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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.
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Review of Story Maker  
Review by edgework
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Rated: 18+ | (3.0)
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You have enough really good things going on in this story that I almost wish I didn't have to complain about it. Almost. I think you have a good set-up here; my quarrel is with how you've chosen to develop it.

As I read this story, I inevitably thought of Stephen King and began crafting my comments using his stories as the context. Sort of a What would Stephen do? approach. Apparently you anticipated as much; towards the end, you actually incorporate King into your story; you have your main character ask—Wait for it—What would King do?

I don't think he would have a problem with being appropriated in such a way. He does similar things all the time. Usually it takes the form of a bad joke, an obvious cliche, a tired line that he should have known better than to try and use. But sometimes he just can't help himself, so he tries to cheat by giving the line to one of his characters, then having them self-referentially note "Gosh, what a corny thing to say," or some such bit of trickery. It never works but we tolerate it from him because of he's such a savant when it comes to plots, the village idiot who wanders the streets babbling at all hours of the day and night, except that when King babbles, stories fall from his lips fully formed. He might not always deliver them with the most elegant of prose, but he never fails to tell a good story.

Your story is one that he might have thought up. King's contribution to the horror genre was to free it from the realm of fairy tales and plop it right down the middle of Main Street— the gas station on the corner, the Quick Mart in the next block, the school auditorium, the local movie theater, the neighbor's garage... everyday life, into which the fantastic and the supernatural inexplicably intrude.

In your case, Gemma Blackstone wanders into an antique bookstore, in search of... well, we're not sure, and probably neither is she. She just wants to browse. If there's something she's meant to find, like any book lover she'll know it when she sees it. What she discovers, instead, is quite different.

I think it's important to point out what type of plot this is not: what I think of as "The Martian Invasion." You know how that one goes: the meteor impacts with an explosion and right away twenty-story tall beings emerge from the crater and begin vaporizing innocent bystanders. Such an intrusion reaches its full impact right from the get-go. Your characters know at once that things have slipped off the grid: they see the evidence, they get it, and they respond. A bona fide miracle would fit into this category as well: golden coins streaming out of thin air; dead Uncle Herman sitting up in his coffin interrupting his own wake; a blind date turning into a wolf as he drives to the high-school prom. Nothing wrong with such a plot, but it hinges not on the nature of the supernatural intrusion, but instead on the characters' reactions and efforts to survive.

That's not the story you're telling here—at least it shouldn't be. This story is a "Did I Really Just See That?" type of plot. It relies on a time-tested progression as both characters and readers confront the impossible and take the long walk to accepting it as possible. The progression is always similar. First there's utter disbelief, perhaps even a refusal to see what is right before our eyes. Then we have equivocation, where what's seen is accepted, more or less, but dismissed as "coincidence," or maybe "exhaustion," or any of a dozen interpretations, none of which hold up to logic but which still seem more logical than accepting a magical/supernatural interpretation. And then there is the gradual transition from disbelief to belief, during which all manner of emotions are relevant: anger, horror, fear, resistance, terror. We don't handle the unexplained easily, and the only explanation that works continues to seem impossible. But finally the point is reached where psychological explanations just don't cut it and we have to accept the unacceptable. In your case, that would be the moment that Gemma realizes that the curious old bookseller is actually demon whose intent is clearly malevolent.

There's a word for that progression towards belief: it's called story. it is precisely the arc of your main character's shifting awareness of the situation in which they find themselves. The problem you have with your story is that you've frontloaded the whole process. Your demon comes at us like a Martian invader. Almost from the very first, we know what he's about and we see the rest of it coming a mile away. We'll keep reading because you're a good writer and it seems like you might surprise us and take the whole thing in an unexpected direction.

You don't. Instead, when you really need to be getting a plot under way, all you come up with for your two characters is to make them talk about the set-up. It's a good set-up, as I've already stated, but set-ups are not stories—they are the fertile ground in which a true story can take root and grow. You tease us with possibilities but you deliver little. The ending, totally grafted on, has nothing to do with this story and should be junked. Or maybe held in reserve for the novel you might turn this into some day. But as a short story, your scope is inside the book store. That's where you've placed your characters and that's where your plot needs to unfold.

So, where will you find your plot? Unfortunately you don't have a story maker of your own to channel, so you'll have to fall back on basic craft. You need to go back to the drawing board and rethink Gemma, not only in terms of who she is—you seem to have a good handle on that, but she can sit motionless in a chair and be who is—but in terms of what she needs. What is it that will put her in motion, that makes continuing the status quo unacceptable?

You offer some possibilities when you talk about the jocks she tutors and the Halloween party she is planning reluctantly to attend that evening. At the moment such information is simply dumped on us, then ignored. So your first challenge is to figure out how her relationship with the jocks gives a purpose to her book store excursion. If you can't make that connection, get rid of the jocks, the party, even Halloween, since none of them at the moment figure into your story proper at all. (The entire interaction with the demon could take place any time during the year. Halloween is just gratuitous decoration.)

Of course, you'll still need to give Gemma something to motivate her, something she needs, something that is not specifically related to the book store, but which the book store might offer a solution to.

Then there's that whole progression thing; that will require a bit narrative technique on your part. Right now, Gemma (and the reader) knows from the outset that the bookstore is malevolent. There's so much heavy foreshadowing we can't help but get it. But if Gemma had a real world motivation of some sort, that could be what occupies her thoughts and actions and your readers as well. Then you can gradually introduce the growing horror. Maybe let the dust accumulate gradually; perhaps the jack-o-lanterns don't start dripping blood right away and their evil expressions start out as benign gap-toothed carvings; maybe the old man starts out as just an old man; maybe the books are real books at the start, transforming into grimoires and tomes of evil only as things kick into gear.

The challenge at the core isn't at all bad. The demon's demand that Gemma come up with a story is intriguing, but you need to put yourself into Gemma's world, let yourself follow her path as she moves from mundane space to supernatural horror, ask yourself how it might unfold in your own world, how might you respond? Only by placing yourself in the midst of the world you've created will you provide the elements that will allow your readers to do so as well. And unless you manage that trick, they'll never ask that most crucial of questions: Gosh, I wonder what's gonna happen next. Instead, they'll stop reading.
77
77
Review of Pyogenic Mess  
Review by edgework
Rated: 13+ | (2.5)
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Once a writer gets past the nuts and bolts issues of grammar, syntax, word choice and managing the overall sound and sense of the words in use, it is important to stay alert to the expectations you set up for your reader. Otherwise, all the talent and technique in the world will be wasted in pieces that will ultimately be seen to not deliver the goods, however that may be defined by the reader.

The last piece of yours that I looked was an experiment in prose poetry that adopted a post-modern avoidance of subject. Though content-rich, the various elements refused to come together into he kind of logical organization that produces a result apart from and in addition to the words themselves. Very quickly into the piece, it was clear that this was the intention; for a reader willing to take the piece on its own terms, this provided a means of assessing how effectively you met your self-imposed challenge—writing with an emphasis on the music of the words and the non-linear connections between images, letting words create sense rather than being defined by it.

So here we have another prose poem, what you call "an unknown genre, a mix of prose and poetry." Is it really? Once again we must look to the rules you yourself have established for this piece to determine what it is that you are attempting and what you might have accomplished. What we have is a diatribe delivered by a clearly established narrator with an obvious agenda, attitudes and issues; that we don't know the specifics of any of them is the obvious condition that we must address. There's nothing wrong with such an approach, by the way. Most of what is called post-modern writing starts from an assumption that subject is a myth, absolute determinations cannot be made, that resolutions are forever denied us, and that the illusion that we can reach conclusions through language needs to be exploded. In this case, however, rather than being a new genre, I suspect that you have simply failed to commit fully to either prose or poetry. The piece reads like a fragment of a larger tale yet to be written. All your language continually points us in the direction of that larger context; without it actually being provided, the words on their own aren't sufficient to sustain the experience. These lines make the point:

I shove the soggy grain into my mouth because that's what I've been told to do.

When my mother put the tissue to my nose and told me to blow, I blew. It's what I was born to do. It's my spiritual gift, my duty which will serve all of mankind.

Fantasy exists to console the poor soul who's discontent with his present reality.

You cannot see where we are going, you can only see from whence we came. Please close the door on the way out -- we really don't pay to heat the outside.

Not to put too fine an edge on it, but it's just too many words for too little content. They're not interesting enough. You didn't have to work very hard to write them, we don't have to invest anything ourselves to read them. If they were stops along the way toward a greater process—a story, a description of something difficult to comprehend, an innovative take on a familiar problem—then we wouldn't worry about all the little pieces, but instead would measure them against the final result that they produce. But there is no final result. It's not poetry at all, really, just prose that lacks a focus and a purpose.

Suggestion: go back and figure out what this is supposed to be. You have two options. If you are content with the ambiguous context, with pointing us to a destination that we will never reach, well and good. But make the words worth our effort. Make them a feast for the senses and carnival for the mind. Make us work for them, which means force yourself to work for them.

On the other hand, you could just come up with the story of which this is a meaningful segment.

But as it is, neither fish nor fowl, it doesn't satisfy.
78
78
Review by edgework
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Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
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This short piece hides a very long tale inside it's compressed prose. The result is a synopsis, what your story will be about when you write it. I don't doubt that you have the prose chops to do so—your first and last paragraphs demonstrate a facility with words, an ability to describe a setting and efficient time-flow management.

Your two middle paragraphs are the condensed version of the story you need to tell us. Actually, that's not true, or, at least, it shouldn't be the case. Your story begins with the murder and the controntation between Aliya and Bharat. Everything else is setting, context and set up, none of which are stories in themselves and which simply bring the momentum to a halt when you spend too much time on them. if you have a real story in the present, however, you'll keep your reader's attention, and you'll have myriad opportunities to feed us the background information as you go. Keep in mind that you don't have to tell us everything. You don't have to tell us anything in particular. You need to simply keep your characters consistent in relation to the conditions that spawned their present situation; do that and your reader will fill in most of the blanks on their own.

