Thanks D'Estaing and TWS. Some great comments that have got me thinking. I will definitely change my pitch - this is 1932 Western Australia, as D'Estaing guessed (how did you know???). I hadn't realised I had 5 characters in 600 words until TWS pointed it out. I get what you're saying. I will stay in Lily's internal monologue a while longer.

They have sold up the farm, about to leave in two days' time, but the wheat is still growing out in the fields.

TSW I meant!

Re: the name Girlie. It's quite important as it's a nickname but her real name is never used. My grandmother was called Girlie and grew up on  wheat farm in Caron during thr Depression, but that's where the similarities end.

Emu War is the name of a real war the Aust military waged against emus in the WA wheat fields of 1932!

"a real war the Aust military waged against emus"

 I hope there's a sequel and it's called "The Emus Strike Back"

 "as D'Estaing guessed (how did you know???)"

Coughs modestly, buffs fingernails on lapel, inspects same for tiniest blemish, finds none.

Hello Faux Eds, I heard you were keen for more words.

Title: Matt & Beth Get Divorced (this is a working title)

Genre: Women's Fiction

Short pitch: Six years after they split up, Beth's still not sure if Matt was the best thing that ever happened to her, or the worst.

Linky: http://www.bookcountry.com/Bookdetail.aspx?BookId=8359 

British English

(This is only 570 words but it's the whole first chapter so seemed like a good place to stop.)

                                                                     Chapter 1: Before

She didn’t see him again, after he left. He took his stuff and that was that. Oh, apart from that one time. Mm.

And then there were the phone calls. He’d said she could phone him, if she wanted. He said that would be fine. She did want to, sometimes, but she never actually got that far. Never even picked up the phone. She wasn’t a complete idiot. He said they’d be friends. But they weren’t, were they?

He rang her, though, sometimes. That first year, maybe eight times. Nine, maybe. Unexpected, always. Late, usually. Didn’t say much. “How are you, what’re you up to,” kind of thing.

And then, you know, “Tell me a story?” Or, “What are you wearing?”

And she’d make something up for him, hear his breathing change. She lay on the sofa, or in bed, and said the sort of things she’d always said. They had the same effect as ever.

Sometimes he’d ring back the next day, to apologise.

She always said it didn’t matter, that it was fine. It made her cry though. Afterwards. Once he’d hung up.

It was awkward. She wouldn’t ask him not to. She couldn’t tell him to stop. She wanted – well. Anything seemed better than nothing, the empty void, the abyss.

Although she knew that wasn’t true, that she was just making it worse for herself, that she was weak and foolish, a mug. It was alright for him, wasn’t it? But anyway.

Eventually, he stopped phoning. She guessed he’d met someone.

Christmas and birthday cards, the odd postcard, an email sometimes. They were going to go for a drink, once, but she changed her mind at the last minute, blew him out, pretended she had a migraine.

Then he rang one New Year’s Eve. Three years ago? Or four? Drunk, obviously. He’d said she was ‘special’. He’d cried. Very drunk.

“There’s no one like, you, Beth. I’m such a fool. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to leave you.”

She told him to fuck off, that time. Feeling stronger. Not alone, either. That time he’d sent flowers. REALLY SORRY, said the card.

Not friends, then, but in touch. Enough that he could tell people they were friends, anyway. “Yeah, she’s doing okay, still working at that place, lives with her boyfriend, they’re loaded, no kids, no, I don’t think she wants to get married again.”

Then he met this girl, Heather. He was thirty-six, and she wanted kids, and everyone said it was time he settled down, and he thought, you know, maybe he should. But he’d need to get divorced, right?

Message on Facebook.

Need to talk. Can I buy you lunch? Thinking of getting married. Paperwork. Money-saving scheme. Discuss?

Beth had been waiting, really, for this. Matt was bound to marry again, wasn’t he? And so one day they’d be divorced, and she’d have to say ‘my ex-husband’ when she talked about him. No more explanations – my husband, we’re separated. No, I’m not married to Ken; I’m married to someone else. I guess we’ll get divorced eventually. I won’t get married again, though. Once was enough. Ha ha.

Yes, we were very young.

Yes, it was probably a mistake.

Yes, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Yes, I still think about him all the time.

Yes, he broke my heart, and yes, it was fucking awful.

Yes, let’s have lunch.

Hi Muninn,

Thanks for submitting.  Normal caveat, just my opinion as one reader, use what you like and discard the rest.

