about it."

"Awesome. Loved this. Got a 10 from me."

"Very good!"

"I really, really liked this one."

"Nice play on a familiar theme."

"Cute."

"Aw. Funny and reminded me of a John Hughes movie."

Yes, it's nice to have validation, but it does nothing to help you improve your story. Perhaps for these readers the story needs no improvement, but you're an artist and you know that no story is perfect, so let's move on, shall we?

After I weeded out unhelpful comments, I took a look at comment that focused on larger, structural issues.

"Really like this, even if it does cater to those of us lived iteration one."

"Very good. If I have a cavil it's that I felt that it was to some degree pandering to me."

These are interesting comments in that they are basically saying that I achieved my goal that the reader identifies with our geeky and unpopular protagonist, yet the implication is that the appeal of the story is too specific and really only for geeks or nerds. In short, I was perhaps too overtly playing to a specific crowd. This was actually somewhat supported by a positive note from another commenter:

"Loved it. A love letter to ourselves."

Note that the first two comments may not have been intended as a criticism so much as an observation, but that was how I took it (especially with the "pandering" comment). To me, this was helpful criticism but one that I ultimately disregarded—my expectation is that the actual appeal of the story is to anyone who is unpopular, not just geeks or nerds (although they are the vehicle I specifically use). In other words, just because I use a specific situation, it doesn't mean the underlying situation doesn't have universal understanding and sympathy. Ultimately, this is a judgment call. When someone says, "this worked for me, but I don't see it working for others" you can legitimately question whether they can properly assess "others."

"I didn't see where time travel came into play, and also got lost in the iterations."

This is pretty clear: The reader is either lazy or I'm unclear (or a little of both). I'm fairly rabid about clarity. I'm a writer that has specific intent in everything I do. Yet, ironically, it is also one of the common flaws found in my early drafts. In this case, the confusion seemed more the result of lazy reading, but, just to be sure, in the first paragraph I changed "Maybe the device would work to "Maybe the temporal displacement device would send him back in time the seven years he calculated." Added bonus is that I also illustrated the scope of each iteration—seven years.

"Clever idea, but I had trouble believing that he'd learned anything—perhaps he just gave up?"

This may be about the problem that some readers had with a perceived ambiguity in the ending (which I'll address in a bit), but what really concerned me is the trouble this reader had that going through Chip's experiences wouldn't have taught him anything. One of the things I've learned is that there will be those few readers that simply won't or can't suspend the disbelief that your entire story hinges upon. In these instances, all you really can do is make sure that this isn't a wider problem. In this case, the lack of supporting comments and, more than anything, my own common sense told me that this reader was in a very small minority and thus a comment I could ignore.

"Cute, but I think this could benefit from expansion. Dialogue, more time in each iteration to see what it felt like in comparison to what had been before."

"A sad story, but one that could be more effective in a longer version which would allow us to see him more, rather than be told his story."

"This kept me interested, but I felt like it lacked something in telling the whole story rather than showing things."

"Oh I like this one, especially the ending. Probably could use some expanding and stretching but I believe this idea is one worth pursuing."

"Would be more entertaining longer, and with a hint at the end of why."

This is general advice but extremely valuable. I did, in fact, expand the story by about 400 words. The key criticism here, however, is that the first few commenters feel like the story needs more immersive in-scene framework to maximize the emotion. This is the exact advice I give all the time. Shortchanging emotion for an idea is a common problem. Taking this story and creating it as a series of scenes and using a traditional narrative format is a formidable rewrite, but significant rewrites are something that I always consider and rarely avoid. I just want to write the best story possible, and the form always follows that goal—if there is a better way of telling the story, I use it.

In this case, however, I didn't think the criticism was accurate. The reason is that this is a story with a lot of white space, and my belief is that, if done well, a collaborative active reader can fill in the gaps quite easily. Generally speaking, that also pulls the reader closer into the story, because you are actively collaborating with his or her own imagination. This is a strategy and not an excuse, mind you. So it requires certain things to make work.

For me, as I looked at the story, the key was to make sure that what I expected of the reader was truly universal enough that he or she could identify with the story. My instincts told me that was the case here, as this story uses very broad strokes and is, at its heart, very simple. Some of the things I expect the reader to be able to identify with are: Being unpopular and yearning to be popular, seeing athletic prowess as leading to popularity, seeing riches as leading to popularity, understanding that social interactions are more complicated than just wearing the right clothes.

