This is a short story review for "We luv in depth reviews! Contest"  .
Against The Cold Montana Wind
- It’s generally suggested that transitional words such as ‘the’ should be left in lower case for stylistic purposes and for aesthetic reasons in a title.
Mary in the kitchen humming an old song as she made them some lunch.
- You can cut back on some of the words here by just removing the word ‘some’, you really don’t need it as it doesn’t add much to your prose and it slows down your sentence. I usually suggest avoiding uncertain words such as ‘some’ or ‘almost’ as they weaken most sentences that they are used in.
The tune sparked a memory of long agowhen they built this house.
- I would suggest removing the bolded portion and changing the singular words ‘a memory’ into the plural memories. I suggest doing this because your following sentences go into detail into more than one particular memory.
As it is right now you are telling us that he only remembers the portion in which he and his wife built the house. But then we head into him and her dancing, then what they were like as young people, and then their children growing up. The following statements therefore do not match up with your original statement that it brought back only one memory which is why pluralizing ‘a memory’ and removing the specific bit about the house will help add continuity to your statements.
Their love had grown over the years into something very special and rare.
- This is a bit of a tell vs. show situation here. You’re basically telling your readers how to feel about Jake and Mary’s relationship instead of showing them. Showing readers how your characters act and react and feel is always better than just tell them. I’ve read through your story already and I believe the paragraphs that follow do an excellent job of showing us what they were like and that they truly loved each other. So, I would suggest removing this highlighted section. It causes show vs. tell problems so you really don’t need it.
Jake remembered the birth of their three children and how they raised them in this house.
- I find myself really wanting to know at least a little more about these children. These kids do come into play later on in the story (especially since there are more than three of them) and I believe it would help to distinguish them a bit. Tell us what their names are now, tell us where they’ve gone and what they’re doing with their lives, at least just the ones that Jake remembers. Have him show us what he remembers of them now, then later on show us that he has it a bit mixed up. You can add an entirely new angle to the story and make it that much more heart wrenching by giving us a little more detail on the kids as Jake sees it. Tell us that Jake and Mary are proud of them, because it sounds as if he would be. I need more detail here so I can better connected with the kids later on in the story. Especially if you decide to keep all five of them.
They were all grown and gone now so Jake and Mary had gone full circle and were alone once more.
- The word ‘gone’ in this instance causes repetition. It also causes your statement to sound as if Jake and Mary had already finished the circle and was moving onto something else, maybe a square or something?  . I know this isn’t what you meant to portray, so you can easily remove the repetition and let the reader know that they haven’t finished the circle yet, just gone all around it once already. Just replace the word ‘gone’ with the word come and your statement will be more clear and less repetitious.
Jake was jolted back to the present as Mary placed a plate of food on the table beside him.
- The word ‘as’ sets everything into a very present chronological state. That’s my wordy way of saying that the word ‘as’ makes it seem like Jake jolted before Mary placed the plate down. So he basically sits there quite still, then all of a sudden jolts, then his wife sets the food down. Which doesn’t make much sense  . I suggest replacing the word ‘as’ with the word when instead.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. What were you thinking about so intently?” Mary asked.
- I would suggest breaking up the dialogue according to who is saying it and what they’re doing. This formatting is more familiar to readers and helps them digest the information, as well as keep it straight in their minds who is saying or doing what. Another good reason to split dialogue into new paragraphs is that you haven’t indented the dialogue. So when I read it, I sometimes find myself getting lost in terms of when one speaker’s dialogue begins and when it has ended. Again, separating the dialogue into paragraphs between Jake and Mary would really help in this situation.
Mary nodded and went back into the kitchen to get her plate.
- You’ve ended dialogue and started with narration. I would suggest putting a new paragraph here or else the reader will continue to look for dialogue and never find any. Another really good reason to start a new paragraph here, or even some sort of scene transition, because you’ve switched narrators. Up until this point it was Jake we were following, now I get the distinct feeling that it’s Mary.
Most of the time it was little things but just now he forgot about two of the other kids they had.
- Now I don’t know who to believe  . You started the story in Jake’s point of view, told us what he remembered of the past and his children, built up a foundation of trust with the reader for him. Now we switch to Mary and all of a sudden we’re told that what Jake said was only partially true. But since they are both in relatively the same position, the reader can’t decide which one of them is telling the truth, and which one is only telling half-truths. For all we know Mary could be the one who wasn’t quite clear on what’s been happening.
Another good reason to separate the point-of-view for these two is because of this reader uncertainty on which one is telling the truth at this point. I suggest using scene transitions such as *** to indicate a switch in POV. It will help readers understand whose mind they’re in at the moment.
Mary took her plate into the living room, sat down and took a few bites.
- The word ‘took’ is repetitious here. I would suggest replacing the bolded instance of the word ‘took’ with the word carried. Also you made no mention of Mary leaving her food in the kitchen, then having to go back and get it. I was assuming that she had her plate along with Jake’s. So this sentence here is a bit jolting, since the reader doesn’t have a clear impression on when exactly she went into the kitchen and got her plate. It just sort of materialized in her hand and she took it into the living room.
Another question I want to pose is where did she sit? Did she sit away from him? Her choice of seating arrangements can give us a better impression of how she really feels about her husband. I already know she loves him from reading ahead. But since removing that telly statement above about their relationship you have a good opportunity here to show us how much Mary loves her husband and how close they still are by having her sit next to his recliner.
“Yeah, I guess so, that’s what we built those rooms for?” Jake said but looked puzzled.
- Just a reminder to separate your dialogues between characters into paragraphs for better formatting. This is the last reminder I’m going to give before my general technical aspects section at the end of the review.