I'd suggest starting with the scene you have now, expand the murder and the confrontation between brother and syster, the latter scene in particular. Don't tell us about it, as you do now. Show it. Let it unfold in real time. Give your reader an opportunity to watch these two siblings in the act of being themselves. Show us how they interact and we'll understand much of the relationship between them, as well as picking up valuable clues to the backstory you now ponderously and inefficiently throw at us in a mad rush. And then, get on with the story.
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Review of The Moon  
Review by edgework
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Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
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You're calling this a "writing exercise," prompted by a photograph. Okay. Mission accomplished. Now, forget the prompt and figure out what needs to be done to turn this "exercise" into a story that a reader will come away from with a sense that it was a journey worth the effort.

Right now, it's not a story. Your main character does nothing, figuratively and literally. The action, such as it is, takes place in a dream world that feels like a rough sketch Christopher Nolan might have come up with as he was forming his ideas for "Inception." It's certainly no crime to borrow ideas. The fatal flaw, whether with borrowed material or original concepts, comes when you present your set up as though it were the actual story. Setups are not stories, they are the conditions out of which stories might take shape. That has not yet happened here, but it could. I would suggest that a place to begin is to exploit the tension between the real world, and the dream world. "Inception" blurred the boundaries to the point that not even the audience was sure which was which. You wouldn't need to go in that direction. There's much potential in a character who finds himself unwillingly tossed back into reality after a 17 year sleep, trying to cope with loss in both his real life, and the longing to return to the dream world. Whichever way he turns, he must give up something. Which means a decision. Bingo. That's when you have the reader thinking, "Gosh, I wonder he's going to do."

However you approach it, you need to make this story about the character himself, not just the conditions surrounding him. Compelling chacters need options; they have to make decisions, take actions and then deal with the consequences. If those consequences are unexpected, well, then more decisions and more actions might be required. An action here, a decision there, pretty soon your talking a real plot. And, as we watch him work through his situation, we'll begin to get a sense of who he is, which sounds suspiciously like character development.

Make us wonder what's going to happen next. This implies, of course, that there is a next. For that to be the case, there also needs to be something happening now, in order that our curiosity might be triggered. But that's what will keep the reader reading. And that, of course, is your only real requirement.
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Review by edgework
In affiliation with Unofficial Erotica Newsletter ...  
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Reviewed for Round 68 of "The Weekly Quickie Contest" 

A nice scene, reminiscent of something out of Frank Capra, both in its mood and the apparent absence of email and Facebook in their lives. It's also old-fashioned in its sentiment, a refreshing switch from our self-aware, smug condescension on all things sweet and tender. A nice slice of life from world all too rare these days.
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Review of Paul  
Review by edgework
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Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
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Bad artists copy; great artists steal.

Legend has it that this idea was put forth by Picasso, though T.S. Eliot is also mentioned in attribution. Truth is, no hard and fast reference exists anywhere that would let us trace its origin, but that hasn't prevented the sentiments from spawning many discussions about the nature of originality and the role of outside influence in the creative process.

I don't know if you're aware of it, but the core of your story has much in common with a short story by Ambrose Bierce, An Occurance At Owl Creek Bridge. I don't consider this an indictment in and of itself, but if you're going to draw heavily on another piece, you don't want to simply copy; you want to take possession of the ideas and make them your own. You've done some of that, but I think you should go further, and it's instructive to see how the original handled it.

If you aren't familiar with the Bierce story, you can read it here  . It's a genuinely short short story. Or you go to this YouTube link   and watch the far superior French production from the early sixties which Rod Serling featured in a Twilight Zone episode. I still remember his voice coming in at the end: "An occurance at Owl Creek Bridge in two forms: as it was dreamed, and as it was lived; and died."

The short story gets the job done but the prose is pedestrian, relying heavily on narrative and flashbacks. The film short, however, is masterful. There is no dialog, just camera work and characters in motion. The set-up is as spare and minimal as possible, giving us what we need to know but no more. A prisoner about to be hanged is seen to miraculously cheat the executioner in a way that is none-the-less plausible. And so we are drawn in to his efforts to escape, unconcerned with the reason he was on the scaffold, cheering him on, wanting him to succeed. It's a shameless bit of audience manipulation and it's done well. The conclusion, when his neck snaps at the end of the rope, just as he embraces his love waiting for him in the glade, nearly snaps our own necks as well from whiplash, so unexpected and wrenching is the transition from the imagined sequence to the actual.

You have some good elements already in place and I'd say that your prose is certainly up to the task. The section where Paul comes to grips with the reality of his situation is powerful and well staged. What you're missing is a story for him in the present that would misdirect your reader. His story has already taken place, a long series of downturns in his life that have brought him to this moment of ultimate despair. But in the time frame of the actual story you are telling, the surprise you seek is not present simply because you've offered no alternative for us to become involved in. We encounter him at the outset with a gun in his mouth (I liked the stuff about the composition of gun oil; that felt believable), he pulls the trigger, spends a second or two thinking he changed his mind, but then dies and is taken off to heaven by a mysterious angel.

The whole redemption thing at the end feels grafted on. I don't think your readers will expect it or demand it. But what they will want, since you are working with a surprise ending, is to be genuinely surprised. Right now, you simply tell us one thing, then quickly change your mind and say "Just kidding." Don't do that. Go back and give this man a story that your readers will follow, accept as the true story, and then, when the truth is revealed, experience the shock you desire for them.
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Review of For Sale by Owner  
Review by edgework
In affiliation with Unofficial Erotica Newsletter ...  
Rated: 18+ | (4.5)
Reviewed for Round 64 of "The Weekly Quickie Contest" 
Prompt: A dead relationship unexpectedly revives.

Not much to say about this. It's a nice piece of work. It's a captivating scene presented in crisp, sure prose. The characters are believable, as is their interaction. You offer just enough back story to ground us, but you never tell us more than we need to know. Good writing.
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83
Review by edgework
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Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
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Entertaining, with highly decorative language that races along like an old jalopy on a two-lane blacktop. I could imagine you not even pausing to breathe as you wrote this.

It's a good use of the prompt (a turkey on the farm speaks out against Thanksgiving), but a story like isn't so much read as experienced. It truly is a ride and once we get into the groove of it, there's no stopping until we're at the finish. It's a fun ride too. You stake your claim on the urgency and forward movement of your language, and it's a good bet, more poetry than prose.

I enjoyed this.
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Review of Billie Holiday  
Review by edgework
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Rated: E | (4.5)
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I like this a lot, mostly because you are exploiting the language instead of just using it to convey information. I don't know if you've succeed at all points; on the other hand, that's probably more a factor of personal preference on my part rather than an objective critique.

One thing that occurred to me is that for language that is attempting to capture the rhythms of jazz singing, the rhythms of your lines are a bit indistinct. They're not soft and flabby by any means, a function of bad scansion containing too many weak beats compared to strong. It's the opposite problem really: it's almost all strong beats which becomes a different kind of rhythm deficit. But more of a problem is the inconsistency of meter from line to line. For example, a couplet like

See these greasy, sleazy cats

In to get me, into thievery

rolls off the tongue effortlessly. The following three lines, however,

Jack! I spend big, lend big, drink big, sink big, talk big, walk big, snort big, snuff big

Ain't got no time

Save my money, save myself

while strong in themselves, don't seem to be connected to the previous lines. I'm not advocating a fixed meter here, but I think you might recast some of your lines in a way that makes them flow more easily one to the next.

Also, note that each line is a complete unit, not only rhythmically, but in terms of ideas and images. A powerful technique that is exclusive to poetry is the ability to carry thought, images and rhythms across the line break, opening up variations never to be found in prose. You avoid this potential, and you shouldn't.

Kudos, however, for writing something that stakes its claim on the language itself, rather than it's message, story or the correctness of its ideas.
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85
Review by edgework
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Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
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You get mad props for writing something that is all content and no subject. It's tricky, ambitious and difficult to do in such a way that you capture a reader's interest purely through the sound and shape of the words, apart from anything external that they might refer to. You don't always succeed; there are some pretty lame lines here. But to even try is admirable.

You call this abstract writing. That's not really correct. It is, rather, fairly conventional writing that uses imagery and concepts that intentionally do not link together in a cause and effect chain. Your first two stanzas are strong. Not just colorful and rich in sense data, there is a music to your phrases that provides the sense of connection and progression that the disjointed ideas themselves don't attempt.

Stanza three gets a little sloppy. The first sentence, And besides all of this, can anyone blame the blamed? is the kind of question a poet asks of the audience when he doesn't know how to deliver the goods. You do it again in the next sentence, but this one succeeds for all the reasons the first sentence fails. Unfortunately, the rest of the sentence collapses into preachy prose that we'll endure, but only because we're hoping you'll get back on track.

You don't, unfortunately. Instead you drop in on another part of the conversation, referring to things apart from the words themselves, but it's still just prose. To pull off something like this, you need to make every phrase count; you need to write poetry everytime you hit a character key, including the commas and periods.

I'm going to show you a sample of genuine abstract writing that never fails to captivate and engage, and never drifts into prose.

These are from a poem called "Fragment," by John Ashbury. Like you, he is capturing snapshots of a stream of thought, referencing indistinct elements that are external to the words themselves and having a conversation with undefined others.


The last block is closed in April. You
See the intrusions clouding over her face
As in the memory given you of older
Permissiveness which dies in the
Falling back toward recondite ends,
The sympathy of yellow flowers.
Never mentioned in the signs of the oblong day
The saw-toothed flames and point of other
Space not given, and yet not withdrawn
And never yet imagined: a moment's commandment.

