Critique #75 Kathleen Retterson (revision)
Katharine Kerr September 6th, 2006
³Good afternoon, ladies,² said the nurse, young and pink
in her floral scrubs. ³You know, I¹ve wanted to tell
Emily¹s Story for so long. But I could never figure out
where to start.²
The nurse took her seat on the battered wooden chair
on the small raised platform. She gazed around the gray
room full of wizened faces  faces atop aged bodies that
sat shrunken in wheelchairs or perched Catholic-school
straight on plastic folding chairs  waiting expectantly,
as they did every Sunday afternoon, to listen to her
stories. The chairs and wheelchairs were always the same,
but the faces rarely were.
She smiled her most hopeful smile  her name was
Hope  it was etched in white on black on the name
tag above her left breast  and continued, ³And I didn¹t
know what to call it, either. I can¹t say for certain
that the heroine¹s name is really Emily. She could be
any of thousands of women who have lived since the
beginning of time. In fact, she could be me; she
could be any one of you. I just like that name because
it was my mother¹s and you ladies remind me of her.
“Anyway, today I¹m going to tell Emily¹s Story, and I¹m
just going to begin at the best beginning I know Â
the day Emily died.²
Kathleen, my apologies if I’ve referred to you as a “he” in some place or another. You think I’d realize that “Kit” could be another woman, being as everyone calls me Kit.
I have no idea why there are numbers in your text. Did you want them to be there? They were in your email.
I don’t know what’s wrong with my email — I send things as text and they end up numbers instead of quotes.
Shall I try again? I can try to send it again through AOL.
Rats! It’s also missing a couple of dashes. I resent it via AOL. Sorry for the problem.
No worries — I don’t recall you referring to me as a “he” anywhere.
I would cut the first three paragraphs. If it’s vital to have the old folks in the story, I’d put them after that fourth paragraph. Right now, there’s too much ramp-up. By the time I reached the dialog in the third paragraph, my interest was waning.
Framing devices are hard to pull off. They have a distancing effect on me, and can make an opening drag. That said, I’ve used them myself, probably too often.
I’m not going to comment on run-ons or comma issues because I see you had some formatting problems with your email.
Good luck!
OK, Kit, I have the number scheme down. 3=opening quotation, 2=closing quotation, and 1=apostrophe.
I want to know more about the story that Hope is going to tell to the elderly folks. This is the gem that hooks me in and makes me want to turn the page. However, I’d like to get a better idea of that story in this opening. I think it could be interesting to see the 2nd paragraph moved to the top, condense the prose a little, and then trim some the dialog. This would definitely get me to turn the page since there would be more room to hook me with Hope’s storytelling.
Also, there is one sentence that threw me:
The first sentence implies that the same people are always waiting expectantly every Sunday to hear Hope’s stories. Then in the next sentence we find out that the faces are different each week. I can imagine a few possibilities for this difference, but it would be great if there was a little more clarity. I think clarity could come in the form of location description and through more details about the people themselves.
Author’s Note:
The above is the revision to the opening I posted a few weeks back.
It’s radically changed from the other version. Feedback I got from those who suffered through the entirety of the original overwritten version indicated that I started in the wrong place – on two different levels. I started at the wrong place in telling Emily’s Story – everyone thought it really started at her death.
I also started at the wrong place because the story failed to give clear context – that this is a fairy tale an old(er) woman might come to believe – when it’s pretty obvious that the old Prince Charming won’t be riding up on his noble steed.
The previous opening (the “this is my fairy tale†version) read too mainstream, and locked most readers into a chick-flick mode. In other words, even though I _said_ it was a fairy tale in the opening lines, readers thought I was being metaphorical. So, they read it with their minds in a “chick flick†instead of a morbid fairy tale. As a result, most of them missed the point (and two blatantly refused to recognize it and reminded me that not everyone’s as cynical as me!). That was an interesting new-writer lesson to learn.
I also got feedback that the first person voice rendered Emily’s Story too self-indulgent sounding, so here I’ve also switched the voice to third person with a third person narrator.
So now, we have a sweet young thing named “Hope†telling a story to a bunch of old ladies (some of whom will be dead before next week) – telling a story tale that begins when the heroine dies.
I write and think in novels – this is my first short story – so I’m trying to get the hang of pacing. It seems a short story writer has to land the plane hard and fast and snag the 3-wire on the aircraft carrier, while a novel writer is like a bomber pilot with all those nice long runways to take ‘er down on slow and easy. Both require skill, precision and professionalism to get the job done – just different vehicles and conditions. I’m not so sure I’m cut out to be a Naval Aviator . . . . Thanks for your feedback.
Kathleen, I’m morally certain I know what you were attempting here. However, this sentence is chock-full of unintendedly comic images. A “room full of wizened faces”–made me think of a store-room full of old dolls’ heads. “Faces atop aged bodies” sounds as if they’re mismatched in some way. And it sounds as if the bodies themselves are waiting to listen to the stories, as they do every Sunday afternoon, ears or not. The section quoted is just a little too cute. In fact there are other things in the excerpt that are too cute–or at least indicate some thoughtless writing.
This suggests that when wearing something else the nurse might be old and green. The heart of the excerpt is that Hope is telling the elderly folk a story about Emily. Where is this? A church? A retirement home? Is it today? Next week? The thing is, I’m not sure I need to know all this stuff, but what you’ve given me isn’t compelling enough to keep me from asking questions. At the risk of being harsh, which I don’t want to be, I think you should start with the last paragraph, which is a great hook.
All I will say is that I truly envy your ability to use metaphor so effectively. Don’t give up yet - flying takes practice, that’s all.
I think everyone else has pretty much covered the critique for this submission, so I won’t reiterate :).
Wow, “thoughtless writing.” I assure you that it is not the want of thought that renders the writing shit.
The above sounds more petulant that it’s meant — my apologies.
Admittedly, the phrase “thoughtless writing” raised a fine welt.
But with respects, I think the problem is that the passage is “over-thought,” trying overhard to be clever. (It’s layered with so many meanings that it’s now meaningless.)
And now that these errors are pointed out to me, I see that it’s crap. (I do mean to be harsh on me because I expect better of myself.)
As always, I appreciate the time and thoughtfulness each of you give my work. And beg your patience as this newbie develops a fine, thick skin.
Many, many thanks.
Kathleen–
I didn’t mean to raise a welt; I was probably working so hard to define what was bothering me that I didn’t think too much about how I was saying it. Apologies. And I know exactly what you mean by “over-thought.” It’s a thing I have to battle with; I sometimes thing the essence of writing, for me, is knowing what not to put on the page.
As I said: I really love the idea of starting with “today I’m going to tell Emily’s Story, and I’m just going to begin at the best beginning I know–the day Emily died.” It’s a great hook, and from there you can explain where Hope is and who she’s talking to, if you want to do that. I’d be curious to hear more about that story.
Madeleine touched on my own reactions. I’d like to see this opening distilled down to a couple of vivid sentences–Hope, the old folks, Hope’s beginning to tell her story. All the rest of the wordage kinda gets in the way.