Mary went and sat down beside him and said
- Again, referring to my statement above. It would have really shown us that Mary still loves Jake and how much she loves him if she had sat next to him in the living room, instead of somewhere else. I’m also still not clear on where exactly she did sit, but I am presuming far enough to make her walk to sit next to him. Why didn’t she sit beside him in the first place? It’s often the little things that can indicate what sort of relationship people share. Do they immediately reach for each other’s hands? Or do they walk with their hands in their pockets? Does he open the door for her? Or does he open it and go in first? And in this case, does she sit next to him? Or does she sit away from him?
Look at my mother’s ring you bought me
- The word ‘my’ in this instance makes it sound as if Mary is talking about her own mother. In this case the ring would be Mary’s mother’s ring that Jake had to buy for some reason. That doesn’t make much sense, so I would suggest replacing the word ‘my’ which makes the ring seem sentimental, with the word the which serves to objectify the ring.
You know it could be something medical that’s making you forget things
- The words ‘you know’ are the beginnings of a proposition. So they should have a comma following them.
You know, it could be something medical that’s making you forget things.
Jake sadly said.
- Instead of the adverb sadly, you can add a ton more detail and make the scene much more heart wrenching by removing it, then telling us what Jake was doing. Was he holding onto Mary as tightly as he could? Did Mary look down at him and see the tears shining in his eyes? Was he sniffling and wiping at his eyes and cheeks? Was it a combination of those? I’m feeling a bit sad even thinking about it. Poor Jake.
When they got to Dr.Davis’ office the next day
- You definitely need a scene transition before this paragraph. We’ve gone forward in time to the next day. Without a scene transition indicator readers will find this a bit jarring. It makes it distracting for them because they have to suddenly think in an entirely different mindset. So a bit of a warning would be really good before this.
mostly because he didn’t want to face what he might hear.
- This is another telly situation here. I would suggest removing it. It’s also implied to your readers that Jake doesn’t want to face the doctor because he’s afraid of what might happen to him in your statement before this one. That fear of what the doctor might say is also expressed in Jake and Mary’s conversation before this scene as well.
The doctor did a thorough exam and then a verbal Alzheimer’s test.
- A thorough exam of what? Jake’s physical self? And why did he only do an Alzheimer’s test? There are a number of other medical complications (Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, Meningitis, emotional trauma, strokes) that can have an effect on memory loss besides Alzheimer’s. As a reader I am ready and willing to believe that Jake, indeed has Alzheimers. You did a good job in the previous scene with setting up what would normally happen to a person with Alzheimer’s. If you really wanted to drive the point home, you could always mention Jake’s otherwise clean bill of health. As it is right now, I believe what you have is functional and believable. It’s your call whether you want to rule out other possibilities, or go into further detail or not.
“Jake my old friend, you didn’t pass the test. I need you to go over to the hospital and get a CAT scan and be back here in the morning for me to give you the results.”Dr.Davis said.
- This really needs to be in a paragraph on its own. I was expected a large descriptive body of text and the dialogue from the doctor here really threw me off. Another good reason to separate your dialogue into its own paragraphs.
Jake did as he was told and got the CAT scan but he already knew what the outcome was.
- A new paragraph here would be really great. We’ve moved on from the initial examination. A new paragraph here would also cause your previous scene to be extremely short. Perhaps that would be a good place, then, to give the doctor more dialogue? You could let the rule out other possibilities of memory loss and allow him to tell Jake that it might look like Alzheimer’s at the moment. It would also be a good place to flesh out the doctor’s character a bit more. What did the doctor do as he told Jake the news? Did he pat Jake’s hand? Did he place a hand on his shoulder? Did he look remorseful or sad? Was he trying to be optimistic? Some more detail of that scene will really help tug at your reader’s heart strings.
They helped each other way into the afternoon
- You’ll need a new paragraph here to split up the pretty big one you’ve got currently. Splitting up paragraphs helps your reader digest information more effectively. So I always suggest a split whenever you change subjects.
he took a shower and lie down on the bed and cried.
- I would suggest replacing the word ‘lie’ with the word laid. As the word ‘lie’ doesn’t quite fit into the tense of the rest of the sentence.
Jake said as he softly cried.
- The words ‘he softly cried’ are very vague in description. This is a great place for you to give us some more to work with in terms of scene development. Were tears streaming down his cheeks? Was he wiping at his eyes? Did his voice come out choked and shuddering? Showing us what Jake was feeling instead of telling us what he was doing can help immerse us in the moment.
I promise not to shut you out again.
- This entire dialogue seemed a bit mechanical. I believe it was in the way that your character’s delivered it, and in the lack of physical description as they said it. Basically what I imagined was Jake and Mary standing across from each other just saying things back and forth like robots. You can help give more feeling and emotion to this set of dialogue by describing to us what Jake and Mary were doing. Did Mary grab for Jake’s hand and squeeze it? Were tears shining in her eyes as she asked him not to shut her out again? Did Jake feel like he wanted to hold his wife and never let go? Did he wrap his arms around her when he promised not to shut her out? Give us a little more description to work with and your dialogue will seem less and less mechanical. People often do things as they talk, whether they gesture with their hands, look around with their eyes, smile, or frown. Use our expressive human nature to your advantage.
The next morning Mary called the doctors office
- You’ll need a scene transition before this paragraph since we’ve fast forwarded to a new day already. Also something to keep in mind is that this is the second scene transition in which you’ve indicated in narration exactly how many days we’ve passed. With transitions in place you can avoid that narration entirely as the transition and scene that follows it will usually speak for you.
- Also, the bolded word ‘doctors’ is currently a plural. You want it as a possessive so it should be ‘doctor’s’.
and the got him an appointment for that afternoon.
- The word ‘the’ should be the word they. Just a typo.
