My dear Mia,
It was very nice to open my email the other day and find your quick post and comments on my recent rant about Google’s support of scamming. I try to return the favors of my reviewers by reading something of their efforts and sharing my thoughts.
It is my usual practice, when visiting a new portfolio to read their Bio pages, and then take a quick look at the other reviews they have done. It with the hope that I can glean an idea as to what the writer may be looking for as feedback. Some of our members are experienced authors and use the forum to test new ideas and characters. Others use it to further their education in creative writing, and still others use WDC as a social network, like Facebook only without all the hype. (As you are new, WDC is our shorthand for this our website.)
There are all types of folks on our forum, and I love it because for the most part everyone is genuine and helpful. After you have spent some more time on WDC you will get to know some really wonderful folks. I hope that you will consider me as someone in your growing circle of friends.
I will tell you that I am still learning about this writing stuff. I will hope that you never think that any comments I may make about your writings are meant as negative or a personal statements about you or your skills as a writer.
There are many who offer advice and comment, they mean to be helpful and objective in their reviews. However, sometimes things just don’t come off right. This has happened to me a few times. I send a review and the reviewed thinks I was being a know-it-all. In those instances, I failed to communicate effectively. Which I think, is a dreadful circumstance if one is trying to be a writer. To fight this inadequacy on my part, I now take more time to let the writer I am reviewing know a bit more about where I am coming from.
I have learned that if ones comment comes off in the wrong light; the recipient is very quick to tune you out, even if they bother to finish reading your reviews. So then, the reviewer’s effort is wasted because the recipient did not feel it had any value to them.
I like to take my time with reviews, after all you and the others on our forum spent a lot of time constructing these little squiggling black marks in order to paint a picture of your thoughts. Some are for entertainment, some for education, and some for a chance to let someone see into our souls. Much as you did in this posting that, I just read.
Before I get to deep into discussions about your posting may I share with you a few of the rules I have learned about creative writing. (I have been actively studying them for the last six-years in hopes that one day I may learn enough to be considered knowledgeable.)
First, there is the most important rule, the one, you must never forget.
“Rule # 1. There are NO rules that apply to the art of creative writing!”
Yes, that is the most helpful thing I have learned so far from thousands of pages of interviews of our most critically acclaimed, and most successful authors.
What I think they are trying to tell us is that all creative prose is subjective. Meaning whatever you write, will be loved by one, and loathed by another, and there is nothing you can do about it.
Now, I didn’t take the aforementioned to mean I can write anything I want anyway I want and still expect the big named publishing houses to queue up with huge checks in there hands. No, I learned that if I want to be on the morning shows boasting about my latest New York Time Bestseller. That I will need to consider some of the industry standards that the so-call experts insist we include in our writings.
That last sentence provides for a great segue to rule-two:
“Rule # 2. There are no real experts on creative writing.”
If you have any trouble with this rule, you should refer back to rule number 1. I have found that while there are experts on spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Even they can’t agree on what is correct. That’s why there are a dozen so-called bibles on the subject. Some successful people can offer suggestions, or tell you how they got their writings onto whatever shelf it is sitting on.
In truth, there are not even any expert publishers! If there were, then Dell/Bantam, or Random-House, or any other name of the thousands out there that one might care to plug in. If there were in fact a true expert publisher that knew the exact formula for pleasing all us readers, then they would never have a flop. Every household in the world would have their books on their shelves and nightstands. I could go on for a while about this idea. Instead, I offer that we have thousands of publishers, and millions doing it themselves. Why? See rule two.
Okay, I can hear you all the way at the end of my deadened road in these Florida woods. “Oh my, for the love of God … Joey, 800-plus words, and you haven’t said a blessed thing about my portfolio or its contents.” Did I mention that I don’t use templates, that I just sit down and start typing.
