Comments for the "Crit the writer above" thread...

[KTC]

Just thought I'd start a comment thread for this 'crit the writer above' thread so that only critiques are posted in the thread...which is what I think Wills had in mind?

[Jakalyn]

I am following in JTC's lead and posting extras over here so that the other thread is nothing but critiques (good idea, JTC)

Thank you JAlpha. I think you are right in the way your version was much more tense and hooking. That excerpt actually began as about 2000 words, and I took bits and pieces from it and rearranged them, trying to do what you managed to do, but apparently not doing it very well, lol. I now wish I had gotten you to critique it beforehand, I would have been able to fit much more in!

Thanks very much for the critique! It's always good to get another view of it.

[TashaGoddard]

Great idea KTC. Perhaps there's a mod around who could move all non-critiques into this thread, to make it simpler?

[JAlpha]

Your welcome, Jakalyn,

I probably should have mentioned in my critique that my "cut to the core" style of editing doesn't work on my writing. It's always easier to have someone else prune your prose:D

JAlpha

[JAlpha]

KTC,

Thank you for your generous critique of Sea Cameo . . .

Good luck with your piece. I found it poignant. The themes of the war and the ocean intermingled nicely. And it had a real poetic feel to it.
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/images/statusicon/user_offline.gif http://absolutewrite.com/forums/images/buttons/reputation.gif (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9572&page=2#) http://absolutewrite.com/forums/images/buttons/report.gif (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/report.php?p=133719)

Glad you enjoyed it :thankyou:

[wills]

Hi All

I've just posted some guidance notes on the 'Critique' thread - they may held keep some order.

Thanks for opening this thread, helps keep theohter one clean.

Ideally critiques should be posted by 'edit' to the post where you joined the queue. In a perfect world this means each post will contain:

- an offer to read and crit the person above
- an invitation to read and crit the posters story
- and a critique added by edit

Unfortunately the world is not perfect, so we'll just muddle through.

Hope to get around to reading and commenting on a lot more stories, highly likely as I've seriously pulled my back in the garden and will be doing very little moving around before seeing an Osteopath on Tuesday!

[JAlpha]

Elincon,


Thank you for your crit of my piece Sea Cameo. While it appeared at first as if you had given me an undeserved second crit, I was in order for a second crit because I had given a second critique. A bit confusing, but the entire thread is improving by the minute with a steady series of tweaks and adjustments.

I also want to let you know that I (JAlpha) am a she, not a he. I'm guessing that you assumed I was a he because you had assumed the narrator of my piece was also a male. But you fell into my intentional narrative trap. I intentionally used an ambiguous narrator in my piece because it is rather poem like and intended to be read several times so that multiple layers can be exposed with each reading. In the same way that I intended the surprise of the narrator's prosthetic leg, I also want the reader to be surprised that the narrator's gender was not revealed. With the large number of women serving our country today, the narrator could just as easily be female.

Thank you again for your crit, and best wishes in the contest with your delightful parable-like entry!

[JAlpha]

Vig,

Thank you for your crit, and most especially for the eloquent way you worded my theme . . . the theme i took out of it that as we get older the generation gap is unavoidable even with people who lived through violence for a greater good.

When I created the piece, I was actually working more from a gut feeling that has been mounting inside me since the very beginning of our current conflict in Iraq, and I hadn't quite gotten around to verbalizing the theme. But my gosh, I think you've nailed it!

Thank you again,
JAlpha

[KTC]

Vig,

Thanks much for the critique! It was very generous of you. I had to go back and read my piece just to see what you read...you made it sound so much better than I thought it was. I think I'll go by 199 now!

Thanks,
Kevin

[Elincoln]

I also want to let you know that I (JAlpha) am a she, not a he. I'm guessing that you assumed I was a he because you had assumed the narrator of my piece was also a male. But you fell into my intentional narrative trap. I intentionally used an ambiguous narrator in my piece because it is rather poem like and intended to be read several times so that multiple layers can be exposed with each reading. In the same way that I intended the surprise of the narrator's prosthetic leg, I also want the reader to be surprised that the narrator's gender was not revealed. With the large number of women serving our country today, the narrator could just as easily be female.