In short, the emotional depth of this piece isn't on the page; it is brought by the reader because I'm using universal emotional triggers and identifiable situations. Do we really need to be in scene to deeply realize that money can change our friends? I don't think so, and decided a major rewrite was not necessary. I should probably note that this doesn't necessarily mean I'm right!

"Haha, he liked iteration one by the end. Moralistic, but a light touch. Good one."

"I liked it. Good lesson."

"This was fun, and the last iteration was perfect. I loved that."

"The ending saved it for me. Sweet last paragraph and lines."

"Good takeaway lesson at the end, but the story didn't grab me."

"I liked this one very much. The last line was gold."

"Heh. I liked the ending."

"I liked this. Chip finally realises what's important."

"I liked how this worked out."

All these comments are valuable because they tell me that my authorial intent outlined above succeeded. The final paragraph and last line are absolutely intended to bring home the point that you don't need to be popular to be happy or, perhaps more subtly, being popular may be fun, but it may not be as fun as doing all those things in iteration one.

One side note: This is absolutely a message story, albeit one that should make the reader smile and feel entertained. Message stories will without fail receive comments that contain words like "moralistic," "lesson," and "takeaway." This is not bad unless the story itself as a whole fails. So the criticisms I look for are things like, "The message overwhelmed the story," "Heavy-handed," or "preachy."

"The writing and the protagonist don't grab me, but the concept is a fun one. I don't like Chip enough to cheer for his breakthrough--or buy it, really. It makes me think of Bill Murray in GROUNDHOG DAY trying to recreate that one good day with Andie McDowell over and over again . . . I don't believe Chip would be able to make friends with his loser friends. And the philosophical point doesn't stand up to a lot of scrutiny. Adolescence is not a choice between being a jock, being rich, or having good times with your friends. Still, liked the idea of iterations enough to call this mostly a success."

This is a great comment that makes the writer think. There are one criticism here mirrored by others I received ("I don't like Chip enough") and a number of others that can go in the "I can't suspend disbelief" bucket I mentioned above. These are different, however, in that this commenter appears confused over my intent. He or she assumes that the point is that you have a choice in how you pursue your adolescence, whereas I intended for the point of the piece to be about popularity not bringing you ultimate happiness. The science fictional method I used was purely imaginary adolescent choice via a time machine. It was not intended to be an illustration of the ideal adolescence. Similarly, the belief that Chip would not be able to make friends with his loser friends is also a highly specific position that I needed to assess as a writer whether it was universal or not.

In the end, I concluded that I think it is more universal and identifiable to think that Chip would be able to be friends with the friends from his past that he knew so well and, also, that this commenter's misunderstanding of my intent was not due to lack of clarity but due to a misreading. The main basis for this was the support of the many other commenters that I outlined above.

"Cute. Although it sounds to me that he abandoned something really good in Iteration 4 in pursuit of perfection. (Which is a legit thing people do, I'd just expect him to go back to that in Iteration 7 rather than go back to 1. But all of this is a lot of work, and after fifty-plus years subjective, maybe I'd make the same choice.)"

"I like the lesson at the end, but I wonder whether maybe those lifetimes ought to have paid off: it's hard to shrug off twenty years of exercise habits, over forty years of observing the same people over and over, and a knack for guessing the stock market."

These are the kind of comments that you should pray you receive. The first commenter looks at the general flow of the narrative and points out a fairly obvious character motivation question: Why abandon iteration 4, which was plenty good, for perfection? The commenter actually gives me too much leeway. I added this in revision:

"Moving from excluded to tolerated wasn't good enough for Chip. He had worked too hard to settle for anything less than the best."

The second commenter brings up something thornier: Chip is actually accruing experience through this whole story. Wouldn't that affect how he lives his subsequent lives? Ultimately, I agree with the reader but ask him to suspend disbelief. If there were a lot more comments like this I would trunk the story—the suspension of disbelief issues would be impossible to overcome without writing a much longer and different story, and I did not want to do that. Luckily, this was the only reader out of 50 that had this disbelief suspension issue, so I feel confident ignoring his or her criticism, even if in the pit of my stomach I kind of agree with him or her.

