*Magnify*
SPONSORED LINKS
BY ONLINE AUTHORS
Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/profile/reviews/edgework/sort_by/r.review_creation_time DESC/page/3
Review Requests: ON
1,084 Public Reviews Given
1,107 Total Reviews Given
Review Style
Unsentimental. I focus on the kinds of craft issues that will keep a writer from being taken seriously and prevent them from fully expressing their vision. For more information, see "Writing Hurts: Review Forum" 
I'm good at...
Analyzing the written word and determining where a piece is not accomplishing what it wants to accomplish.
Favorite Genres
Short stories and poetry are my forte. Novels, not so much. Usually I only need to read a chapter or two to determine if it's going to go off the rails. Sometimes I'll keep reading.
Least Favorite Genres
I'll read anything.
Favorite Item Types
Anything.
Least Favorite Item Types
Pieces from authors who have never considered that writing is a craft, who nonetheless think they're great simply because they have penned the words, and who take offense when I don't agree.
I will not review...
Useful things don't always occur to me with a given piece. If I don't think I can offer insight into how the writer might become better at the task, I won't say anything.
Public Reviews
Previous ... 2 -3- 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 ... Next
51
51
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: ASR | (3.0)
Sig for reviews

Even though this just a first chapter, I can see that you have a development in mind. No idea what it might turn out to be, but then, that's why its a a first chapter and not a short story. Where you stumble is in not realizing that every chapter needs a complete narrative arc of its own. It doesn't need to be a short story in itself, but it needs to do the same thing a short story does: transport a character, a plot, or the reader (usually all three in various degrees) from point A through a develpment process, arriving at point B. This necessarily entails some process of change or transformation. While you've included points A and B, you've taken some fatal shortcuts in the process of moving from one to the other.

You have a workable setup, and while I thought you injected yourself too directly into your narrative voice, you manage a quirky perspective that keeps you at an ironic distance from your characters. Properly applied this can allow you to offer insights about them to your readers that are outside your characters' immediate experience. Improperly managed, it ends up sounding like you don't take your characters seriously and leaves your reader with no reason to take them seriously either. But, regarding your setup, you have to keep in mind that setups are not stories. They are the fertile ground out of which a story can take root. The problem is that you spend the entire chapter telling us about your setup. That's always fatal.

Cardinal rule: stories happen now. Whatever constitutes your setup has already taken place and is thus beyond the direct experience of your reader. The only part of the narrative that directly involves Vikram is the opening sequence, which, while undeniably taking place in the present, proves to be irrelevant in light of all that follows. Once you get to the part of the narrative that seems to be the point, all there is for you to do is tell the reader the background material that will make sense of the present circumstances. What's missing is a story for Vikram. Right now he's smiply a passive observer, acted upon but with no particular direction of his own. Not only do stories happen now, the things that happen now happen to a particular character. It is the interplay between that character's personal arc—their goals, personal motivations, what they either desire to attain, or seek to avoid—and the events in the outer world to which they must adapt, that provides the actual story part.

That you've occupied yourself solely with the outer events that affect Vikram, and spend no time at all with Vikram''s personal arc (save for the inappropriate misdirection of the opening) points to the major flaw. You have no story for Vikram. That's not to say that his interaction with Caesar couldn't provide a host of things for him to do. But for us to be drawn into your universe, you need to make us want to know about him. We know nothing much about him at all, and it's not certain that you know much about him either. Vikram is your main character, the one with whom your readers will identify, whose perspective will embody the personal, psychological and emotional experience for them. When you focus all your attention in the opening, on characters other than your main character, it leaves the reader with no certainty regarding who the story is actually about. Or what it is about.

Which brings us to those shortcuts I mentioned. The way an opening chapter like this should properly unfold would be to center the action on Vikram, and whatever story involves him. Think of this as the inner story, his personal arc. You've made an attempt in this direction, but you don't do anything to develop it. If the opening scene captures what truly defines Vikram, two things are necessary. First, you have to give him a chance to show us, instead of you simply telling us. And second, you need to set up from the start the way in which his personal arc will be complicated, obstructed or influenced by the outer events.

There's no right way to accomplish this, but keep in mind that your only real obligation as a writer is to give your reader a reason to keep reading. That means you have to keep them wondering "What's gonna happen next?" For there to be a next, there needs to be a steady progression of present moments, which is where the story steadily unfolds. Events in the present are the coin of the realm Whenever a character starts narrating past events, count on it, nothing is happening. And it won't be long before your reader takes the hint and stops reading.
52
52
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: 18+ | (3.0)
Sig for reviews

I've been reviewing stories here for quite a few years. Most writers, I find, are able to turn out a useful sentence; not all, but most. The first serious elimination comes when multiple sentences need to be lashed together to form a paragraph. Lots of writers tip their hand right there and reveal that, however vivid their imagination, they haven't yet figured out the basics of narrative technique. The pack really starts to thin out when it comes time to assemble a sequence of paragraphs into a coherent scene or chapter. What tends to happen is that the moving point of the present, the progress of the narrative from beginning, through the middle development, arriving at an ending point, gets muddled, or is never considered at all. For the reader to be encouraged to keep reading, they must continually think, Gosh, I wonder what's going to happen next. When the present gets confused, or, worse, there is no present, there is no next.

At this point, you would still be standing. I found your scene to be a bit wobbly in terms of figuring out where the present is actually located, but not for the reasons that might eliminate a lesser writer. Truth is, you have some really impressive prose chops and despite those wobbles, which I'll get to in a minute, you do a nice job, all the way through to the point of crafting a solid scene that forms itself around a coherent narrative arc. What prevents you from making the last cut is one that trips up many otherwise capable writers. It's a good scene, but it's the wrong scene.

Allow me to focus on a smaller element in the story, one that exemplifies the larger problem. The name of this story is The Ventalator, which refers to an antique gun that your main character detective carries, in violation of police regulations. You spend the first five paragraphs or so talking about the gun, giving us the history of the gun, preparing us for what certainly will be the major focus of the story.

Here's a quote from no less an authority than Anton Chekov: "Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there." Coming from the other direction, every element in a story must be relevant and irreplaceable. If a thing, an event or a quality is mentioned, it has be be essential, such that removing it would destroy the structure of the story.

I have no doubt that in the larger context within which this story exists, the Ventalator is essential. But, unfortunately, in this story, it never makes an appearance. We find out later, after waiting for the payoff promised by the title and those first five paragraphs, that it has already been cast in Puget Sound and, presumably, is lost to the ages.

And this is why you don't make that final cut. You clearly have something interesting in mind here; you have characters who are up against serious problems, forced to make hard decisions and act in ways that stretch them to the breaking point. Unfortunately, you've given us the TV docudrama treatment of all these elements. That's when the production doesn't have the budget to actually film the battle, the riot, the crowd scene, or go on location, and so instead we get to join the action after the fact and eavesdrop on a couple of characters talking to each other about what just took place. Narrative continuity is maintained, more or less, but no one is actually entertained.

You're not constrained by budgetary considerations. You don't need to work with actors or manage the logistics of a location shoot. All you need to do is tell us the actual story, instead of what you've done, which is to have Trick and Raymond talk to each other about the real story which has already taken place. At one point you have Trick wail:

“After what I’ve done, how can I even go on? Oh, God. . . .”

Okay, we get it. Trick's been through a lot. He's been pushed to the edge. Alas, we have to take your word for it, since you've denied us the experience of the moment. And so we acknowledge that Trick's emotionally distraught, but it's simply an intellectual awareness. Having your reader "get it," is a safe distance from the slug in the gut that I suspect you were seeking.

Now, for those wobbles. FIrst up: if you're going to evoke the unmatched master of the genre, Raymond Chandler, in your first sentence, you absolutely must recognize that even if he'd kept the gun in the scene and made it the centerpiece of the action, he wouldn't have taken five paragraphs, opening paragraphs no less, on what is essentially backstory. He'd have taken two sentences, tops, but they'd have been the best sentences and they'd have told the reader all they needed to know at the outset about the gun and it's relevance. This is the guy who always advised "If the story's lagging, have someone come through the door with a gun in his hand. You can figure out what he's doing there later but it's gets things moving in the moment." Aside from the fact that there's no gun, as long as your character is indulging himself in internal monologue, neither is there any movement.

Next, you're tripping yourself up with your verb tenses, further muddling our sense of the present. Never forget, despite whatever labyrinthine plot constructions you may have in mind, for the reader, stories happen NOW. I note that your opening paragraphs are cast in simple past tense, which, despite the implication of a narrator telling us the tale from some vantage point after the fact, is a standard convention for placing us in the actual present moment of the story. He said this... he did that... she took the book from the shelf and opened it... he looked her over and kept on looking... All these are points at which the story is actually taking place and, despite the fact that it's all Detective Raymond's internal thoughts, it's where your story opens.

But the moment Trick come into the scene, you change your verb tense to past participle, which is used to describe an event or sequence of events that began in the past, in relation to whatever we think of as the present, and subsequently ended at a later point but which is also in the past.

“Keep strapping that caveman-thing there, baby, and one of these days you’re gonna fart, and blow your ass right off,” Trick had blown out yesterday morning...

As always, Raymond had snorted and buttoned his shirt, rolling his right shoulder and wincing.

Raymond snorted and buttoned his shirt right now. In your version, it's all so over, so been there, done that. You cover your tracks by telling us that the exchange took place yesterday morning, but then you shift to "this morning," and still maintain the past participle, effectively keeping the action safely removed from the reader by a narrative buffer. It's no longer Trick and Raymond's interaction, it's Raymond thinking about a past interaction with Trick. Not at all the same, since it makes it much less clear where the present, and the story, actually resides.

Then you totally run off the rails when this interaction, one that is simply being recalled, turns into a discussion about a further situation that took place elsewhere, also in the past. When we realize that this situation is where the story actually takes place, and that, further, we will have no access to it whatsoever, we will lose interest.

This isn't a problem that can be tweaked. Rather, you need to bring the same focus on structure evidened by your sentences, paragraphs and scenes, and unlock the mysteries of the narrative arc as it applies to your story as a whole. There's a beginning to this scene, and a development section, both of which are now merely referred to. In it's present form, they have no dramatic tension; it's all just static information.

There's no rule that says you can't join the action at the conclusion of an arc, but the rule that demands a coherent arc in the present remains nonnegotiable, since that's what keeps the reader reading. No harm in giving us a decoy story, while we steadily unwrap the deeper structures of the actual story. I don't think, given the time and space that you've allowed yourself here, that you can pull that off. But more to the point, you haven't really given us a story in the present that presents your characters with immediate goals, obstacles and difficulties that need to be surmounted, NOW. You're simply trying to channel the tension and energy from your backstory, in the mistaken hope that it will charge your present. It never works.

Either go back to the real dramatic moment and tell the story center stage, in the present, or come up with something for Raymond and Trick to do, other than discuss what has already taken place. Either way, you'll be giving your reader a story that makes them wonder what's going to happen next, instead of a guy thinking about two guys talking.
53
53
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: 13+ | (2.5)
Sig for reviews

About three-fourths of the way through the first section of this narrative, you have this sentence:

The foolish thought entered Peter's mind, surely the same one that entered every parent's, but was never spoken aloud: They could try to hide what she was.

This is an pivotal moment, both for your character, and for you as author. For your character, it's the point where he contemplates taking an action, deviating from the expected course, breaking out of the box in which he's been placed, seizing control of his circumstances, and, in so doing, placing your reader in that enviable state wherein they ponder, "Gosh, I wonder what's going to happen next," ensuring that they will continue reading. For you, it's the point where you contemplated the possibility of actually doing your job and giving your reader a story.

Alas, for both of you, the moment passes virtually unnoticed. A bit further on, having abandoned all hope crafting a story out of the truly imaginative situation in which you've placed the beaten Peter and his wailing wife, you simply change the channel and call in some aliens to clean up your mess.

