A Word About Feed Him For a Lifetime

I think it's clear that "Feed Him For a Lifetime" was an early piece. I had not developed my skill sufficiently to create a writing "voice" that was my own (I still have a lot of work to do in that regard, but, especially with this and "The Modern Marianas Home," I didn't know how to be more unique).  Of course I've edited it, but largely it remains unchanged.

The piece was inspired by days I had spent fishing with my father in the waters off of Saipan. Though we always used handlines to fish out of the reef, my father and I also used fishing rods if we stayed in the reef.  I combined elements of both fishing methods for "Feed Him For a Lifetime."  I hope that the title is familiar to everyone; I took it from the saying, "give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him forever."

One major edit is I removed the character's name and changed him from an old man to a young man. I wanted to give a detached feeling to the fable, so removing the character's name helped do that. As for the age change, I figured it more likely that a older, wiser fisherman would have learned the price of arrogance a long time ago.

My characteriztion is a shortfall of this piece. In the fable the fisherman is not a very deep charatcter. He only goes from bitter to cocky to sad in that order. I suppose that for short pieces that is acceptable, however, the lack of character depth is one part of a larger problem this piece has with description.  I think some of my descriptions are generic. For example, "A tug at the other end bent the top of the young man’s pole. The pole jerked!" does not paint an image the way I want it to.  

I'd have to give myself a 75% for this story