Opps (again). Sorry, but I got the male angle from your user name (Male - Alpha). And being female myself, I should know better.

Again, Sorry about that.

-Elaine

[vig]

at all times i look to be brutally cruel to dispell any notion of compassion, at times like this i like to think of what my good friend, and child star, ricky shroeder told me... he said, vig, i will always be that kid in silver spoons, but chicks dig me....

i mean, stuff like that is why I write. i want chicks to dig me...
sooo, what's your social security number...

[BlueTexas]

Thanks for all the very useful observations. Where you mentioned being disoriented, I think you wouldn't have been if there wasn't a 700 word limit. The beginning of the story tells you just where Ed is, what the voices are all about, and why she got the moldly lifejacket. This is the ending to a 5000 word short story.

Everything else you noted are things I will surely address. :Thumbs: Thank you so much!

Oh, and who wrote "Yellow Wallpaper"? I've not read that one.

[MacAllister]

Blue Texas--Charlotte Perkins Gilman. :)

You'll encounter the story in a number of Women's Studies, American Lit, and/or Short Story classes.

I think it's a good old-fashioned creepy story, to rival Poe.

Here is a link to the text (http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/wohlpart/alra/gilman.htm#INSERT%203) with links in the story to notes of interest--

Here is a link to the text (http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/wallpaper.html) without the distracting annotations.

[BlueTexas]

Thanks for the links. Creepy stuff!

[jdkiggins]

Firehorse,

Thank you. Suspense not being your genre, I appreciate you doing such a detailed crit.
Your comments and suggestions were very helpful and I will consider them.
In the one sentence I did mean tinge, not twinge. Tinge is an affect as in thought or feeling and I hoped it would come across that way.
I fully understand your suggestions of wanting more information. I suppose this is the problem with excerpts. Most of these visuals had been placed in the WIP prior to this scene. :)
You did such a wonderful job I’ll now need to sit back and decide if I need to move a few things.

Thanks again. Good luck!

Joanne

[wurdwise]

this was a great idea! :Hail:


I have had one critique, but I would like to hear any comments on the excerpt of my middle reader. I am getting to the finish line and plan to start sending out queries in April, so feedback is greatly appreciated. It is entry #269 on page 11.

[pabtm]

Just thought I'd post here (just did a crit for Mr Underhill) to "formally" introduce myself. I'm new to the boards, but I've been writing book reviews for Jenna and Amy for some time.

I'm really glad I decided to jump in... I hold no illusions about my chances, since there are some good writers hanging around here, but I'm looking forward to the give and take of doing and receiving critiques.

Now, if I could just storm the bloody gates in front of Writer's Block Castle... :Hammer:

pb (aka Patrick)

[Mr Underhill]

Ah, what the hell, I'll just copy the post over here myself. I think it is a good idea to keep comments over here and keep the CTWA thread a clean string of exchanges so people don't get confused about who's next.I agree it is a challenge. I'm the "white" narrator, so I've got to cut my own words down. I really want the narrator to be like Darvez, and in some cases, what the narrator says is what he'd be thinking anyway. I do think his mother talks the way that he does. I have lived and taught high school English in a community where 95% of my students and community members are African American, and I did have a student named Darvez, AND my husband and I saw a "new live mission" sign on a thrift store in that community - like the one Darvez saw.

Nit: a few what?
Minutes. I see how this needs clarification.


You can tell that patience isn't one of my better virtues, can't you? LOL!


I wrote this as a short short fiction story (had to be under 500 words) for a contest just to see if I could handle such a brief piece. It was very hard for me to not be verbose, but because I think this story can be pretty funny (with work) and thanks to your enouragement, I think I will try to flush out a full-length story from this. Thanks for your time and energy.
-Mel.Actually I don't have too much to say, except that it would probably be difficult to implement some of my suggestions in the very short format. And you're welcome.
:Cheers:

And I don't think William picked the wrong one, he critiqued pabtm, who critiqued me. So it's his turn in the barrel next.

Though William, did you already join in the CTWA fray earlier? Maybe this isn't against the rules, in fact why should it be? If someone wants more critiques oneself and trades for writing more, what's the harm?