They had room reservations at a nice hotel in that city
- What city? It would really help me imagine your character’s surroundings and help me immerse myself in their situation and lives if there was a little more detail on their surroundings. Right now I can only imagine a big nameless city with nothing to really distinguish it except tall lifeless buildings. Every city has a unique appearance and flavor to it. If you said it was Seattle I’d imagine the tower. If you said it was New York I’d imagine Wall Street. If you said it was Los Angeles, I’d imagine celebrities of all things .
Ok Doc
- ‘Ok’ is a short way of writing okay. If this is a story you are considering for publication, I would suggest replacing ‘ok’ with it’s long form okay.
I am terribly sorry Jake
- You’ll need a comma before the name ‘Jake’ here because the dialogue before it is referring towards him.
I don’t know what else to tell you except here’s a packet of info on your illness.
- Ouch, that’s a bit harsh. Especially for a doctor, isn’t it? I half expected this doctor and any doctor really, to be a bit more sympathetic. Being told you have Alzheimer’s is like saying that you’re going to first be destroyed mentally, then when you’re a shell of your former self, the disease will kill you physically. It’s a terrible thing to be told and I imagine doctors to take that into consideration and try to be as patient as they can. This doctor may not have known Jake and Mary, but he could have had more compassion than, ‘I’m sorry about this, I don’t really know what else to say so just pick up a pamphlet on the way out.’
lets treat each day as if it were out last
- The word ‘out’ should be the word our. Just a typo.
Jake softly said.
- Instead of him just saying something softly, you could have Jake embrace Mary. Or he could wipe her tears away. Descriptions of what he would do would really help us sympathize with him and it would add a lot more compassion to the dialogue that follows this.
They held each other and kissed for a while and then got ready and went to dinner.
- This is a really mechanical description of what could possibly be one of the more touching scenes in your story. Instead of saying that they stood around and held each other and kissed. You could tell us how Jake was feeling at the moment, maybe that he was struggling with himself not to think about what this could do to him and what it might be doing to Mary. Maybe Mary could struggle to come to terms with what will eventually happen. Give us some more insight into what your characters are doing and thinking at this point.
Jake tipped him on their way out the restaurant.
- You mean the piano player? It took me a couple of reads for the idea to finally dig into my brain. At first I thought Jake had tipped a random nameless waiter, then I realized it was the piano player. You can avoid this moment of confusion by replacing the word ‘him’ with the words the player.
something special for each of them.
- The words ‘of them’ are repetitious here as you’ve already used them earlier on in the sentence. I would suggest replacing the words ‘of them’ with the word one. You’ll eliminate the repetition and increase the flow in your piece.
The three days before the kids got there
- You’ve utilized this same technique for the past two transitions. This is in which you tell us how many days have passed and what’s happened or going to happen on the particular day this scene will occur in. I suggest using a scene transition before this, and be a bit more conscious on these sorts of scene indications in which you tell us how many days have passed. Be careful if you start doing three or more in a throw. Readers will subconsciously pick up on it, and the repetition will bother them.
This home and ranch was what he worked for all his life and he intended to live the rest of it here.
- I don’t think there was ever really a different option for Jake or for the reader. You started off this story telling us about how hard he worked for his home, and how much most of his life involved this house in this place. So this statement here can be removed. The reader has already assumed that his ranch is where he wants to be during his final hours, so there’s really no need to mention it further. Had Jake wanted to spend his final hours in a different location, then that wouldn’t have been something readers have already assumed and in that case it would be worth mentioning it to us.
but now that he was dying it felt even more special to him.
- This is also pretty much a given. Things always seem more special when you’re faced with a crisis. I think you can remove this section and not lose too much in terms of information or emotion.
Daniel had been sitting in the living room [...] Kara came out and said she had a similar experience with Jake also.
- You introduced three new characters here, with three different names. It also doesn’t help that Kelly and Kara both have K names. That isn’t a problem in itself, but introducing three characters in one paragraph like this will really confuse readers. This is one other good reason to break it up a little and let Jake tell us about the three children he does remember during the beginning of the story. Just tell us a little about them then, so that this jarring introduction of three of them now isn’t so bad. That’s also not to mention all the grandchildren Jake and Mary have. This leads me to ask the question of whether you really need all five of the children? If you can reduce the children characters you’ll be able to manage them better and readers will have an easier time remembering the players in your story.
Characterization is difficult to pull off in a short stories, having more characters makes characterization more and more difficult. This is because you need to dedicate a certain amount of time and depth to a character to make them appear believable or likeable. Reducing the amount of characters you have will allow you to focus on the ones you have remaining to increase their likeability and believability.
That made everyone of the siblings nervous along with his odd behavior today.
- The word ‘everyone’ is referring to all the children as a group so that it reads something like ‘that made the group of the siblings’, which doesn’t make sense and is repetitious and redundant. You want it as the two seperate words ‘every one’ so that you are saying that every single one of them is nervous.
Jake and Mary sat closely on the couch and held hands as they watched the group enter the room.
- Here’s a really good place where you can place Jake or Mary’s inner thoughts. There needs to be more indication of what your characters are thinking during this story. This instance in which we see what they are doing and what the children are doing is very mechanical. It is so mechanical and physical that I find myself losing touch with the emotional and tragic side of your story. Telling us how Jake felt or thought at this moment will really help me feel for your characters again. Even mentioning that his eyes became glassy and filled with tears as he saw his children file in will help with the emotional side.
“Ok Dad tell us what’s wrong.”
- The word ‘ok’ should be in its long form, okay. And because ‘Okay Dad’ is a indication and tag of who Daniel is talking to and its previous statement is being directed towards, there should be a comma right after it.
”Okay Dad, tell us what’s wrong.”
that helped him to be stronger than he felt at this moment.
- How did she make him feel stronger? What aspect of her gives him strength? Is it her comforting presence? Her strong will? Jake’s understanding that she is his loyal and loving wife who will be with him until the end?
so I wont keep this from all of you
- The word ‘wont’ should have an apostrophe in it to indicate that it is a contraction. So it should be the word won’t instead.