I've reviewed a fair number of stories here on WDC over the years, and I'll be blunt: most of them don't come close to exhibiting the imagination and the level of craft you bring to the table. But for all that, you have some serious homework ahead of you if you're going to figure out 1) why this isn't a story; and 2) why it prompts the reader to ask all the wrong questions, the kind of questions you never want your reader to ask.

I've already noted the point at which you abandoned the possibility of turning this into a story. What you've opted for instead is to simply create an elaborate, high-concept situation, and show us the various ramifications of the situation. Your characters have nothing to do, other than to follow a programmed path over which they have no control. Likewise for your reader—there is nothing for them to do but to patiently wait for all all the permutations of your situation to reveal themselves, at which point they'll shrug and say, "Oh. I get it." Given what would appear to be your aspirations to something that packs an emotional punch, you might want to prompt a stronger reaction.

That means following the What if... option. That's one of the things that separates stories from real life. Someone asks a What if...? question and then sets about to answer it.

What if I climbed over the wall and discovered what's on the other side?

What if I stop paying my weekly extortion money?

What if I defy my father and marry the girl from the wrong side of town?

What if I do something unexpected?

It doesn't matter what context you've created for your characters; if they simply follow expectations we will have no reason to become involved with them, no reason to invest something of ourselves in their efforts, no reason to wonder how we might act in similar circumstances. In real life most people never break out of their box. The last thing they need in fiction is more mindless passivity.

I have no idea what the correction might be for this problem. For one thing, it's not my story. For another, it doesn't yet exist. But the possibilities are endless. You should explore a few of them.

The other issue is more problematic. The reader will immediately engage your characters and work with you to understand their priorities and determine their intent. That's part of the bargain; we bring an assumption of goodwill to the story and willingness to trust that it's going to be worth our time and effort and it is in your characters' decisions and actions that we will initally judge whether or not such assumptions are warranted. In this case, we will at some point decide that your characters are not going to embody your intent, and so we raise our perspective a little, to the story itself. It no longer becomes a question of what your characters want, but what the story is trying to accomplish? When, as is the case here, the story expends a great amount of effort on a portrayal that offers nothing but a vision of stark hopelessness carefully crafted to evoke revulsion, we then turn our attention to you, the author. As Leno asked of Hugh Grant, "What were you thinking?"

Chances are we won't wait around too long for an answer.
54
54
Review of Kiss and Tell  
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: 13+ | (2.5)
Sig for reviews

I must confess to coming away from this piece befuddled and perplexed. Truth is, I have no idea what's going on. That's not because I'm a particularly dim bulb (okay, some might quibble with that assessment), but in general, I tend to find my way through fairly complex blocks of prose while keeping my balance. The problem is that you haven't told me what's going on.

I get the distinct impression that there is a story here; at least, there was a story at some time in the past. And there's every reason to believe that once your main character shakes the giddy feelings out of his system, he's going to get down to the nitty gritty of another story. What either of those two situations will entail, however, remains a closely guarded secret.

Here's a basic rule of thumb that you might keep in mind: stories happen now. What happened in the past, what's going to happen starting tomorrow isn't part of your story. For the reader, it's what takes place in the present that will comprise the action of the story. In your case, that action consists of two people talking about a topic that they both clearly share knowledge of, so much so that they feel no need whatsoever to actually mention any specific details. And so your reader watches, listens, shakes their head in confusion and wanders away wondering what all the fuss is about.
55
55
Review of The Elusive Self  
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: E | (3.0)
Sig for reviews

I find this subject quite interesting. I suspect that many others will, as well. However, I'm not certain that your presentation and treatment do it justice. The problem is, in keeping with your topic, your piece doesn't really know what it is.

You assume an objective stance, letting the voice of a detached narrator filter the relevant material to the reader. Detached, you say? But the narrator is clearly you. True, but all the events, insights and information are separated from the reader by a fixed, narrative buffer. The experiences under examination might be real to you but for the reader, the only experience is of a narrator narrating. Yet, it is primarily biographical in nature and so we find ourselves wishing for a more immediate connection to what is taking place. You now tell us about things that happened to you and the effect they had on you; far more effective would be to take us inside the moments themselves, allow us to experience them as you did. In other words, exploit the structure of a non-fiction novel, with the narration effectively capturing your experiences as they unfold.

Or, you might maintain the objective stance, and turn it into the full-blown article to which it also seems to aspire. The standard template for such an article is to move along parallel tracks, blending hard research with anecdotal material that illuminates and supports the positions taken. Right now, you toss off your arguments without noticing that they might need to actually be argued. And you casually refer to what should have been hard research in such a way as to not only do nothing to further your argument, it also calls into question your entire method and approach.

A third possibility (one that I myself would probably explore; but that's just me), would be to use your themes and biographical content as a jumping off point to create a fictional treatment, one that would allow you to not only present your positions without the need to actually defend them, you could also explore implications and potential developments based on those postions.

So which is it going to be? Right now it touches on all three without doing a good job at any of them. You open with this:

We take for granted that each of us is the same person at all times, even if our outward behavior may vary. Sometimes, though, that assumption seems less than certain.

You need to recognize when you disguise opinions as facts, and realize that such broad statements will usually either race right past your reader, being devoid of actual content that might capture their attention, or else cause them to think, "Oh yeah? Sez who?" not because your statement is outlandish, bizarre or otherwise underserving of serious consideration, but simply because that's just the way readers are. They'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but not for long.

Much better would have been to open with your discovery of the recording of your past self. Not only is the segment ripe with sensory detail, such material has the advantage of being beyond argument. Unless you give your reader reason to think you're a bald-faced liar (unlikely in an opening sentence), it will simply be accepted as a fact. The beauty about such facts, when they are judiciously chosen, is that they make your argument for you. The entire passage is simply an example of the point you now present in your opening. If the example is clear, the reader will go ahead and reach the conclusion without you needing to spell it out for him before hand.

You then proceed to make two different arguments, not necessarily contradictory, but, simply... different. First, you liken the dual or multiple nature of personality to an optical illusion wherein an image can be viewed two different ways, depending on how the brain chooses to interpret it. But you also bring in the idea of a meme, wherein the personality is an aggregate of various building blocks, all contributing at once, all vying for primacy in a Darwinian struggle. In this section you have this:

So who am I really, at my core? According to some scientists, there is no core.

Really? Who? What scientists? When did they make these claims? Where were they published? Are they the result of academic research submitted to peer review journals, or are they opinions expressed over a pitcher of beer at the local bar? Specificity always helps when you are enlisting outside authorities to buttress your argument.

Here's another opinion that you pass off as fact:

Of course, we all believe that we are real and that we choose our identities.

Now, were you to be dealing with a main character in a short story, you could effortlessly present him as someone who firmly believes in an objective world that exists in whole, and apart, from however he might perceive it, and that all such perception is simply a means of identifying what already exists. In such a belief system, all aspects of personality are the result of conscious choices, freely exercised. Against this belief you might present him with a situation that suggests that, as is the case in the quantum world, any system is altered by the act of observing it, and that we tend to discover the realities that we calibrate our measuring devices to perceive. In other words, we'll discover the universe we already believe in. You wouldn't need to necessarily come down on the side of one or the other. Rather, you would need to show a realistic, three-dimensional character in the midst of having his fixed beliefs challenged, and how he responds to this challenge. And what the implications might be for him as he works his way through the day to day problems in his life. This is called a plot, and like all art, it's at its best when presenting the conflicts of the world in a way that makes us appreciate what's at stake, and less effective when it's actually advocating for this position or that, becoming propaganda.

Propaganda is what you now skirt around the edges of. If you want to present a serious argument, and be taken seriously in the process, you'll need to become much more specific about both the pros and cons of the issue. Only by offering a careful examination of the opposing viewpoint can you lay any claim to having successfully refuted it. Right now, both the argument you are making and the argument you are refuting remain too murky to give us any means of drawing a conclusion.
56
56
Review of Beg and Plead  
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: E | (3.0)
Sig for reviews

Despite the fact that you show a real facility for this type of rhyme and meter, there is a fundamental problem with the poem, and its most obvious symptom is the note you place at the bottom of the piece:

*** Note: The meter is supposed to break after the first stanza.

Apart from the fact that it's not at all clear what you mean, that you find it necessary to include such an instruction at all suggests that you haven't done your job, and that, further, you know this to be the case. If you want the meter to break (whatever that means) engineer the "break" into the lines themselves. Force the reader to read them the way you intend.

The problem repeats itself on a different level throughout: instead of writing a poem with images that cause us to intuit the meaning you suggest, you dispense with the images and simply tell us what we're supposed to think. But without any actual content, we'll have to take your word for it, and we do— you seem like an ernest sort and sincere in your perspective. But you really want to provoke something more profound in your readers than a shrug and a disinterested "Okay... if you say so."

In fact, you want to dispense with your message altogether. Messages are the thematic elements that exist beneath the surface of the words, providing shape direction and purpose. But it is the images, the language, the sharp constructions that are interesting in themselves apart from whatever meaning they might attempt to convey, that will make or break your poem. You have a few fuzzy images and suggestions of activity but most of it is referential, telling us about experience rather than offering it to us undiluted, that it might become our experience as well.

The tides of goodwill do not flow / With honest men and graious deeds. is an example. This is the type of construction that aspires to profundity, but which, on closer examination, shows itself to be empty of content. What is the goodwill will that does not flow? What are the gracious deeds and who are the honest men. And why should we care? Don't just mention these things, show them to us, in such a way that we come to the conclusion ourselves that goodwill is missing in our lives.

The task of a poem will not be resolved in any message. Poems are about language. That's not to say that poems can't be "about" something external to the words; of course they can. But that's not what will make a poem memorable. Poems are the place where language tests itself, where it gets to explore all those possibilities apart from the linear, cause and effect requirements of prose. The language of poetry needs to be constructed out of the hard crack of events colliding, the sharp rap of experience, the color and sound of sense data. Poems don't want to read to us from a book, they want to slap us across the face with an open palm. Leave the abstract stuff to the reader. Trust them to get the meaning, if only you will engineer it into your content. But if you simply spoon feed it to them, they'll invest nothing of themselves, and so will walk away unaffected.

Here's a poem by a master of the form you are working in, one that I've referenced before in other reviews for precisely the same reason as I am using it here. The poet is W. H. Auden and you need to read him, not because I think you should write like him—what good would that do, since he's already cornered that market—but because you need to create the same type of linguistic experience with your words.

THE FALL OF ROME
by W.H. Auden

The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.

Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.

Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.

Cerebretonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.

Caesar's double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.

Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.

Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.

Note, first of all, that he never uses terms like social decay, never talks about excessive tax burdens, never mentions a corrupt ruling class or outdated religious structures that have gone hollow, never uses a single abstract concept at all. Each stanza is a rich collage of concrete elements that, instead of telling the reader what to think, allows them the space to draw their own conclusions. Note further how each line flows effortlessly off the tongue, despite some complicated constructions. Words like Unendowed, scarlet, speckled, flu-infected would not immediately seem to lend themselves a musical combination, yet stanza six accomplishes this without seeming effort.

And then, note how, beginning with the sixth stanza, the scope of the poem shifts. Until now it's been a catalog of various aspects of a society in decay, narrated from within the experience of the members of that society. In stanza six we move to "Little birds with scarlet legs / Sitting on their speckled eggs / Eye each flu-infected city. offering us nature's unsentimental perspective on human folly. By stanza seven, we've left the world of man behind altogether, making the point that man and his constructions are a transitory occurrence, while nature continues in a parallel existence, scarcely noticing.

And then, there's the even deeper question: is it just about Rome, or is he talking about our world, today?

