by Chris Maday Schmidt from the August 28, 2023 issue
Tagline: Honey Lambert's life is full of all work and no play...until a handsome stranger sits down next to her and fills her world with new possibilities
Observations: First of all, sorry about the late analysis of this story. I don't know where this issue was hiding, but I just now found it.
I usually love Schmidt's stories, but I feel she missed two opportunities to ground the reader in the setting.
Honey Lambert owns the Honey Stand. We don't get any description of the Honey Stand, so my brain provided me with an image of a side-of-the-road honey stand. Later, near the end of the story, we find out that the Honey Stand has a back room and a shop floor, which suggests it's in an actual building. This came as a bit of a surprise, causing me to revise what I'd been picturing in my head. Any time this happens to a reader, they're pulled out of the narrative which is something you want to avoid if possible.
After getting ice cream from the ice cream truck, Honey sits at a table with a massive umbrella. Usually ice cream trucks are mobile, so it's a little coincidental that there happens to be a table there. Also, all the ice cream trucks I've ever encountered sell pre-packaged treats like Big Sticks and Push-Ups, not scoops of ice cream or sundaes.
Unless, and this is probably the case, in this story it's a food truck ice cream truck, the kind of food truck that is parked in a semi-permanent location. If this is the case, I want this to be clear so I can really picture the scene and so I can be jealous of the heroine because who wouldn't want to be in front of a food truck specializing in ice cream?
Your experience of the story might have differed, and obviously the things I mentioned didn't bother the editors, but regardless, clearly establishing your setting is always a good idea.
Photo by Ben Phillips via the Flickr Creative Commons License