[wurdwise]

Mr. Underhill, I have seen your critique style, and it was very thorough and I would be much obliged if you found the time to do one for me. My entry is #269. Thank you, Denise

[William Haskins]

Though William, did you already join in the CTWA fray earlier? Maybe this isn't against the rules, in fact why should it be? If someone wants more critiques oneself and trades for writing more, what's the harm?

no, sir. i did my first and only critique tonight. after that, my wings fell off and i'm left to crawl around in a circle until i fall over and am consumed by ants.

perhaps you have me confused with another william?

[Mr Underhill]

no, sir. i did my first and only critique tonight. after that, my wings fell off and i'm left to crawl around in a circle until i fall over and am consumed by ants.

perhaps you have me confused with another william?I didn't mean to accuse you of anything, I merely thought I had seen your name on that thread toward the beginning. My mistake, and my apologies.

In any event, if someone were to essay the thread a second time, I don't see the harm in it. As long as equal amounts of quid and pro quo were exchanged, of course.

See, the basic premise of the CTWA thread is pretty smart. You can't take the time to do a critique of all, or even 10% of what's there, so you just do one in detail. In return, you receive a detailed critique of your own piece. Sort of like that circle where everyone rubs the back of the person in front: everyone gets a massage...

wurdwise, I'll take that as a compliment, so thank you. Let me think about it. It won't be tonight in any event, but perhaps tomorrow. And perhaps I might expect some reciprocation, though I did get good feedback from the talented Mr Pabtm. Just the quid pro quo thing and all.

[wurdwise]

Hey, no biggie! If you feel like doing it great, if not, don't give it a second thought. However, if you do, just point me in the right direction and I will gladly do my quid pro quo!:thankyou:

[William Haskins]

I didn't mean to accuse you of anything, I merely thought I had seen your name on that thread toward the beginning. My mistake, and my apologies.

no problem whatsoever, and i'm not in the least bit offended.

[pabtm]

William,

Before the ants crunch throught the last of your ganglia, I thought I'd respond briefly to your critique.

First off, a big and public "thank you" for your kind words. I'm glad the excerpt was able to touch you in such a personal way.

You're right that the piece fits nicely within the word constraints, but I'll tell you, finding a passage that did fit was the hardest part of this. In fact, I settled for about 200 fewer words than the allowed limit, just because a longer excerpt didn't quite "fit" properly (even though it was still within the word limit). And the only part I edited was the very last sentence, which I changed from the original to make it clear that they were arriving at the park to say goodbye.

One final comment--I take great personal amusement from the fact that this excerpt is very deceiving; the larger short story from whence it came is much darker than this little piece of it would lead one to believe. The full story is, I think, closer to Stephen King than to Nicholas Sparks.

As you can see, it's the little things that keep me happy... :crazy:

Patrick

[Alphabet]

Dear Stranger,

I loved the effort, thought, and style of your critique. I'm also thrilled that my women-issues poem was critiqued by a man who doesn't generally read poetry yet still enjoyed it! And read it more than once!

I see you noticed the lack of symmetry; in fact, each verse uses a different style and sound as well as length and the reason is that they are supposed to be different women speaking. Imagine, if you will, a group meeting where different women are speaking, one after another, defining themselves either by their concerns or their activities. Sometimes I see that meeting as all women privately battling about how they ought to be, between militants and non-militants; and between generations: but other times I see it as a loving demonstration by the women that they are different and that they understand and want to demonstrate their own right to be different.

The intended message is for both men and women, that women are different, have different characters, desires, and behaviours, each in their own way a form of strength for the individual.

That is a good point you make about removing the word EC. It does still make sense without that, although you'd have to understand the anger and frustration and in some sense the fear we hold about the rules descending from brussels denying us the right to deviation, for example that bananas are not allowed to bend too much. So calling it an EC standard was very much calling it an arbitrary and unwanted standard.

You know what? I think you might be right. The use of the word you does confuse, especially as in one use it means society, and in another use it means men. I've always heard the poem, and visualised the intensity of each woman driven to speak, and in my head the 'You make us worry' is said in a contemplative and damaged way, whereas the 'Why do you need to do..' is said in anger and strength. What I've always wanted for this poem is to hear it read at a poetry reading by eight different women, one stood at the front and the rest in different parts of the audience calling out. It really is a dramatic piece.