He had a lump in his throat and was close to tears and said
- This is a rather awkward indication of what’s going on. I believe the problem is the use of the word ‘and’ and some rather awkward wording. I may suggest the following revision to this sentence:
He swallowed the lump in his throat and blinked at the tears.
- I also removed the instance that you stated ‘he said’ as readers can already discern that the dialogue following the description is his. Formatting your dialogue into paragraphs on their own will help reduce the need for dialogue tags such as ‘he said’.
Guys I have Alzheimer’s and its in its late stages.
- You’ll need a comma right after the word ‘guys’ as that is the subject in which the sentence that follows is directed towards. Also I thought it was mentioned or at least assumed that Jake was in the middle stages? If it was changed or clarified by the doctors that Jake is actually in his late stages I would suggest making it more apparent or mentioning it more directly. Up until now, I had thought he was only in the middle.
By the time he got through everyone in the room was crying and in total shock
- This is another rather awkward sentence. The wording and flow can be improved in order to better display how your characters are feeling. I would also suggest you tell us how some of the children reacted. Did they sob? Did they wipe at their eyes? Did they go to hug Jake and Mary? Their reactions can indicate how they are and their relationship to their parents. As an immediate fix to this awkward wording can be
Not a death sentence of Alzheimers.
- ‘Alzheimers’ is a plural here. I believe it should be a possessive instead, so it should be Alzheimer’s.
Daniel and Henry were sitting at their fathers fee
- The word ‘fathers’ here is a plural, it should be a possessive so it should be father’s instead. Also we got introduced to Henry, so that’s five people who have names but no distinct personalities. Again, it may be beneficial to reduce the amount of children Jake and Mary have. If it isn’t imperative that he has all five of them, then maybe you can assign the same roles to one character instead of two or three roles to two or three characters.
Everyone was openly sobbing and hanging onto each other for support.
-This is really mechanical and lacking in a lot of emotion. You’ve stated that they were sitting around each other, where they were sitting and here you only told us that they were all sobbing and hanging onto each other. Show us how each of them are coping with this individually. Or just show us how one or two of them are reacting. He’s another reason to reduce the amount of characters you have, when you have so many you have to dedicate more time to flesh them out.
- As for this scene and evoking a more powerful emotional response, you could tune in one Jake or Mary holding each other or their children and attempting to comfort them. Or crying with them. Have one of the children shaking his or her head and sobbing because they can’t believe what’s about to happen. Have their actions distinct themselves and you can really increase the depth of your characters as well as increase the emotional content in your story. Have one of them talking, have them rationalize the situation or comforting another. Something more than you telling us that they were crying will really help out this scene and make the reader feel for Jake a lot more.
They were so devastated and shocked, nobody knew what to say or do. All they could do was cry.
- When you go into detail in terms of what the other characters are doing or feeling then you can remove this statement entirely. It serves to tell instead of show and you will strengthen the emotion in your story without this. As of right now you don’t have enough detail to remove this without losing some information. But I suggest doing what you can in order to enable yourself to remove this highlighted sentence.
Daniel was not one to cry but this was too much even for him.
- This tells instead of shows, and you don’t need it at all. I suggest removing it. Let the reader form their own opinions of Daniel as they read instead of telling them what they should think.
- by the way, why do you only write Daniel’s reaction in specifics? Is he the family favorite? Is it only because he’s the oldest? Only focusing on Daniel makes the reader question what your other characters are doing.
This was the most traumatic thing they had ever gone through as a family.
- This also tells us what to think instead of showing us. I suggest removing it as it isn’t required, it’s redundant and weakens your story as well as the emotion with in it.
I’ll do it..
- Ellipses are generally depicted as three periods ... Also in this instance it seems that you’ve used the ellipses as a delayed stop. Ellipses are formally used only when there are words missing or there are words after the sentence trails off. In this instance I suggest replacing the ellipses with a period instead.
Yes it is
- There should be a comma right after the word ‘yes’ as it is a pre-emptive to the words ‘it is’.
Yes, it is.
She turned around and broke down crying in her husbands loving arms.
- The word ‘husbands’ is a plural, you want it as a possessive so it should be husband’s.
- Also there’s been a lot of crying going on, and the word has started to become somewhat repetitious. In this instance you can remove the word ‘crying’ and just tell us that she broke down. Or better yet, have her whirl around and bury her face in his chest sobbing. Show us how she feels as much as you possibly can. You will evoke more emotion from your reader that way.
Ben held her and let her cry for a few minutes. He wiped away her tears as everyone came into the kitchen.
- I don’t quite understand the point of this scene with Kelly now. It seems as if you’re trying to focus on every character’s reaction to Jake’s news. But there are simply so many of them that the descriptions of their individual reactions only serve to slow down your story unnecessarily. We know they’re all upset about Jake’s illness, so if you do decide to keep all five children in the story I would suggest removing these scenes in which you detail their individual reactions. There are too many of them and not enough time for the reader to build any sort of meaningful understanding with Jake’s children. If you cut down the cast to only two or three kids, then outlining their individual reactions would have a much greater impact on the reader.
- This is also a very telly scene that needs to be adjusted if you choose to keep it. Everyone coming into kitchen has me imagining an anonymous gathering of people piling into a room. It’s not very dramatic or very exciting. I suggest having people gradually come in if they heard Kelly crying. This is one of those areas where you can expand and tug at heartstrings. Did Mary come to investigate? Did tears start flowing when she saw her daughter crying? Did someone else come? What was their reaction?
That’s all the kids needed to hear to let them know […] they would do whatever it took to make it safer.
- These two sentences are pretty much a given. Granted, not all children feel this way about their parents, but Jake and Mary’s kids certainly do and it’s been demonstrated that they do for several paragraphs now. I suggest removing both of these sentences. They make your prose telly and they’re really not required at all.