These last weeks teasing into providential
Reality: that your face, the only real beginning,
Beyond the gray of overcoat, that this first
Salutation plummet also to the end of friendship
With self alone. And in doing so open out
New passages of being among the correctness
Of familiar patterns. The stance to you
Is a fiction, to me a whole. I find
New options, white feathers, in a word what
You draw in around you to the protecting bone.

This page only is the end of nothing
To the top of that other. The purity
Of how hard it is to choose between others where
The event takes place and the outside setting.
Day covers all this with leaves, with laughter and tears.
But at night other sounds are heard
Propositions hitherto omitted in the heat
Of smoke. You can look at it all
Inside out for the emblem to become the statue
Of discipline that rode in out of the past.

There are 50 of these stanzas, all ten lines long. One gets the feeling he could go on for days at this. 28 stanzas in, he hasn't missed a beat:

But now the tidings are dark in the
Expected late afternoon suddenly dipping into
Reserves of anxiety and restlessness which dutifully
Puff out these late, lax sails, pennants;
The vertical black-and-white-striped weather indicator's
One sign of triumph, a small one, to stand
For universal concessions, charters and deeds to
Wilderness or the forested sea, cord after cord
Equaling possession and possessiveness
Instantaneously extending your hesitation to an

Empire, back lands whose sparsely populated look is
Supreme dominion. It will be divided into tracts
And these be lived in the way now the lowered
Angles of this room. Waxed moustache against the impiety
Of so much air of change, but always and nowhere
A cave. Gradually old letters used as bookmarks
Inform the neighbors; an approximate version
Circulates and the incident is officially closed.
And I some joy of this have, returning to the throbbing
Mirror's stiff enclave, the sides of my face steep and overrun.

So many ways grew over to this
Mild decline. The grave of authority
Matches wits with upward-spinning lemon spirals
Telling of the influences of night, so many decisions
Not to act accruing to the outward stretches.
The civilities of day also creep
To extremities, fly on a windowpane, sweeping
The changed refuse under the rug. Just one step
Takes you into so much outside, the candor
Of what had been going on makes you pause momentarily,

A bag of October, without being able to tell it
To the others, so that it loses silence.
I haven't made clear that I want it all from you
In writing, so as to study your facial expressions
Simultaneously: hesitations, reverse darts, the sky
Of your plans run through with many sutured points.
Only in this way can a true basis for understanding be
Set up. But meanwhile if I try to turn away
Looking for my own shadow in the excess
Like quarreling jays our heads fall to in agreement.

I think you have something like this in mind, and you'd certainly be in good company were you to allow yourself to be influenced by Ashbury. This particular poem was written in the early 70s, so the problem is, it's already been done. Nothing wrong in doing it yourself, but you need to understand that there is an entire body of writing out there that is mining the same vein as you. You should read the poets responsible, starting with Ashbury (He's still writing but for my money nothing he wrote after 1985 is worth the trouble). Check out http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/ for a massive archive of writing that pushes the boundaries in all directions. It also has some splendid articles—my favorite: "Poetry in Turbulence (or how to enjoy poetry without really understanding it)."

I'd like to see where to take your writing. You have good instincts. You just need to acquire a better sense of what's actually going on out there so you won't spend a lot of time reinventing the wheel instead of developing your own unique voice.
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Review by edgework
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Rated: ASR | (3.0)
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You have a good start with this piece, though what, precisely, it should lead to is up for grabs. More on that in a moment.

You have a fairly good handle on the written form of the language; sentences, paragraphs, scenes and descriptions all have a natural feel to the way they flow. We don't have to fight with them to make sense of what you're saying. One major problem, though easily remedied, is your careless wandering back and forth from past to present.

Your first two paragraphs are clearly in past tense, evidenced by constructions such as She watched in horror... She ached with every twitch...

In paragraph three you start in past tense and then jump into present when she turns on the light.

As with the first seizure episode of the evening, which only ended less than two hours before, it started with the typical moaning and agitated fidgeting that she’d grown accustomed to. Then the foot flick while he holds his breath; that’s when she turns on the light so she can see it all and make sure he doesn’t hurt himself worse than the convulsions themselves.

You spend most of the rest of the piece in past tense, but then the last two paragraphs slip back into the present. Stuff like that is so easy to catch, failure to do so leads to all manner of speculation regarding the seriousness of your intent, speculations you really want to avoid.

So, on to the larger questions. I'll ask them here, but you need to ask them of yourself first, each time you start out to write something. Otherwise you won't know why you're writing.

First question: what's the intent? What are you trying to accomplish with this? Closely aligned with this question is the second question you need to ask: who are you writing for? Once you know who you're writing for, and what effect you want to create for them, then you can move on to the third question: what is the proper structure to accomplish your purpose?

Right now, what you have is more or less an anecdote, though one usually thinks of those in a humorous context and this certainly is not funny. However, like all anecdotes, it is simply an account of something that happens, more or less presented transparently with no editorializing or artistic license. The events themselves are their own justification, but the entire effect is one dimensional and exists solely on the surface.

It could easily be part of a larger essay on the general subject of seizures and the special needs they generate if one so afflicted is to live something akin to a normal life. The deeply personal tone of the writing suggests that it might be biographical. If not, it still provides the up-close-and-personal description that can so effectively supplement the more informative though much drier passages.

It could also become a story. It's not one yet. It's a set-up for a story, the conditions out of which a story might grow. For that to happen, your narrator / main character would need to acquire an arc of her own, one complete with intentions, goals, and obstacles. How would her husband's condition impact on her own story? Decisions have implications and actions have consequences. What choices would she have to make as a result of this unique situation? What actions would she take? What would be the unintended consequences? Those are what your story would be about, not, as is currently the case, the husband's seizures.

Whatever your choice, I think this could definitely be taken further; if you do, I'd love to see the result.
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Review of untitled 1  
Review by edgework
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Rated: 13+ | N/A (Review only item.)
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You mention in your review request that I've reviewed previous stories of yours and tended to be a bit harsh. It's been said before, and maybe it's true, but it's nothing personal. I do remember that I thought on more than one occasion that you clearly had some interesting plots cooking, but that your marrative choices weren't maximizing their potential. So get ready; I'm going to say the same thing about this piece.

First the good stuff. You've lightened up your style a good deal and it makes for prose that is enjoyable, and readable. There's a confidence in the way you present your material and it puts the reader at ease, giving them the sense that in terms of craft, at least, you're not going to jolt them with unintentional howlers or misplaced tenses. First person present isn't the easiest POV to write, but you mange it well. The danger is that since you are, by definition, already in your narrator's head, you'll spend way too much time there, giving us lots of internal reflections while forgetting the action and dialogue. So far, you seem to be avoiding that trap.

You have three characters and I want to know more about them, which is good. It's early in the proceedings and I can't speak to how you'll develop things, but once again, you have good story ideas knocking around in your brain.

Alas, once again, you're not doing your ideas justice. I'm not sure I can give you any better advice than "Slow down!" You are racing through all your plot points without paying attention to them. The result is that you end up telling us about your story, when what we want is for you to just tell it. For example, these paragraphs near the opening:


Cody’s been my best friend since we were eight. We’re thirty now. He’s got three months on me. I’m probably the only one that knows and can spell his real name: Vsevlod Khodykamovich. You can probably tell why he goes by “Cody”. Hint: it’s easier on the world.

As it happens, tonight there was a shindig in lower Manhattan – the Hyatt at Grand Central to be exact. I’m still not clear on who threw the event, the investment bankers or Cody. Anyway, Cody sold his software company to some conglomerate and pocketed a few hundred million. Apparently, that’s reason enough for Wall Street boys to get jiggy.

Cody didn’t stick around long. He ditched me and left with a girl. Funny, he drove down with me and left with her. Good think I had a metro card on me. But to be fair, I did become quite familiar with a cute redhead with a Boston accent, but nothing extraordinary there. The girl, not the accent.

So I think I have reason to resent. Half my paycheck goes to the two room Bronx apartment I rent and the bohemian lifestyle only works if you’re wealthy.

Don't look now, but that was Chapter One that just whizzed past in a blur of condensed summarization. If it's not chapter one, then the problem is that you expect us to take at face value Cody's importance to your main character's life, so that when he suddenly shows up and starts running the show, we're going to simply say, "Okay, now Cody's running the show."

No. That's not what's going to happen. We're going to maybe take your word for it that Cody is who you say he is, but truth is, we're not going to care, because we have no experience of Cody, nothing invested in him and no sense of how these two old friends actually relate to each other. You have given us an quick outline of the scene that would have answered all our questions, and, if you're up to the task, entertained us in the process, drawn us into your main character's story and definitely made us ready to see things advance and escalate. Then, when Cody's car horn starts beeping at 3am (probably the start of Chapter two), we won't know what's coming, but we'll be ready for it and we'll be expecting it.

You do realize, don't you, that this is a novel you're writing, not a short story? That might explain why you think you have to shoehorn everything into a tiny little short story container. But already you've suggested several scenes, each of which would require a short story structure of their own. That's what novels are, sequences of smaller stories that lead from one to the next in a steady progression. They're called chapters in a novel but structurally they need to do the same as a short story: take your characters from one place, state or condition and transport them to someplace else. They don't need the finality of a short story's resolution; instead they have to prepare us for what comes next. Still, they need a beginning, middle and ending.

That's why I said that the unwritten party scene is really your first chapter. It comprises a complete element and progression of events that exists within a larger context. Here's another potential chapter that you overlooked, the scene where actors audition for the planned movie:

The turnout is higher than I expect. Some bomb the part, others pass. A few shine.

Maybe it's not a full chapter's worth, but I can imagine much that is useful and entertaining as well hidden behind that bland piece of condensed prose. And like the party scene, it allows you to show your characters in action, interacting. That in turn gives you a opportunity to feed all sorts of relevant information to the readers without seeming to.