I suppose I wanted it to speak to two different audiences, and maybe that is why it seems contradictory - ahhh.. the path to hell for many a writer - and we know writers' hell is a huge pile of envelopes LOL.

Thanks once again and I do hope you get a brilliant critique in return.

[stranger]

Hi Alphabet,

I'm glad you enjoyed my critique. Thanks for explaining the parts I didn't understand. I guess the fact that it is meant to be a different women speaking in each verse explains most of what I had problems with. I'm not sure if you could of indicated this by a title such as "Eight women speak out".

I remember reading about the banana regulations from the EU, so I now understand where you are coming from with this but I think it might be a bit obsure for this poem.

Stranger

[stranger]

Hi WurdWise,

Thanks for your critique. Your suggestion for starting the piece is better than mine, no contest.

This is a snippet from a longer piece alright but your comments would be valid for the longer story as well. The goal is certainly to put you in the protagonist's head, to make you fully share his experience as much as possible. I guess having more descriptions of scenery and more involvement by his companions would help that. My fear would be that including too much description would dilute the experience. (Plus I'm very bad at descriptions.) I recently wrote another story in the same style and removed all the companions to the protagonist from the story to simplify it. Hmmm.

You got me thinking anyway,
Thanks again,
Stranger.

[wurdwise]

Stranger, you are welcome.

It sounds very much like you have done the mountain climbing yourself, so you aren't as bad at description as you think you are. And I don't know about taking the other characters out, that might be a good idea to intensify his experience, but as far as scenery, you don't need but a few extra sentences here and there. Like you said, it would make the story more of a personal adventure for the reader. If you have climbed a mountain, all you lack here is doing a little more describing of what you actually saw and how those things made you feel.

Hope this helps.

[wurdwise]

Betty, thank you so much for your comments on Maddy. I did an actual thumbs up for myself when I read your critique, because it means I am doing what I set out to do! :Thumbs:

I am going to go do a critique of #297 now.

[pepperlandgirl]

I just wanted to thank Gimpy for his (her? I'm not sure) critique. I appreciated it. :)

And I did edit the hell out of it. :) I'm not that great at grammar...I just know a few people who are and who I can exploit mercilessly. :)

[bjewel77]

Wurdwise,
Thanks so much for the critique of my little story "Cooking for Betty." Actually, my name isn't Betty, it's Bev or Beverley. Maybe you got me mixed up with Betty Crocker. Someone in another post was talking about so many stories having female characters named Sara, and thought maybe I wanted to change it to "Cooking for Sara." I guess I could do that simply by having Sara Lee crawling through the poison ivy instead of Betty Crocker. Hey, no body does it like Sara Lee. Then the lady of the house that I never named would have to go to the freezer for a frozen Sara Lee cake or something.

I know what Betty Crocker would have on, but I didn't describe it in my story like I should have. It would be the Red jacket and skirt with white blouse that she wears on my cookbook. I read where her character is updated once in a while, wonder what she would look like now? Maybe she needs her hair straight or a razor cut? Maybe some highlighting?

I have to admit I was stunned when I saw all the red changes at first, but I guess that just shows I need to work at it a bit. I'm fairly new at submitting anything, I have only submitted 2 short stories in the past, and only for contests. I've never been given a rewrite by anyone except in a group class, so is much change kinda trying the patience of an editor? Glad you thought the basic story line was good. I first wrote this story over the weekend for a flash fiction story where I had to start with part of the openng line. I could have taken it out for this, but instead I just added to the story here and there. It originally ended with storyteller finding out she was cooking for Betty Crocker. Sorry I've been so long winded.
Thanks again for all your comments and for liking the story.

