It takes place in a very specific, very realised place and time, and the dialogue read as very real. The story made me think about bright people who lack prospects of ever being out of poverty; a kind of new millenium ragged trousered philanthropists. Or am I just being mad pretentious? Anyway, it has a big undercurrent of sadness, and wasted potential.
I had to go back to sort out Jamie from Jim at one point, becuase I was making one of them say the speeches you intended for the other.
This was one of those items that stay with you, perhaps because it is so open ended. Open ended, that is, as far as events are concerned. You do provide a resolution of his feelings.
Thought provoking story, though as an athiest* I feel pretty uncomfortable with the religosity of the narrator. The husband is taking all of this as his unilateral decision to make - no reference to his wife - which niggled me, but isn't a point against the story. Both of these things - his need to control and his reliance on God - were part of his character.
The section in which he projects being a single parent and how he'd cope, reminds me of a stunning American bio I read by Brendan Halperin, about his wife having cancer and him picking up the slack in their household with their child, while worrying about her. It was called It Takes A Worried Man. It was a truelife story which echoed every issue raised in this, which I take to be a mark of this item's emotional truth.
when the parents are told about the pregnancy difficulties:
This doctor has terrible people skills. He'd have to use more tact, or pass this interview to a counsellor, surely? I can't imagine any parent-to-be takining in any additional data after an opener like that. Standing firm on his faith he keeps reassuring himself in his mind. There's a move to present tense here and at other points of the story. It's a good tense for dramatic stories, but distracting to read a long text in.
*BTW, I have problems rating overtly Christian pieces. I think that's why I never sent you feedback on the firefighter story in your port.
Please break this into paragraphs. It will be more alluring for readers. Capitals opening each sentence also makes for easier reading. Also, more commas, please. Give your reader time and space to breathe.
Very Lovecroftian, not only in the vocabulary and subject matter, also in the style. I liked the sudden giraffe, it had that outre quality. Sometimes Lovecraft is funny, too.
Typos: and I wouldn't bother to enumerate these if I thought this was worthless. doomed, realm redundant comma dark thougts in your head thoughts who's fangs they say whose fangs the wine of mens blood men's did'n't account for time lost didn't it's terrible secret's blight both apostrophes redundant gathering thye shreds of your courage you shake the devils shackels from Gathering the shreds of your courage, you shake the devil's shackles.. no were to be found nowhere to be found your at home You're at home
The great thing about killing the consumer of the product is that you have no unhappy customers, and that is a positive thing.
Great bit of broad, angry satire. Very funny, very smart, and it's true (to be boring) that the profit motive impacts on safety - look at the notorious railway crashes in the UK since privatisation.
The ending surprised me, because I had the idea that the mechanic was using the CEO's Mercedes engine to replace the dangerous one, and it would end with the CEO going boom! on the way home from the track.
First off, Thank you for writing and posting this article.
People today are so scared of death that they wind up treating mourners like lepers, not out of hate, but out of not knowing how to be with them. And being terrified of making things worse.
I wish there was something in this article about "what to say," that being the other big issue for friends of the bereaved - "I don't know what to say" - but as you so rightly say, each human case is unique.
The paragraph opening "What would you say is your worst quality.." made me laugh so hard it hurt. I love observational humour about the things we all recognise from our own lives.
And your concluding paragraph just wound up your topic tidily, wrapping up the item with a smooth close.
I really didn't know this was going where it ended up - the ending came completely out of the blue. It felt maybe too abrupt, but that may be me. I was asking myself what the mother of the narrator was thinking, and whether there was a family history of the gift* and so forth.
Up to that point, I was all engrossed in the family politics, the subtle friction over money, the iron-clad gender roles, and the communal dinner.. all of which was excellently done.
As a love letter to a friend, I'm sure this was cherished. It reads as if it is full of private references, private memories, love and hope, atmospheric, evocative. It's more like poetry without rhymes than prose.
But, not being the friend who shares those memories, I was bewildered and the piece was too much written for an inner circle to give an outsider anything. Sentences ran, thoughts emerged randomly from the luxuriant and tangled undergrowth of words (but were they the thoughts you intended to strike in a reader?), and I wondered what the feminist aspect was.
This was very much womens' writing; the style is utterly female. I would have said, though, that it's as much feminine as feminist. (I don't say that as a criticism of the piece, just as a comment on the title.)
As a reader, I'm at the literal end of the curve. So I may simply not be the "market" you want. However, I do think that this was essentially a personal document, and, to be meaningful to a public audience, needed to be clarified.
How scary is it that I can identify every specific episode in this poem? Was going to question your spelling of T'Pau, but that would alert some sort of Nerd Squad.
I have one objection. At no point in this narrative did Kirk's shirt "accidentally" rip to show off his pecs.
*I have a sense of humour about this Trek obsession. I do. I forgave Galaxy Quest, right?*
I liked this story. Guessed the surprise twist early but liked the pace at which background information was released. The ending "fitted" the story. I don't want to go into details, as you were deliberately vague in the genres you assigned this, so that readers wouldn't be warned.
My only suggestion would be to use spellcheck to catch a few typos, and to pretty up the page. I think you cut and pasted this from another program, and the lines have justified themselves oddly.
I've read and enjoyed comedy pieces by you before. Had no idea you had this tone in you as well. Props to you, this is great stuff.
Scandalous, but all personal comments are. Hilarious remarks to identical twins, helpful advice to spotty teenagers who were hoping you hadn't noticed, any joke about someone's name - (you can guarrantee they've heard it before)
For someone fat (I'm dumpy) it's hard to believe that thin can hurt. A high-metabolism friend of mine explained all this to me, but I think you've stated this case better than she did. Excellent bit of self expression, very well written.
