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Re: Way behind in reading your story here...
aw thank you for the critique! it's much appreciated.
i actually think it's funny that Sarah echoes my poetry, because she and I are not very much alike. The stubborness, yes. But just about everything is different. Yet it's personal because my method of writing is through characters, so it's how I know her feelings so well.
thank you for reading! 
posted by
Luz_Briar
on August 4, 2008 at 5:17 PM
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Way behind in reading your story here...
but you have been so helpful commenting over the way in HERETICS that I want to do the same for you.
These are my impressions at this point--offered as someone who writes, but is also a free-lance editor and writing teacher. I am looking at this as a publishing editor might, so I'll try to be direct and business-like about it.
I'm reading this after also reading the Kat story, and reading some of your poetry. I see in Sarah something of the person who writes the poems. I don't always or even usually get the poems entirely--bits, I do at least find echoing something I know. This is by no means a criticism of your poems, just an admission that I don't know you well enough to know where your images come from.
As to the stories... I recall how beautifully you handled the Kat story, particularly the early parts, describing the darkness and her experiencing of it. There, you were showing more than telling the story, as if you knew what was happening in your gut. This one seems to be coming more from your head than your gut, and it shows in that you are telling more than showing.
What this boils down to, is that what you have here is an early draft, like an outline. I think most of us start with this, telling the story as we work it out. What you're reading in mine is several drafts in by now, and there are still places where I am rewriting, to show rather than tell.
We have to tell, to get the story down in print, to anchor the ideas. My routine after that is to take sections and visualize how the information can be conveyed through describing actions, and through dialogue.
In my opinion, you have a knack for dialogue and for revealing characters and personalities through it. You also have the inspiration, that knowing in the gut that transcends the story you know in the intellect. That shows in your poetry, your imagery, every time you get into that flowing mode of writing.
posted by
Ciel
on August 4, 2008 at 5:04 PM
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Smitten
thanks for always reading between the lines!
posted by
Luz_Briar
on July 23, 2008 at 5:52 PM
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such a smooth and evocative delivery - entranced - me thinks a change came and the wind blue -
""Kat’s green eyes grew murky, “I’m sorry, Sarah. I didn’t know…”"
posted by
Smittenheimer
on July 23, 2008 at 5:15 PM
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Sinome
thanks so much. please do
posted by
Luz_Briar
on July 22, 2008 at 8:43 PM
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I think this is wonderful, well written and interesting... got to come back and read all of them... Great job!
posted by
Sinome
on July 22, 2008 at 8:20 PM
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