So far it seems that you've just started to write stuff down without a clear sense of organization. You know that you want them to make a movie and you plunge headlong into that endeavor, but you're not paying attention to the stories that are (or should be) unfolding under the surface. In order to do that, you're going to have to make some fundatmental choices about Cody and your main character (does he have a name? If so, I missed it). You need to decide who your protagonist is going to be. Right now it would appear to be Cody, since he is the one who is driving the action and whose interests are being served. Nothing wrong with having a main character who is different from the protagonist, but it is important to understand their different roles in the larger story structure.

There is a subjective, inner story anchored by your main character. His is the reader's point of access to the emotional/psychological dimension of what is taking place, and it is his needs, wants, objectives and problems that we will identify with. Unless he proves himself to be unreliable, or intentionally objectionable, our measure of the story will in a large part be our measure of the main character.

The protagonist, on the other hand, is the anchor for the outer story, those events beyond the immediate scope of the main character, things that impact on his personal arc and ultimately conflict with it, requiring him to make decisions and take actions. Right now, Cody certainly fulfills the requirements of a protagonist, visiting his particular vision on your main character, but there is as yet no main character arc. Cody might drive the action, but it isn't his story, it's the main character's story and it is his evolution and transformation that will provide depth and an emotional connection for your reader. He's the one we will care about. If his only function is to serve as a window through which we get to watch Cody, you don't need him at all, and you should recast your story with Cody as both the main character and protagonist. You'll still need an inner story and an outer story, but they'll both be Cody's, and the conflicting demands that each makes on him will provide the dramatic tension needed to push your plot forward.

I don't, actually, see you taking that course. What you need to do, however, is give your main character a name, and then give him a storyline that is focused on something other than his relationship with Cody. He needs to be striving for something himself, or else we'll have nothing to cheer for.

Michaela is interesting and certainly has potential, but like Cody, we're insufficiently prepared for her to appreciate her when she appears. We're told she's important, but that's not going to make us care. Right now your main character tells Cody he wants her in the film, Cody says fine and that's it. All his passion—perhaps obsession—is delivered second-hand. An argument would help. That way you could at least show your main character being passionate about his choice, instead of you simply letting the audience know how he feels.

Actually, arguments are always good. Right now your main character is far too docile in the face of Cody's full court press. He's a little in awe of Cody, of course, but what's missing is the resentment. It's alluded to, but once again, you don't actually show it. It is the conflict between these two characters and their respective story lines that will make us keep reading. If they get along, or one calls all the shots and the other willingly follows, where's the tension in that?

You gotta keep us turning the pages.
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Review of Beest  
Review by edgework
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Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
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By the time I got to the third sentence, you'd won me over. So much about this story is truly fine, I almost feel bad about complaining. Almost. Actually, it's easy to complain about a story like this; the things that still need attention stand out sharply against the background of general excellence.

Your style makes for prose that is highly readable. You handle dialogue effortlessly and your descriptions are both visual and engaging. But more than these utilitarian fuctions, you have the ability to chat with your readers. Passages that would be ponderous back story or needless asides in the hands of a lesser writer become entertaining anecdotes that stand on their own. It's a good trick, one that eludes many.

Unfortunately, it is both blessing and bane. You chat so easily, you end up talking far too much, when what you should be doing is getting on with your story. The fact that it's a strong story makes the added padding all the more unnecessary. Let me take that back: it's not padding really, since it's all relevant. But you need to remember that every time you tell us something about the past, or you take a trip into your main character's inner thoughts, nothing is happening in the present. Your characters are just standing around waiting for the action to pick up again. And your readers will eventually get tired of the digressions, no matter how cleverly written.

I won't suggest where you should cut, where you should rewrite. I'll only suggest that some measure of both is called for. It's important for you to be aware of all the background elements of course, but it's not necessary to tell us everything. It's not required, actually, that you tell us anything in particular. The essence of a short story is that it's a single moment, effect, result, activity, progression carved out of a larger context. As long as your characters act consistently within that context, you can get away with telling us very little. And if you keep them in motion, you will have myriad opportunities to salt the narrative with relevant decorative details, without breaking the flow of the action.

All that's really required is that you keep us turning the pages, and when you have a story like this one, your characters will do the work for you. Just don't get in their way.
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Review of CHARLIE HEART  
Review by edgework
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Rated: 18+ | (2.5)
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There is an assumed contract between writer and reader that is in effect every time one approaches a new story. We, the readers, are willing to follow your lead and let you take us wherever you will. We grant you an assumption of good will and return the same and agree to hang in there with you, even if we're not sure what's going on, trusting that you won't derail your narrative and, in the process, waste our time. Your part of the agreement is to not waste our time. That means, however demanding your writing might prove to be, you need to give back at least as much as you ask of us, and probably a little more.

So when you begin your intro to the book (not the book itself, but simply your introductory comments) with this sentence:

And yes! the grammar and tenses needs some major help.

a sentence, I might point out, that demonstrates precisely this need and deficit (need, not needs), you announce at the outset that we're going to be in for a rough ride, for reasons that have nothing to do with the actual writing. Further, you clearly acknowledge that you are aware of this problem, and, for whatever reason, that's okay with you. You've cranked out eighteen chapters so far and we have no reason to assume that any of them will be presented in a commonly accepted version of the language. For a native speaker of English, or one who's acquired sufficient proficiency in its use, mistakes like the one I mentioned are nothing more than pebbles in ones shoe. Over time, (certainly before the eighteenth chapter) they will defeat even the most generous of readers.

So. You start with a self-imposed deficit, carelessly squandering a major portion of the good will that we bring to the table. And you provoke a response in your readers that you always want to avoid: you cause us to question your motives and priorities, not your characters'. Never a good thing.

Still, I've waded through worse, in terms of craft clumsiness; the reason I'm pointing it out at all is that you have some decent prose chops at your disposal. Your language is harsh, unpleasant even, but that's no indictment. Harsh and unpleasant can conjure up some fairly dramatic moments when properly applied, and I can see where you want to take this. So let's pass beyond grammar and syntax (get a book on grammar and learn the basics: You wouldn't take an illustration to an editor and say, "Yeah... okay, the skin's green, but look at the linework.") and move on to some issues that you can't find in a book. These solutions have to come from inside.

You need to differentiate between your relationship with your characters, your relationship with your story, and your relationship with your readers. The problem I have, (and, craft issues aside, the main reason I was only able to get through two chapters) is that while it's perfectly fine to create an objectionable, obnoxious main character (he's simply an unreliable narrator, a common device, requiring the reader to look beyond the surface of narration to discern the truth), you want to avoid presenting such a character in a story that is equally objectionable and obnoxious. As of this reading, I detect no distinction between your attitude towards Charlie, and your intent for the story. This goes back to the contract I mentioned: a character like Charlie demands much of a reader. But a story that simply takes him at face value, blandly accepting everything he offers without comment or distance, gives nothing back to the reader for their effort. Bottom line, after two chapters, I find your story to be as nasty as Charlie is, and this, once again, shifts our focus from the elements of your story onto you yourself. We wonder, what's this guy up to? Why is he writing this, and... unfortunately, why are we reading this?

Perhaps it's unfair to judge a story after only reading one-ninth of the text. My fairness or lack of it is an issue that I'll have to deal with and answer for in my own time. For you, what is relevant is that, for this reader at least, you blew through all the currency in your good will account after only two chapters, at which point I determined that the story was essentially unreadable. And it's my job to read the stuff I review. An innocent bystander would probably have given up much more quickly.

I'll repeat: you have decent prose chops. I think you're using them carelessly. Perhaps you might read a little less Bukowski, a bit more Faulkner.
90
90
Review by edgework
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Rated: E | (3.5)
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This is nicely written. You have a clear, clean style, visual and decorative without being self-indulgent or getting in your own way. Your recollections of a mid-west childhood are vivid and appealing and, as you suggest, they paint a picture of a simpler life.

So now I'm going to be a jackass and ask the one crucial question that you're going to have to learn to ask first of everything you write: So what?

Why should I care? After the first three or four paragraphs, we kind of get it: there's this memory, then that memory, then some more. While each one is well written, it gets to be more and more of the same. Just one thing after another. You know... like real life.

You mention in your bio block that you're returning to creative writing after a long career as a professional grant writer. Clearly you have a solid foundation upon which to build. Your prose sounds just fine, and I've no doubt you could use it to present any vision that pops into your thoughts. So let's talk about the content to which you bring this formidable craft, and how you might structure your content to produce something that will prompt a reaction in your reader other than my snarky question.

If you read the intro to my forum, I observe that the worse possible defense for a story is "But that's just the way it happened!" And, of course, the proper response to such a defense is always, "So what?" Unless you're an objective journalist <waits for laughter to subside>, what actually happens in the real world is usually nothing more than a starting place or inspiration. There are no stories in real life; only stuff happening. Which is what you've give us. FIrst this happened... then that happened... then some other stuff happened. And, actually, for the most part there aren't actual things happening—not specific things. They are general classes of things. For example:

Staying up past the school year bedtime hour was always a good thing, in my learned opinion. Crickets chirping… frogs croaking…locusts whirring… the latent smell of fresh cutgrass… all culminated into a sharp relief of summertime freedom. On clear starry nights, several neighboring adults would stretch out on green and white woven plastic lawn chairs in my backyard and stare for hours into the black heavens while searching for a bright satellite the size of a pinpoint.

Nicely presented, and we certainly get the intended sensory information. But these are categories of activities; there are nights when you stayed up past your bedtime, there are the clear starry nights when several neighboring adults would stretch out on the green... the implication, based solely on the structure of your language, is that these are situations that occurred more than once... regularly in fact, and that the activities described are actually patterns of behavior.

