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Thursday, March 29, 2007

Home » » Jessica's Take

Jessica's Take

Thursday, March 29, 2007    1 comment

I completely agreed with Ane. The voice was wonderfully done, but as Ane suggested, the opening needed to be condensed.

-- Not that I have anything else to do
-- I didn’t do anything exciting last night
-- Nothing fun ever happens in my life

These three thoughts all occur in the first paragraph.

Then in the third paragraph:

-- My days are fairly rote
--Nothing changes in my life
--. Even my weekends are bland

By the time you get to this line, (in the 5th paragraph) "Clothes line the rack but I don’t have anything to wear. Nothing new—the story of my life." The full enjoyment of the line is robbed, because the fact that "not much happens in her life" has been overstated. Otherwise, I would have found that line cleverly placed.

I suggest shifting the flow of that (5th) paragraph, so that when your protagonist is looking at the blue dress, she hears Pam in her head, and then having her launch into a thought about clothes patrol.

I would suggest trying to cut your word count by half and seeing how it reads. Thanks so much for submitting to us! You've got an amazing voice. Keep up the good work.

1 comment:

  1. Kristy Dykes8:26 AM, March 29, 2007

    I had the same opinion as NJ critiquers. A great voice, great storytelling, but it went on a bit long. And the heroine is too down on herself. I feel that the writer is just trying to establish that she IS down, but as the NJ critiquers, she can accomplish this in a shorter amount of words. This heroine was so down, I felt like she needed Prozac, and there's nothing wrong with that at all, but I think you don't want your readers thinking that. They want to be able to identify with your character and cheer for her and crawl into her skin. So cut some of the downness, IMO. And get on to the action or inciting incident.

    The detail is fabulous. The word pictures you create are beautiful. Ex. "(the dress) is hued in a delicious color that reminds me of elbow-dripping peaches. Kind of an orangey-yellowish-pink color."

    Man, you have a way with words. I can just see someone eating a peach and the juice dripping down to their elbows. I've done that on the side of the road in Georgia when I've just bought a big basket of Georgia peaches.

    Good job!

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