Of course, he never comes out and says any of this. That wouldn't be a poem, it would be a lecture.
57
57
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
Sig for reviews

Two or three sentences in, it becomes obvious that you can write. Sufficiently so that we needn't spend much time on the sound and structure of your prose. It works and any discerning reader would recognize that fact. All of which makes me wonder about those glaring testimonials at the top of the page. You might as well hang up a big, blinking neon sign that says "Serious writer at work!!!" What's the point? If your writing can stand on its own, you don't need all the promos and they just sound like desperate insecurity. If your writing doesn't carry the day, all the testimonials in the world won't make a difference and they'll just come off as sad.

Maybe... just maybe... if you had a couple of blurbs by Stephen King, or J.K Rowling, Thomas Pynchon, Salmon Rushdie—the kind of big guns a publisher will haul out to hype a new author—we might note them with interest, but I myself have never purchased a book because someone with a name has a blurb on the cover. I mean no disrespect to the reviewers you quote—I'm sure they're quite competent and that you gained much from their comments—but who cares? Get rid of them. They just make you look silly, and a writer with your chops doesn't need to start out of the gate looking silly. You need to look confident. You need to look like, "Hey, if you can't tell what I've got to offer, who needs you."

In some ways, commenting on a good piece of writing is more difficult than something turned out by a rookie. You can't rely on observations like, "Half your sentences are run-on," or "You switched POV characters three times in that last paragraph," or "Had you considered getting a plot going, at some point?" On the other hand, the difference between 95% and something an editor would immediately choose to publish can be considerable, and that 5% that's left can stick out like bad facework. I found one narrative glitch that got in the way for me, but in terms of the overall approach to this story and the characters, I think you might have some problems. Let me take the easy one first.

Your narrative voice maintains a consistent 3rd person restricted POV, centered within Johnny's perspective. There are only two places where you deviate from this, and both of them stand out as anomalies. Unfortunately, the first time is the opening sentence, and and it isn't immediately apparent that it's a deviation. By the time the story gets underway, we've pretty much forgotten it. Until the ending paragraph, where you use the exact same construction. And now we recall the opening, and we recognize that something is out of place. Here's the opening sentence:

Every day, the train came speeding through Johnny’s little town at exactly three o'clock in the afternoon.

For the rest of the story, your narrator is virtually transparent, serving as a conduit for Johnny's experiences and attitudes. Only with that one word, "little," does your narrator step out from behind the scenes and provide a perspective that is separate from the main character's, editorializing and commenting on the content instead of simply conducting it to the reader. On its own, there's nothing particularly wrong with describing the town as "little;" but the question must be asked, whose opinion is it? Johnny's? Clearly not. And for the rest of the story, your narrator stays mostly hidden, allowing the characters and the action to define the context for the reader. Then you do it again at the end. It's misplaced, and unnecessary.

That's pretty much it in the way of complaints regarding the craft and structure of your prose. Everything else is strong and solid. You're hitting all the right notes. However, this leads us to the bigger problem. They may be the right notes, but it's the wrong song.

Here's the flaw: both Johnny and Sally are saints. Johnny comes wrapped in the purity of undeserved victimhood, whereas Sally is the altruistic angel of mercy who ultimately sacrifices herself for Johnny. We never are allowed to form an opinion about either of them; so perfect are they that even to suggest that there might be a problem with them feels... insensitive. And so you haven't really given us a true conflict. Rather, it's an extended exercise in tweaking our emotions. You've substituted sentiment for true character development and an arc that evolves out of character priorities.

Just because someone is born without eyes doesn't mean they can't be a pain in the ass. Maybe not all the time, but Johnny never annoys anyone. Likewise with Sally—she is selfless, giving, forgiving, and totally dedicated to Johnny, at the ultimate cost of her own life. The only entity that suggests opposition of any sort is the faceless crowd that exists only to torment Johnny and wish him ill, unmitigated evil in opposition to Johnny and Sally's unblemished good. Any time someone is all good, or all bad, the writer hasn't done their job.

I'll be honest: in my own life, I'd like to have folks as good and pure as Johnny and Sally to associate with. They would be an inspiration and their attitudes would be a challenge, to all who know them, to rise to their best instincts. In fiction... not so much. It's the warts, the scars, the flaws that make for interesting characters and, thus, interesting plots.

I'll tell you who caught my attention: Sally's dad. Now there's someone with an ax to grind, with an imbalance in his life that he feels needs to be set right. That's the kind of natural motivation that makes for a good, character-driven plot. There's a story there, waiting to come to life.

Maybe I'm just a jaded cynic. You might well find an editor somewhere who would be happy to publish this. There certainly is much to recommend it. But as you move forward, consider coming up with characters who aren't so pure and perfect. You'll find they tend to get into a lot more trouble, and you'll end up having a lot more options as you consider how to get them out of it.
58
58
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: 18+ | (3.0)
Sig for reviews

You have two very different problems with this story. On the one hand, it weighs in at 2200 words. Given the material that it now contains, that's easily 700 words too many, maybe 1,000 even. You have some interesting elements at work here, and you've done your homework regarding the kinds of craft issues that trip up many writers. But your narrative style is focusing too much on telling us too many details at the expense of simply telling the story.

On the other hand, it's too short. I don't know how long it should really be, but I do know that you've left out, for most of the narrative, the actual story part. Instead, you are telling us about the story, referring to the story you would have written had you written it, or focusing on the setup instead of following that setup into a real plot with a narrative arc.

Let's start with the first problem. Were you to take my advice and start pruning, the first thing you would encounter is the opening sentence with it's reference to Bill's '98 Honda Accord, a gratuitous bit of information of no relevance to the story and of no use to you. This sentence actually leads with Bill looking in the mirror to make sure his hair is still neat and tidy, a bit of self-indulgence that, as an opening feels unsupported by related information, but it's the opening and you deserve our willingness to follow you, so we'll let it slide. Then you might note that were Bill to turn up the CD to hear Beethoven's Pathetique sonata, the reader would learn as much relevant information about Bill, his preferences and, thus, his personality, as they now do by also learning the name of the artist and the fact that this was Beethoven's (i)eighth(/i) sonata. Yeah, yeah, I realize that emphasizing such detail reveals Bill to be not just a casual listener of serious music, but an informed one. So what? That's part of his character, but such detail doesn't contribute appreciably to the actual story, and there are better ways to show it anyway; in fact, you avail yourself of some of them as the story progresses. You also mention, more than once, that there's a traffic jam. You end with this sentence: Surrounded by a sea of exhaust pipes, Bill glanced at the neighboring cars. The first half has already been implied, the second half can be rolled into the next paragraph.

There, you'll encounter the two young women "with the windows down having what must be considered a hilarious conversation." Really? Sounds like a passage clipped out of an academic thesis instead of "...two young women, laughing," but maybe that's just me. However, given that "The minivan that pulled up to replace the suntanned Venus held a middle-aged mother with her kids in the back," has nothing to do with anything, I question it's importance and inclusion in such detail. So should you.

At this point, you've given us hair concerns, traffic jams, a Beethoven CD, two young women, more traffic jams and a mini van carrying an unattractive family. This has eaten up four paragraphs and, truth is, we still don't know what the story is about. it could be about any of those elements; it certainly should be about some or all of them. But, as it turns out, it's not. None of them appears again. They all fill support roles, setting context for the actual story, which is about a middle aged guy, wondering if he's missed a turn somewhere and trying to find enough starch in his spine to do something about it.

We know this is what the story is about because in paragraphs five and six we get a detailed internal monologue where Bill simply steps out of the story, turns to the audience and spoon feeds the story's essence to them. We get backstory and we get theme all wrapped up in a tidy package. Your reader will think, "Okay... I get it.," and go back to the internet or his Gameboy. When ever you resort to internal monologue to either explain what's happening in the present, or what happened in the past, no matter how important the information might seem, nothing's actually happening in your story.

Nothing much continues to happen, though you bring in more voice overs to feed more theme to the reader, who, by this time, has given up on actually encountering anything that will bring them into the story and make them part of the process. The voice in the elevator was the kind of cheap trick that Rod Serling exploited to death back in the late fifties and early sixties, but it's, well... dead. It was corny on 60s TV, unforgivable in 21st century prose.

Stories are about things happening, things that disrupt the smooth surface of a character's status quo state, things that require attention, decisions and actions. There's no action in your story until Bill goes into his boss's office and says "I quit." The problem is, the entire story prior to this moment has simply been you telegraphing to the reader that this is precisely what Bill needs to do; then, he does it, and the story's pretty much over.

Mean while, all manner of tantalizing possibilities are left still born on the cutting room floor. The two young women having such a good time, for example. Your reader, justifiably, is going to expect something to develop from Bill's brief encounter with those two bubbly ladies, not because your reader is a lecherous old fart like Bill, but because if you lead with an element, your reader will assume it to be important, and they will reserve space in their memory banks where that element is filed away, waiting to be called up again as a plot point. In your story, the two young girls vanish in the reader's storage registers and are never heard from again. I don't know... maybe wasted characters vanish into a different story in a parallel universe where they can do something useful. (Wait, I think Rod Serling did something like that... eight or nine times). In this universe, wasted characters just take up space and leave the reader feeling annoyed .

What you might have considered is following your setup into a real scene. Have Bill take a cue from the girls and try to circumvent the traffic jam the way they did, get clever, pull onto the shoulder and... well, who knows? At least he'd be in motion, taking an action, changing the universe in which he functions from a static state to a dynamic state, where possibilities exist, things happen and you don't need to feed monologues to your audience because they'll be learning all they need by watching your characters interact, bump up against each other and get in each others' way.

What probably would have happened, to both the girls and Bill, is that as they approached the scene of the accident, they'd have encountered a surly highway patrolman who would give them a hard time, make them get out of their cars and wait by the side of the road. And suddenly, you have a situation that will make your reader sit up, take notice and ask that golden question of the fiction gods: "Gosh, what's gonna happen next?" What happens next is up to you, but I'd be willing to bet that you could craft a believable, perhaps even funny, scene that would tell the reader all they need to know about Bill and his mid-life crisis, without ever having to actually give voice to your theme.

Themes are never meant to be spoken aloud. They function under the surface, providing a force field that directs the energy flow of the plot and gives a focus to the things your characters think, do and say. But themes are not stories. Stories are things happening, to specific characters, and the things they do about them in return. It's highly unlikely that Bill would emerge from a direct encounter with two young girls having fun, and not feel that dissatisfaction with his life that you now simply tell us about. He might also feel embarrassed, humiliated, horny, maybe even confident with a new swagger to his walk. That all depends on how the scene unfolds. What happens is never as important as having something happen. Until something happens, nothing else will happen.

After that, it's anyone's guess. By this time, you will no longer be standing in the middle of the mix, exercising iron control on everything. Your characters will have been given a life of their own, with goals, obstacles in the way of those goals, and the motivation to do something about it. At that point, your only job is to stay out of their way. Pay close attention: they'll tell you what their story is. You just need to write fast enough not to miss any of it.
59
59
Review of Don't Tell  
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
Sig for reviews

You have a decent prose style, your characters feel like real people, when they talk to each other I believe that real people are engaged in a conversation, and you handle descriptive passages and action well. So what's not to like?

Unfortunately, for all your strengths, you're not telling much of a story. It really never rises above the realm of anecdote, which is to say, it's a description of an event, or series of events, but it's all on the surface. Kind of like real life. There are no stories in real life, only things happening.

The problem with things happening is that we note their occurrence, think, "Okay... I got it," and then we're done. There's nothing to involve us, no requirement that we invest ourselves in your characters problems, since his problem is fairly straightforward and quickly resolved. In this narrative, your main character is unjustly beaten, he's not sure what to do about it, his girl friend tells him what she thinks he should do about it, he agrees, he does it, and that it.

What's missing is the stuff of plots: events, implications, decisions, actions, implications, unintended consequences, more decisions, more actions, more unintended consequence, more decisions... and on and on for as long as you can keep the plot points coming. I can't really tell you what plot points are missing from your piece, since it's not my story. However, you might consider what unpleasant results would flow out of Nick's reluctance to confront his attackers. That's how you get a plot going: decisions, actions and unintended consequences. Right now you bypass the unintended consequences and go straight to the solution. Good for Nick. Bad for your reader.