The result for the reader is a fuzzy narrative buffer between them and the actual moments under discussion. There is no experience for the reader to participate in other than a narrator narrating. What we need is not starry nights, but one starry night in particular, where specific characters do something that actually unfolds before us. You touch on this effect with Dad and the June bug, and later with the fathers setting up archery practice, but most of your prose is conditional: if these conditions were in effect, these actions would tend to result.

But, you say, you're not really trying to tell a story. Nonsense. Sure you are. Stories are narratives that begin one place and end in a different place, with some sort of transformation taking up the time between. Sometimes the transformation is only in the audience's perception of events. Sometimes it's an argument for a point of view, or a way of describing something that creates a new appreciation of what might have seemed familiar. And sometimes it's about characters, the things that happen to them and the changes they go through as they respond, react and deal with their problems.

You have the potential here for any number of approaches, but what you're going to have to do is answer that question: "So What?" What's the point of this exercise? If your intent is to simply dredge up memories, okay, you've done your job. Our response is "That's nice." Maybe in those of us similarly aged there might be a point of reference triggering our own memories. But it's a surface reaction for content that exists solely on the surface. Is there something beneath the surface? Is there a problem inherent in all the sweetness and light? An unexpected interpretation of the conditions presented?

Whatever your purpose, whatever point you wish to make, you need to provide your narrative with an arc, a progression, that movement from A to B and a sense of what the transition between the two entails. You've done an admirable job of presenting us with the raw data of a way of life. Now you must find the story inside this data, lash it together in such a way that it has shape, direction, purpose... yes, even that overworked term, meaning.
91
91
Review by edgework
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Rated: E | (3.5)
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I've read this a few times. For such a short piece it presents a bit of a problem for a reviewer. I have to ask myself, "What is this?" and also, "What, exactly, am I supposed to be reviewing?"

One thing that it is not, is a story. A progression of sorts is suggested, but clearly it is in the past. There are certain conditions in the present that grow out of those past events, but they are simply presented as conditions; they don't lead to any sort of plot. Nor do we have access to any characters other than the absent father. There are no character arcs. The father's is suggested, but we don't get to experience his evolution: again, it's all in the past. The whole thing is a little like showing up at a party and being told, "Dude, you should have been here earlier. Lot's of cool stuff went down."

But all this is beside the point, since you're not really trying to write a story. You are sending a message, one that, I assume, cuts deeply on a personal level with you. Understand, I find the message totally worthy and one that certainly needs to be promulgated. It is, quite obviously, a message beyond debate and criticism, one that allows for no grey areas. I suspect that even hard-core nicotine addicts would agree with all that you say.

But again, I must ask myself, what is there for me to do? I can complain that it's not a story, but since you aren't trying to write a story, that would just be self-indulgent on my part. And no one can complain about your message.

What I can do is to suggest ways that you might turn the impulse behind this piece into a creative work of fiction. What that would require is to remove your message from the center-stage spotlight where it now calls all attention to itself, and place it where it properly belongs: in the background, silently working on the characters, providing a force-field within which they take actions and make decisions and face implications and consequences. In other words, make it your theme, and construct a plot and character arcs around it.

What might that plot consist of? Who knows? Not me, certainly; it's not my story. But the possibilities are infinite. A father who departs this world too soon, leaving behind a devoted family, certainly suggest much unfinished business, interrupted projects and gaping holes, both tangible and emotional. Rather than simply have those conditions referred to, show us the surviving members as they have to take steps to deal with the situation. Dad feels a bit of remorse in your letter; his survivors more likely feel anger along with their sorrow.

Anger is good. In fiction, anyway. it's what's called a motivating condition. Likewise remorse, guilt, frustration, despair. People who are happy, who enjoy each others' company, who have an optimistic outlook and whose life circumstances pretty much affirm that optimism are to be envied in the real world. In fiction, however, shun them. Banish them all the way to someone else's story because they'll suck the life out of yours. You suggest a whole host of characters whose lives have been turned upside down. The cause of that disruption is not your story. It is, rather, the fertile ground in which a story might take root.

Right now you allow a (literally) detached narrator state the case with a mixture of logic and emotion. But much is left out, and it is in the tormented after shocks that disrupt the lives of the surviving family that you will uncover the drama, and truth, implied by your theme.
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92
Review by edgework
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Rated: 18+ | (3.0)
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First the good news: this is a poem, as opposed to prose arbitrarily carved into uneven lines and pretending to be a poem. You're allowing it to do things that prose does awkwardly. Lines like I have already lost faith in this meal, would stick out clumsily in prose. Context would be called for, explanations, references... who knows. You probably wouldn't try it in prose. But in a poem, you have the liberty to insert a line like that into a description of breakfast preparations and all it does is expand the linguistic space and open the piece up to greater possibilities.

Now the bad news: you can't quite believe that writing a poem is enough. How else to explain such abominations as

i smile because it is not like the pain from the rocks
that sit at the bottom of my lungs or else lodge
in my ventricles—rending my heart.

Understand, it's not wrong, or necessarily bad—well, it's a little over the top—but it's just prose.

Here's another clunker ripped from the jaws of elegance:

i watch, beside myself, as a cracked egg
leaks onto the pan, unimpressed with perfection
as its sweet yolk spoils the pure white.

Despite all the colorful imagery, the only thing actually happening is i watch. It's a poem; one that is personal; you're narrating. If something is seen, we're able to intuit that you are doing the watching. Get out of the way and bring your experience to the fore so that we can make it our experience as well.

Still, both those instances are well-intentioned, and there is much that is useful in each of them, both beneath the surface, and in terms of the potential of what they might evolve into. This next line, however, can only be forgiven, never excused. And the forgiveness would be contingent upon your solemn oath never to try anything like it again:

I plate this slop I cannot unmake;

Take notes: good writing is not about finding complex, obscure ways of restating what is simple. Bertie Wooster on occasion was known to trouser his legs as part of his morning preparation for the coming day, but, truth be told you're no P.D. Wodehouse, and I doubt even Wodehouse could get away with it today. It's true that in poetry, unlike prose, the entire point of the language is to call attention to itself as an element separate and apart from the content that it conveys, but we want that attention to provoke a "Gosh, I wish I'd written that," type of response, not a groan. Let nouns be nouns and verbs be verbs. Enough said.

This poem comes in at 25 lines. The biggest problem is that you haven't allowed yourself to purge the prose instincts from your thinking. There's nothing wrong with your images or the thinking behind the piece. You just need to streamline it. Insert yourself only when necessary (as in the first line I referenced), and seek always to strive for the language of immediacy, rather than language of bland, prosaic narration. Anywhere you suspect a narrator is telling us stuff, cut, cut cut, until all that's left is the stuff itself.

My challenge for you is to cut this down to 15 lines. It can be done, and you'll gain a valuable lesson in the difference between prose and poetry. You're halfway there. Finish the lesson.
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Review of Burning Orange  
Review by edgework
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Rated: 13+ | (2.5)
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I reviewed another of your stories not too long ago, "Planted" , and so it's natural that I note areas of similarity, and places where this story differs from that one. One difference is that you have a genuine story in mind here, one that takes characters from one state or condition at the opening, puts them through a series of events that require them to make decisions and take actions, and which leave them in a different place at the end. Where you are falling short is in the narrative choices you make, choices that undercut the story, the characters and, ultimately, the impact on the reader.

You need to start thinking about the narrative environment in which your story takes place. By that I do not mean the location of the plot. Each story creates a unique space for itself which is a function of the narrative voice; the relationship of that voice to the characters and their situations; and the tone of that voice, which determines the perspective the story brings to those characters. Is it ironic? Disapproving? Wholly supportive? Is it unreliable? An accounting of the same events can be perceived in vastly different ways depending on how those events are narrated.

The narrative environment is also depends on the relationship between the reality within the story and what we might think of as the real world outside the story. Do we think these things really happened? Or really could happen? Or have the elements been exaggerated for one effect or another? Do we take the story at face value, or is it metaphor?

There are no right choices to be made when deciding on the tone and context of your story. All that is required is that you be consistent. Don't start with an exaggerated cartoon, and then expect us to not notice if the character suddenly morphs into a normal, ordinary person. Don't swap out narrators in the middle of the story.

Your story opens with the narrator front and center, editorializing on the content, injecting clues both subtle and not so subtle that suggest how we are to interpret the unfolding action. Unfortunately, it all adds up to much about little, bringing a detached, interpretive tone of voice to what are really a simple set of activities. It's not hard to figure out what's going on; what's difficult to understand is why you made it so complicated.

Bright orange stands out strikingly against a cloudy, melancholy sky. As that is a fact that cannot be argued with, even by good taste, Stacy Scott’s frumpy orange dress was inarguably striking. This was the thought that possessed a scruffy but thoughtful man, with the grime and bearing of a mechanic, as he glanced up from his cigarette. He caught sight of a plump and wobbling woman stomping down the hill towards his garage. He took a quick puff on his cigarette before he huddled over it protectively, as if waiting for a violent wind to pass.

Paragraphs need to build effortlessly toward a point, and it is that point that separates them from other paragraphs. The point here seems to be secondary in importance. What you're really trying to do, it feels like, is impress us with how clever you are as a writer. Don't do that. It just gets in the way. All the decoration doesn't hide the fact that this is a simple opening with two characters who deserve to be introduced directly, and forthrightly. Quit messing around. Heres an example:

Stacy Scott, plump and wobbly, stomped down the hill toward Jay Patrick's garage. He prepared himself; one never knew what to expect from Stacy. Her bright orange dress highlighted her against the drab grey surroundings, a flash of energy on an overcast day.