Okay, now let's look at some specifics. First up are the significant number of comments from people who just didn't get the ending. Of everything in the comments, this surprised me the most. I thought it was beyond obvious that Chip went back to Iteration One to fill himself back up with loathing so that he could go through the grueling process of Iteration 8 in his attempt for perfect popularity, and in the process realized that he was ultimately happy with that life. But people didn't get that. They either found the ending ambiguous, unclear, or a tragedy, with Chip actually killing himself:

"This character spoke to me, but I didn't feel like the story had a good pay off."

"Fun, although the ending doesn't quite work for me yet."

"not 100% clear if death continued to be an option after the first building of the device, in which case it's possible he died instead of making it to the eight iteration. otherwise, I really liked this story and the implication that by iteration seven he realized his first life was the best"

"It was interesting but I'm not sure I got the punchline. He realized that he was happiest in his original iteration? Or his laziness in iteration 7 thwarted him from trying again?"

"OMG, seriously? Why is there no Iteration 8? I loved this"

"I feel like you totally left me on a cliffhanger."

"Why was there no iteration 8? Did he decide he liked being unpopular (or that it was more fun), or did he somehow end up popular?"

"Not a fan of the ending."

"Not sure what to make of the end...my first guess was that his slacker life in iteration 7 drained him of his ambition. Or he died?"

"Fun idea, didn't understand the ending - did he decide that being unpopular was great after all?"

"It seemed a bit heavy-handed to me. He seemed doomed to failure from the start. I would have liked something to hope for."

"This one was fun right up to the ending (iteration 8) which seemed a wholly unsatisfying conclusion to this reader at least. But still, much I like here."

"It wasn't until the second reading that I figured out what the temporal displacement device did, and I still don't understand the last line. Interesting premise, though."

"I liked this. The master popularity plan eventually results in the realization that being yourself with your geeky friends is the more fulfilling path. I think you could make that a touch clearer, though, maybe by showing him enjoying time with his friends to contrast it with his attempts at seeking popularity."

"I didn't care for the ambiguity of the ending; it was unclear to me whether there was no eighth iteration because he was happy with Seven or because he died (a possibility introduced at the beginning of the story). Other than that, I found it an enjoyable read."

Wow. That's a lot of people who just plain didn't get the ending. Clearly I had to make it clearer. The first thing I did was remove the reference to him contemplating suicide. That was probably the single biggest issue that confused the ending. I changed the wording so that Chip didn't find death preferable, he found the danger of his experimental time worth the risk:

"Maybe the temporal displacement device would send him back in time the seven years he calculated. Maybe it wouldn't. Maybe he'd end up living off the land in pre-Colonial America. Maybe he'd end up an alien slave is some farflung future. It didn't matter. Anything was better than what he was."

I also added throughout the piece more examples of Chip missing his friends:

"He missed the video games and sci-fi movies, and—more than anything—he missed spending time with his friends discussing everything from Steven Spielberg's talent as a director (overrated) to Philip K. Dick's influence on contemporary literature (underappreciated) to who was the hottest girl you could marry in Skyrim (Lydia, of course), but in the end he couldn't find a way to fit them into his plan."

"He even had time to spend with Dave, Charlie, and Vineet, but Chip didn't like the way his money changed them. Hanging out in the basement and making fun of current movies recorded on a shaky camcorder that they downloaded from the Internet didn't have as much appeal to his friends when they knew he could just pay for them all to go to the theater. They constantly wanted to buy things, rather than do things."

If you read the story, you know that these passages are in there, and you won't particularly see how much more ambiguous the story was without them, but that's the goal of revision—now it is clear. Before it was not.

But the single biggest change was that I made the ending point-blank clear as a bell. I had nothing to lose in doing so, so I went for it. Here are the new last two paragraphs:

"Chip pressed the button and started Iteration Seven. He binged on potato chips and Mountain Dew. He argued with Charlie over whether Peter Jackson's Hobbit adaptation butchered the source material (it did). He argued with Vineet over whether Firefly was better than Star Trek (it was). Oh, and he married Lydia in Skyrim.

There was no Iteration Eight."

The previous version cut right to "There was no iteration Eight," skipping over all the things he missed about iteration One.

Note that the increased interactions with his friends not only provide the reader with clues into the underlying appeal that Chip finds in Iteration One, making the ending clearer, they also make Chip more likable. Because a number of readers found Chip unsympathetic:

"Chip seemed rather unpleasant so it was challenging to root for him."

"I don't like Chip, but I'd kinda like Charlie, Dave, and Vineet to profit from all this."

