DRC Lesson 2

Hi Gotagosee! I am here with a little review of your story

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Rating:

First let me say I found your story to be quite compelling. I am not sure I would have written it in first person myself, it does seem to work well for you.

The tone of your story was a bit dreamlike. It seemed a bit light and airy for the subject at hand. As though she didn't want to think about living in a cramped space above a bakery that had once belonged to her family or about her family dieing. Due to this it was a bit difficult to connect to your main character in the beginning. A tone more connected to someone fighting to move on with their life might have been more appropriate, but some how you managed to make it work.

The mood was hard to determine. There were no intense emotions to this. By shortening your sentences you can add some intensity to the tone that would take away that dream like tone and potentially give the mood a real feeling instead of a held back feeling. Unless of course that was what you were going for. But, again it seems more like a dream than anything out of reality.

Perhaps part of the problem is that you choose first person present tense in writing this. Had you picked third person past tense, it would be a story being told by someone else and the need for emotion would have been negated a bit, by the narrators presence. But by choosing first person present tense you kept the story to the main character and in the here and now. Without, dealing directly with her emotions and how the events of her life lead her to that point while she is talking about it, you give it that dream like quality and block not only yourself and your character off from her pain, hopes and dreams you block your reader as well.

The plot however was very nicely done. You didn't leave any gaping holes, it wasn't the least bit confusing. Your conflict was obvious. She put off getting married to become a school teacher and now that she her parents had passed without her marrying it was going to take all the luck she had and then some to make that happen. That luck came in the form of a wish and an Irish traveling salesman.

At the point where O'Grady entered the bakery, we start to see some real life to the main character. Her hope and excitement almost manage to break through... Almost... It still isn't quite enough to push through the tone to what your looking for but it's closer. O'Grady gives the story a bit of life that it was missing.

All in all it is a good story, but the dream like tone takes some of the readers ability to connect to the story out of it. I am not going to suggest that you completely change the story to third person, but I do often suggest that people write a version of a third person story in first to get a better view of their character. I think in this case it would do you some good to write it again in third to get a broader view of the story then come back and write it in first again. Who knows, you may find you prefer third person over first. Then again, you might find a way to change the tone to something a bit more connectable to when you write it again in first person after having written it in third. :)

I hope that helps! Let me know, if you choose to edit this so I can come back and rate and review it again for you! But, even if you don't please....

Keep Writing!