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 Review #4558078 |
 | Grammy's Lessons  [E] My grandmother's influence on my life will always be with me.  |
| (4.5)  Welcome to WdC from the "Newbie Welcome Wagon" Good morning, Travellinda , and welcome to WdC. For the record, my real name is Jack Tyler, and I am a retired steampunk and horror writer who tries to review in a wide variety of styles and genres. While I have a few books in print, I am neither a famous author nor a renowned critic. I'm just a guy with an opinion that I'm here to share, and if you disagree with anything I say here, remember that the only opinion that matters is yours. I most generally review prose fiction, but as I share many things in common with your story, it spoke to me in a very real way. Both my parents were out of the picture, pretty much by choice, and I was raised by my great-grandmother through the 50s and early 60s. She was a classic Victorian lady who taught me many things as well, not the same things you learned, but valuable nonetheless, so I couldn't let this one pass without a few words to the author. So here they are... Your presentation can be defined as the first impression your story makes when a reader clicks on the title. Call it the cosmetics. I'll be looking at abstract items from text density to scene dividers in a effort to ferret out any unfortunate habits that might cause a reader to move on without actually reading anything; before you can dazzle him with your show, you have to get him into the tent. I prefer indented paragraphs as being more "professional" looking, but you have double-spaced yours correctly to indicate the breaks. I don't penalize the rating for work that is correct, so no deduction for this. Just pointing it out. I also don't penalize for using the default format that WdC provides, but you can probably see yourself that it creates a dense wall of fine print that can be quite intimidating to a reader with compromised eyesight. Let me suggest a dramatic improvement on the default: Copy and paste the following command line at the head of your essay: {font:verdana}{size:3.5}{linespace:1.4}. That will make your story look like this review, and if you decide you don't like it, just delete the command line and it will return to its original format. The content is the heart of your story. As this is quite literally your story, no reviewer has any right to say it has plot holes or impossible events in it; you lived it, so it is what it is. There are, however, many ways you could have botched the telling. It could be all disjointed, for example, told out of order, making it impossible to follow. It could have been a boring laundry list of events with another list of lessons following. But it was none of that. It was an engaging "slice of life" reminiscent of Steinbeck in its flow and intimacy, and I have nothing to say but a hearty Well Done! I usually discuss the characters as something created by the authors, and critique them on that basis. The main characters here are you and your grandmother, with a few minor supporting characters, but these are real people, and again, it isn't my place to say you did this one or that one wrong somehow. But we are dependent on your words to meet these people, and this is another area where they could have been badly botched. They were not, and it does you credit as a writer that you neither offered inadequate descriptions for us to visualize them, nor catalogued a list of physical traits like a police report for us to refer to as we read. Yet another area of being "just right." The settings are described just enough to showcase the action, like understated settings for precious gemstones. Beautiful work. What I call the mechanics of a story takes in spelling and grammar, typos, "there" vs. "their" issues, use of words inconsistent with their actual meanings, and very importantly, typos. Whether you're writing fact or fiction, prose or poetry, the "holy grail" that you're striving for is immersion. This is an area that no author, myself included, ever wants to talk about: I've done all this work, and you want to argue over a comma?" But those commas are important. What you're really doing as a writer is weaving a magic spell around your reader, and your reader wants you to succeed. He wants to escape his mundane world for a period, and lose himself in your creation. These sort of issues yank him out of his immersion while he backtracks to re-read and puzzle out what you meant to say. This is never good, and this is the section that deals with that. There are very few errors here, but they suggest to me that you need to do more proofreading. The first is that there seems to be a misused word in this sentence: It was always a goal that someone in the family, or my oldest brother, would shoot a deer which she would can. Is your oldest brother not part of your family? I would suggest "usually my oldest brother." When I came home to get my belonging... Surely you had more than one belonging? Suggest plural here. Clarity issue: However, when the pastor picked up his guitar and he and his wife would sing my attention was on them. For many years she served as Chaplain in Grange. Was it your grandmother or the pastor's wife who served as chaplain? My style guide (Strunk & White) suggests — strongly suggests — that smaller number be written out in text: Four, thirteen, forty, and seven to be specific. Rule of thumb is that if you can write it in two words, that's the way to do it. Of course, you wouldn't want to inflict the written-out version of 295,762 on a reader, would you? When you write all these minor points down like this, it looks like a huge issue, but trust me, it isn't. Most of the things I review have a dozen or more points of corrections listed. Yours is a damned fine effort, and needs little beyond a bit of extra proofreading. This is really a brilliant and inspiring piece that you should be justly proud of. I hope that I have presented my opinions in a way that is constructive, and that you will find helpful to your endeavors going forward. It is never my intention to belittle anyone's efforts or discourage them from following the dream that I have found so fulfilling for the last six decades. In any case, if I can leave you with one thought to take with you, let it be this: Don't forget to have the fun! So many young and/or beginning writers get so caught up in the daily word count, the quest for publication, and the often conflicting advice of other writers that they forget to enjoy the journey. You may or may not become the next Big Celebrity Author, but you will always have the experience. Make sure it's a good one! Read well, and write better,  JackConsider this your invitation to join in some wide-ranging discussions among writers of every level... or start your own! You'll find the not-so-secret clubhouse at
 My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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You responded to this review 07/10/2020 @ 7:47pm EDT