This accomplishes several things that your opening does not. Most important, it leads with the character upon whom our attention should be focused. It identifies Jay right away as the main character (the one through whose point of view we experience the story), and it doesn't play coy telling us what he is and what he does for a living (if "a man with the grime and bearing of a mechanic," is really a mechanic, why not just say so?). It puts the descriptive element of the orange dress in its proper place, allowing us to arrange the crucial elements in their logical hierarchy of importance.

Your second paragraph introduces new anomalies.

Stacy Scott had a peculiar nose; the sort that droops or hardens with a corresponding emotion. As this was so, Stacy could never hide her emotions, even though she was a fierce and practiced liar. And when she tramped past Jay Patrick, the young mechanic, he could tell that despondency had come over her. Her forehead was creased and worried, and her nose drooped so much that Jay thought it soggy and ready to slide off.

My immediate question is, are noses actually capable of such transformation, or are we to regard her nose as a metaphor of sorts, like Sissy Hankshaw's thumbs in "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues"? Whatever else your description accomplishes, it removes Stacy from the realm of people who are absolutely real, and makes her instead a subject of interest, someone we observe and study.

Whether or not we empathize with her is quite a different matter. So far she seems to be your protagonist; while it's not essential that we empathize with the protagonist, if you go out of your way to make her unappealing, odd and annoying, you set yourself on a specific track. Referring to her as "a fierce and practiced liar," in a matter of fact narrator's voice further ensures that we're not going to be predisposed to be on her side. Given the plot development that ensues and her transformation into the object of Jay's romantic affections, this is bad planning at best. But more to the point, the nose, and all its baggage never again figures into the story. Nor do the odd, rambling non sequiturs that she first seems unable to stop uttering and which convince us that she's something akin to the village idiot, not to be taken seriously as a character, but capable of insight and wisdom at crucial moments. However, when next we meet Stacy, hanging laundry in front of the apartment building, she's quite a normal person, clearly in possession of all her senses and quite capable of normal conversation. So who was that creature we first encountered?

The color orange figures prominently into many aspects of the story, but never in a way that is either explained, or which provides a deeper context for the surface action. Things are just orange, seemingly by coincidence. Actually, most of the orange references cluster around the mysterious Mrs. Stevens (about whom more in a moment), but Stacy is wearing an orange dress in the opening scene, and so we spend a bit of energy, and you spend a good bit of the goodwill we automatically extend to you, as we wait to see how all these color references will come together.

They never do. Jay calls Stacy his "flaming rose" as he tries to convince her to marry him, but that's as close as you come. Meanwhile, the person for whom the color references are actually relevant, Mrs. Stevens, remains hidden off stage.

You do realize, don't you, that she is the only character with a story? She begins as a drab, grey, widow living a boring life; then she paints her car orange, dies her hair orange, takes after Mr. Sanchez, goes crazy when he rejects her advances and sets three fires in one night, including Jay's garage. And she never makes an appearance! We know nothing about her except what other characters mention in passing.

The is the TV Script solution. That's when the budget for the show doesn't allow for actual battles, fires, earthquakes, riots and the like, so we're provided a quick cut to the aftermath and get to eavesdrop on the characters talking about what just happened. In this piece, a lot of characters to whom very little happens, and who do very little, talk to each other about the story you probably should have written instead. That's a narrative choice you might want to rethink.
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Review by edgework
Rated: 18+ | (4.5)
Reviewed for "The Weekly Quickie Contest" 

Nice job. A good set-up, a satisfying conclusion that evolves out of Meredith's character and a larger context that, while just touched on briefly, provides the depth that makes both characters believable. Not much else to say. It was a fun read.
95
95
Review by edgework
In affiliation with  
Rated: 13+ | (2.5)
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You say: Just found this story I wrote back in Grade 11 and just wanted to get some new input so I could work on improving it. I know that the lack of narrative in the story takes away from it and that will be something I'll add when I edit again, so try not to focus too much on that at this point.

This has all the characteristics of something written by a precocious eleventh grader. The prose sounds good; no clumsy sentences, no unintentional howlers. You move through time efficiently; we easily understand the before and after aspects of events. That would seem to be kind of obvious, but you'd be surprised. English is great for ordering elements in time and space, but only if it's used right. For many, making sense of when and where things are remains elusive.

There is an interesting idea at the core of this piece as well. A good setup, in other words. A hit and run victim awakens with amnesia, while the driver mistakenly thinks he's killed her. Not bad at all, and there is much that could be done with it. The problem is, set ups are not stories, and once you establish the defining conditions of your piece, you simply spin in place, allowing whatever initial push you provided to play itself out until it runs out of energy. She remembers, he drinks himself to death.

For neither character has there been any type of development of their situation. Nothing at stake for either. Neither does much of anything with which readers might involve themselves and wonder "Gosh, I wonder what's going to happen next?" The problem is, there is no next, other than a predictable progression during which neither character takes no action or makes no decision to affect their situations.

Part of your problem, I think, is that you aren't allowing these characters to assume anything beyond cardboard cutout status. You say this story suffers from a lack of narrative. I'm not sure how you define narrative, but I'd say just the opposite: the narrative voice is suffocating your characters. it's everywhere, keeping everything under tight control, making certain that whatever happens is delivered second hand, narrated rather than dramatized.

You have some good moments for both your characters: Michelle waking up and staggering down the road, realizing that she has no idea who she is, the painful efforts to trigger her memory. Sean likewise has some tense moments sure to engage a reader. His dim recollections the next morning, for example. His slow decent into an alcoholic stupor suggest many opportunities for powerful moments. Alas, we get none of them, simply elements being referred to by your narrative voice, keeping them far away from the reader, and keeping our interest safely in check. Here's as good an example as any:

Over the next three days, every waking hour of Michelle’s life was spent in the company of doctors, nurses, family and friends in hopes of triggering something in her mind. Old postcards that had been sent to her were brought from home, but the words on them meant nothing to her. Her best friend brought her a Shakespeare pin that she’d gotten as a souvenir from the time they’d gone together to see Romeo and Juliet, and her mother brought her an old pocket watch that her grandfather had given to her before he died. None of this meant anything to her, though they all represented the things that had been most important to her in life. To the doctors, it was starting to look very bleak.

Nothing wrong with what's taking place. It's just that all the dramatic moments (and tension) are buried beneath bland references to what's taking place. You have a couple of full-blown scenes there, if you go to the trouble to actually write them.

But, even if you expand all your exposition to scenes that are presented in close-up detail, you still won't have a story. You'll have, at best, a couple of anecdotes. Things happening. Stuff of life events. There are no stories in real life. Just this happening, then that happening, then something else. Stuff. Later, we might in hindsight apply a veneer of meaning to the stuff, say things like "Well, I guess it all worked out for the best," or "The Lord works in mysterious ways," or "He got what he deserved," or some such. But in the moment, there is just stuff happening.

Likewise with Sean and Michelle. These are simply things that happen to them. At best, they are observers. To turn this into a story, you need to provide something more, some added dimension that will be impacted by the initial conditions you've set up. What happens in Michelle's life while she's lost in amnesia? What problems arise that she needs to cope with. How is her life complicated? Complications are the life blood of a story. Without them, no one needs to do anything.

So while there is much potential here, it is, as yet, unrealized. i'd be interested in seeing what you do with this.
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96
Review of Book Ends  
Review by edgework
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Rated: 18+ | (3.0)
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You open this story nicely.

It’s the men without pasts that a girl should be the most wary of.

Then you do it again in the next sentence.

There are only two kinds of men in the world: those who struggle with their past, and liars.

The entire second paragraph is likewise a decent opener.

When I found her, I worshiped her. I hung on her every word. I swam, breathless, in the gray blue pool of her eyes. I was young, she a little younger. Yet I was old enough to understand one simple truth. Afterwards, she would live her life, a free spirit and alive; I would forever be a captive man.

Moving on to the third paragraph, you also have a good opening there, with minor revisions.

We sat in the ethereal darkness of a movie theatre, watching a romantic comedy with all the shared ingredients of my current situation save one factor--they always managed to tie up all the loose ends and live happily ever after.

Your single-sentence fourth paragraph could likewise hook a reader's attention.

Marx didn’t know a damn thing. Sex is the opiate of the masses.

About halfway through the story, you have this sentence, also a fine opening.

I pretend to not know a lot of things. If willful ignorance is the worst kind then I am a wickedly ignorant man. But an ignorant man is less conspicuous than an indifferent man.

In all these cases, you capture the essence of a situation, offer the suggestion of a problem, suggest a character in flux with issues to resolve, and do so without actually giving anything away—a sure-fire recipe for drawing a reader into the world you've created, making them bet that when you get down to cases, there will be something of substance.

You have an interesting idea here and there are good moments. Mostly, however, you meander down the various hallways of your own insights, pondering, ruminating and referring to what probably was the real story you haven't bothered to tell: the lousy way your main character treated Hanna. We know he was a cad because he tells us so, and she more or less affirms it, but it's hard to get involved with either of them: he had his shot, he blew it, he knows it, she knows it and so do we. Your readers are left standing on the sidewalk wondering at the kind of people who lived in a house as they watch the movers load everything into a truck and drive away.

While stories that are concerned with endings and which derive their energy and meaning from a vast wealth of backstory are certainly feasible—Tolkein proved that—you need to do what he did: create a full-fledged narrative grounded in the present, one that has it's own arc rather than simply serving as the last dim flickers of your backstory. Without that, your main character has nothing to do. He seeks no result, wants to attain nothing: he's already given up. That he recognizes his own culpability in the wreck of his life is admirable, but we're not a twelve-step program. We're readers who want a story. We want characters who strive in some way, who have invested something of themselves, which will then prompt us to invest something of ourselves as well.

Why can't you let him take one more shot? Doomed quests are always compelling. He's a guy without a prayer, maybe without a clue, but if he's still on his feet, trying to make things right, trying to recapture something that he lost, who among us wouldn't follow along, cheer him on, grieve a bit when the inevitable stumbles bring him to his knees? Who among us wouldn't see something of ourselves in such a last-ditch effort? On the other hand, who wants to listen to someone admit failure, whine about it, and then prove that there's no hope?

