This review is offered in the spirit of encouragement and assistance. I appreciate your sharing your work, and am simply sharing my opinion in return. I hope it can be of use.
Overall impression
You write with great emotion and passion, and your stories are compelling, but there are a number of technical issues that make it harder to read them smoothly. This prevents your strong story telling from fully shining as it could.
What I liked most
I like that Russ is not simply made a villain, but rather is a strong and loving father who has a weakness that is difficult for him to overcome, and somewhat parallels the illness that the main character has which is difficult to overcome.
My general suggestions
Aside from other technical issues, the formatting used makes reading more difficult. For example, in the short part below, the line break in the middle is disorienting:
Patrick matured from ten to twenty years old, "I will not fight with him, but I cannot respect him any more, you know that."
Dorothy couldn't speak, she just nodded her head.
It would be very easy to fix, and much easier to read, if you had:
Patrick matured from ten to twenty years old, "I will not fight with him, but I cannot respect him any more, you know that." Dorothy couldn't speak, she just nodded her head.
Technical issues
The biggest and most distracting issue is that of tense. For example, you have "Patrick watches his Mom struggling with the groceries and ran out to help her." You should either have "watched" and "ran" or "watches" and "runs".
In general, I think it is much easier to write in the past tense as if you are telling a story about what happened, but some people feel like it is more immediate if your character is having it happen right now. Honestly, either is OK, but you must stick to one.
I usually recommend that you decide whether your are telling the story or whether it is happening now. Then, just write the story out with that in mind, but without worrying excessively about tense. Finally, and this is critical, read each sentence separately, and usually aloud, and make sure that the verbs match what you decided.
Conclusion
In writing, we all bring some package to the table. Some are perfect spellers but have lousy grammar. Some write wonderful images, but are lousy spellers. Some write beautifully and eloquently, but have little to say. My guess is that that is the most frustrating of all. You should count yourself fortunate that you have a gift for telling a story, as the mechanics can be fixed after the story is written down, even if it requires multiple rewrites. Think of a story as a statue, where the rough shape is hewn, then detail carved in carefully, and finally the last blemishes are polished away. Some sculptors require more steps, while others require fewer, but the person standing in awe in front of the sculpture doesn't care if it took one or one hundred steps - he or she cares that it is wonderful at the end. Just so, your stories may require a few more rewrites than some others, but the reader at the end wants to see the wonderful story you have to write - he or she won't care how many rewrites it took or appreciate it less than that person who writes quickly and easily, but whose sculpture has a less exciting shape.
Write on, and share your stories! I am going to mark this lower simply because as your smooth out and improve your story, I want to be along for the ride and rate it higher each time until it reaches the story you want to tell.
They say that 'turnabout is fair play', so please feel welcome to visit my port Ben Langhinrichs  and review any of my work.
 Write on! |
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