Then there's the third act. Gotta have a third act, something that evolves organically out of all that has come before, but which turns the plot in a different direction, giving it a new charge of energy and propelling it through to the conclusion. In your case, you don't really have a compelling reason for Nick to keep quiet about what happened, which is why it's so easy for his girl friend to convince him otherwise. But what if there was a truly compelling reason? One that forced him to keep silent, but, perhaps, plot his own revenge, in his own way, an action that could truly jeopardize his relationship with his girlfriend. Now you'd have yourself a moral and ethical dilemma, the kind of situation that prompts your reader to wonder, "Gosh, how's he going to resolve this?" And they'll keep reading to find out. That's your only real responsibility as a writer: keep the reader reading, and give them a payoff at the end for their trouble.
60
60
Review of Mommy Mayhem  
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: ASR | (3.0)
Sig for reviews

You call this your first attempt at comedy, but I'm not sure what else you intend for it to be. It's certainly biographical, and there is definitely a human-interest dimension to it; your missteps and confusion as you grapple with a newborn, and the demands of learning to be a parent, will trigger memories for all who have shared your plight. It's not a story, though that might not be what you intended. It's a series of anecdotes, descriptions of things that happened. As such, it's all on the surface. There are no deeper structures, no underlying context, no particular lessons to be learned, no thematic envelope to contain the events and provide an organizing force field to guide the transition from beginning to end.

There's no rule that says any of those elements are needed. You might be perfectly content writing anecdotes; as long as the events are sufficiently compelling in themselves, you'll be on firm ground. On the other hand, you might want to consider enriching your content with more of yourself than simple reactions to unexpected events. There is a deeply profound process at work, as, in your words, "a young girl becomes a mother," and using light-hearted surface events to evoke the deeper implications of those events can be a powerful narrative device. For one thing, it allows you to avoid hitting your reader over the head with your profundity, instead allowing them to intuit it for themselves. For another, it lets you be funny and serious at the same time. But let's say you are attempting nothing more than to recreate an amusing series of moments, certainly a respected genre of long-standing. The question then becomes, are you milking these events for the maximum comedic effect? I'm not sure you are, and the problem may well be that you are too honest.

I suspect that these anecdotes unfold on the page precisely as they did in your own life. So let me ask you one important question: is your purpose here to write your biography, or is it to make your reader laugh? If it is the former, I'll leave it to you to decide if your life is of sufficient import that total strangers would be compelled to read about it. But if your purpose is the latter, you just might need to fudge facts a bit... make things up... lie, in other words. Lawrence Block, a long-time favorite author of mine, used to write a fiction column for Writer's Digest, a selection of which columns he published under the title "Telling Lies, For Fun and Profit" (a book that I recommend to anyone contemplating a writing life), and it sums up perfectly the relationship between real life, and the world you create on the page. Real life informs your experience and provides the authenticity that makes your characters believable, but there are no stories in real life. To create them, you need to embellish a bit. Maybe a lot.

In comedy, that might mean creating a banana peel moment that didn't actually exist. I wish I could come up with a perfect forumla for what makes something funny, but an important ingredient would certainly be a healthy sense of irony, which I'd say you bring to the table. But in scenes such as you offer, the laugh out loud moments are going to come from your willingness to push beyond the expected outcome into something that threatens to unravel the fabric of civilization, if not the physical laws of the universe. That's what comedy always comes down to: unexpected chaos from unforeseen events. Think of any Marx Brothers movie. They had great lines written for them, but what makes them continue to be memorable is the way they manage to unravel logic and the expectations we have based on that logic. if you don't, in some way, push events past the expected, into the realm of chaos, you're not going to get the laugh.

Your situations are begging for this push. "But... but..." you protest, "this is how they happened!" So what? What you're telling me is that you had a few glitches, a few bumps in the road, but everything worked out okay and everyone emerged unscathed. Good for you. I'm glad mother and child are doing just fine. Now, what are you going to do to make me laugh? And, if you manage this oh-so-desired result, do you think I'm going to worry that maybe you're exaggerating things a bit? No. I'll be too busy laughing.

So revisit your material and give it a push further. Dabble in absurdity. Invite chaos. Show me an ordinary person confronting extraordinary events and handling things badly, the worse, the better. Another essential ingredient in comedy is the ability to evoke the "Thank God that's not me," response. Imagine the worst that can happen with a baby in a bath tub, a baby getting its diaper changed, and (God forbid) a baby being relieved of constipation. And then don't be afraid to go there. If you're not willing to slip on a banana peel, you won't get the laugh you're looking for.

A note or two on style. You have a natural facility with the written word, and it enables you to turn out readable, interesting prose without, I suspect, your having to think too much about it. A little thought would make it immeasurably better. For instance, stop jumping back and forth from past to present tense. It just sounds clumsy, and you deserve to sound better than that. And watch for calling attention to your words in unintended ways. This sentence,

They wiggle like a red wiggler worm on the end of a fishing hook, squirm like a slippery calf exiting the wrong end of a cow, kick like a killer kangaroo and cry like a banshee.

which is full of nice, visual imagery, is weakened by the the wiggle / wiggler pairing at the beginning. For my money, the verb squirm should be moved to the first phrase and replaced with something that more accurately evokes that action. Maybe,

They squirm like a red wiggler worm on the end of a fishing hook, flop around like a slippery calf exiting the wrong end of a cow, kick like a killer kangaroo and cry like a banshee.

It's a subtle change, but attention to such detail can mean the difference between 95% and a finished work. That last 5% is always the hardest to attain.

I think you're a good writer. Some of the things you're doing can't be taught. One brings them to the table or they will never find them. You bring them to the table. What's left is sweat work—attention to nuts and bolts craft issues, infinite rewrites and deconstructing every story you've ever read, not as a reader, but as a student, until you uncover the mysteries of the narrative arc. For most, it ends up being not worth the trouble, which is good, I suppose, for the remaining few for whom it is worth it.

Which group are you in?
61
61
Review of The Lesson  
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: E | (3.5)
Sig for reviews

You have a powerful conflict at the core of this story and a prose style that comes off as polished, confident and deft. You've also come up with a clever plot to deal with your conflict. However, good stories are more than clever plots. They are, first and foremost, character driven. That means, however your plot unfolds, we need to see in your main character a development, an evolution, a transition of some sort, as she moves through your plot from Point A to Point B. That transition, however it takes shape, is, in fact, the "story" part. In your case, this transition never happens. Karen undeniably does stuff, but she remains, at the end, precisely as she was at the beginning. While she may find a feeling of triumph and resolution in the conclusion you've given her, the reader will remain unconvinced.

Any well-formed story contains a dual structure. One part consists of the main character's storyline. It is the main character who provides us with our emotion / psychological entry into the story, and it is who we will identify with, even if we don't necessarily agree with their choices and actions. Think of this as the inner story, the personal journey. In addition, there is the larger world in which the main character functions, the outer story, driven by your protagonist (who may or may not also be your main character); here we find the events that impact on your main character and influence, or alter, the course of her own arc. In turn, the main character, driven by circumstances or personal imperatives, can herself influence those events and alter their direction. It is through this interaction of inner and outer story lines as they bump up against each other, cross-pollinate and collide, that a seamless, character-driven plot emerges and, it is to be hoped, that most desired object of every writer's grail quest, a third act. Whether by intent, or through good instincts, you've provided the raw material for both arcs, but you don't seem to realize that they are separate and distinct. The reason I say that Karen remains unchanged at the end of your story is that, while you've salted many clues throughout regarding her personal conflicts and the issues she struggles with, you leave them untouched, instead focusing on the events of your outer narrative.

Here is the story set-up for Karen's personal arc: a young mother plagued by what appears to be a lifelong passive/aggressive personality, must confront her inner fears and insecurities to prevent her autistic child from emotional damage at the hands of an ignorant, bullying mother and learn, for the first time, to face the world with assertiveness. Those are the conditions you've set up for her, that is the arc your reader will expect to see addressed and, at the end, when we realize that she's opted to remain both a silent mouse and secret avenger, lashing out from a position of weakness, we realize that there has been no arc, no change, no resolution. As a main character, she is undeveloped and virtually unquestioned and untouched.

Because of this lack of attention to your inner story, the questions aised by the events you chronicle are never addressed. And so you have a clever plot, but a story that feels hollow. Not only has Karen chosen to ignore her true demons and the overriding issue in her life, you, as author, have opted for the same course, settling for glib and clever, when profound is certainly within your reach. Am I suggesting that there is something wrong, or incorrect, about the plot resolution you've come up with, that, in the memorable words of Rodney King, we all should just get along? Not at all. Truth is, I like your plot and I don't mind at all that Karen strikes back. In an apocryphal anecdote, a Texas lawyer was asked why in his state cattle rustlers often received harsher sentences than murderers. He pointed out the window to a nearby ranch and said, "Any of those cows out there look like they need rustling?" Truth is, some characters, your obnoxious mother included, need to get what's coming to them. But you won't accomplish this enviable cathartic moment unless we can cheer for Karen. That means you have to give her some strength, put a little starch in her spine, and show us someone willing to break out of her own box and explore all options. Right now, the events at the pool simply happen to her. She needs to take steps, try this, try that, do something else (you know... story stuff). She needs to exhaust all her options. That way, when the car burns by the roadside, it won't matter if we "approve" or not. We'll be too busy cheering.

Character issues aside, there are some other problems with the way you've structured the elements of your plot, the outer story, that are robbing you of needed drama. Many of these issues will no longer be relevant, once you shift your focus to Karen's development; others will transform as she transforms. But some nuts and bolts issues seem to be more systemic.

Think about your narrative voice; in particular, it's location. Where is your narrator coming from? You're writing in a third-person restricted POV, but that doesn't mean your narrator will always originate from the same place. Sometimes, your narrator is completely within Karen's head, becoming, essentially, a window on her own perception of events as they unfold. In these moments, her experience becomes ours as well, for better or worse. Our objective stance gives us insight into flaws and imperfections in her character that she is clearly unaware of herself. She is, actually, something of an unreliable narrator, a well-established device for creating tension between what your character believes to be true, and what the reader realizes is the real truth.

At other times, the narrator establishes more distance from the immediacy of the present time events. All the passages that fill in the backstory, for example. I think it's safe to say that Karen is already aware of her own backstory, and while bits and pieces of it would constantly flash through her thoughts, she wouldn't need to spell it out to herself and remind herself of things with which she's already intimately familiar. At such moments your narrator is no longer capturing Karen in the process of experiencing her world and is instead addressing the reader directly. While this information is not outside Karen's point of view, it is coming to us in a form that is apart from Karen's own internal perceptions. The effect will always be to separate the reader from Karen's experience and to shatter the immediacy you achieve elsewhere. It's not inaccurate to position your narrator elsewhere, but you need to recognize the implied trade-off and decide if the added clarity is worth the cost. In this case, I don't think it is.

The problem is partly one of structure: the really interesting decisions and actions that involve Karen have already taken place, and now you're attempting to fill us in with backstory without giving away what she's been up to. If your priority becomes telling us Karen's story and showing us how the outer events impact on her personally, then trying for a "surprise" O'Henry type plot twist won't be important. A narrative arc that actually incorporates her decisions and reactions, as they occur, will make for a more compelling read.