Overall I’d say this is pretty good.  There’s an authentic voice here, were totally in her head from the start, and there’s no forced exposition.  I like the repetitive statements at the end, and the way you vary those so they’re not all ‘Yes, I…’

Holistically I have a number of general notes. 

1. Could you leaven this with a little humor, it’s awfully bleak – I’m not sure how much of this I could read without wanting a break. 

2. Second, it’s so staccato (which I normally like) that it’s sometimes difficult to read.  Varying this gives us her halting thoughts, but longer run-on sentences could also read more smoothly and have the feel of a rant – which might make for an authentic contrast.

3. I’ve read so many Women’s fiction works that start with the man leaving the woman, or messing around in a way that drives the woman away (husband caught in an affair etc.)?  I sense a convention of ‘woman reliant on a man, man lets woman down, woman finds her strength without a man, woman finds new man and new happiness.’  Is there a more modern and interesting arc than this?

4. I was wondering about the dramatic stakes.  Rather than her angry thoughts, is there a decision in front of her that will draw us in?  I was wondering if that was in the last sentence ‘Yes, let’s have lunch.’  But the way I read that was that the series of ‘Yes,…” statements was that they were directed at a third party that was not her husband: ‘Yes, I still think about HIM all the time. Yes, HE broke my heart…’ instead of ‘Yes, I still think about YOU all the time. Yes, YOU broke my heart…’ The second version makes the ‘Yes, let’s have lunch’ clear.  Even then, by her agreeing to have lunch you’ve largely killed the drama and internal conflict.  I’d prefer the line: ‘‘No, I’m not going to have lunch.’   

5. Per #4, I’m also suspecting that part of the comprehension issue I’m having here is that it’s in third person past tense, but actually has a very strong feel of first person present.  And the moments that are so clearly third person (‘Beth had been waiting, really, for this…) dissonantly take us out of her head and thoughts.  I’d prefer this as first person present.

Small stuff…

picked up the phone = do people still pick up phones?

“How are you, what’re you up to[?]”

“Tell me a story?” = no question mark would be marginally better.

Sometimes he’d ring back the next day[,] to apologise.

Afterwards = obvious, and too staccato.

She wanted – well. = maybe an ellipse.

the empty void, the abyss = seemed a little over the top, and super-bleak.  Might be a moment to add some self-reflective humor

Although she knew that wasn’t true = what is the antecedent to ‘that’? Wasn’t clear.

Eventually[,] he stopped phoning.

Blew him out = blew him off.

Pretended she had a migraine = I’d prefer ‘said.’

Not alone, either = I felt this needed a little more clarity (‘not alone’ could be her living with 6 cats) at this point, though of course it’s more explicit later there’s a boyfriend.

That time he’d sent flowers = any detail on the flowers?  Might add authenticity, and could even be funny.

“Yeah, she’s doing okay, still working at that place, lives with her boyfriend, they’re loaded, no kids, no, I don’t think she wants to get married again.” = (i) You may not have intended it, but it does feel like we’re in his head, not hers, which is a little dissonant. (ii) I found the ‘loaded’ comment a little odd, an important fact that’s rather thrown in there.  Also, the boyfriend and being loaded (plus he left her years ago, I’d reckon around 6-7 years back) undermines my ability to sympathize with her and her complaining. I think there’s a risk readers will tell her to get over it and quit with the pity-party.

‘and he thought, you know, maybe he should. But he’d need to get divorced, right?’= we are now in his head, right?

Thinking of getting married = thinking???  Wouldn’t he reconnect because he is getting married?

I’m married to someone else = I know what you mean, but first time I was confused.  Maybe it should just be more direct – ‘No more explanations – no, Ken and I aren’t married. I have an ex, we just haven’t got the divorce done yet. I guess we’ll get it sorted out eventually.’

I guess we’ll get divorced eventually = thought she was referring to Ken.

I hope these notes are a little helpful.  I really like the voice and authenticity in your writing and that's the most important thing.  Best of luck with this.

TSWS.

--edited by T.S.W. Sharman on 10/18/2015, 1:17 PM--

Title: The Happiness Priciple 

Pitch: Five people's lives intersect with unexpected consequences. Women's fiction.

Delilah

You’re having a panic attack.

Hi Katie,

Thanks for submitting, and (normal caveat) just one reader’s opinion etc. etc.

I’m sure the title is a simple typo from putting this up on the thread.  I like the idea behind the SP (Crash etc.) but maybe you could give a little more sense of a unifying theme for these 5 people, if there is one.