Give the guy a story. Choose any of your openers, then get down to cases, set him in motion with some purpose and a conflict. He'll show you where to take it next.
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97
Review of "Jonah's grin"  
Review by edgework
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Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
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I read this soon after you first posted a link in my review forum and was sufficiently captivated that I began putting together some thoughts on it. It's taken some time to get back to it, but I note now that a good many of my initial points are no longer relevant. You had someone go through the piece and clean up all the formatting issues that had made it so difficult to get through. This is good. It's a much more user-friendly story to read now.

There are some nuts and bolts issues still that you need to deal with, all involving punctuation and getting some important word usages straight, but those are the kind of things you can learn from a good grammar book, and I suggest you acquire one and get acquainted with the rules. Not knowing them will keep you from being taken seriously, and I think you have enough going for you that you should be taken seriously. A character like Johah and the story you've envisioned for him can't be learned in a book. One has a feeling for it, or they don't. I think you do. You have a good bit of work ahead of you in the area of plot dynamics and narrative style, but the underlying core of this story is strong; my suggestions will be in the area of giving it a more dramatic treatment.

Anyone writing a story in this style and genre must accept the fact that they will be compared to the elephant who's always in the room with you: Stephen King. My own take on King is that if he'd only published the top 25% of his output he'd be just as successful and far more respected by "serious" critics. Still, even his most bloated, self-indulgent work shows a kind of savant genius with plots and a flair for creating characters that seem like they might be someone who lives next door, people we believe are real. Jonah and Lucas would be quite comfortable in a King novel, and their situation likewise compares favorably with King's better stuff. Where you stumble, I think, is in thinking that you have a short story here. It's not a compressed novel, yet, but with a little more thought it could certainly be a full-fledged novel, You'd need a third act, and an outer story to go with the personal drama you've already created. Those are decisions you might want to consider farther along in the process of fine-tuning this. Meanwhile, let's talk about what you've come up with already, and how you seem to be working against yourself.

Regardless of whatever "story" is taking place on the surface, tales like this always build on the same underly situation: the intrusion of the supernatural into our mundane, everyday world, and the growing awareness of one or more characters of this reality. The progression is always similar. First there's utter disbelief, perhaps even a refusal to see what is right before our eyes. Then we have equivocation, where what's seen is accepted, more or less, but dismissed as "coincidence," or maybe "exhaustion," or any of a dozen interpretations, none of which hold up to logic, but which still seem more logical than accepting a magical/supernatural interpretation. And then there is the long transition from disbelief to belief, during which all manner of emotions are relevant: anger, horror, fear, resistance, terror... We don't handle the unexplained easily, and the only explanation that works continues to seem impossible. But finally the point is reached where we have to accept the unacceptable: yes, there is a vampire in the big house at the top of the hill; yes, a person we've known to be dead for years is waling around in broad daylight and seems to be stalking us; yes, Mother really is possessed by a demon; or, as in the case of Lucas, yes, Jonah possess profound powers for good and evil.

Your primary flaw throughout is you've denied Lucas that normal process of coming to terms with the unimaginable. I don't know about you, but the first time I saw someone like Jonah floating above his bed, glowing like blue neon, it would be time for 1) a priest; 2) a shrink; 3) a cop; or 4) a ticket on the first bus out of town. Lucas has none of these reactions. He has almost no reaction, as though he'd simply looked in on Jonah and saw him petting a cat, or watching cartoons or otherwise engaged in some sort of interesting but benign activity. It's not that he ignores what he's seen; his reaction is simply inappropriate to the situation. So not only have you telegraphed the reveal at the outset (the reveal being that, yes, Jonah really is possessed of profound powers that are beyond his control), you deny Lucas the type of progressive process of realization that allows the reader to get involved. Lucas's growing horror / terror / fear / faith / whatever will be the reader's as well. Absent that, there is nothing for the reader to do other than stand passively to the side while your narrators tells them all the things they'd rather be experiencing for themselves.

You need to do a lot more thinking about your narrative approach, how to incrementally increase the tension while still telling your story. Right now, almost all the situations involving Lucas's confrontation with Jonah's capabilities are absolute game-changers. You need to manage events with more thought to building tension. Postponing the levitation scene is a good point, but look also at the scene involving the goldfish. Not the least of the problems with that scene is that while Lucas is your main character—all things in the story are filtered through his perception—he tells us that he wasn't there to see the goldfish die and didn't know there was a connection to Jonah. So who saw it happen? And who is telling us about it? Be careful of those rookie errors. But that's easily fixed, if you address the deeper problem, which is that you've wasted a great plot point.

I really like how you have Jonah's environment responding to his moods, but, again, don't telegraph everything all at once. Don't pretend that such a condition is anything but extremely bizarre, and give your characters, and your readers, a decent time frame in which to absorb the altered reality. That means sprinkle clues around. Don't foreshadow. Don't light up bright neon signs trying to catch your readers' attention. Just tell your story, the story of Lucas slowly, steadily, inexorably gaining deeper and deeper appreciation of Jonah's special gifts. Maybe at first he just notices the clouds roll across the sun when Jonah is sad, that the sun comes out when he's happy. But not so obviously that he immediately thinks "This guy's possessed." Remember, we'll hold out for "coincidence" as a catch-all explanation long after we sense that more is involved. Just don't hit us with so much evidence that we have to abandon everything we know all at once. When Lucas discovers the goldfish, you might have it come after a session where Jonah once again seemed to block the sun with clouds. Perhaps this is the third such time he's noticed this "coincidence," and then he discoveres the goldfish. Now the nagging doubt grows a bit stronhger. Maybe make the hair stand up on the back of his neck. (Preface this with a scene where Jonah is captivated by the fish and enjoys watching them. That will emphasize the significance of the their death all the more). Then perhaps Lucas sees Jonah resurrect the fly, but again not with enough certainly about the implications. Keep it ambiguous, both for Lucas and for the reader. Bide your time. Wait for the big moment until the time is right, and postpone it until your reader is positively squirming in their seat.

Which brings me to something you need to engineer into your story: a plot. There really isn't one. What's going on with Lucas and Jonah is what I'd call an inner story, mostly Lucas's, as he comes to terms with Jonah. But you have no outer story. There's nothing larger at stake for Lucas. No project. No goals. No objectives that drive him in his own arc. Where a story becomes three dimensional is in the interaction between inner and outer stories, their blending and cross-pollination, until at the proper moment, they come together, whether in harmony or in conflict, usually propelling events into a nice, organic third act. In the case of the conditions that you've set up, Jonah's powers, which currently have no real result other than to exist, would become a crucial factor in Lucas's story.

What story, you may ask? Dunno. He's not my character. But anything's possible. He's just getting his home underway. Perhaps he's applying for funding and needs to impress some big shots. You an just bet that Jonah would find a way to interferes with those efforts. Perhaps there's something else going on in the town that threatens to interfere with Lucas's own goals and Jonah's displeasure has implications in the world beyond. Truth is, with powers as strong as Jonah's the climax needs to be something apocalyptic, of Biblical proportions. All he does now is ride his bike down a hill. The point is that so far, your story is all about your set-up, and it's a good set-up, but set-ups aren't stories. They're the fertile ground in which a story takes root and grows. So. Given these characters, and this unique set of conditions, what events in the world are generated from, and affected by what you've put in motion?

Right now the answer to that question is "Nothing." Which is why you abandon Lucas at the end, jump inside Jonah's head and arrive at a conclusion that is wholly unsatisfying. You've done a lot to reel your reader in, to make him care about Jonah and wonder what's going to happen. You need to make something happen.

I'd also give more thought about Jonah's mother. I have no quarrel with her being a corporeal being at the start and transforming into something far more malevolent and supernatural at the end, but you have to make us believe it. A shift like the one you've created is too jarring for us to accept. We'll think "Huh, this makes no sense." Like the way you should reveal Jonah's powers, you need to give us at least a clue that dear old Mom is not just a metaphorical witch, but perhaps a real demon.

Which is why I suggest that what you've come up with here, rather than a short story, is an unfinished novel. There is a lot here, and, by my reading, a good bit yet to write, if your initial conditions are to have their proper unfolding. I think it's worth the trouble and effort that it would take. I really want to see how Jonah turns out.
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98
Review of The Light  
Review by edgework
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Rated: E | (3.0)
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A lot of the things that a poem like this requires to be successful you are doing well. You have a good handle on scansion: it's imperative that your lines scan precisely from stanza to stanza. The metronomic repetition creates a flow based purely on the sound of the words, apart from the narrative content, one that supports and enhances that content. The only place you falter is the third line of the third stanza. In all other stanzas the third line scans into two solid metrical feet; in stanza three, it does not. In truth, you have two strong beats in the line, but a single strong beat does not a foot make, and you owe it to yourself to bring it into line. It is the ability to rework the content of your poem into such arbitrary structures without calling attention to the process that is part of the power poems like this. Deviations not only stand out, they dilute the effect.

Your rhymes are all quite serviceable and some a good deal more than that: I liked generations / aspirations, brilliance / resiliance, and the near rhymes of dark / heart and follow / tomorrow worked for me as well. I note that all those examples are 2nd / 4th line rhymes. Your opening line for each stanza, I am the light forces all your third lines to rhyme with light and you do it well enough. I'm not convinced, however, that you have done a satisfactory job of hiding the gimmick, which is always the true challenge when writing with a fixed form that exists independent of the content—to not only follow the dictates of the form, but to make your lines sound like a natural reading of the words, as though these were the words, images and content you'd have chosen in any event. I'm not sure you'd have chosen I take flight, A lengthy plight, or A refreshing sight if you didn't need them for their end rhymes.