Another problem flows directly from the previous issue: your story is virtually complete as it begins. Most of the plot points have already taken place. All that you've left yourself, as a way to occupy your present, is to ruminate on the past, and rework "the situation." In so doing you violate what I consider to be two cardinal rules. 1) Situations are not stories. They are the fertile ground out of which a story takes root, evolves and thrives. Your situation would be established at the first encounter with the empathetically challenged mother. From that moment, we get it. Revisiting her a second and third time accomplishes nothing further, since "the situation" is already clear. It is only if Karen engages the situation and begins working her way through it—making decisions, taking actions, and evolving as a character—that you will benefit by her repeated appearances. Right now, the mother doesn't change, Karen doesn't change, no one really does anything, and so each encounter is simply more of the same. 2 ) Stories happen now. The process of your main character's transition is what the reader will find engaging. You need to make certain that, whatever the plot that wraps around it, this process unfolds in the present -time of your story. Readers want to experience events for themselves, not merely be told about them. And when the crucial events have already happened, they become so obscured by all the narrative buffers that while they may rise to the level of intellectual interest, as in, "Hmmmm. That's interesting." you really want to shoot higher than that.

A story like this has the potential to slug your reader in the gut. So much of what you've written has the hard ring of truth about it, it deserves to be packaged in a way that readers will find irresistible. You don't want them thinking "Aw... she wouldn't do that!" You want them wondering "Gosh, what's gonna happen next." For there to be a next, your story needs to be about Karen and how she evolves.
62
62
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: 18+ | (3.5)
Sig for reviews

An interesting piece here. You say it's a prologue, so I won't judge it on the basis of its story, or lack of it, which would be unfair. What is fair is to ask if you do a sufficient job of suggesting the story that is to follow, and if you capture the reader's attention enough to prompt them to move on to it. The answer, at the moment, is "sort of." You present the reader with a lot of complex action, and you manage the choreography with a minimum of confusion. Your prose is crisp, vivid and well formed. I do have some problems, however.

While you handle the myriad details well, there are just too many of them. You need to stop slavishly adhering to that silly rule, SHOW, DON'T TELL. Your problem is you are showing us everything. We don't need to see each little movement unfolding in real time. Some stuff can be told, rather than shown, which leads me to the full version of that rule: SHOW WHAT NEEDS TO BE SHOWN, TELL WHAT NEEDS TO BE TOLD. I'm not going to bore you by suggesting where to rewrite; truth is, nothing you've presented is specifically wrong, simply exhausting in total. When everything is shown in a blow by blow accounting, the result for the reader is a flat surface in which everything is given equal importance. Save your close-up-and-personal passages for those defining moments in which your characters reveal important aspects of their own natures, their relationships or the plot itself.

I noticed an odd quirk in how you refer to your vampire. Often you refer to him as "the male," which is confusing, since you also use the pronoun "he" to refer to Villahr. Since they're both males, there is nothing unique about the designation when applied to the vampire. I suspect that you might eliminate some of the problem by condensing certain passages, as mentioned previously, but also, you should come up with some term that captures Villahr's perspective: monster, beast, vile creature... stuff like that.

A note on the structure. It's true that you can't be expected to tell a story in a prologue, but you have to provide an arc of some sort. You've done this, in that there is a battle scene, then we move to another room and gain a deeper appreciation of Villahr's situation. But there's confusion in your time flow. The problem is this paragraph, which is the twenty-first in presentation.

He'd been asleep in his chair when the vampire tore in through a closed window, shattering it into tiny little pieces and jumped for his throat. Villahr slept with the consciousness of a feline. Within seconds the sound of fractured glass hit his ears, and he was up and alert, fangs protracted.

Truth is, it's the opening of your scene. I know it's often considered good technique to drop your reader into the midst of the action, grabbing their attention (one hopes), then backtracking to fill in the gaps. I don't think this is one of those times, but I'll allow as how that might just be preference on my part. But for my money, the reader is forced to spend too much time in the opening passages without any supporting context. It's a rip roaring fight, to be sure, but after twenty paragraphs, it's still just a rip roaring fight and we're no closer to knowing what's going on. Then you hit us with the backstory, but it really doesn't come off as backstory. It just feels misplaced and out of sequence. I'd much prefer that you start the scene at its proper beginning, give us some defining context for Villahr, perhaps even allude to the room in the back, just enough to let us know that something is there that concerns Villahr and has his attention, so that the vampire actually has a situation into which to intrude and disrupt.

The difficulty with alternate universes, whether sci-fi or fantasy, if figuring out a way to clue the reader in on what it is that makes this place different, without just bringing the action to a halt and telling them stuff. You handle this fairly well, inserting salient details in the course of the action, letting the reader see what Villahr sees and leaving them to put the pieces together. What we don't know, is why the vampire is there at all. Villahr should have some sense of the creature as a clear and present danger, or else an utterly unexpected occurrence. Again, simply showing us the surface action, as though your only task was to be a camera and microphone, gives us the who, what, where and when, but leaves us unsatisfactorily lacking in the why. You don't need to tell us everything. But if we're seeing this through Villahr's eyes, we can assume his responses would encompass the larger context, or at least hint at it. We need access to those responses. Otherwise, despite the fact that Villahr is your main character and offers the reader their entry into the story, we'll have no real appreciation of him and so we'll remain on the outside, watching the action but not really experiencing it.
63
63
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
Sig for reviews

I've run the full spectrum of reactions to this piece since you first posted a review request for it in my forum. I've found it annoying, charming, inventive, creative and a cop-out. So now that I've finally gotten around to writing my review, I've read it yet one more time. Usually when I can't settle on a response to a piece, I'll consult the writer's portfolio to get a sense of the scope of their output, see if there's a context into which I can fit what's in front of me. Not possible here; this is the only thing you've made public.

I'm going to assume that you've written other stories, or that you have other stories in mind, waiting for you to pick up your pen. So get to it. You have a lot going on that's worthy of attention and you should be either developing it, or sharing it. What I noticed, on all my readings, was the confidence of your prose style, and its consistency. You know what you want to say, you know how you want to say it, and you have the technique to do exactly that. A reader might quibble with your choices, here and there, but they'll never wonder if you know what you're doing. Clearly, you do.

What has left me uncertain, in my reaction to this story, is the split personality that it presents. In its structure, the story is quite good: clever plot, interesting characters with clear motivation that works within the parameters of the universe you've created. But it can't decide whether or not it's parody or serious, and neither can the reader. Your two brothers have the exaggerated, slightly fantastic personalities of cartoons, yet the setting of the story is realistic. It's like a couple of characters from an old Monty Python skit wandered into an Agatha Christie tale.

That's why I wanted to check out other works of yours, to see if this was an interesting experiment, or simply the way you write. What I've decided is, "Who cares?" It's an engaging story and it works on its own terms. Regarding any piece of writing, an infinite list could be compiled of all the things that it is not; the relevant questions are, "What is it?" and, "Is it enough?" Obviously I'm still not completely certain of the first question, but of the second, I'd say "Quite enough." I'd like to see more of your stuff.
64
64
Review of Claws!!!  
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
Sig for reviews

First things first: you're a decent enough writer that you deserve to be taken seriously beyond the narrow circle of family and friends who feel they owe you a pat on the head and an uninformed "Nice job." But until you open up a style manual and master the difference between commas, semi-colons, colons and periods and begin putting them to work for you instead of stumbling over them in the dark, you won't be taken seriously. Your run-on sentences force your readers to do double time as translators, a quick way to stifle their interest and squander the good-will they'll bring to any new story.

Before you write again, Google "phrases and clauses" and start with the first hit. Then get a copy of Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style." It's a slim volume that can be read in a single sitting, though applying it might take a good deal longer. If you want to play keyboards, you have to know scales. If you want to write, you have to know how to construct sentences that actually say what you intend.

So. On to the story. I'm assuming you've read Stephen King's "The Boogeyman," with which this has much in common. It's essentially the same set-up, which doesn't bother me too much—King has littered the landscape with so many plots, it's inevitable that other writers will cross paths with one or another of them. And I'll acknowledge that you aren't merely copying him, the true sign of mediocrity. Instead you've actually stolen his idea, which is to say you've run with it and made it your own, giving us characters who pop off the page with clearly defined attitudes and points of view. You haven't explained much about them; you don't tell us how Jason feels about his father, or about Sasha, or about how Jason's parents relate to each other. Instead you put them in motion, have them bump into each other as they interact, allowing them to tell us what we need to know.

One thing I will point out, however: you need to pay more attention to your dialogue and make sure that you're not just settling for utilitarian banter that feeds information to the reader but which comes off as flat and unbelievable.

When Sasha awakens Jason in their first scene together he asks,

"What time is it?"

Sasha looked over at my Spider-man clock, on our nightstand “It says twelve thirty-two so it’s really,“ her face scrunched up as she did the calculations, “one forty-six. I don’t know why you don’t just get rid of that thing.”

“It has sentimental value. I’ve had it since I was ten.“

What could be a quick glimpse into the dynamics of their relationship falters because that's just not what they would say to each other. They're married, right? They've been living together for a while at least. They've already had this conversation, or others like it, and it remains a bone of contention between them, mainly because Sasha continues to allow it to become a focus for all that she dislikes about Jason. That means this conversation is really just the setup. You don't want your characters to spend their precious lines reciting the set up. You want to use your set up, exploit it and discover what, given the conditions that it suggests, they would really say to each other as a result. And what they would really say would probably reveal much more about Sasha's limitless scorn and Jason's equally limitless submissiveness.

But this passage isn't the norm. For the most part, your characters feel real. This is why I say you deserve to be taken seriously. Your instincts are good. Unlike grammar, syntax and punctuation, that sort of thing can't really be taught from a book.

The next step in the process for you is to continue honing your instincts in the direction of story telling. Right now you have strong characters and a decent plot with all right elements. You even have a "surprise" twist at the end. But if you're going to channel anything from Stephen King, here is where you most need it: you have to think of your readers, ask yourself what it will take for them to want to keep turning the pages, what will plant that crucial statement in their minds: "Gosh, I wonder what's gonna happen next." You want to keep them off-balance, uncertain what they're in the midst of. And here, all is in the telling.

In a way, your readers need to be put through the same type of cycle that confronts your characters. King's contribution to the genre was to take horror out of the musty mansion, the old church, the shadowy graveyard, and put it in the kitchen, the garage, the mall. His people and situations are so damned normal and, yes, boring, we can't quite believe that true horror could be lurking there. It's that steady build, moving from utter disbelief, to ambiguity and finally to spine-tingling certainty that is a major part of the effect you want to create. For that reason, keep this rule of thumb in mind: As soon as you spill blood, ambiguity ends.

You spill a lot of blood and you start fairly close to the beginning of the story. By the time the boogeyman starts eating Jessie's heart, we've already been there. There's no progresion. The split time frame, while rich with possibilities, is sabotaged by the lack of any ambiguity in Jason's past.

Yeah, yeah, I know, there's that surprise ending. But the thing is, it's not a surprise. We know without question that the story will resolve itself in one of two ways: either you'll go full tilt boogie down the supernatural highway and the boogeyman will be exactly that, in which case we'll say, "Okay..." because by the end of that particular version, we'll have been at the climactic heights for most of it. Or, it will pivot on some psychological hinge and he'll turn out to be crazy. Either / or. And since you are uncompromising in your bloodletting, we know without question that if he's crazy, he's also responsible. So once again, the ending comes with an "Okay..." reaction. In a horror story with this much blood, you want to provoke more than that from your readers.

I'm not going to suggest a rewrite, only that your story could benefit from one. In this genre, both in cinema and in prose, less is always more. An unexpected, unexplained creak on the stairs can trigger the shivers a lot more effectively than blood gushing from a slashed throat. And you don't need to slash every throat. But if you must get around to that grisly deed, make it the climax, not the opening. That way, you'l not only have teased your readers into hanging in there with you, you'll give them the kind of payoff that makes the effort worth it.
65
65
Review of Charming  
Review by edgework
Rated: E | (3.5)
Sig for reviews

This is a rewrite of a story that I've already reviewed Review of "Charming" . Unfortunately you've overwritten the original so i can't do a close comparison. However, rereading my initial review suggests that you've dealt with some basic issues, to good effect. Your story now is told from a consistent POV, that of Sands. We have access to much that's going on in his head, though I must confess to being a little perplexed at what is revealed.