Overall, I really like this.  It opens like a movie.  It’s first person present (of which I’m a giant fan, though do give a few seconds thought to third person present, which I believe you could pull off.)  The voice is authentic. And I love the gallows-humor which really lifts it for me: ‘She was dying and she was worried about keeping the furniture together’ ‘She had [she’d] just begun to shake off the most crippling parts of her widowhood when she got the news that she wouldn‘t need to get used to living without him after all ‘but wait for the guilty relief when it was over’ – these really elevate the piece. 

[I heard on NPR the story of two sisters. It’s the day after their father died, and one of them is getting something from the fridge when they drop the butter dish, a crappy old butter dish, and it smashes on the ground.  She says, “That was Dad’s.” They both erupt into laughter.  That’s the reality you capture here in some of these moments.]

I have a number of INCREDIBLY small points, but a couple of more general observations.  Some of these echo what I wrote two posts ago.

1. I think you could maybe go a touch slower, maybe 5-10%.  I’m curious as to (i) whether she’d be beaten before, (ii) whose cap it was, (iii) what happens when she leaves the bathroom, are there annoyed people looking at her.

2. Dramatic stakes.  I get the inherent drama of a sudden, rushed escape, but can you (should you) touch the central questions she must be asking herself: what now?  Did I do anything to deserve this?  Without making it too blatant, I think this could raise it a notch. 

3. COMPLETELY REPEATING MYSELF FROM THE LAST POST…I’ve read so many Women’s Fiction works that start with the man leaving the woman, or messing around in a way that drives the woman away (husband caught in an affair etc.)?  I sense a convention of ‘woman reliant on a man, man let’s woman down, woman finds her strength without a man, woman finds new man and new happiness.’  Is there a more modern and interesting arc that this?  Can this be arc be subverted?

And now the incredibly small points…

I’ll be fine = maybe make this sound less confident… “I’ll be fine. No, I’m going to puke and die. No, really, I’ll be fine.”
goes up = soars?

talking to myself about breathing = maybe another word like ‘gabbling’ that sounds more panicky.
They’ll just have to wait – I think this might be better without ‘wait’ and maybe with an added expletive.  BTW, this is surprisingly expletive-free.
I flush, go to the sink, run the water, look up = this feels like quite a sudden change from her panic
It’s not so bad = not a fan of this, as it undermines the drama of her situation – whether she’ll make it even out of the Target.
It wasn’t yet dawn = of that morning, maybe add that?

estate sale = sounds a touch too grand, wouldn’t it be a yard sale?

Dead is dead = the tone struck me as just a touch too harsh.  Maybe.
My father’s death was sudden and shocking and devoid of the ability to say goodbye = I love this.

It was terrifyingly fast: the fear in his eyes, his twisted face, the ambulance sirens too late = this comes across as too little detail for such an extraordinarily painful event.  Maybe distance her from it a little (a call from her mother to come to the hospital, he’s dead before she arrives…etc.)

an endless terror = I know what you mean, the waiting for more bad news, setbacks, rushed visits to hospitals.  I’d love you to elaborate a little on this ‘terror’ make it more than the one word.
That morning = I didn’t initially connect this to the morning of the beating/packing, perhaps you could do that, so it doesn’t feel like we’re starting on a different day.  I think you could be clearer that she’s just leaving her apartment with the grab-bag of possessions.

remembering my favorite frying pan = that she’s left behind, right?  Does she have any desire to go back and get it, does she wrestle with that.  Goes to my second general point about allowing some of her emotions to develop a touch more.

So overall, I really like it, and the suggestions are just minor tinkering.  Best of luck with this.

TSWS

--edited by T.S.W. Sharman on 10/18/2015, 10:53 PM--

as to your point about women's fiction with a common story line, i understand why you'd assume she's been beaten, but that's actually not what happened.

and yes, the title is a typo. gr. (expletive!)

thanks again.

Hi TSW 

Thanks for reading and for your helpful and detailed notes, very useful and much appreciated.  

They have lunch in Chapter Two, so no point her turning him down, even if that might be sensible.

Cheers

Jack

I'm still waiting for the other bloke's take on MATT AND BETH. I read three chapters again this morning, and it's as perfect as I remember from my read several months ago, though saw one possible edit in Chapter 3. I'll put it on my review. 

I hope it's finished, or at least a few more chapters are. I've been waiting forever...

Here's the "other bloke's" ( ) comments on "Matt and Beth Get Divorced".