I think that people prefer conversations about their efforts more then a report card analysis. In addition, as this is the first time I am offering my thoughts to you, I wanted to try, and give you a heads up. “Don’t take anything I may offer to heart. If, I sing your praises too loudly, you may get a big head, and do something that you are embarrassed about later. If, I offer some suggestion that I think might improve a paragraph, and you take it, you well may be editing out the one thing that endears that passage to ten-thousand other folks who think I am full of prune-pudding. Just saying, “Reader, Beware!
Now, if you have not decided that I am daft, or touch by lunacy, and you choose to encourage future comment on your writings. I promise to forgo the introduction rhetoric and get to the meat and potatoes much quicker.
First, may I ask you to please trust us a little and share a bit about yourself? Fill out your Bio blocks and page. These little insights are important to folks like me. I use them to try to understand what you may be looking for with regard to feedback.
I like trying to help my fellow writers by sharing things that I have found out about our craft. If you were just sharing thoughts to be sharing, you would not care about comments about writing styles. It also helps with little things. I noted from one of your other reviews that you are British. That is important for a reviewer to know as we Yanks tend to spell things differently. Knowing this saves us both time. We will not note your miss-spelling of ‘Center’ as ‘Centre,’ can you imagine the gall it would in still for one of us yanks, to advice a subject of her Majesty on the correct spelling of the Queens English. Talk about a turn off.
Now, if you have not deleted me yet. A comment or two on your static item {item: 1921591}. This piece has a wonderful heart wrenching quality. I do not believe anyone could read it and not be touch at their very core. To be force to deal with such trauma any time in life is hard enough, but to be in that group of people that must do so, during a holiday, is momentous.
There are no words in any language to comfort for the loss of a loved one, it is only time and love of others that can sustain us, and protect us from the complete insanity of grief. Your story would be inspiring in any forum, or format it was presented in.
I mean, can you imagine what it might inspire in someone who might be reading it in a magazine. Perhaps they are sitting in the waiting room at their local hospital; where their friends spouse had just come in. Or maybe, they were reading on their porch and look up across the street to see the ambulance at the neighbor’s house. What kind of impact do you think your story might have on them?
Your story could make all the difference in the world to someone who was in that same place you talked about, that lost place where life has no meaning. Sharing your story could have profound effect on someone who needs that extra reminder of humanities purpose. My dear, I have no doubt that they might even put a placard over a very special gate, in that celestial place, we all hope exists. Might it read, Mia’s Gate?
You could develop this into anything you wanted, it would sell in any of two dozen different periodicals. You could make it into a novelette, or a full-length novel and be assured of a market. Of course that is assuming you want it to be more than therapy for your soul. If that’s the case, there are dozens of folks here on WDC that would love to help you work on and the making of your story into what ever you might want it to be. I would encourage you to think about doing something more with this piece. To me, it would seem a shame, to not share it with more in the world.
Now that I have said, how beautiful your story is, and that, I think you should pursue doing more with it. I will offer a few observations. Please note that nothing means anything and its value to you is greatly dependent on where you may want to take your story.
I am not a member of the SPAG police. But if I see something I often will give the writer a heads up of what I noticed just to give them a chance to head off the aforementioned English professors who’s comments can sometime sting.
In the sentence below you may want to check for an extra space between “at around”
" In the early hours of the morning on the 21st of December at around 4am my husband woke me up to say he felt very unwell."
On a stylistic note, many successful authors warn about redundancies in our writing. I think you have an example here as well. You tell us the time twice, you say it’s in the early hours of the morning and you say it’s “around 4am”. Maybe you could say it differently. I know you are trying to set a scene for your reader, to give them a sense that this was not some random happening. I think the date is important it sets a foreboding, a foreshadowing that any Christian would instantly see. And depending on your future intent for the story I think you could build on this opening to make it a more concise, and sharper hook. The following is just an attempt to show what I mean:
On December 21st … My husband’s soft moan woke me. I looked over at the alarm, 4:00 am, oh crimmy, it’s early, What’s wrong Hon?”
“Sorry dear, I didn’t mean to wake you; I am not feeling so chipper at the moment.