Why is he so grumpy? It would seem that he's doing exactly what he is meant to do, what he contracted to do, and what his client requested that he do. His client appears to be satisfied. So I don't really understand why Sands comes off as such a curmudgeon. He seems disturbed that Lane wants to stay. Was that not the point?

This isn't the kind of thing that you'd need to spend a lot of time on, but I do think that a little more clarity about the nature of their contract, and what it is that Sands actually does, would be beneficial. What appears to be the case is that Lane is going off-book in some way, reaching for more than Sands agreed to provide, and that Sands is cutting him loose, perhaps voiding the contract. You wouldn't need to spell it ou; a casual, off-hand comment could probably get the job done.

I also talked in my previous review about a proxy story, which is just a way of misdirecting the reader. Given that neither of your characters is going to be transforming much within the present time of your story (Lane's decision has been made; he probably knew he wasn't coming back. And Sands is who he always is), you are relying on your readers' shifting perceptions to create dynamic tension. That being the case, I think you are in too much of a hurry to let us know the nature of the environment in which we find ourselves.

Keep us guessing a little longer. Who are these guys, and what are they looking for? Perhaps it's an address, a house, the location of which neither is certain of. They could be discussing what kind of a house it would be. Maybe there are more than one house, and they're arguing over which one is the right one. Maybe choosing the wrong house could have dire consequences that aren't really explained.

Something like that would be a small shift, but it the kind of thing that works well in a story like this, giving the reader something to occupy their attention while the truth seeps in bit by bit. It makes the final realization much more significant.

I'll repeat what I said the first time: this is a nicely written piece. This version is much closer to completion than the first, but difference between great, and okay, is small. Small enough that most settle for okay. You should close the deal with this and make it as tight as possible. It's that good.
66
66
Review of Charming  
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: E | (3.0)
Sig for reviews

This is a nicely written fantasy with roots in some of the best of the contemporary genre. I caught many echos of Inception of course and a touch of Neil Gaiman, but mostly it felt like you are channeling Ray Bradbury here. This is a good thing, and speaks well of your prose style and the story's setup. It just might be good enough as is, though you might give thought to some things you could do to strengthen it.

First off, try to answer this question: "What's it about?"
Then follow up with this one: "Who is it about?"

You open the story with Lane—literally; it's the first word—but then you ease into Sand's POV and stay there for the rest of the story. But it's difficult to say that the story is about Lane or Sands. Since you studiously refrain from granting us access to anything internal to either of them, neither steps forward to claim the spotlight. Lane gets most of the action, but we only see it from a distance. Sands remains above it all with Morgan Freemanesque detachment. So what we're left with is that the story is simply about the situation.

This means that whatever narrative arc it contains will be focused primarily on the reader, rather than either of the characters. They don't change. Lane made his decision already, while Sands is eternal. What changes is the readers understanding of what it is that they are reading. As a strategy, there's nothing wrong with this; it's done all the time. The question for you is whether or not you've provided enough of a payoff for the reader once they get to the end. I would say not.

By the third paragraph, we know Lane's in a dream and all but the dullest among us will make the connection to the Sandman as soon as we know Sands' name. The rest of the story is a literal, linear unfolding along lines that are fairly predictable. We might not see the precise elements of the ending, but we know something like it is coming. Conditioned as we are to surprise twists in stories like this, our only surprise is that there is no twist. That's not how you want to surprise your reader.

This brings us back to the first question I suggested you ask yourself: this story is about the setup. Setups aren't stories. They are the cosmic soup out of which the universe of your story forms, takes shape and evolves. They are the force field through which the elements of your story moves and which defines the patterns into which they organize themselves.

And so we move on to the second question and uncover the true deficiency: your characters are just props. Lane's story is over. (You might consider telling it, at some point. It would make for a good arc on its own as he exhausts hope and logic and opts instead for the surreal and fantastic.) As currently structured, neither of them have goals, obstacles to overcome, decisions to make, actions to take, unexpected consequences to deal with... you know, all those things that make the reader want to know what's going to happen next. Somebody needs a story.

OR...

If you want to keep the structure as is, then you have to give your reader a payoff. You have to provide an Ah-Ha moment, when the universe shifts and all is revealed in a new light. That means, you need to give your characters a proxie story to occupy the reader while allowing the real story to seep in from the sides.

The beauty of a proxy story is that it can be about anything, and it doesn't need to be significant. Trying to unlock a door... cross a river... decipher a letter sloppily written... anything. All that's required is what any story requires: a problem that needs solving and believable characters trying to solve it. And some form of connection to the larger situation that will be revealed as things progress.

Here's a 300 word marvel that I reviewed a couple of weeks ago that does this as well as anyone I've encountered: "The Red Teacup" . Structurally, it follows the same path you've taken. The true situation is already in stasis. But there is a task set before the main character that captures the reader's interest and keeps things moving along, and as we read, we come to the understanding that this simple story is, in fact, a result of the larger story. And at that moment we go "Ah HA!!" and walk away satisfied.

That's what this story needs. Gotta think of your reader and give them a payoff for the time they've invested in you.
67
67
Review of The Red Teacup  
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: ASR | (4.5)
Sig for reviews

You violate a couple of fundamental rules in this short piece, which, by rights, should cripple your effort. So much for the rules.

First, virtually the entire story is internal, an approach that usually means certain death. The only action in the present involves your main character picking up pieces of the broken saucer and cup and throwing them in the trash.

More dire, the actual story is merely referred to. The real action has already taken place. All that's left for the reader is to pick up the pieces and intuit what happened.

Many writers might attempt a story like this and stumble over themselves at every step. I've reviewed many of them. Perhaps they'd attempt to turn all the internal monologue into quoted statements, with the always useless she wondered or she thought clogging up the narrative flow like dead animals on a dark road. I've spent a lot words myself calling writers to task for such clumsiness. In the future, with your permission, I'll simply refer them to this story for a text-book example of how to seamlessly weave internal thoughts into the narrative exposition.

But what about the missing story? And, while we're at it, the missing protagonist? Okay, he's not really missing; he's bleeding all over the kitchen floor next to your main character. But clearly his contribution to the plot has come and gone. Turns out, that particular rule is proper for a writer to note when the idea of plot is still an elusive concept for them. Show, don't tell, I believe is the maxim. You sidestep the problem nicely by providing us a proxy story to occupy our attention, while allowing the real story to seep in from the sides.

But, comes the indignant conjunction, what about change? Stories are all about change; here nothing has changed. Or, rather, the change for your main character has already happened. At the end she remains precisely as we find her at the beginning. And, of course, her husband won't be changing ever again.

Never forget the silent partner in any story: the reader. And here, the evolution is all with the reader's perception and their thwarted expectations. It's always a good trick to fool your reader. When done well, they'll adore you for it. Ham-fisted efforts are less memorable. Suffice it to say, you do it well. That you manage the transformation in such a short span of words is doubly admirable.

You do have one mistake that can't be explained away by stylistic preference. This sentence,

It must have fallen off the table, the handle was broken, the rim was chipped and the saucer lay in tiny pieces on the ground.

is run-on. Either a period or a semi-colon needs to follow table I prefer the latter construction, since both clauses add up to a single result, but either would be correct.

Nice work.
68
68
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: ASR | (4.0)
Sig for reviews

You have a strong story here, not too heavy on plot but rich with character development and transformation. You aren't telling it in the strongest way possible, however. When you structure your narrative, you should always seek ways to allow the important scenes to unfold on their own, in front of the reader, rather than simply letting a character tell us about what happened. In the case of this story, what may be the most important scene is casually referred to at the end. While we understand the importance, and make the connection to Aarush's final act of revenge, the emotional impact is lost in translation. We weren't there at the beginning, and so we don't really appreciate the way things end up. More on that in a moment.

As I said, there's a good story here, but you have to get rid of the clutter, of which there is much, and you need to pay more attention to your grammar and syntax. I'm going to stick my neck out here and guess that English is not your first language. While you are clearly fluent in most of the textbook constructions, from time to time you betray an unfamiliarity with the kind of conversational ease that a native speaker would never have to think about. You have some verb tense problems as well, but I've seen similar issues elsewhere. This passage, however, was the one that particularly caught my attention:

I enter my large cubicle and plonk into the chair. There is a fresh bouquet of flowers on my desk. It's having an eclectic mix of orchids, roses and cherry blossoms.

We have no difficulty understanding the meaning and intent—the pronoun it clearly refers to the noun bouquet, but the verb is having simply doesn't work. There are many ways to rephrase this. For instance,

There is a fresh bouquet of flowers on my desk. I see orchids, roses and cherry blossoms, each with their own vibrant color and scent.

Simpler would be

There is a fresh bouquet of flowers on my desk, an eclectic mix of orchids, roses and cherry blossoms.


Your third paragraph also contains some awkward phrasing.

Today is my last day at the office. A month ago I had handed in my resignation. Two years ago, I had arrived from India, with a lot of enthusiasm to achieve something in life. I am a management consultant here, in a renowned firm, “Lynn and Flynn.”

The beautiful thing about verb tenses in English is that they make it possibe to precisely locate an event in time, and to relate it to other events in a chronological progression. Some things happen in the past, some things in the present. Some situations began in the past and ended later on, but still in the past. Some things started out in the past and are still active in the present. All of these situations can be clearly described with the correct verb tense. When the tenses get confused, as is the case with this paragraph, it makes things, well... confused.

This paragraph starts in the present. You then follow with an event that took place in the past,

A month ago I had handed in my resignation.

You are using the Past Perfect form of the verb, which suggests an activity or condition that took place before another action or condition, as in

I had gone to the store, but discovered that I forgot my wallet, so I came back home.

In your example, one might say something like

I had handed in my resignation, but then I changed my mind.

But you offer no contrasting event, no before, or after, and so it is simply something that happened in the past.

A month ago I handed in my resignation.

The same problem can be found in the next sentence.

Two years ago, I had arrived from India, with a lot of enthusiasm to achieve something in life.

This is simply an event that took place in the past. Instead of I had arrived, all that is needed is I arrived.

What is apparent, on closer examination of this paragraph, is that you've actually gotten the important details out of sequence, reducing what could have been a dramatic set-up for the rest of the story into three things that simply happened. Note this rearrangement:

Two years ago I arrived from India, filled with enthusiasm and dreams of achievement. Last month I handed in my resignation. Today is my last day on the job.

Not only does the paragraph now contain a logical progression, it is a perfect opening paragraph. In its current version, you have it buried in the midst of six other paragraphs, all of which discuss various aspects of the local environment. But only this paragraph actually relates to the story you are getting ready to tell. It is a story that is fairly timeless and universal. That it takes place in Dubai is largely irrelevant. It would be the same story, with the same impact, in Belfast, Miami or Tokyo. This is a strength, by the way—the issues of friendship, loyalty, betrayal and the impulse to seek love are bound to no specific culture or environment.

But when you go to the trouble to tell us as much as you have about Dubai, and, in fact, open your story with these descriptions, we will justifiably expect Dubai and whatever might be unique about the place to be an important element in the story. When it turns out not to be the case, we have not only wasted a bit of our attention on a dead-end, we will also wonder what else you are telling us that we might not need to pay attention to. Turns out, there's a good bit of filler. You need to define your story and tell it. And only it. Forget the background, forget the supplementary characters, forget everything that doesn't further the development of your story. Later, once you have your base narrative worked out, you can go back and add in an embellishment or two, but only if it enhances our understanding of your characters' choices and actions.

I submit that there is nothing in the interactions of your characters that is clarified by the reference to the foreign workers laboring for a pittance that you mention in the fourth paragraph. Likewise the vastness of Dubai's architecture. As potential thematic elements, you certainly might want to consider exploiting them to add depth to your characters. For instance, Aarush contemplates the sorry plight of the laborers, who I assume to be foreign, but he too comes from outside the country. Might there be similarities that create his own sense of "otherness?" It's certainly possible but in its current state, the story makes no use of the symbolism, and so the reference is simply filler. Is there something in the ostentatious architecture that might shed some light on Aarush's two superiors, Basu and Praneel? I'm not sure how it might be used, but were you to find a way, then the opening descriptions would not only be valid, they would be crucial to an understanding of the story.