Hi, got distracted. We were running an adventure race for charity over the last weekend, and it's been pretty full-on with organisational issues and logistics the last few weeks. The race is run, and €28,500 raised for charity, so very happy. Back to work.

I said Muninn should put this up here, or rather, I asked her why she wouldn't put it up here, because I think it's a really nice piece of work of its genre and pretty much ready to go if she wanted to submit it to an agent. I did read on further (beyond this opening chapter), and I'm going to put those notes in a review on her book page, should anyone want to go and have a look at it in a few days.

Title: Fine. A working title anyway.

Pitch: Very "Richard and Judy".

Text: I like it. It needs a proof read for punctuation, but generally a very high standard of writing. I do have some quibbles, as below:

For one thing, it's not really a chapter, is it? I've rarely seen anything that screams "prologue" more succinctly, although I can completely understand, given the industry's alleged antipathy to prologues, why you would choose not to deem it such. It's a perfect little self-contained vignette of a pretty dysfunctional relationship, that's told in first-person confessional mode. It doesn't really describe any action, but it does perfectly set the scene for the action that follows. But no, don't change it. It is chapter one. It's just a pity that prologues are so out of fashion because this is a perfect example.

"Mm" - I don't know. I'm familiar with "Mmm", and "Hmmm". "Mmm" says yummy ("scrummy", as a lovely very posh ex-girlfriend used to say). "Mmm" is artisanal chocolate ice cream eaten with a long spoon, or a warm sheepskin rug between the toes. "Hmmm" says "thoughtful, not too sure really, don't know whether to brag about it or deny it, and I certainly won't be putting it on Facebook". I'm not sure what "Mm" means. Does it mean "goddamn that was a hot night of steamy sex - we nearly broke the bed and I get wet just thinking about it", or does it mean "yeah, not sure what I did there - feel a bit dirty about it frankly".

"she never actually got that far" - isn't it the case that she never actually went that far? "Got" implies something extraneous impeding her, whereas with "went" we understand it's her self-control kicking in, which is what I take it you mean.

People use it, but I think "what're" is a bit of a forced contraction. Personal style, maybe. If I roll the words around in my mouth I can't honestly call a significant difference between "what are" which comes out "wottr" the way I say it, and "what're". As I said, maybe personal choice. If you're stressing the "are" as in "What are you doing rummaging in my knickers drawer?" then there's clearly a difference, but not here.

So they have phone sex. I don't get it personally, I'm a visual type, but I do find the concept intriguing. Is there an example of one of their "conversations" later in the book? If not, there should be. Would be a real talking point if you pulled it off (ahem…so to speak).

I love the line "It made her cry though. Afterwards." It's so poignant, and while there's generally a bittersweet humour in her introspection, this is the first real inkling that there's real emotional pain behind it.

Is your stylistic trope, of very brief staccato sentences ("It made her cry though. Afterwards. Once he'd hung up.") overdone? I don't honestly know. Perhaps. A little? Hard to judge really.

"it was alright for him" - No. "all right" is two words. We have our standards, don't we?

"Not alone either" - that seems to be a bit odd. Of which more later.

"they're loaded" - That's a bit odd too.

"Then he met this girl, Heather. He was thirty-six, and she wanted kids, and everyone said it was time he settled down, and he thought, you know, maybe he should. But he'd need to get divorced, right?" - you lose your grip on her POV slightly here. I think it's the "he thought, you know, maybe he should". How does she know this? Perhaps he might have told her in one of his emails. Well okay, but that undermines your next sentence about the Facebook message "Need to talk. Can I buy you lunch? Thinking of getting married." Either he's already told her, in which case why is he repeating himself, or hasn't told her, in which case how did she know what he was thinking before she got this message? You could keep most of those two sentences merely by flipping their order and introducing her speculation about his state of mind with an "Apparently". So it becomes:

"One day, a Facebook message out of the blue. "Need to talk. Can I buy you lunch? Thinking of getting married. Paperwork. Money-saving scheme. Discuss?" Apparently he'd met this girl, Heather…" etc etc

Do you see what I mean?

I love the finish of this piece. It has a beautifully toned staccato beat of heartache building up to the final emotional capitulation, at which point your head is in your hands and you're thinking "FFS woman, are you nuts?" Really well done.

