Review Request: On 10-17-2011 at 11:11am : Areas of concern: first paragraph references events the prior summer. I can’t seem to get it right. The Gandhi reference should show cultural differences; Does it work for readers. The embedded Frog and Snake story. Is there a better way to format?

What is on the page:

The story paints a picture of a time long past and far away. There's quite a bit of conversation. Some of it, used to pass the time on the walk, reveals backstory and introduces the two main characters to each other -- a valid technique to be using in that story situation. Action continues, sprinkled among the speeches, so it's not just talking heads. The story could use more of the other 5+ senses information to make it feel real to the reader. There are a few blocks of backstory in the narration, however, that haven't been integrated.

Overall, this reads like faction rather than fiction. There's too much detail in the conversations for it to be straight nonfiction from a remembered past, but it also doesn't have the clear structure of a short story. Rather, there seem to be two partial story structures -- the learning of a lesson about what makes a bad deal and dealing with the consequences, and the unrequited quest to do a good deed to prove herself worthy of trust and respect. The beginning does not set up the ending, and the ending of the first part doesn't indicate anything is incomplete. The lesson part needs more learning in the dealing with the consequences - the learning of sales techniques and the learning of evaluating when it's time to stop working and finish up with whatever can be salvaged, need to be "learned" on the page rather than just "happening". The quest part is missing on the page the reason it's a need to her, and the hoped-for objective to be gained.

There is some effort on the part of the narrator to solve her own problems, and granted she is a child, but for fiction there needs to be a bit more on the page of her "earning" the intervention and help of the adults - such as when her father buys the last two ducks (an exercise of her charm, perhaps, not necessarily calculated on her part), and when the employee creates the ring for her (perhaps besides the drawings she could do some chores to earn the right to give it away).

This uses a first person past tense narration. While it is an accepted technique for "memory pieces" to use the same narrative voice throughout, this piece does not use an opening frame to set the age of the narrator-now as a grandmother. It starts with the narrator-then at ten. Since a great deal of the charm of the story comes from the character of the narrator, the part where the narrator is ten will be more believable if it sounds like a ten year old is telling the story there. There's nothing in that part of the story that requires an adult narrator. Currently the narration usually sounds like someone much older (the author, to be exact). The vocabulary is quite elevated and the sentence structures feel stilted and overly formal, especially in the speeches. At the end of the piece the diction and grammar of the narration can gradually become more adult to reflect the aging of the narrator. With this technique, the reader experiences the passage of time along with the narrator in a natural way.

The narration doesn't give the reader the emotional reaction of the narrator very often, or much of the physical sensation, the other of the 5+ senses information, to make it a virtual experience for the reader. The story would be better if it reached deeper.

The embedded story shows a commentary on the story situation. The differing reactions of the two characters to it further illustrates the point, which is repeated in the situation with the uncle and in the last line of the story proper.


Stage in the writing process (from 1.0 to 5.0): 3.0 - functional. The reader can understand what happens, for the most part, but it doesn't quite create a virtual experience to draw the reader into the dream.


Suggestions:

The opening is trying to do too much at once and isn't focusing on the job it is supposed to be doing. Instead of starting the story at the second encounter, start it with the first encounter, with a scene of what she started out intending to do and the interruption of the making of the deal, and whatever happened after that. Then use a paragraph or two of transition that moves her home for school and back again some months later (why?) to move the story forward to the next encounter. Drop back into scene with the parallel of what she started out intending to do and the interruption of Paito's arrival with the ducks. Then proceed as currently, leaving out the telling of what the reader has now already been shown.
. . . This will also get rid of the flashback structure, which weakens the story.

The story is vague about what happens when. It says she always goes to visit her uncle in the summer, presumeably when school is on break. This makes it sound like both encounters happen in the summer. However, Paito is paid for only 5 months salary.

The story implies that summer was 5 months before, and it is approaching Christmas, but Mozambique and South Africa are in the southern hemisphere, where the seasons are reversed. Christmas occurs during the summer. It might be more natural for someone from the area to refer to the wet season and the dry season, however. The school year is also arranged differently, I've been told.

When her father shows her the diamond, he doesn't say it is for her, but she speaks as if he did.

The Gandhi (it's misspelled in the text) reference would probably work to show cultural differences if the story contained the answer to her actual question somewhere. As is, her unanswered actual question creates a distraction that takes away from the focus on their different perspectives. The text also depends on the reader knowing the answer. As time passes, and with most references to the man being simply his last name, it becomes more likely that younger readers will be unaware of that information.
. . . Since a main part of the audience for the story seems likely to be younger readers, the story needs to be accessible to them -- another reason to change the diction/etc. of the narrator.

The embedded story could be formatted with a block quote. This would allow for paragraphing. -


I changed tact.
--> tact is the wrong word.

This still needs a thorough proofreading by eyeball. It occasionally is missing a word, or the end of a word. While some missing articles in speech can indicate a non-native speaker, other places look like mistakes. There are several places where to/too/two uses the wrong one.

We walked further down the road. I did not understand his assertions.
--> These two sentences need to switch places so the understand sentence comes after the assertions in the previous speech paragraph. The cause-effect sequence needs to be followed.
--> look up the difference in usages of further and farther.


Keep writing!