They all talked about it for a while until Jake and Mary decided to go to bed. Then they all moved to the porch to talk and some to smoke.
- Very telly statements here. At first this point-by-point prose didn’t bother me much, but like most point-by-point prose it begins to wear down on your readers after a while. Instead of telling us what happened just give us a scene transition and describe the siblings on the porch. Try telling us who is smoking, who is sitting, who is still sniffling, who is leaning against who for support. What they are feeling physically? Was it cold? Was it warm? Did it smell like damp grass? Show as much as possible.
He said he wants to live here till its his time
- The word ‘its’ is a possessive right now, you want it as a contraction of ‘it is’ so it should be it’s instead.
Whether its next month or next year
- Again, ‘its’ is currently a possessive it should be it’s.
You know I’m in healthcare and can help out with setting all this up
- This leads me to ask why Jake and Mary didn’t consider asking their daughter for advice on what steps they should take and where they might be able to find someone they could hire to take care of them. She is their daughter, she works in the field so she has to have some experience or at least know someone who might have answers for them. When you need something like that answered, it’s always best to ask someone who works and knows the field first. They can provide instant answers most of the time and sometimes they can even help you. Jake doesn’t want to burden his kids, but Kelly also has a responsibility to look out for her parents. So, with that in mind, why didn’t she say something or offer help when Jake and Mary told their kids what they were considering for their options?
- Speaking of responsibility, how are all five of his children able to offer to spend time with him so conveniently? It seems that their hours just sort of melted into a perfect schedule. Real life usually doesn’t allow for such things, it’s a cruel mistress. Often we get tied up with work, our own children and our own lives. It’s a very sad state of affairs at how busy we’ve gotten, but it’s a bit unrealistic for everyone’s schedules to fall into place so well.
Henrys wife Lacey said she was used to being up at night because of her job and would stay up.
- ‘Henrys’ is currently a plural, and we know there’s only one Henry around. So you’ll want it as Henry’s instead. Also remove the bolded portion, it’s a blatant tell situation and you really don’t need it. We don’t need to know what sort of job Henry’s wife has or what hours she works (she’s a secondary character that we won’t likely see again), if she can look out for Jake during certain hours then that’s fine enough information for us readers.
It was really hard for […] help out as much as possible.
- This entire paragraph needs to go. It’s not necessary for new information, it’s redundant, states the obvious, and it’s also a tell situation. Removing it will move your story along a lot faster.
to tend to the horses he had left and to keep the ranch up.
- To the above sentence I added the word to in order to increase flow.
Mary,Jake,Henry,Kelly and Ben went for a long ride over the country side.
- Do you really need all of those characters to go along? If so then there are a few ways to make this list seem less like a shopping list and read more exciting and descriptive. Remove the mention of Jake’s name as it’s assumed he’s going. He wanted to go, so it’s rather obvious. Kelly’s husband, Ben can just be referred to as her husband. Also if you’re going to keep this in list format, I suggest you put spaces after every comma. Right now my word processor thinks your list a big strange word and is flashing red.
Mary, Kelly and her husband along with Henry, took their father for a ride over the country side.
They had grown up here and knew everything about this land and loved it, even in the wintertime when all was covered in snow.
- Why did they love it? Clean air? Beautiful scenery? Wildlife? Peaceful? Give us something else to work here besides just the statement that they loved it. Remember that for every statement you need to be able to back it up with an explanation.
The ride helped Jake to forget for a while his situation and he felt better than ever when they returned.
- Considering what’s happening to him, I’m not sure the word ‘forget’ is a good word to use in this instance. I would suggest using the words put aside or just showing us that Jake’s spirits were boosted. Show him smiling and having a good time or have the group engage in lighthearted dialogue.
like nothing was wrong in his world
- I would suggest adding the words it seemed before this highlighted section. I suggest doing this in order to increase sentence flow. As it is right now this highlighted section reads a bit jerky and at first glance it appears as if it is missing a word.
it seemed like nothing was wrong in his world
They next day when everyone left Kelly and Dana stayed on to help get things ready and safe.
- How do you make a home safe for a sufferer of Alzheimer’s? I’d really like to know, it’s the sort of information you could include in your story as informative. Some people may read your story and learn something as a result of it. So instead of just telling us what they did, yep, you guessed it! Show us what they did.
Jake spent a lot of time in the barn that day.
- I suggest starting a new paragraph here to cut up the large one you have going on. Again, doing this, like separating your dialogue helps your readers get a grip on what is happening much easier.
Jake sat down on a bail of hay beside her
- The word ‘bail’ should be the word bale instead. Bail is a sum of money paid to release an arrested person.
with the money stuff so if its ok with her I am putting you in charge of handling all of that. Is that ok Mary?
- The word ‘its’ is currently a possessive, you want it as a contraction so it should be it’s instead. Also the words ‘ok’ should be spelt out fully as okay instead.
You know I’m no good with all that so yes its ok if she handles it.
- Like in the above example, the word ‘its’ should be it’s instead. This is the last time I will mention this until the general technical aspects at the end of the review.
I don’t want to hear of any objections either.ok.
- The word ‘ok’ should be written out as okay. This will be the last time I mention this. Keep an eye out for it when you do an edit.
“Dad if its ok with you whatever you give to me will go in a trust fund for my baby.” Kelly was trying to tell him something.
- It’s very obvious what Kelly was trying to tell him. You really don’t need the bolded section so I suggest you remove it entirely. Your readers don’t need to know it and Jake will find out soon enough anyway. Try to avoid telling your readers outright like this. You can still maintain that Kelly wanted to tell Jake something, so I suggest you have her blush or smile as if she had a secret to hide. Also, why didn’t she tell him the first night she was here and they were passing around gifts right before Jake’s revelation? that would have been a good and appropriate time to inform her parents as well as her siblings.