Now, about my points earlier - "that seems to be a bit odd". If there's one flaw in this piece, it would be that I don't "get" her relationship with Ken. It's long standing (at least three or four years, apparently). They live together in a gorgeous house. They have no kids and both work, so I'd imagine lots of time and money spent on travel, holidays, or expensive toys. But she merely says "not alone either", about him, and doesn't mention him again. I personally find it hard to imagine that she wouldn't have moved on emotionally. How long ago did she and Matt split up? The way you've written it I am led to imagine at least six or seven years ago. I think reading ahead they were only married for five years? Why is she still clinging to him? I don't really expect you to answer this in the first 600 words of the book - I'd imagine if you could, it would also be the last 600 words of the book. But I don't see an unhappy brooding loner crying when she gets off the phone to her ex-boyfriend here, or at least, if she is, I don't have much sympathy for her. And what is Ken? Is he a mere cypher? Would he really tolerate her being married to someone else and not getting divorced, after being with her for four years? I'm trying to imagine myself in the same situation and, being a jealous kind of guy, I'd say my understanding would reach about six months, tops. "Either get divorced, or we're quits." Is their relationship also dysfunctional? Is his constantly working abroad a euphemism for lack of commitment on his part - doesn't he really care that much? And then, children. Her biological clock must be ticking quite loudly now. She's what, late twenties, turning thirty? Is she really still hoping deep down that Matt will be the father of her children? I get that he must have resuscitated these hopes to some extent every time he rang up, but over a period of six or seven years? Really? And after all, apart from "the once", he hasn't come round and actually shagged her, has he, in all these years?

Since this is presumably the core plot point of the book, given the title, I wonder if there's a way to more clearly set out the emotional stakes as far as she is concerned. As it stands, it comes across that she just needs a good slap. Hasn't she got any girlfriends who would administer this? She seems to be wearing her "victim" hat, and matching scarf and gloves, rather proudly.

Or you could fiddle with the longevity of the relationships. Make her and Matt a much more longstanding marriage. Perhaps Beth is in her fifties and they were married for twenty years? Perhaps make Ken a very recent addition, so that, although she's keen on him, he hasn't really scratched her soul in the way that the fruitcake Matt, with his (spoiler alert!) fetishes and vulnerabilities, managed to.

 I don't know. I'm not an expert in the genre, and I am, after all, a male, with the emotional intelligence of a goldfish. But would she really still be carrying a candle for Matt after such a short marriage, after such a long subsequent separation, after meeting (presumably falling in love with) Ken and having their cool but intelligent together-but-apart life? Perhaps this is all explained in the next few chapters. Perhaps I should sit back and just let the quality of the writing flow over me. Perhaps your target audience will completely empathise with her and scorn my ridiculous lack of compassion. All men are, after all, bastards.

Summary: A really accomplished piece of writing. It stands head-and-shoulders above a lot of its genre (not that I'm an expert, but I've had reason to read a few lately). I wonder if the plot couldn't do with a little focus though, to elevate it into a really good book? You undoubtedly have the talent. It's merely a question of its application.

Thanks for posting.

D'Estaing - www.editorial.ie

--edited by D'Estaing on 10/20/2015, 12:56 AM--

--edited by T.S.W. Sharman on 10/19/2015, 8:54 PM--

Thank you, D'Estaing, for your encouraging comments. I do struggle with POV on occasion, this is very helpful. I might even crack on and finish it... you never know.

Oh, and don't worry, there is some phone sex later.

Hi Katie,

Nice to see another talented ex-Authonomite here. Good luck with Finding Charlie (currently on the Kindle Scout campaign).

Title:

The Happiness Principle - okay.

Pitch:

A bit vague. I suspect you haven't really thought about a pitch yet.

Text:

I'd punctuate the first para differently: comma after "reassuring", stop after "wheezing", colon after "attack". Reason? The "although" feels like it belongs more to the "attempt to be reassuring" than the statement "it's just a panic attack". But it's not wrong, as it is.

"my hands are numb so I paw at the roll until it spins" - The way it's written makes it sound as if she wants to make the roll spin, like she's a kitten on a Youtube video. Shouldn't there be a "only manage to" inserted there after "I"? (The first time I read it, I read it as "my hands are so numb" - I don't know why. But that version does make more sense and it occurs to me that that might be the word order you intended and they've been switched in an edit?)

Where does the baseball cap come from if it isn't hers? If she was trying to cover up some damage to her face, why wasn't she wearing it on the way in to the bathroom, in which case, wouldn't it be just lying by the sink, rather than in her bag?