The important scene I mentioned that has been left out is, of course, Aarush and Praneel's night out the previous evening, during which, it turns out, Praneel revealed something of his hypocritical nature. Since we don't find out about this event until you pull it out of your hat to allow Aarush to appreciate his "friend's" true nature, we don't really feel much about it one way or the other. However, were you to place this scene at the beginning, allowing us to see Praneel and Aarush interact as friends and workplace comrades, his betrayal would be much more significant.

I would place this scene immediately after the opening paragraph, where we establish that the story opens on Aarush's last day at work. Paragraph two would begin something like

Last night, my supervisor and best friend, Praneel, took me out to celebrate my freedom.

It wouldn't have to be a long scene, perhaps a few sentences. Just enough to establish that there is a bond of trust between the two, and that Praneel got far drunker than he should have and launched into his parody of their boss, Mr. Basu. You might establish that Aarush is surprised at Praneel's candor, but that he finds it quite humorous.


I'm now going to suggest another rearrangement. I think that the entire scene with Mayana should precede the scene with Mr. Basu. What you are looking for is not simply an accounting of the things that happened, but a structure that will capture the reader's interest. The best way to do that is to allow your situtation, and your characters, to constantly evolve. Part of that evolution can be found in the reader's understanding of what is taking place. If you surprise them, they will like you for it. Right now you show us Aarush as a successful, but not particularly dynamic individual, an assessment borne out by Mr. Basu's feedback and the revelation of Paneel's treachery. This is really the high point of the dramatic tension, but you reach it far too early in your story, with the result that Mayana's revelation of her feelings for Aarush feels almost grafted on, like it was from a different story.

Far stronger would be for Aarush to move through a progression of optimism for the future, excitement at his unexpected prospects with Mayana, followed by the shock and hurt of Mr. Basu's revelation, immediately upon which, Aarush decides to send the video of Paneel. (The scene where he eavesdrops on his co-workers talking about him should be excised post haste.) What would bring things to perfect closure would be for Aarush to make a decision about Mayana, rather than simply letting her take all the initiative. Perhaps at the end of their lunch, they are both filled with a sense of missed opportunity, a blend of happiness and coming together, and sadness at Aarush's impending departure. When she accompanies him to the airport, then he could tell her that he wants her to come to Berlin. It's a subtle shift, but it makes Aarush a true protagonist, one who takes charge of the circumstances of his life.

As I've said, I think you have a good story at work here. Get rid of the gratuitous decorations, arrange your plot for maximum dramatic effect, and I think you could find a place for it. You should certainly submit it.
69
69
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: E | (3.0)
Sig for reviews

Yeah... yeah... okay... and then... and then!? Come on, you're just getting started. I know the old vaudeville hoofer would tell you "Always leave 'em wanting more," but you have to give them something first.

Okay, I'm being a crud here, and don't completely mean it—I realize this is flash fiction and you had to use special words in the text, and I'm sure that it was well received in that context. Besides, you write nice sounding prose, the kind of prose that's easy to read, not because it's simple, but because it works—it's rich with imagery, you have nouns and verbs doing the heavy lifting for you, it all flows in the proper sequence, and it sounds good.

One stylistic quirk you might want to train yourself to recognize—in this short piece it shows up three or four times and so I intuit that it's a habit, one that can not only get monotonous, it robs your sentences of action.

In you last four paragraphs we find these words: stealing, launching, propelling, kicking, straining, tingling, ignoring . Okay, more than a few. While each of these suggests action, in the context of the sentences in which they appear none are actually verbs. Beware the -ing words. They are participles and unless they have a helping verb—is stealing, would be launching, had been propelling, was kicking, were tingling, etc—they're modifiers. In the case of stealing, all the action is locked away in this modifying phrase: that moistureless current stealing the humidity from her hair and skin which modifies the woefully weak verb was.

Participle modifiers are not wrong, but they do come with a certain sound that the ear starts to focus on, and, as I said, they only present the idea of action. They offer a nice variation on the simple declarative sentence but think of them as seasoning—you wouldn't eat a bowl of salt, would you. The problem is that usually, the action they are but a mere idea of is where all the interest lies, as in the example cited, and they can always be rewritten to make things happen. Note how

She gasped as her face left the comfort of the waves - her gills straining to take in oxygen, her skin tingling with cold as the water began to evaporate from her skin.

becomes

As she left the comfort of the waves, her gills strained to take in oxygen and her skin tingled with cold as the water began to evaporate.

to much stronger effect.

Now the story, of which you offer teasing glimpses of what might be, but so far it's not there. As an entry in a flash fiction contest it certainly gets the job done; had I been judging, I probably would have taken more than passing notice. But once you stick it out there in the world at large, you no longer get special credit for special circumstances. You're doing battle with the vast body of story tellers, past and present, and they've set the bar pretty high.

What's needed here is for you to imagine what comes next. You've given us a set of defining conditions, you've given your character motivation and a sense of a goal. You've also suggested that the path won't necessarily be an easy one. All well and good. Now—what happens? What gets in her way? What unexpected and unforeseen circumstances sprout in her path? How does she react? What's going to make the reader wonder "What's gonna happen next?"

No suggestions here from me; the possibilities are endless. You can take this in any direction you choose. You could emphasize plot, bring in a villain, an opposition character, a sidekick... You could emphasize character development, give her a Dorothy moment where she realizes "There's no place like home." Anything's possible.

Your move.
70
70
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: E | (3.0)
Sig for reviews

First of all, my apologies for taking so long to get to this. I'm woefully behind and just now trying to catch up.

I wasn't sure, at first, if I was going to review this, or just send you some comments by email. But as I got into my comments, I realized that it was turning into a review anyway, so we'll go with it. The problem for me is that it's an unfinished work and the types of comments I tend to offer usually deal with how well (or not) a story reaches its potential, how effectively the structure supports the narrative, how the characters are developed. You have not yet done that and I can only guess at the plans you have for these two sisters. You've done a decent job so far in suggesting their differences, but plans and intentions only have meaning when properly developed. Are you up to that?

Something for you to consider as you expand this: every single scene needs to have the heart and soul of a story. That doesn't mean that you have to throw an endless sequence of problems at your characters and force them through an obstacle course, but there needs to be a narrative arc to each scene, which entails something shifting for either one or more of your characters, or else for the reader in terms of how they view the proceedings. That movement forward, from one point to another, is what will keep your readers turning the pages. You always want them to wonder what's going to happen next, but in order to achieve that, you need to let them know that a "next" is on th way.

By this standard, I would say that your opening scene needs to be reconsidered, or abandoned. Right now its sole function is to hand information off to the reader; despite the fact that it's not irrelevant information, that alone is never a sufficient reason for a scene.

At their most basic, stories are about events, things that happen, and the impact of those event on specific characters, the resulting decisions those characters make and the actions they take. Information is simply the set up, the fertile ground in which the story proper takes root and grows. Set ups are not stories, and as you write this, learn to recognize the difference. If you find yourself narrating set up, or, worse, having your characters talk to each other about the set up, you haven't come up with a story yet.

In the opening scene, the important material is the way in which each girl's name reflects their personalities, information that could easily be inserted in the midst of the next scene, in which something most definitely happens. You also suggest the relationship between the parents, but that, too, can also be handled at the dinner scene. If you know your set up, your reader never needs to have it explained. Instead, you need to show them characters behaving consistently with the parameter of the set up. That will usually be sufficient. From time to time, it's truly necessary for the narrator, or the characters, to comment on the set up, but just know that action in the present comes to a halt in those moments. Save them for natural pauses in the action and slip them in undetected.

Your second scene should be your opening. It needs to be expanded. This is your readers' first encounter with the two sisters; you need to show them in all three dimensions. There is a lot more going on under the surface of this action. Bring it out. Play it for all its dramatic potential. Keep the reader turning the pages. Without your current opening scene they won't know everything, but if you pace yourself properly and get them involved in the present action, they won't care. There will be time enough to feed them background.

The dinner scene was a disappointment. You kept me waiting patiently through all the usual boring dinner conversation that is always part of family dinner scenes; then, just when something threatens to happen, you stop.

You can edit the conversation down considerably. It sounds very lifelike, quite realistic, which is the problem. There are no stories in real life. Just one thing happening, then another, then some boring conversation, some more stuff happening. Your job is not to capture real life, it's to engage the reader and that brings us back to that narrative arc I mentioned. You need to give them the verbal equivalent of a roller coaster. Don't keep them on one level too long, you'll lose them. If you need to take your time to build, make sure they know they're climbing up to a peak of some sort or other, after which, they can reasonably expect things to get serious.

One last question: is this a short story you have in mind, or a novel? If it's the latter, then you are certainly are correct in taking your time developing the main story. But that doesn't free you of the need to structure each chapter with the energy of a story: beginning, middle, end, problem, effort, action, decision, unexpected consequences... all that Plotting—101 stuff. In order for you to pull that off, you need to know your characters' goals, but you also need to know the story's goal. They are not necessarily in sync. You'll need to keep both in mind.
71
71
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
Sig for reviews

I reread the last story of yours that I reviewed, and my review of it, just so I'd be up to speed on what issues I'd uncovered in your writing, and to keep from perhaps saying the same things all over again. Alas, I have some of the same things to say.

Once again, you show a vivid imagination, you come up with interesting characters who don't conform to cardboard cutout cliches of the supernatural, and you're a good writer. I enjoyed reading your story—up to a point. That point came somewhere in the third act, when I realized that your two characters were still vamping on your set-up. That's when I began to suspect you didn't have a story for them.

Actually, as I subsequently discovered, you not only have a story for them, it's a massive odyssey of Dickensian proportions, the kind of novel that used to send whole forests to the blade to generate sufficient paper for their publication. Which is to say, it's not a short story at all, despite the fact that you've created six whole acts in an attempt to encompass it's massive bulk. What you end up with is the TV script treatment—lacking the budget, or the time, to tell the full story, you opt instead to drop in every few years or so and have your characters talk to each other about the story that's been taking place off stage. Meanwhile, there are myriad opportunities for genuine short stories to be culled from the mix were they to be brought up close and allowed to unfold in real time, were you interested in writing a short story.

So. Which is it? Short story, or novel? And, while we're making some crucial decisions, are you willing to actually integrate the whole supernatural thing into the story you're actually trying to tell? So far it just floats along on a parallel track with the main narrative, threatening results but delivering little. The only place in the story where Jimmy's supernatural powers actually make an appearance is the beginning, when he causes the dog to lose its hair. Everything else is talk. We hear a lot about Jimmy being the Prince of Darkness, the ruler of the universe, how he's going to do this or that, but if you eliminated all of it, made Jimmy just an intelligent, spoiled brat, you could tell the story of his relationship with Arvind without altering a thing. Okay, Amy would have to be a normal, run-of-the-mill ditzy blonde instead of a cosmic groupie with visions of the apocalypse, but she'd serve precisely the same function in the narrative arc.

The long conversation between Jimmy and Arvind at the end, where you seem to have noticed that there hasn't been much attention to the supernatural aspect of your tale simply proves my point: none of that stuff about "The Will," or the true nature of Jimmy's parents or any of the other artifacts you throw at us has any impact whatsoever. They haven't been present, they haven't served to develop anything that's been going on and so they produce no emotional response. We think, "Oh, that's what's been going on," but by then, we don't really care.

