The Henry Show

Henry is a delusional, mentally unbalanced man who just seems to want to get by with his life. He's always attempting to impress the cameras and his audience, though he never actually seems to be interested in the things that he's doing, often becoming distracted by what he thinks the audience is thinking. Over the course of the story, Henry makes some startling changes only lose his life at the end of the story.

Alright, so I was understanding and getting the story until the author got to the end and turned it into some sort of story of a story which took away from a lot of the realness and made it seem choppy. With that aside, the ending that actually occurred was interesting. Not only did Henry drive himself to the point of homicide, he also was so delusional that he couldn't bring himself out of it for the sake of self-preservation which would have required a certain social understanding that I suspect wouldn't be possible for someone with his condition.

I didn't understand the aside between the actor and Jeremy. First, why was Jeremy introduced properly and not the actor? Why was it still being told from Henry's point of view when Henry is out cold? Am I missing something? Don't get me wrong, it was good development of characters and definitely experimented with dialogue which was humorous for the situation they were in. It kind of felt a little improv-y? Like both were actors and making things up as they went? Which would have been interesting if it was a play all along. That's what I thought was happening when it opened and Henry's illness is presented so matter-of-fact that it comes off "here's a definition of what this is because i'm sure you don't know it, reader" rather than a natural conversation coercing it out of the speaker. It seems like you want to explain to the audience what's "wrong" with Henry but I feel like showing rather than telling would be way more effective here.

I think the setting could have been played up a bit more. There was hardly any details throughout the passage and I found myself wondering a lot of the time what they were doing. I think that's why it was so difficult to imagine this story actually happening - I can't imagine the characters. I don't think that's a bad thing because this is fiction and I feel like the reader should fill in the blanks themselves. But maybe a little hint? No ages, no distinguishing features, no gimpy walk. I don't think it could hurt to add some more description.