"It wasn't yet dawn…" - Whoa! I'm looking for a segue between these two scenes and one isn't immediately apparent. In which case it's an abrupt shift after only a very short scene. Why did you start with the passage in the bathroom stall? You leave her still in there. Nothing happened except she calmed down, put a hat on and looked in the mirror. It all seems significant until you just leave her standing there, after which it's difficult to see any significance in any of it.

"The list was surprisingly short" - then semi-colon, then the list of three items separated by commas.

She's fleeing her own apartment? Okay. Interesting. Naturally want to know why.

"I feel no attachment to material things." - that's kind of telling us what you've already shown in the previous para, isn't it? Either that or it makes her procrastination, looking round the apartment at all the things she doesn't care two hoots about, rather odd, especially if she was under time pressure (which I got from "nervous darting circles"). Then you demonstrate with her mother's death the inherent absurdity of having an attachment to material things, as if we might not have gathered her point. It's all a bit heavy handed. Talk about sledgehammer to crack a nut.

"After the funeral, there'd been an estate sale." - very passive. "I'd held an estate sale, and got rid of all of it. Dead is dead."

Then a para on how her mother died, and then a para on how her father died, as if you're mentally ticking off the relations you've got to get out of the way before you can start her story.

And then the police turn up at her apartment block. This is good, because initially we're thinking poor little victim female (again), but then we start wondering, perhaps not. Perhaps she's the perp here. What has she done? Why is she fleeing her apartment?

I think it's a bit rough to be honest, Katie, and not up to your usual standard. There are great things in it. Even in the para about her mother dying, I really like the line "when she got the news that she wouldn't need to get used to living without him after all." Very black humour, just my type. But as a piece it feels disjointed and not fully thought through.

I think you'd be better sticking to one scene within the first few pages, either what she's doing in the Target bathroom and what happens next, or what happens when she flees her apartment.

You've got plenty of suspense building and the plot is an interesting one. But your MC is more defined by what she doesn't think and who she isn't, rather than anything positive, which is a little difficult to get one's head around. If you go through the piece: She hasn't got a family, or a disability. It's not her hat. She fled her own apartment. She has no attachment to material things. She doesn't believe in an afterlife. She hasn't either parent living. She's not even got her favourite frying pan. If you try to define a character by who they're not, and what they don't like, it could be a very long book.

Summary: Agent ready? I don't think so. It feels, coming from you, more like an early draft than a finished work, to be honest. You are clearly adept at the technique of dropping plot into apparently inconsequential phrases ("It [the police cruiser] turned into the parking lot of my apartment complex and I took a right on red."). You have a fabulous line in deadpan black humour. I happen to know you're an accomplished writer. Just not sure this beginning does you justice as it stands.

But, thanks for posting.

D'Estaing - www.editorial.ie

--edited by D'Estaing on 10/21/2015, 8:49 AM--

Hi, Katie,

"My father’s death was sudden and shocking and devoid of the ability to say goodbye"...

Nice line.  Could I suggest you make it "devoid of the opportunity to say goodbye"?

D'Estaing- that was really helpful. i appreciate your honesty- was worried about the quick launch into backstory (her mother and father's deaths.) i think i will try to stick with that first scene longer, as you say.

also thanks to TSW for the nice comment about voice.

--edited by katie78 on 10/20/2015, 5:21 PM--

Hi, Katie,

On the whole, I like this---the SP could be punchier---but there are places where I feel your wordage has smeared rather than left a clean mark. For instance, the panic attack should be as staccato and panicky in delivery as the attack itself.  So, instead of feeling like her heart's about to burst---which is a report, even though in Present---let us have the bursting heart in the here and now.

Suggested cuts in red, suggested edits in blue.

You’re having a panic attack.

This is what I say to myself in an attempt to be reassuring. Although it feels like my heart is about to burst and the oxygen has been sucked from the room, leaving me wheezing, it’s just a panic attack. I’ll be fine.

The oxygen's been sucked from the room, and my heart's about to burst, but it's just a panic attack.  This what I say to reassure myself.  I'll be fine. I'll be fine.

There’s a knock on the door and my heart rate goes up. I’m sitting on a toilet in the family/disabled bathroom stall at Target with neither a family nor a disability. I’m holding my clammy head in my hands, talking to myself about breathing and other supposedly involuntary mechanics of the human body.  

Count to ten. They’ll just have to wait.

Another knock. 

“Just a minute?” My voice is squeaky and high. I’m dizzy from the sacrifice of breath that comes from speaking.

Count to ten. Rushing just makes it worse. Breathe.

I reach for the toilet paper but my hands are numb so I paw at the roll until it spins.  