But then, perhaps you might have. The biggest problem I have with the poem is that it's not so much a poem as six stanzas about your theme, starting with the opening line, I am the light, which stakes out your territory and then keeps piling on. Themes, understand, are never to be spoken aloud. They properly exist safely hidden behind the content, infusing it, shaping it, providing the energy field in which it organizes itself; when dragged into the light of day, however, they all sound pretty banal and cliched.

You need to set your sights higher, in terms of what you ask your poems to accomplish. In fact, you have set your sights higher, with much better results. I refer to another poem in your portfolio, Nashville. In that poem's opening stanza

Down by the river
Where them boys play ball
The streets are filled with music
At anytime fate may call
That’s Nashville

you manage far more substance than in all six stanzas of the poem under discussion. You rhyme, you establish a meter, you draw us along with the rhythm, all of which you do with Light, but instead of generalized, fuzzy abstractions preoccupied with your theme, you give us hard content, sense data, things we can hear, see, touch, all providing a much more balanced product. Your one interpretive line, the fourth, fits in just fine, supported as it is by the three preceding lines and their vivid imagery.

Face it: as a topic worthy of exploration, Light is right up there with the moon, the stars and love in the Spring as a topic that's been done, and done, and done to death. If you're going to mine it for substance, you'll have to come up with language that does a lot more than My brightness fills the dark, or That glows with unseen brilliance. (If we can't see it, how do we know it's brilliant?).

Keep in mind that poems are about language first and foremost: subject, theme and message are all well and good, but none of those nor any combination of them will make a poem memorable. We remember poems and admit them into the canon because they have language that works harder then is called for if all that is expected of it is to deliver a message. You can find such utilitarian prose in any Letters to the Editor page of any newspaper. I submit to you that your poem Nashville shows an awareness of this truth. This poem does not.

You should spend a lot of time rereading both poems until you see the difference, and see why one is superior to the other. Then you need to spend a lot more time reading the masters who used rhyme and fixed meter well, and who showed us what is possible: Emily Dickenson comes to mind. W.H. Auden and Robert Frost as well. I've been recommending all three a good bit lately, but that's how it is with the masters: they never get stale and they're always relevant.
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99
Review of My Own Tongue  
Review by edgework
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Rated: E | (3.5)
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I like the ideas you're playing with here but I suspect your intent is more ambitious than your result. There is much for you yet to do to rethink both the way you've written this, and the way you are approaching poetry. Right now you are shackling yourself to a prose sensibility that keeps you from letting this become the poem that it might well be.

First and foremost is the absense of any attempt to exploit the line and it's attendant break. That one structural element alone sets poetry apart from prose more than any other. There is nothing comparable in prose and when you use it judiciously you open up possibilities that are unavailable to prose. Right now, each of your lines is, in fact, a sentence; the lack of punctuation doesn't change that fact. Each one functions as a sentence and stands on its own. Furthermore, the meaning of each sentence exists solely on the surface; what you see is what you get and that's it.

In prose, this is a good thing; prose exists to clarify concepts and to convey the essence of some element that exists apart from the words themselves. Sentences that say what they mean are a valuable commodity in prose. In poetry, not so much. Poetry is the place for language to do all those other things that fall outside prose. Writing with lines and linebreaks in mind, for instance. Note the subtle echos, shades of meaning and suggestions of undercurrents that appear when you start playing with enjambment. Here's your opening line, and a possible variation effected solely through line breaks:

Tonight, I want to play freely in my own tongue
_____________

Tonight, I want

                    to play


freely in 

                 my own


tongue


Okay, so it's not e e cummings. But they are your words, and they suddenly show up with many more possibilities both conceptually and rhythmically, than when they simply embody a static sentence, doing what sentences do. I don't think they're the best words; they're still prosaic in their intent. That brings me to my next point.

Poems aren't the most efficient place to make an argument, press a point, tell a story or describe a situation, object or relationship. Prose has those tasks pretty much locked up. However, poems are quite good at not only capturing the essence of an experience, or our apprehension of it, but of actually recreating the experience for the reader, allowing them to make your experience theirs as well.

When you settle for prose constructions, as you have done, you neccessarily place a narrative buffer between your readers and the experience you wish to evoke. Every one of your lines begins with "I", not in itself crippling, but in the context of what you are attempting, it turns the raw experience into "something someone tells us about." The problem is, you and your wants are not the focus of this particular piece. The sounds of the language and the experience of speaking it is what you are trying to focus on. (That actually may be an incorrect assessment of your intent; if so keep reading.) You need to work harder, seek more precise, more streamlined language and bring the elements themselves to the fore. You need to step out of the way. We don't need a narrator for this, we need to get inside the moments themselves. We don't need the language of narration; we need the language of immediacy.

This poem comes in at 88 words. Try rewriting it with 60. Note the decisions you have to make in doing an exercise like that: what words can simply be dropped, what phrases need to be reworked, what passages need to be substituted outright for a precise image instead. Note that as you sacrifice more and more linear continuity, the impact shifts from the intellect to the emotional, psychological and spiritual realms. Sometime we might not be able to paraphrase a poem's meaning, but we are able to grasp its essence all the same. A point made at Alan Ginsberg's obscenity trial: Poetry can't be paraphrased. That's why it's poetry.

Then try the same exercise with a 50 word limit.

I'm not saying those should be your final product, but unless you start forcing yourself to break away from familiar, bloated prose language, you'll never get to the essence of what a poem can be.

Now, think about what it is that the poem as a whole is trying to accomplish. Right now you've set your bar fairly low. You pretty much do the same thing in every line—you provide us with an aspect of the Afrikaans language as you might speak it, and then with similes and decorative imagery you attempt to describe it. This is not a bad thing to be doing, but after three or four examples, we're getting restless. This is s poem, after all. It's not restricted to one time or place; it gets to do things you don't do in mere descriptive prose. You get to forge unexpected juxtapositions, take sudden, jarring detours, create realities that are primarily linguistic and only tenuously tethered to the real world. One isn't obligated to do all these things, or any of them. But to ignore the possibilities your poem presents you with seems like a waste of time and energy.

What's the ultimate point? Here we might actually return all those "I wants" to your lines, but with a sense that what we see in front of us is not necessarily what you are writing about. What are you really suggesting here? What is it about Afrikaans that makes you want to speak it, and why would doing so be extraordinary (were it ordinary, you wouldn't need a poem to talk about it). What cultural realities does the speaking of the language stand for? What activity does a raspy sounding g at the back of my throat evoke? Nothing, in a prose essay. It's just a phoneme. But in a poem, it could be a transitional gate to an entirely different universe, if you let it. For you to write so longingly for the sounds of this language suggests longing of a more profound nature. What, precisely, I couldn't possibly say. It's your experience, not mine. However, were you to explore your own inner impulses you might find a way to allow your images to lead us to all the vast spaces beyond the immediacy of their moment and open up your experience to us, allow us to taste it, feel it, make your experience ours as well.

That would be a memorable poem.
100
100
Review by edgework
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Rated: E | (3.0)
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I am forced to ask what might be an obvious question, but, maybe not so obvious: What is this?

It's important for you as the author to recognize that it's not immediately apparent what it is that you've presented to your reader, and that can't help but create confusion as they struggle for a proper response. It would seem to be a story, except that clearly the story itself isn't really a priority. You refer throughout to the column you need to write for the newspaper, yet this is not that column, and we don't ever get to actually read it. And while you alert us to the fact that when you do write the column—which is to be about particular song lyrics that you've found meaningful—you won't be engaging in any analysis of said lyrics, the parts of this particular piece that are most interesting are when you discuss the role of lyrics in a song, and the impact of which they are capable. Analysis, in other words.

Hence, my question: What is this? At the moment it's mostly background information, explaining the absent column that you have to write, and the structure you've set up—providing us with a narrative voice that is separate in time and space from the events being narrated—enforces that assumption. None of what takes place is actually happening in front of the reader. It's merely being referred to by the narrator, who we understand is you, of course, but in a structure like this, the "you" who participates in the events themselves is distinct from the "you" who tells us about them. So we never quite get under your skin, never are able to experience the process that you go through. You tell us about it... assure us that this was significant, that was important, but it's the neutral narrative POV doing the telling.

If you want this to pack a punch, you have to make us care about the person wandering the streets of London, seeking inspiration. You have to make us feel her need. You have to make us not only understand her goal, but to share it. To make her experience our experience. You won't accomplish that necessary task with lines like this:

It was the best musical I’ve ever seen, and I was humming the songs all the way back to my sister’s place (“Cellophane, Mr. Cellophane, should have been my name, Mr. Cellophane”).

We're simply informed that the experience was significant, but we have no access to the process by which she transitions from her opening state, to the desired "inspired" condition. That transition is where your story exists and the difficulty that she encounters as she shops here and there and enjoys the sights constitute the difficulties in her path.

This is just Plotting—101. A good plot doesn't require dire straits, car chases or an anonymous stranger bursting through the door with a gun in his hand. It simply require a person who needs to move from Point A to Point B, and the passage needs to be complicated enough that we are prompted at some point to wonder, "Gosh, what's gonna happen next?" That wondering process implies that there is a progression taking place, of events leading one to the next with an inevitability built into them that forces your character to do whatever is required to accomplish their goal. The goal is irrelevant. That there be a goal is essential, and it needs to be the center around which all is organized.

Your goal is fine, but we never get a sense that it's crucial, and so we never get to share it with her. You've locked away all the salient details behind bland summarizations where we're forced to settle for the narrator's paraphrasing of events, rather than being placed in the midst of the events themselves.

This is a young girl's first visit to the big city. She comes with a quest. She needs a result. You've got all the ingredients for a fine story. And you can clearly turn out well-fashioned prose. All you need now, is to tell the story that's there.
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