Crosstimbers Review Forum

Item Reviewed: "Truth Will Out"   by Victoria
Reviewer: Max Griffin 🏳️‍🌈

                                                             
As always, these are just one person's opinions. Always remember Only you know what is best for your story. I've read and commented on your work as I would try to read my own. I hope you find something here useful , and that you will discard the rest with good cheer.

                                                             
What I liked best
This is an absolutely amazing story--the best I've read in a long time, whether on this site or elsewhere. Thank you for sharing!

It's so good, I really don't have much to say. Usually I focus on craft and structural elements, but everything here fits to gether so beautifully I can't find anything meaningful to improve.

                                                             
Opening
Your opening answers all of the who/what/where/why questions needed to orient the reader, but it does so much more. We get the narrator's fragile emotional state, her hopes and fears. We get delicate hints of her sexuality and her relationships with other characters. Most of all, there's a finely tuned tension between her, the other characters, and the events of the story. All of this sets the stage for what's to come.

                                                             
Plot
This is about loss, love, and redemption. It's about guilt and forgiveness, about memory and reconciliation.

There's a haiku by John Updike that seems relevent--it something to the effect that we polish the face of others, hoping to produce a mirror but instead produce a skull. It's relevant because of the themes of life, love, and redemption that flow through this story.

The precipitating incident is, of course, finding the suicide note, six months after Kristen's death. Where Melanine finds it--in her diary--is telling all by itself: she finds it in the record of her own lived experience. Later, we learn an essential part of that lived experience--a kiss from Mace--is something she's forgotten. It's clear that a shadow of memory must still linger in her yearning to again see Mace, but the specific memory is gone, perhaps deliberately.

There's Mace's twin, Tom, his girlfriend, and the drunken half-liaison between him and Melanie, so different from the deep and abiding feelings that Mace and Melanie have for each other.

We never learn what's actually in the note that Melanie has found. We're left to speculate from several hints scattered in the story, including the dream Melanie has before her encounter with Tom. However, leaving this as a mystery lets the readers fill in the blanks. It permits them to find their own meanings in the events and relationships, to bring their own understandings to the symbols of the story.

Hemingway said he tried to write the best, most realistic fish and fisherman that he could. If he made them true enough, he said they could mean many things. They might even be truer than true. This story exemplies that sentiment.

                                                             
Style and Voice
First person. We're deep inside Melanie's head. We feel her anguish with every nuance of her words, with every breath she takes, with every scent she smells. A wonderful, evocative use of first person narrative, which is technically much harder to do well than third person limited.

                                                             
Characters
Goals, stakes, and obstacles animate characters, create tension, and propel the plot. Here, each character has clear goals, high stakes, and ample obstacles, all revealed through their words and--especially--their deeds. Melanie, in particular, is an acute observer of those around her, sensitive to their moods and intentions, without being obvious about it. More evidence of a skilled and talented author at work.


                                                             
Just my personal opinion
One way to think of telling a story is that it is a guided dream in which the author leads the readers through the events. In doing this, the author needs to engage the readers as active participants in the story, so that they become the author's partner in imagining the story. Elements of craft that engage the readers and immerse them in the story enhance this fictive dream. On the other hand, authors should avoid things that interrupt the dream and pull readers out of the story.

This story is a wonderful example of the craft needed to make this work. thank you for sharing!

                                                             
Line-by-line remarks
Your text is in BLUE.
My comments are in GREEN.
If I suggest a re-wording, it's in GRAPE.
                                                             

Really, I found nothing I'd change. It's been years since I gave a story a "5" rating--there's almost always *something* I'd fiddle with. Not here.

                                                             

I only review things I like, and I really liked this story. I'm a professor by day, and find awarding grades the least satisfying part of my job. Since I'm reviewing in part for my own edification, I decided long ago to give a rating of "4" to everything I review, thus avoiding the necessity of "grading" things on WDC. So please don't assign any weight to my "grade" -- but know that I selected this story for review because I liked it and thought I could learn from studying it.

Again, these are just one person's opinions. Only you know what is best for your story! The surest path to success is to keep writing and to be true to your muse!


Max Griffin
Please visit my website and blog at
https://new.MaxGriffin.net

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