So in my lame example, I pushed in a little bit of ‘show’ over ‘tell’ by using some internal thought and some dialogue. How much you might want to put into an opening scene is greatly influenced by the venue you are planning to present the story. If you were to look at developing this, say for a magazine submission, then word count is of extreme importance (not that editors, ever let you get away with fluff and filler in any form.)
In this part of the paragraph:
"As a squash and rugby playing aircraft engineer he was fit and healthy as far as we knew. I got out of bed to make him a cup of tea and returned to bed, 4 minutes later he died in my arms from a heart attack, he was only just into his 30s."
You may want a comma after the words “engineer and later”. Also in most style guides they recommend that single digit numbers be spelled out is you go that way then you might want to use; ‘four-minutes later,
I also think if you wanted to drag in more ‘show’ than ‘tell’ … you could do so here … with more dialogue.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know ... my shoulder is hurting something awful.”
“I wonder why, do you think it's from your squash game, or maybe your rugby practice?”
Okay, I am going to take a big chance of loosing you here, with this statement! In your version, you’re 'telling' us, instead of 'showing' us this very crucial component of your story. I don’t know of anything more traumatic than having someone die in your arms.
I speak from some experience as I held my dying brother in his last minutes on this earth. It was very still in the room, and even though there were others there, I couldn’t sense them. I wanted desperately for him to stay even a minute longer, there were ten million things that ran through my mind in those few last seconds. My brain was exploding, it was like bolts of lightning flashing in all directions, I could not focus on any one thing. There was so much to say to him, things that I had forgotten to tell him. I felt completely helpless and lost. I tell you this, without you knowing that I was with him for the whole nine-months that we battled his leukemia. I had all that time to prepare, and yet it was still akin to a bomb going off. That experience, out weights all others in my life so far. How can a statement like:
“4 minutes later he died in my arms from a heart attack.”
Come anywhere close to explaining the horror, shear terror, and the cleaving of one soul in two, and this happened completely without warning. I have held a dying loved one, and I still cannot fathom the desperation of the situation you shared would invoke. But I do know that it is not described in the twelve words you used.
I know this story is about one magic person letting his heart reach out to someone in dire need for that thing that makes us human. But the enormity of his gifts can not be as well appreciated by someone who has not done what we have done. Unless they could be let into that moment, given a chance to share the emotions of that year-long-second of realization, and let to hear that prayer for this not to be true.
I think if you were to be bold, and brave beyond any dream of courage, and let yourself slip back to that moment and put on paper those feeling, raw as they may be, it could have Pulitzer quality. To have that ability, or is it fortitude. I think to share on that level is what makes an author’s efforts transform from the mediocre into greatness.
This is a wonderful story as it is, so don’t worry if you are thinking evil things about me. I surely deserve them for suggesting that you could do more with this inspiring tale of human spirit.
I did spy a few other small things that could be SPAG, but you are likely thinking, “What is wrong with this yank? All I did was say, I liked his little rant, and he has the balls to suggest he knows anything about me, or my writing, what a cheeky bastard!”
Okay, I know I have already said, much more then you most likely want to hear. So I will leave out with only one more comment. Many Christians find it offensive when you take Christ out of Christmas; I always spell it out in my writings, so I don’t get the angry gyres from his devout followers.
On the off chance, that I did not offend you beyond some murderous misgivings. And you might want some further discussion, and or, abuse. I would be more than willing to share a line-by-line critique.
However, if you write back and say, “Joey, go eat worms and die.” I will understand. After all, you would not be the first to think me too bold. I am also turning this review in as part of my efforts for "Invalid Item" the review group that I belong to. Nevertheless, they are not at fault, or responsible for anything I may have communicated poorly. They are trying to teach me how to do this writing thing. However, being a more mature fellow I am not as quick as I once was, so it is taking more time, then it should to learn. I am also flagging this for SM and the staff with Good deeds get Cash It may spur them to read you story to see if I am making any sense at all, though I am more likely to bring tears to their eyes as well.
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