Critique #96 — Michael Adkins
Kevin Andrew Murphy January 14th, 2007
The patient didn’t realize it yet, and probably never would, but he would be healed or killed before the week was over.As for Dr. Grann Newhan, he didn’t realize it yet either. And wouldn’t for quite a few more minutes, or hours–it might even stretch into days. Or it might hinge on what his nurse thought they should do. There would be a lot of changing opinions on the matter.
First, though, he had to get the young man’s name right.
“Hello, Mr. Palla. Am I saying that right? Like pal?”
“Yeah, that’s it. With an uh on the end.”
“Well, I’m Dr. Newhan, like new with a hand on the end–minus the d!â€
The patient smiled.“Okay, Mr. Palla, let’s see what we have here.”
Dr. Newhan studied the screen on his notepad with a vexed look in his eyes.
I think you could lop off the first two grafs. They seem to be telling us the obvious, and aren’t entertaining or enlightening.
Once you started your dialogue, my interest perked up. Because you only had thirteen likes I couldn’t see where this is going, but I would turn the page to find out.
I wish I liked this better, but it’s all vague and going-nowhere–both the narrative and the dialogue. There’s nothing terribly wrong with it except that I get to the end knowing only that one party is a patient and the other is a doctor. That’s not enough to make me turn the page, alas.
Michael,
Unfortunately, I’m of the same opinion as Madeleine–this didn’t grab me, or even interest me. The doctor’s bedside banter is too affected for me to have much sympathy or interest, and the patient is simply colorless. And as Sherwood said, the first two paragraphs were both obvious and boring.
The one line with any tension or interest in it is the last one. This:
Dr. Newhan studied the screen on his notepad with a vexed look in his eyes.
As I keep telling folk: “Show, don’t tell” and “Imply, don’t show.” That last line strongly implies that there is a serious problem here and the doctor doesn’t know what to make of it. Which makes both a mystery and suspense. Mystery because we don’t know what it is; suspense because the patient’s life is at stake.
What I’d do is bob everything but the last sentence and start from there. Ditch the obvious introduction and the boring banter.
I wouldn’t turn the page with the way it is right now, but I might if the rest of the page held the same interest as the final line.
Closing comments here since you’ve got a revised version with Critique #104