Between Kelly and Dana everything got done for their dads care.
- The word ‘dads’ is currently a plural. It should be a possessive, so you’ll want it as dad’s instead. This is the last time I will point out plural/possessive problems until the technical aspects at the end of this review in which I will give you a reminder on them. Just remember to go through your story and look for these sorts of confusions when you do your edit.
The whole next week Kelly and Dana were so busy […] carry out his wishes and handle everything like he wanted.
- Everything in this entire paragraph and this scene in essence isn’t really required in your story. It does wrap up a few questions for the readers in terms of how Mary will be able to survive after her husband passes away. But at the same time you already touched upon the subject of this entire paragraph in the dialogue before this paragraph began. I suggest removing it, as you really don’t need it in there, the paragraph before it deals with everything. And this paragraph also adds a lull to the progression of your resolution.
Kara said he was fine this morning but just tired from the pill.
- Is there any way that you could transfer this entire paragraph from a very telly point-by-point narration into a telephone call from Kara to Kelly? It will help improve the flow of the story and allow your readers to connect to the situation better. Right now, it seems just like a list off of events that happened while Kelly was away. I suggest having the two sisters talking to one another over the phone about this situation instead. Give them some emotional dialogue, have Kelly shake her head and worry as her sister goes into detail about their father’s declining disposition.
made it more loving and emotional than normal.
- Show us, don’t tell us. Give us a big Christmas tree with people surrounding it who all have painted smiles on. Show us Jake who is getting worse and struggling to remember some members of his own family (also see my plot point about his Alzheimer’s and the timeline in the Plot section at the end of the review ). Give us a scene where one of the grandchildren want to play a game with grandpa but he doesn’t remember them or how to play the game. Tug at our heartstrings because you have a perfect opportunity here.
made him a plate of leftovers.
- Did you mean he made himself a plate of leftovers? Just a typo.
Meanwhile Jake woke up to find himself alone in a strange place.
- You’ll need a new paragraph here because you’ve jumped into someone else’s point-of-view. Also there should be a comma right after ‘meanwhile’ because it is a word used to indicate Jake’s situation.
He quietly slipped out the door into the cold Montana wind.
- You can probably remove the adverb ‘quietly’. If Daniel didn’t hear him, then it’s obvious that Jake was quiet. Also tell us how the wind felt to Jake, did it sting his cheeks and eyes? Did it chill him and make him shiver? Did the snow on the ground freeze his feet? What was he thinking as he wandered away? This looks like Jake’s final moment, so elevate the details and showing descriptions to immerse us in the situation.
Ben gathered the rest of the family and they set out into the woods to look for Jake.
- Who looked after the kids? They can’t have all gone out looking for Jake, especially since I imagine them having quite a few small children. So they must have needed at least two people to stay behind.
He wouldn’t last long in this freezing weather without the right protection, so they had to find him fast.
- That’s pretty much a given, I suggest removing this entire highlighted section as it states something fairly obvious and adds very little to your story.
Meanwhile Jake had put a lot of distance between him and the house. He had ran as fast as he could to get away from there but slowed down because the forest had gotten thick.
- Because this is December, the sun would be rising just above tree branches at no earlier than eight o’clock. Jake would have been outside in freezing temperatures for three to four hours. Factoring in his age and his poorly chosen attire, it may not have been possible for him to survive out there for that long. With this assumed timeline in place, we then have the problem of why Daniel took so long in the kitchen. An easy way to fix this is to not mention the sun at all, keep it at dusk, that way readers will give him an hour at the most and if he were resilient he may still be alive.
- Now there’s the problem with Jake being outside for that long in poor attire and freezing temperatures. He’s not a young man anymore, and old age does weaken the body. How is he able to blindly run from the house for that long without freezing?
” No Daddy no, don’t leave me.”
- If Kelly was screaming this out, I would suggest you replace that period with an exclamation mark instead. Without that mark I read this dialogue in a sort of normal voice, which is completely out of the context of how your character actually expressed it.
Everyone there was almost hysterical in their grief and didn’t know what to do except hold each other and cry.
- I know this is an emotional story, but I think the situations where you just tell us that they held each other and cry is becoming repetitious for me. I would suggest removing this entire highlighted area. We know everyone is upset, so there’s really not much of a need to tell us. Also I like Mary’s reaction, it’s appropriate and relevant so I think you should keep that.
paramedics went to get jakes body from the woods.
- You only forgot to capitalize his name here, nothing big.
She told him she didn’t want him to feel guilty about what had happened
- Mary is very gracious. Surely she loves her son, but she also just lost her husband. There usually is some very small feelings of disapproval for the individual who failed. You told us what Mary did and said to Daniel, but it would have really helped if you showed us talking to her son instead. This is also the perfect opportunity for you to get into Mary’s head to tell us about her grief, and show us that she’s mourning. Was it impossible for her to stop sobbing? Did her heart ache for her husband? Did her eyes sting from the tears? Jake’s gone, but Mary is still here as a device for you to further portray the intense emotional possibilities in this story.
felt like someone was ripping their heart out
- The word ‘heart’ is a singular, and here you’re talking about the entire group. So, I suggest using the word hearts instead. Otherwise it sounds like Jake’s entire family only had one heart to pass amongst themselves.
To say the least it was torture.
- This is redundant, especially compared to the rest of the paragraph. I suggest removing it, as you really don’t need it in there at all.
Henry and his wife and two boys moved into the house with Mary at her request.
- That’s one dedicated son. What about his two boys? Were they going to school? Did they have friends where they used to live? What did the boys think about uprooting themselves from familiar sights and moving into the country side? What did Henry do for a living before? What does he do on the ranch now to earn money? What does his wife do? There are a lot of questions that go along with moving, especially when you’re dramatically changing your lifestyle to suit a difference place.
