Hi! Please criticize and rate on a scale of 1 to 10. Make sure to point out the flaws and whether I have any potential as a writer.

Story Begins Here ;

“Wait, mum.”

The sound of her son’s voice stopped her in her tracks.

She stopped and turned to face him.

He looked up, hurt and angry. “Why aren’t you supporting me in this?”

“How do you expect me to support you when you’ve done something wrong?”

“I’m just saying that all I’ve done is what my friends say is normal for a guy! ” The resentment he felt against her had pushed him to his feet. ” I mean, when Bolade did the same thing , his mother backed him up and even told his wife to accept his actions. I thought you would do the same! “.

“So what you’re basically saying is that you did this because your friends told you it was okay? This was not how I raised you, Dami. “

“It’s not about my friends. This is what guys do! I can’t think of any of my friends who hasn’t done the same thing and didn’t get away with it!”

“Then it IS about your friends.”

He sighed in frustration.

“Mrs. Afolayan has shown that she is an extremely unreasonable woman. She has shown this time and again, so what you’ve just said to me now is no surprise. There are two types of mothers; the ones who make their sons believe that every woman is to worship the ground that they walk on, and those who help their children understand the difference between right and wrong. I am not Bolade Afolayan’s mother and even if I was, I would never support what you have just done.”

“But you support my wife for throwing me out? Of my own house? And parading around with some other guy?! “

“I don’t support either of you. But the bottom line is , that you cheated on her. If she decides to do the same, then you are perfectly entitled to whatever punishment she dishes out to you. Now get some sleep.”

“But why? Why should I deserve this?"

She looked at her hard-headed son, so much like his father in his relentless stubbornness , and her eyes softened. For that split second, she could only feel sympathy for him. And for herself.

But when she spoke again, her tone was bitter. “You never understood why I left your father, did you? I left him for the same reason. Because he did exactly what you did to your wife. But as far as you were concerned, he was your precious father. And he could do no wrong.”

“That’s completely different”, he snapped.

“Why?” she asked , with a raised eyebrow and a cynical smile. “Because you’re a human being and I’m not?”.

There was only silence after that.

“The rotten apple never falls far away from the tree ” , someone had once told her. She had laughed when she first heard it. But that time, that laughter, was a long time ago. And the rotten apple stood right in front of her.

She had tried. Tried so hard to make sure that she didn’t become his father. And yet there he stood in front of her, mocking all her efforts to make him a good man.

But what if that was the reason why she had failed? What if she had tried too hard?

She shook her head and said in a much softer tone, “Go to sleep, Damilola.  It’s late.”

And she switched off the lights and walked away, leaving him standing alone in the darkness.

8 nice work.

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daprofo:

Good piece of prose.For sake of space & technicality (I am using a mobile device herein)
I will enumerate my literary appreciation/critique:
1.) At the denotative level, your work is a good presentation of common domestic brouhaha and conflicts in the Nigerian society.As a writer, a work about your milieu, whether culturally or about metropolitan themes & motifs shows your readers and the literati that you have something worthwhile and important to tell; especially when it is carried out proficiently.I commend the exploitation of your milieu in this work.
2.) The story is one the average reader can identify with. Luvbooks, well I don't know your name because you didn't put one except an alias, your plot is exceptionally great in that you could tell us events that transpired outside this scene and even in the scene in so short a space.Damilola's infidelity for instance is traceable to his father's.That's a brief allusion, or let's call it foreshadow.You successfully compacted all.There is also an allusion to Bolade, and Damilola's friends' influence over Damilola.That's more like the common peer pressure and identity crisis issues amongst teenagers, and youths.Damilola is inexperienced, that's quite conspicuous in the story
3.) Your characters are quite intelligent.They disagree however.So we see the conflict, we get the tension.Damilola's mother is protective, not much of a nagging type but motherly concern.She has painful memories of Damilola's father.She is helpless because the conflict doesn't unravel and Damilola ends up being a cheat on his wife.Age on her side, she feels that is equivalent to experience on marital affairs.Hear her, "you never understand why I left your father. .".Her intelligence again is seen in her definition of two types of mothers. Damilola conversely is young and rash.Acts on instincts and other people's philosophy.If Afolayan's son Bolade and others did it, then it is right, he argues.He is quite intelligent but not in our eyes but in his own eyes.
3.) LUVBOOKS, your diction is one the reader can follow easily.The words are simple.Not much underlying or symbolic meanings.There is a proverb of apple but I wonder if its African : I mean the proverb.It is a sentimental aphorism of pop culture , so I think,

While I have appraised the work, let me do a brief criticism:
1.) What is the title of your story?
2.) The philosophy of the language, in terms of syntax and sentencial renderings falls short of standard contemporary works.The verbs are quite common and trite but it doesn't affect the efficacy of the work.
3.) The work ends without proper unravelling.
4.) Little description of your setting.You need work on that.Give background poetic or prosaic description, ok, LUVBOOKS.
5.) The starting shows Dami as the initiator of the argument.There is nothing wrong with this but if you ask me, I would've expected Dami's mother to assail his acts.However starting your work with a conversation is a plus. . Do write plays? You would be a good playwright.Take care.

O. SAM
Port Harcourt.
[prof_brimaniee@yahoo.com]

Thank you for everything you said. I appreciate the time you took in writing something of substance about this story. I had already forgotten about the story to be honest, mostly because I knew it would definitely fall short in some areas but had no idea what those were.

1) The title of the story is still pending. I wanted to call it "Rotten Apples" but I felt that that would be overdoing it. So I'm still trying to decide what to call it.

2) Sorry I've lost you here. I'm trying to google what syntax means but the internet is so bad. Please explain further.

3) When you say proper unravelling, what do you mean? I suppose I could have done something where the wife comes in and there's this huge drama which ends in them forgiving each other and this getting back together. But I felt that that was too cliché. In a lot of situations like this one, there is no happy ending. What I wanted to create here is the reality of life ; some things never change. Either one person refuses to learn , or the other refuses to forgive. I also wanted to demonstrate that sometimes you can teach your children all you know and they still end up disappointing you.

4) Yes thats true. I didnt put in enough about the setting. I'll try to revamp the story and add some more settings to it though.

5) The reason why I let Dami start the discussion was because I wanted to show how a person will be completely wrong in his actions and still expect others to justify his behaviour. Dami feels guilty for what he did but he doesn't want to acknowledge this so he uses his friend's example as emotional blackmail on his mother. If his mother had approached the topic first, that would have put him instantly in his place and the guilt would have overwhelmed him and made him keep quiet. I wanted him to be able to speak, because his misplaced anger where he blames his mother instead of himself is actually the crux of the story.

Thanks very much once again.