Your title and brief description drew me in. Kudos for that. They're like a shop window for your item, so it's a big deal to be able to compose a good blurb.
Funny.. I would have been as scared as your talkative neighbour! I see you were trying to separate/highlight her speeches by using block capitals. Unfortunately BLOCKS tend to look like shouting. What about using a different colour instead? The ML option.
The entire item is repeated, beginning to end, at the end of reading. I've seen this before on other ports so I suppose it's a by-product of some method of transcribing from another computer..
I did enjoy this. Your sense of humour is great. Thank you.
non-fiction::travel::biographical::experience sounds just right as a category. (came here via that review forum post you put)
This is more about your reaction to NY than a travelogue about the city, but that's what makes it unique. Any mug could do a Lonely Planet on the place, but this article has character.
In conversations we (am in Europe) tend to lump all Americans together as if you were a homogenous amorphous mass, so I'm glad I read this. I mean, I know there are multiple Americas, but this underlined it emotionally. I really enjoyed it. Thanks.
The best thing about this was the tension between how the boy thought his dad wasn't noticing times moving on, and the ending, when it turned out that the dad was catching at the past because he was aware of just that thing.
Loved the scene setting done in the paragraph starting The little bell above the door sounds.. It summoned up a place and time.
The last sentence was sap, but good sap. (IMHO, lol)
Liked this a lot, would rec others read it for pleasure.
Liked this. The way the sentences flowed reminded me of a reading scheme - obviously the vocabulary and attitudes were at variance with that, but I think that's why I found it funny.
Word for the day: curmudgeon. (Hey. It's a good word.)
Child in the 70s. Teen in the 80s. Face it: you were a pawn in the un-cool game. I think your parents intentionally gave birth to you then, so you'd never get to be a cool, e-dropping, Nietsche quoting, designer clad cool person.
It was an evil master plan.
If it's any comfort, when I was 17, I was completely in awe of this posh girl called Caroline, who was simply terminally blase. Imagine life having no more to impress you with at the age of 17. She was bored by everything. I remember she broke an arm skiing in the Alps and had to go to her Debs dance (equivalent of a prom) in a raw silk gown with a big manky old sling.. and an expression of enuii, of course. Am way less impressed by the memory than I was at the time.
Nice. And I have absolutely no idea which boyband it is about, from the Osmonds through to N'Synch. Not the point I suppose.
My one quibble would be, ironically, that the letter is a bit too articulate for a popstar, and that while a person in that situation might feel the way that letter describes, I think it would be pretty inchoate at the time of breaking away, and for some time after that. Then again, am making some very sweeping prejudicial assumptions about popstar IQ.
The good thing about this story is the understated feeling, like a mourner still in denial. It's very flatly told, and I think that sets up the storyteller as a particular type of person. The description of the alcoholic's behaviour is on the nail.
I think it would read more easily if it were broken up into paragraphs, with a blank line between paragraphs. Those big blocks of text are offputting. There's a stretch of dialogue in the middle of this. Maybe each person speaking, could be a new mini-paragraph?
He could be kind at times but also have the affection of someone who did not give a damn.
I don't understand this sentence. Is the uncle getting affection, or giving affection? If he's giving affection, then surely he doe give a damn?
It's that first sentence, isn't it? Once the page is marked, it's not so scary anymore. Odd, how we all feel that effect. Vividly observed, perfectly evoked.
I read about a professional novelist who used to write the first couple of paragraphs of the next chapter on the momentum of the end of a writing session. That way he didn't have to start from ground zero, on that Dreaded Blank Page.
I found this item via the public reviewing page. What an excellent newsletter!
All of the articles are constructive, and "how to review" by Majestic Dragons is a great point-by-point listing on reviewing technique. With such a checklist, one runs so much less risk of simply ignoring some vital aspect of an item under consideration. (and remembering it later, and feeling daft.)
"What can I say" by Diane Freese, is, however, the item for which I clicked into the newsletter - a subject I have not seen covered elsewhere. The grey tired feeling of reading something, not bad, not anything, the grammar and spelling fine but the topic dull to distraction - what on earth can one usefully say? After all, to quote one of your other articles, perhaps one is simply not part of it's "target audience." This may help in those circumstances. :)
That felt kalaidoscopic (hopefully spelt right) It whirled from intensity to cliche to poetry to prose-with-really-big-margins.. dazzling. Reading it gave that swooping, dizzy, "I'm drunk!" feeling that I suppose the poet was experiencing. Now I look again, the cliche bits were intentional on your part - burgundy lips, blah, blah.
I loved the bits until the narrator started sketching out the disaster of a relationship, and the verse after that where he pictured propositioning her. Problem is, I'm not quite sure why I lost the thread there, though I reread it twice trying to work it out. It's possible that even using cliche deliberately, as you did just ahead of that section, runs the risk of switching the reader off.
Then again, am not a poetry reader. But I hope lots of people have the pleasure of reading this one.
Very nice. It had that arbitrary, dreamlike, fairytale feel. If it hadn't been a fairy tale I would be objecting strongly to the lack of motivation, lol, but the genre works that way.
I especially liked the part where the vamp princess is revealed to be so very much smaller than the victim princess; that was smoothly done. I felt the story overall took too long to tell, but that was the only thing.
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Apart from the phrasing, this is eerily accurate. I especially love the way #rule 7 combines #rules 5 and 6.