They would probably think she was losing her sanity but she wasn’t
- I suggest removing the bolded portion. It’s really not needed here.
Plot:
- One of the more pressing matters is making this story a bit more heart wrenching. As it is you have a plot that could shape up to be a very touching piece. There was plenty of sad moments, a lot of crying, many appropriate reactions. The sequence of events is set up in a believable way. But the problem is that most of the emotional stuff is mechanical. It seems mechanical because there’s so very little detail, and because the characters show outward emotion but their inner emotions are only explored briefly. I think you can have a very riveting piece if you delved into your character’s emotional sides more. Tell us how Jake feels inside, have him contemplate his situation. Have him sit around and observe his wife and let us feel the cold iron hand clenching his heart as he realizes he may not remember who she is one day. Let us know that tears stung his eyes when he looks at his home and realizes he might not remember why it’s his home and what he did to get it. Have us feel the cold outside, and see the world through Jake’s eyes before he can no longer remember who he is. You have a lot of material here to really choke a reader up, and you can do it by giving us some more emotional and inward character contemplation.
- There a lot of scenes that are questionable in terms of relevance. You can remove many of the scenes and tell descriptions. In their place you can use the areas to show emotions, expand on thoughts, scenery and use it for characterization. One of the scenes I felt was unnecessary was the scene in which Kelly breaks down in the kitchen. Another unnecessary scene, or rather part of the story was Daniel’s reaction to his father’s news. I would suggest going through your story and picking out the scenes you believe drive forth the plot and the story and serve a purpose. Remove any scenes that you feel are unnecessary. As it is right now there are many scenes and many things that lead up to the climax and resolution. Though all those scenes have worthwhile and notable have potential emotional content in them they also cause your story to jump around a lot and eventually I ended up losing track of time. You can also combine scenes together to avoid moving your story around so much. For instance, Jake and Mary could tell their kids what they were planning to do in the living room instead of following Kelly into the kitchen. Look for places to combine or remove in order to reduce the amount of scene transitions you have to use. Too many of those serve to confuse readers as well.
- There is a problem with Jake’s rapid decline due to his Alzheimer’s. The average life expectancy of a patient is three to twenty years. It depends on the patient’s age. But even if Jake were only given three years, he would have still been more alert for longer than a few weeks. He was also very alert for an individual in his final stages of Alzheimer’s. He sounds as if he’s more in the first stages actually, with memory loss. You also haven’t mentioned any other affects of Alzheimer’s besides the memory loss. People will often lose their ability to find words, become disoriented, have personality changes, find it difficult to calculate things and often repeat themselves.
Despite being in his final stages, Jake was very coherent and he remained his same sweet self until the end. The final stages are often marked with an individual who is bedridden, unable to comprehend or respond. Jake was doing quite fine for a very long time. I think some adjustments to the timeline might be required here. I also believe you should find a way to hint at or insert areas in which we can see Jake display some of the other symptoms. It is terrible to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s but as it is right now, Jake isn’t showing any other signs of actually having it.
This lack of other signs may mislead your readers into believing that Jake doesn’t actually have Alzheimer’s at all. Some individuals experience memory loss for a variety of reasons. And as I stated earlier in my review there are a number of other conditions that can be linked to memory loss as well.
Characters:
- You’ve made a very sweet old couple in this story that I can really see myself feeling for. I like Jake and Mary’s absolute sweetness. They’re lovely people and sound like outstanding individuals. I can imagine Mary baking cookies and Jake outside tending to horses. It makes me sad that this tragedy occurred to them, and I’d really like to see their characters developed a bit more in your story. You could develop them a number of ways, and I’ll mention them in the points following this one. You have two very good characters here with potential.
- There are some problems with characterization in terms of reader sympathy. Your story is about a family dealing with Alzheimer’s, as I stated in the plot there is vast potential for this to be very emotional. You have appropriate reactions and believable reactions, but because of the lack of showing instead of telling of these reactions I find myself less likely to sympathize with your characters.
The situation is there, but the emotions aren’t. I made a number of suggestions above for you to show and add detail to your character’s reactions and what sort of actions you could include that would flesh out the situation more and evoke more sympathy and feeling from your reader. The key is in what little things your characters are doing and what they’re thinking about. You touch upon Jake and Mary’s emotions and thoughts, but you could have included those aspects a lot more. I personally would have connected to them on a more emotional scale if they had been thinking about their situations.
Because of the show vs. tell problems in your prose I found myself trying very hard to feel sympathy towards Jake. You need to flesh him out a lot more. Right now you’ve got him in a bad position, he’s just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. You’ve told me he gets made and frustrated and extremely depressed when he thinks about it. But you haven’t shown me, and showing me is what is important. Show me that he’ll miss his wife. Show me what he’s thinking. The best thing you can do is start showing your readers what your characters are thinking and feeling as I stated above. Show us in the way the tears well up in their eyes as they wonder about their futures, show us in the way they hold each other’s hands and gently squeeze them, don’t tell us.
Start with Jake, since he’s the main focus of this story. Try to get into his mind, put yourself in his shoes. Think of how you would react, think of what you would do and what you’d think about if you were him. Explore his mind and the possibilities for expansion. You’ll find that once you flesh out his character readers will identify and sympathize him much better.
- It’s a repeated point in my review that I believe you may have too many characters. The main problem is Jake and Mary’s family. They have five children, thus you have five characters. But all five of those children have spouses (I am assuming this since you never really said otherwise), thus you have ten characters. Let’s say there are about six grandchildren in all, now you have sixteen characters. These sixteen characters I never get close to. I get short glimpses of Daniel and Kelly, and the other characters who are Jake and Mary’s children speak once in a while, but upon finishing the story I asked myself if they really needed five children in total.