Bjewel77

[wurdwise]

Beverly, like I said, I just got into what I was doing. I am not an editor, and I hope i didn't offend you. But the kind of edit I gave you is worth a lot to me in my own work. I have an email writer friend, and we do that kind of in-depth edits to each other's stuff, which takes hours, but I meant it as a compliment, not a snub at your work. If you will notice, even though there was a lot of red, it was all small stuff, I didn't think it needed anything major. The first time my email friend send me back three chapters with all that red, I thought I was gonna croak!! Then I realized she had done basically the same thing I did with you, tightened the story and made small suggestions, which ended up improving my novel tremendously. So, after you have gotten over the shock of all that red, keep your original version, the type the one up with my changes, and see if you don't think it reads better. Not that I am a better writer, not by any means, but others can see things in our work that we can't see ourselves, we are only human and don't have the abilitity to be that unbiased toward it. Only natural. ANd as far as describing the way she is dressed, I only meant that I thought you should say she had on a nice dress, hose and heels or something, just to show the contrast between the two women, now that I think about it, maybe even show the country woman's way of being dressed and a touch of embarrassment. I think this story would easily be published by a major homemakers magazine. Good luck, and let me know when I can buy the mag off the rack!

[bjewel77]

Wurdwise,

I hope you don't think I was upset or offended about what you suggested about the story. I wasn't. It was just alot more red than I had been seeing on others, and my first reaction before even reading what you had to say was "Am I that bad?" Your suggestions were all helpful, and I do appreciate them. I was joking around about Betty Crocker's dress, and about most of the stuff I wrote. Where you were saying show how she was dressed, I thought of that in the shorter version I originally did, and wanted to contrast her upper class look compared to the look of the country woman, who I imagine was wearing jeans and an old T-shirt, and hadn't fixed her hair since getting out of bed (kinda like I was most of the day today). I thought about showing how embarrassed the country woman was to have someone come into her house with the ripped linoleum floor in the kitchen and the dark paneling from the seventies. I cut lots out to keep it within the limits, and I guess I cut too much of what I needed. I'm glad to get your comments, and wouldn't mind more from anyone else. I appreciate all the help I can get!

Bjewel77 - (Bev)

[Mr Underhill]

Hello Wurdwise,

I took a quick look at your story and have a few comments after all. I see that bjewel has also also given you some good feedback, and found many of the positive points to re-inforce. I would like to echo all of those. So what I'll do here is play "bad cop" and be a bit rough with you as a challenge. But please do take it with a huge grain of salt, since I am very much not the target audience. I presume this is intended for a young teen reader, and I have to confess that as a young teen boy I was busy reading comic books and SF&F as pure escapism instead of reading about people in my situation. So I do have some trouble identifying here.

For example, I realize that a heavy emphasis on physical description of the characters' looks is par for the course for this market. Personally I feel that less is more in this department, and prefer an author to drop hints one at a time so that I can imagine the character as I see fit, within some guidelines. Maybe some characteristic mannerisms or expressions to give them life. That said, certainly a teen market, especially an American teen market, will expect or demand lots of attention to looks. And certainly a teen-age girl who is not looking in the mirror and fretting over her appearance would not be realistic.

But let me get to a couple of things I feel I must point out.

First and most important is verb tense. I am frequently guilty myself of playing fast and loose with verb tense in my writing. Sometimes I think I am being clever and I'm the only one. Sometimes I'm being sloppy but claim I was being clever. Occasionally I have a good reason for it. But whatever the case it doesn't matter what I think as the writer, it's whether the reader understands it. I should think this is especially important for a young teen audience. Simplicity and clarity are of the essence.

So: verb tense. In this piece the now of the narrative is the morning after the dance. The default for a storyteller is to relate events in the past tense, even though the characters think of it as now. For that we use simple past tense, and you are doing this part correctly. For instance you have This morning she danced slowly across her room... and that's right. You could also use the past progressive tense here to get a sense of something happening: This morning she was dancing slowly across her room... This gives the reader a sense of action, and makes the narrative now a bit more vivid if used sparingly.

Next the events of the dance the night before. They are in the past not just for the reader and narrator, but for Maddy as well. We use the pluperfect to denote this. I think that's the right term in English grammar - it's been a while since I was in eighth grade. That would be ...she had danced with him. At some point having all your verbs read like "had done" and "had been doing" gets kind of tedious, so once it's established that we're talking about the "past-past" people will transition back to regular past, but be careful. Since in this piece you're jumping back and forth between what's happening this morning and last night, you need to keep it distinct.