(Good, well-portrayed image, but could you extend it a little so that, say, too much paper spools out onto the floor?  And she just abandons it? That way we have a reasonable bridge from pawing at the roll to flushing).

I flush, go to the sink, run the water, look up.

It’s not so bad.

I take a baseball cap out of my bag. It’s not even mine; (suggest you say whose hat it is, otherwise this is dead info we could do without) I look stupid in hats. But the visor shades my eye (presumably she has two?  So it's shading her damaged/bruised/blackened eye) and when I suck in my lower lip, you can’t even see that it’s split. 

I turn off the faucet and look myself in the eyes. It’s all there: the disgust and self-pity and blame. 

My heartbeat is slowing.  Get out of here. Now.

---
It wasn’t yet dawn when I’d ransacked my own apartment for things I couldn’t leave behind. The list was surprisingly short.

A muddling of tenses here with the adverb "yet."  This word relates to an action in the future (yet to come) but you're using it with the Past Perfect of "have" in "I'd".  Suggest a rewording along the lines of: "Dawn was still some way off when I ransacked my apartment..." or "Dawn was yet to break when I'd ransacked..."

Handfuls of clothing stuffed into a duffel bag. My laptop. An awkwardly-shaped cardboard box full of nostalgia, the only things I’d allowed myself to take from my parents’ house after my mother died. I’d wrapped both arms around it, hefting it onto my hip as I cast my eyes in nervous darting circles, contemplating what didn‘t make the cut. The futon. The microwave. Sheets and towels and curtains. I left it all.

"Casting my eyes in nervous, darting circles" will lead quite rapidly to eyestrain.  Could she not simply "look round nervously"?  Yes, I know it's an adverb.  But so what?  They are not the bogey-men of grammar. 

Which leads me to another thing:  She's nervous, yet you have her contemplating...  That's a leisurely, chin-stroking word for someone who's up before dawn, snatching the things she can't live without.  She's not worried about the curtains.  She's in a desperate hurry to get out and leave (presumably) an abusive relationship.  Probably the brute is snoring his head off in the next room.  So I suggest you trim that paragraph down to its bare bones: 

Clothing stuffed into a duffel bag.  My laptop.  A heavy cardboard box of nostalgia, the only things I'd taken from my parents' house after my mother died.  I wrapped my arms around it as I hefted it onto my hip.  Sheets and towels, the futon, the microwave, the curtains---I left them all behind.

 
I feel no attachment to material things. I take some degree of pride in that. While my mother was dying, she asked me to take her antique furniture. She had an oak dresser and nightstand that were a set and she didn’t want them separated. She was dying and she was worried about keeping the furniture together.

After the funeral, there’d been I'd held an estate sale. I don’t believe in an afterlife so I don’t believe my mother is upset with me or proud of me or looking out for me.

Dead is dead.

My mother died five years ago, six months after being diagnosed with lung cancer. She had never smoked. My father had smoked, though he quit before I was born. He’d died before her diagnosis. A heart attack we hadn’t seen coming. She had just begun to shake off the most crippling parts of her widowhood when she got the news that she wouldn‘t need to get used to living without him after all.

My father’s death was sudden and shocking and devoid of the opportunity to say goodbye. It was terrifyingly fast: the fear in his eyes, his twisted face, the ambulance sirens too late. My mother’s death was miserably slow, an endless terror with a million goodbyes until there was nothing left to say and nothing left to do but wait for the guilty relief when it was over.

That morning, as I waited at the intersection on the way to the highway, remembering my favorite frying pan with grooves in it that made burgers look like they’d been grilled, I saw a police cruiser in my rearview mirror. It turned into the parking lot of my apartment complex and I took a right on red. 

--edited by Richard Maitland on 10/21/2015, 7:30 AM--

Katie, apologies.  Several of my comments (originally in blue) have lost their colour and font when I tried to edit my post.  And now of course I can't see what they were because I can't see my original post.  I hope it's clear to you.

Actually, I find the workings of this Forum madly over-complicated.  What's with all the asterisks?  Why can't one specify font/size/colour and the wretched thing sticks to it?  What  is the meaning of the stuff in the top line---"p" and the number "3" (which can't be altered) and the "px" numbers?

And why the bloody hell isn't the poster taken to the post s/he's just made instead of the OP of the thread?

Grrrr.  This needs fixing.  Simplifying.  

Pronto.

Hi RM. What browser are you using? The editing window works well for me (using latest Firefox). I just edited my review of Katie's work and added colour and magnified the title of her Kindle Scout book no problem.