"Good concept but the execution didn't appeal to me due to unlikable hero (ironic...)."

With the last comment in mind, note that I added the part where Chip's money changes Charlie, Dave, and Vineet, so not only did I make Chip more sympathetic, I made his friends more complex. Before they were just good guys.

Okay, let's finish things up with the final few comments:

"He's playing pick-up games at a bar at age twelve?"

I can very safely ignore this comment. The context of the comment was with Chip desperately improving himself at basketball, and he is playing pick-up games "at the local park." I could have been extra safe and changed this to "pick-up basketball games at the local park," but the whole paragraph is about basketball, and adding it there felt redundant.

"I tripped over it a bit at the beginning. The end was rushed. And the title may give away too much. But it was clever."

I agree with these comments. I significantly expanded and rewrote the beginning as outlined above, and I rewrote the ending to be clearer. I don't care if the title gives away too much. The ending should work whether it is expected or not.

"Was confused for a while exactly what device did. Once I got the point of the story, each iteration felt a little redundant to me."

I clarified the scope and nature of the time machine device as I mention above. That said, I was not sure how to fix what is an almost unavoidable redundancy of having someone repeat his life. If I had received a ton of these comments I would either trunked the story or, more likely, found a way to add more distinctness to each iteration. As it is, I think this specific comment is a bit extreme and safely ignored.

"A bit confusing at the start. Need a few sentences describing existence of button (does he start at iteration zero)? F-bomb not needed. By far the strongest story of the week."

Yes, this story originally had a four letter word in it as Chip is considering his life. I obviously agreed that the F-bomb was unnecessary, even though this was the only comment that mentioned it. I was uncertain what the button comment meant, but my guess is that the clarification of the time machine solved his or her other issues.

Let's take a short detour here and talk about my removing the curse word. Only one comment out of fifty mentioned it, yet I still removed it. Why? The answer is that sometimes a single person catches something that everyone else misses. This is not uncommon and one of the reasons you need to take each comment seriously. In this case the comment brought my attention to something I should have noticed when I did my own revision—the word was unnecessary.

"Mostly nice. I did think 13 was a little young to be going to the kind of parties I'm imagining might be intended here."

I had to go back and re-read the piece to figure what the commenter was talking about. The only paragraph that lists parties has his age at 18. So I guess I'm not sure where the reader went off track.

"Very nice. One note—I think you have fast-twitch and slow-twitch backwards. Fast-twitch = sprinter = good for bursts of speed."

I love people who fact-check for me, but in this case I think the confusion was the reader's. The lines are:

"He hadn't anticipated the genetic shortcomings of his fast-twitch muscles. He was a marksman on the court, and he could handle the basketball, but he was slow. Depressingly, embarrassingly slow."

I'm basically saying that his fast-twitch muscles (those good for bursts of speed) failed him, as bursts of speed are what you need on the basketball court.

Finally, we have this comment:

"Maybe this story is meant to be About Something Like Obesity and Self Confidence, but the message pushed me right out. If death is better than being fat, this isn't a story that is ever meant to win me over."

I don't think that this comment is made if the ending was clearer for this reader, and he or she saw the conclusion as uplifting rather than tragic. That said, the comment about obesity made me re-think my description of Chip. One of those small authorial intent things I wanted was to use stereotypes and not so much subvert them as illustrate their irrelevance when it comes to self-perception and happiness. So I absolutely did want to use some stereotypical language of unpopularity (also note that this allows the reader to bring his or her own perceptions to the story, as well), but I didn't want to go so far as to define Chip in description which could go beyond the broadest stereotype. In the original version he identifies himself as "fat," and in hindsight I think that "fat" has health-related and genetic aspects that counter my intent to create the broader perception of Chip as being just "unpopular." I changed the description to this:

"Chip looked in the mirror at the loser with the greasy hair, the thick glasses, and the lame clothes. He hated him."

Note that all of the things that define Chip as unpopular now are simply physical things that he could change overnight. Yet he still hates himself based on what he sees. I thought this was a much stronger starting point to get to an end where Chip loves who he is based on his life, not how he looks in a mirror.

So there you go. 50 people critiqued this one rather minor story. Out of those 50 comments I had to wade through and find some to assist my revision. And I did! The process clearly helped the story, and in the end that is always the goal.

Reminder: If you vote for this, it will help my work become more visible. Thank you!