Please don't think I'm being condescending here - I'm sure you already know all this, I just want to make sure we're absolutely clear. It's also possible that you are deliberately using the simple past tense for both to convey a sense that the events from the dance are as immediate for Maddy as what she is doing getting ready for school. Not a bad idea, but there are other ways to accomplish that. Here's an example of why it needs to be kept distinct: Turning from the mirror, Maddy’s face burned with embarrassment. Brandon saw her standing there and felt sorry for her.I did a double-take on this one, because it sounds like Brandon is right there as she turns away from the mirror, and that would be, well... rather alarming! It should read: Maddy's face burned with embarassment. Brandon had seen her standing there and felt sorry for her. Or maybe even something like: ... burned with embarassment. She was suddenly sure that Brandon had seen her standing there and just felt sorry for her.

OK, enough about tense, I think you get the point. Here's something very simple. The first sentence starts out "Brandon had..." While I'm sure Brandon is the first thing on Maddy's mind, this briefly makes the reader think this is about him, when it's about Maddy. An easy fix would be something like "Maddy woke up still thinking about Brandon's..."

One thing you may have heard CW teachers and others say often is "show, don't tell." I suspect for younger readers this is especially important: they want to have things happening instead of hearing about them. But remember, dialog counts as "showing." So you might try writing this piece primarily as dialog and see how that works for you. For instance, maybe Maddy gets on the bus and one of the other girls comes over and says "I saw you dancing with Brandon!" and they go over what happened. Maybe Maddy is on cloud nine until she has to tell the story and suddenly she is embarassed and starts in with the self-doubting part. Maybe you can even sneak in some "Grandma won't let me.." stuff as well. Try telling the same thing a couple ways and see what works.

I like the part at the very end where the thought about her mother keeps breaking in on her day-dreaming. That's very nice, and very true to life, the way certain thoughts break in on us unasked. However, you wind it up and tell us this is happening, and that would be a great place to show us instead. Follow her daydream about the summer along so that we get into it, then pop it suddenly with the "where's mom?" thought.

Whew. I didn't think I was going to write that much. Remember to take it all with a grain of salt. You definitely don't want to get too fancy for that market, either. Simple is good. I think you have a good handle on the character and the plotting and a lot of the basics.

Oh - I'm rooting for Corey to get the girl in the end. He seems like a fine young man, and unfortunately fine upstanding young men like him too often get the short end of the stick in real life. But of course that's one reason we like to write. We can see to it that things turn out right in the end, and that all the jerks and wrong-doers get what's coming to them, yes?

[wurdwise]

Wow. Thanks so much, Mr. Underhill! You made some very good points, but you weren't a very bad cop. When you said that, I thought, uh oh! LOL

Right after this scene, Corey calls and he and Maddy talk about the dance, so the dialogue is right behind this. This scene I grabbed out of the middle of chapter one, but Maddy did wake up thinking of all these things, this was right after she got out of bed. So you had pegged aspects that should be in the story that are, which made me feel pretty good. I will check out that verb tense, I hadn't really thought too much about how to handle switching back and forth, I just put what I thought sounded right. Tweek, tweek. Thanks, again!

Oh, yeah, at the end, Corey gets contacts and some new threads and when the girl who spurned him sees him at the store, he tells Maddy her eyes about bugged out of her head!

And also, Maddy's mother left when she was a baby, she's never met her, so it couldn't be as breezy as, "where's mom?" That sentence was intended as the actual hook of my story, the introduction of the conflict.

[MarkPettus]

I appreciate your critique.

I got back too late to be much help on your thread, but I promise I did at least one critique off-board.

[Gimpy]

I just wanted to thank Gimpy for his (her? I'm not sure) critique. I appreciated it. :)

And I did edit the hell out of it. :) I'm not that great at grammar...I just know a few people who are and who I can exploit mercilessly. :)

It's "He." Glad you appreciate it. :)

I wish I had people I could exploit.. Well, I have a few. :) I just need some more!

Anyone looking to be exploited?

[Jakalyn]

I wish I had people I could exploit.. Well, I have a few. :) I just need some more!

Anyone looking to be exploited?

I am.

That would be fun.

Only cool people get exploited.