You may well want to actually get down to the hard, brutal sweatwork of writing this novel one of these days. But to do so, you're going to have to start finding the stories that are hidden inside your exposition and utilitarian dialogue. Here's one you might practice on, since it's fairly simple and doesn't require you to balance the dual themes of young men in love, and an antichrist in our midst: You note at one point that Jimmy and Arvind's mom get along great, something that surprises Arvind, since everyone else finds Jimmy thoroughly objectionable. But like all your other stories, you blow right past it. There's an interesting story in there, one that forces Arvind to perhaps reevaluate Jimmy, see him in a new light. If you give Arvind a real issue to deal with, one that is complicated by his friend's relationship with his mom, who knows what might come about; it could well become a full chapter in your novel.

Heres another one: two young men in an emotional/sexual relationship that is disrupted when one of them meets a girl who, for perhaps mysterious reasons, finds him utterly compelling. You mention that all that took place, but to actually envision the process unfolding, capture the tension, the difficulty, the choices that each character has to make, and follow the implications of those choices... that's what stories are about. That's what you're not doing. Until you do, your imagination and your craft won't generate the kind of story that people will want to read.

I said it in my last review, and the timeless wisdom of my comments hasn't changed since then. (I take no credit for such wisdom, of course; I'm simply repeating what anyone would tell you.) Stories are about problems and the efforts of specific characters to work their way through them. Your job is to show these characters as they struggle, bump up against each other, make decisions, take actions and try to deal with the unexpected consequences. It's also your job to provide the thematic context that wraps all the elements into a coherent whole, that gives direction and purpose to the proceedings. That's what will make readers want to know what happens next. And that's what will keep them turning the pages.
72
72
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: E | (3.5)
Sig for reviews

Many reviewers feel a need to issue a disclaimer before they plunge into their review, something to the effect that "This just my opinion, you're under no obligation to pay attention to anything I say and you can totally blow me off should you be so inclined." Duh. Of course it's just an opinion. That's the business we're in. People ask our opinions, we offer them. So I've never felt a need to belabor the obvious.

In this case, however, there are some things that I feel confident about, things that I think would make this a stronger poem. Other stuff... well, it's just my opinion. That's the thing about poetry: there's no fixed set of rules you can follow and know you're writing a poem.

I note that you have a good handle on both rhyme and meter, neither of which is inconsequential. It is precisely those elements of poetry, concerned as they are with structures that don't immediately relate to subject, that separates poetry from prose. However, you're not exploiting the line break at all. All your lines are what is known as end-stopped: each contains a thought, a unit, a single element, and you have a one-to-one correspondence throughout. After a while it starts to sound very much the same, despite the difference in content from stanza to stanza. There's no rule that says you can't carry a phrase, idea or element across the line break. Not only does it provide some welcome variation rhythmically, setting up a counterpoint between content and structure, it can also offer interesting ways to shade meaning that are unavailable in prose.

Gotta keep it real here: you really don't want to resort to daydreams, moonbeams, fierce storms and even the raindrops of your title. They're all pretty much devoid of interesting content, the kind of images that pop easily into your head. You can bet that they've been popping into poets' heads since before Shakespeare. You'll have to work a lot harder to surprise us with them. Right now they should be considered placeholder images until you do the hard work to come up with something new an interesting.

Also, I quarrel with your use of the word "does" in the fourth stanza, but I always quarrel with that archaic, musty trick. I'll just ask you: do you talk that way? Do any of your friends talk that way? The challenge for the poet is to harness the language of your own time, make it dance, do tricks and put it through its paces, but all the while keeping it the language of your own time. Basically, if you're going to use the formal structures that you have here, your real task is not to keep your rhymes clean and your meter precise; it's to hide the form inside words that, in a natural reading, sound like they are the words you would have used anyway, that the strict rhythms and rhymes are almost a happy accident.

As I say, I think I'm on fairly strong ground with my preceding observations. Now for the personal opinion part, stuff that is strictly my own preference. Others will differ. Good for them. It's diversity of opinion that makes this a valuable site.

I think you need to rethink your relationship to poetry in general, and, in particular, how it differs from prose. While I wouldn't claim that this is prose arbitrarily broken into lines, there's a prosaic sensibility in the way you approach your topic. I think you're telling us way too much. That's the role of short stories, essays, blog entries or letters to the editor. Right now, your poem is about... well... what it's about. It's a complex topic, one about which many have differing opinions, but you want to avoid using your poem as simply a means to state a position or argue a point. Poetry, by virtue of the fact that it is everything prose is not, offers pathways you're not not taking advantage of—juxtapositions, linguistic shortcuts, wormholes of words that wander freely over an expanded landscape that prose only dreams of. And brevity. Poems at their best do the most with little. Rather than try to cover all the elements you now attempt, you would come up with a stronger poem were you to simply capture a moment, present it to us in the language of immediacy rather than the language of narration, and allow us the space to extrapolate the larger meaning for ourselves. Poems need to leave space for the reader to crawl around in and bring their own experience to the process of interpretation.

I don't doubt that this is a topic about which you feel strongly. But poems that endure, that become part of the canon, do so not because they espouse a particular message. it's because they use language that surprises, that creates its effects in unexpected ways. Language is, in fact, what the poem is always about. Subject is merely the excuse one uses to get to the stuff that matters.
73
73
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: 18+ | (3.0)
Sig for reviews

I must confess that I'm not really up on my Werewolf lore; I've seen some of the movies, of course, including one with Abbot and Costello, but I'm going to trust you to have the terminology and rituals correct. In any event, they're irrelevant to the issues I want to address.

Let's keep it simple: you have one job as a writer and one only, which is to be read. If you don't have readers, you're playing solitaire in the dark. So whatever else you do, wherever your inspiration takes you, you have to keep the readers turning the pages, which means you have to keep them asking that most essential of questions: "Gosh, I wonder what's gonna happen next?"

If they're asking that question, that means that, however you structure your characters, their conflicts and the plot that evolves from them, things are in doubt, the status quo is out of balance and your characters are seeking something they don't now have, or they're trying to avoid something. I think you have a handle on all this Plotting-101 stuff, in terms of the grand arc of your story, though I have no idea yet what it might be. What you need to realize, however, is that you need to bring this sensibility to every element you put in front of the reader. Every scene needs an arc, everything that happens needs to be a problem that requires decisions and actions. Everything, in short, needs to be a story.

You can make stories out of anything: crossing the street in busy traffic, fumbling for your house keys at two in the morning after too much partying, trying to cook breakfast, looking for a gas station in a strange town. You just need to keep asking yourself, not "Who are these characters?" (they can sit motionless in a chair all day long and be who they are) but "What is it that is putting them in motion?" And, of course, the aforementioned "What do they need? What are they running towards, or running away from?" You have two passages that seem to me to sum up the flaws in your approach.

After George dies, and Des is trying to prep Ruby for the drastic shift in her life circumstances, there is this sentence:

She’s done more talking in the past ten minutes than she has in all her twenty-three years, it feels like. At any rate, they have to get out here before more trouble shows up.

It felt that way to me too, truth be told. After a pretty decent opening scene, Des and George descend into the Valley of Yadda Yadda Yadda where your story dies along with George. Rule of thumb: most backstory is unnecessary. What is necessary is to have characters involved in their stories (reference the previous stuff about problems, decisions and actions), and acting consistently with their backstory. Toss a reasonably intelligent reader into the mix, one capable of drawing conclusions and making educated inferences on their own, you can go far with little.

Any details from the past that are truly essential can be slipped in sideways at appropriate points where the action would naturally lag—pausing to light a cigarette, waiting for an elevator to reach the 15th floor, riding uptown in a taxi. Each of those situations would offer different opportunities for exposition, depending on how long the moment itself would last in the present. Lighting a cigarette might be an occasion to reflect about an unanswered question, whereas riding uptown might be an occasion for a much longer stretch of narrative. But any time you make your characters talk about backstory, it's just an info dump, forcing them to say things that wouldn't really need to be said in a real interaction. So go for those interactions, make them consistent with what you already know about where they've come from and how they got here, and focus on making sure your reader keeps turning the pages.

The other passage that raised a red flag is this one:

By cloudy, drizzling midnight, Des was exhausted from carrying Ruby around and keeping to the shadows and alleyways. They were both drenched (which at least muddled their scents in case someone came sniffing after them), and Ruby was coughing rackingly.

Did you notice the entire chapter that was compressed into those two quick sentences? I'm not sure what problems Des might have faced, in the course of becoming exhausted, but I'll just bet you could have made the odyssey interesting. Also, this is the second time you've threatened trouble, only to do nothing about it. The first is in the previous passage I quoted, where you observe that they need to get going before trouble shows up.

Dude, to paraphrase a Chandler short story title: Trouble Is Your Business. No trouble, no story.

I don't need to beat you over the head with this. You're a good writer and your problem isn't the sound, shape and sense of your words. It's how you're using them, the narrative choices you're making. Well, I take that back. You need to decide if you're going to tell this in present tense, or past, and stick to it. There's no way you'll ever be taken seriously if you keep rambling back and forth they way you are now. Also, rethink that cough of Ruby's. If you need to turn an adjective into an adverb (rackingly? Really?) it's time to rewrite the sentence. Maybe let cough be a noun. A hacking, or even a racking cough gets the job done much less clumsily (See? Those adverbs just never sound right).

I think you can turn out a good product. Just dump the info dumps, and don't be afraid to actually give your characters a story. That should do it.
74
74
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Sig for reviews

I like this, in particular the effort to avoid flabby abstractions and the the way you've cut your words down to a spare and lean fighting weight. You can go further. For instance:

Goldens as rich as crops of alfalfa

could become even stronger by losing a couple of those weak beats.

Goldens rich as alfalfa crops.

And here,

Sun, on cue, descends
behind the horizon.

begs the question "Where else is it going to go?"

The thing I'd like to see is for you to develop the images more. Right now, they're mostly static, even when verbs are involved.

this old man skips

baby stars whisper

...moon rises westward

Sun... descends

...waves settle, light blinds

Salted throughout are descriptions of color, but the sense is of ongoing activity that simply continues, unchanging. What are the implications of the images you have chosen? What about that descending sun is going to capture our attention? What is the follow-up? It is in those places that you have an opportunity to open up the range and scope of your poem beyond the immediacy of the moment, where you get to follow the language down whatever paths appear. You do that now in your final three lines, but you could break out of the setting throughout, give the poem multiple layers and meanings.

Not really complaining, because what is here is nicely done. But it's always nice to push the envelop.
75
75
Review of The Bet  
Review by edgework
In affiliation with Unofficial Erotica Newsletter ...  
Rated: 18+ | (3.5)
Reviewed for "The Weekly Quickie Contest" 

A nice sentimental encounter here. I think you have a good handle on the two characters, and once I got a sense of the connection between them, I bought the relationship too. The problem is that it's not immediately clear what the dynamic is. In a story short as this, you can't afford to leave your reader without crucial information for even a sentence. Once we're into the story we realize that the opening conversation, particularly on Christie's part, is the kind of good-natured insults that couples will fall back on when there is mutual attraction but no actual movement forward towards actual interaction. But at the outset, Christie comes off as kind of schizoid: she worked out with some guy that may or may not be a total stranger, she feels contempt for him but is easily talked into having a snack, all the while wasting no opportunity to put him down. It's not until she broaches the topic of John's failed relationship with her friend that we realize there is both history and a personal bond between them. By then you've wasted a major portion of your opening. I say wasted because however it's handled, it's just setup. I think you could find things for them to say that would convey their link much more easily, which would then allow you to fill in the actual story part that you now blast right through, which is John's decision to let her win the bet. That's your story, because that's where John takes control of his own outcome, for reasons that define his character for the reader. We need to see that.

I also note that you cut to the aftermath of your erotic scene, which kind of negates the erotic aspect of the challenge. Still, I like the idea you're working with, I like your two characters and, shucks, I'm just a sucker for sentiment. I enjoyed it.
255 Reviews · *Magnify*
Page of 11 · 25 per page   < >
Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/profile/reviews/edgework/sort_by/r.review_creation_time DESC/page/3