The problem was that there are so many of them, and this is such a short story. In a longer piece like a novella or a novel, the writer will have more time to devote to developing each character. But in a short story characterization usually happens to a limited set of characters. In this case it was Jake and Mary who were characterized, while their children were face after face of the same personality.
I believe the best way to fix this is to cut down on your characters. Are there characters that could be joined together to form one? Maybe you could group the girls into one character, two maybe. Henry and Daniel could be one character and right away you’ve already cut down the cast to two children, two spouses, and maybe three grandchildren. That is only seven extra characters to worry about instead of sixteen.
With your reduced cast you can then devote more time in developing Jake and Mary’s children and giving them identities so that we can relate to them and sympathize for their loss and fears for their father. Another good reason to reduce the amount of characters is the scene in which Jake and Mary have their family over for Thanksgiving. I found it difficult to imagine the group in the first place, but as you kept continuing to refer to them as a group their identities became less and less important to me. By the time you had the touching scene where they were all crowded around Jake, I didn’t feel any remorse or sympathy for his grieving children because they had become so anonymous.
Technical Aspects:
- I suggest going through and separating your dialogue from your descriptive text. It’s really important to set your dialogue on its own paragraphs. If you still wish to have them together, I would suggest indenting your dialogue to indicate that it has begun, but still giving them their own new lines. Otherwise dialogue in massive amounts of descriptive text confuses your reader and makes reading your story a bit jumpy. At first it didn’t bother me too much, but after a while, the dialogue and descriptive passages started molding together. Eventually it became really frustrating for me to mentally separate your dialogue from your description. This, in turn, distracted me from your story and what your characters were saying.
- You also have some minor difficulty with discerning between plurals and possessives. Remember that when indicating a possessive situation with a noun, you should use an apostrophe and then an S. If the noun is a plural it should be indicated with only an S.
Plural: there were three puppies in the basket.
Possessive: that is the puppy’s collar.
Or take this example of an individual’s name:
Plural: I couldn’t tell the difference between her, and the three other Janes in the class.
Possessive: Jane’s eyes are very distinct.
- Another problem that presents itself in your work is the lack of showing in the prose. This causes everything to be read like a list of events instead of a story. This works for some manners of writing. But because this is a creative short story and most of the time, showing is preferred over telling. The reader will often find themselves growing tired of the point-by-point prose, whether it fails to engage them on a sympathetic level or on an excitement level. What I mean by this is that you list off emotions and actions as they are performed much like a script, instead of showing them to us. This results in readers identifying with the situation, characters and emotions less and less as they begin to view your story as a list of actions instead of a narrative piece.
Take these for example:
Telling/Listing: Henry went to the store because he was out of milk. It was rainy outside and that made him miserable.
Showing: Henry made his way towards the store, money to buy milk was tucked into his coat pocket. He shivered against the rain as it buffeted his body.
The show situation does not list out the actions and Henry’s feelings but it suggests towards his emotions, and still gives the reader a sense of the environment and the imminent series of events. The best way to avoid telling/listing is to think about the five senses. What are you characters seeing, smelling, hearing, feeling, and sometimes tasting? Get into their minds, use imagery to draw us into the world.
Here’s another example:
Telling/Listing: Andrea cried because Bob stepped on her foot.
Showing: Tears streamed down Andrea’s cheeks as she rubbed at her swollen toes and glared at Bob.
Your story is set in Montana during the winter. That’s an excellent setting to give us some scenery and character reaction. Take some time to tell us that Jake felt cold and he could feel the wind stinging his face when he stormed out the first time Mary confronted him about his memory loss. This will give us a glimpse into his world, his mind and his experiences. It gives readers opportunities in which they could relate the harsh relentless winter to Jake’s Alzheimer’s. But best of all, it let’s us sympathize with him.
- You will need to include scene transitions into this story. A scene transition is * * *, I also call it a scene transition indicator. In either case you need to place those whenever we make a leap in time or when the narrative focus changes from one person to another. This sort of formatting helps your reader get the time period and narrative voices straight. Without them, readers often get confused and end up losing track of time or start wondering which character is narrating. I often had those problems while reading your story because your paragraphs did not always indicate a change in time or switch in perspective. The transition indicators should help in that respect.
- You have the word ‘its’ and the word ‘it’s’ a bit mixed up. Distinguishing between the two is pretty easy. Just keep in mind that its is used as a possessive, while it’s is a contraction of the words ‘it is’.
For example:
Possessive: The bird would not let go of its prey.
Contraction: It’s the last soccer game of the season.
Overall: There were a lot of critical points up there. But fundamentally I do believe you have a good story here with a solid plotline and a heart wrenching resolution. Your characters also have the potential to be a world of depth and are very likeable people. You have a talent for choosing good subject matter and knowing exactly what situations to portray in order to evoke emotions from your reader. The only thing missing is the execution of those situations. The most major problem that I believe will vastly improve emotional response to your characters and your subject matter is to fix the lack of descriptive voice in your prose. Readers like to have hints in a story that eventually leads them to from their own ideas nearing the end. This is more exciting for them, and you end up with a more empathic story with more vivid scenery and more upbeat flow and pace.
At the end of this story I felt a bit benign when I should have been feeling a lot more emotional. Most of the problem is the extremely telly prose as I’ve said above. I highlighted the most immediate examples that required adjustment above, but you should still go back and think about how to portray more emotion through description.
The next thing up is to fix up the formatting of your story. Right now it’s rather awkward and gives your story the look of a giant block of text. Giant blocks of text are daunting to readers as most of the time they see that sort of thing in textbooks. Separate your dialogue from your narration and it will help out your formatting a lot.
I like your subject matter and I like where you intend to take this story. I think you have the ingredients to make something really awesome. The only thing left to do is to work out the execution so it’ll reach a point of perfection. |
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