The asterisks in your text are place holders for new paragraphs. The "p" letter in the headings box you can change, by clicking on the drop down arrow to its immediate right. "p" stands for paragraph. Alternatives are H1 for small heading, H2 for larger heading etc - they're essentially default formats, but "p" would be the normal choice for simple text. "serif" is the font, again which can be changed using the dropdown box. I'm not sure of the difference between "Size" and "px" (which stands for "pixels") since they both seem to do the same thing, shrink or enlarge the font size.

I'd agree that it is perhaps a little clunky. It's easy to use for anyone familiar with HTML or advanced word processing/type setting (hands up those of you who have ever clicked on the "show/hide formatting" key in Word, for example) which is any professional editor, but that's not everyone, of course, by any stretch.

thanks again, richard. i do think i got that.

i'm not having trouble with the editing functions, but every time i post a message and it sends me back to the op, i lose my mind a little bit.

Smashing, isn't it? Never thought I'd see the day! Well, it's a start, at least! Also want to say a massive thanks to the FAs for their patient, constructive advice.. such a boon to novices and experienced writers alike. Keep it up! Ryan

                                                                         LETTERS FROM THE FRONT

A veteran returns from the war, haunted by certain letters he wrote from a combat outpost. He finds that he’s a hero in his hometown. How can he explain he’s a fraud?

Mainstream fiction

    The war was over for Richard Palmer. At least it was supposed to be. He was the last one in his unit to return, and by the time he got home the armchair generals on talk radio had found more politically provocative enemies to pursue. That left a fading herd of patriotic bumper stickers as a last reminder there had ever been an unpleasantness at all.

    It was October in New Orleans, well past the autumnal equinox, but the dog days of summer held on. Even now, just before sundown, the heat was staggering, heavy as a field pack, wet as a sweat suit. Walking down the ramp of the C130 transport that had brought him back to Louisiana, Richard was greeted by an oily sunset watching him from behind the profiles of gas stations, motels and burger joints along Belle Chasse Highway.  

    That view, despite its rudeness, should have been at least a little comforting. He was, after all, back in America. But for a moment he had a terrifying sensation that it was all a lie, that he hadn’t gone anywhere at all, that he was still trapped over there, in a land that had not invited him and that had tried to make his stay as regrettable as possible. This plane ride could have been just been just another deployment, with nothing to promise him but the agony of another front‑line outpost where the cold bit his hands and face like wasp stings and the air had the taste of burning petroleum.

    He was jolted back to reality by an airman’s voice behind him:

    “Home at last! Son of a bitch! Can’t believe it!”

    Richard threw a quick look back at the guy, then laughed himself. “Home,” he said. “Home!”

    As soon as his boots hit the concrete, Richard took off across the apron, hauling his bags and saluting when he was supposed to, and ignoring everybody else. Reaching the base commissary, he yanked open the door to the fluorescent coolness of the concourse. He had craved certain foods for three years now, and the steamy smells of the grill beckoned him to get over there and eat. He greedily scanned the menu on the wall as he approached the counter. He knew he would regret it later but he ordered a foot‑long hot dog with chili, mustard, ketchup, mayo, sauerkraut and onions. And a killer, a 20‑ounce draft beer.

    “Good patriotic fare for a warrior just in from the Peloponnesian campaign,” he said.

    “Say what?” the cook asked.

    “And a side of cheese fries. With gravy.”

    He took a table and read a newspaper as he ate. News reports about Katrina were still on the front page. One story said that the new flood control structure being built around New Orleans was using enough concrete that could otherwise build a highway from San Francisco to New York. Another story reported that the United States Attorney’s office had opened an investigation into building practices on the levees before the hurricane. The concrete and earthen levees were supposed to have protected the city from flooding, but they had broken, and thousands died. A major investigation was promised, along with criminal indictments.

    The weather, too, was in the news. A freak storm was moving south fast. Severe thunderstorms were forecast for tonight in the northern parishes of the state, with a chance of hail, tornados and freezing rain. Sleet and snow were likely tomorrow. What it meant, as far as Richard was concerned, was that he had to find a helo and bum a ride home as fast as possible.

Hi Barnes,

Letters From the Front

Title:

Good, if perhaps a little clichéd?

Pitch:

The phrase "haunted by certain letters he wrote from a combat outpost" throws me a little. I can understand someone being "haunted" by letters that they received, but not really by letters that they wrote. Guilty or embarrassed about, perhaps. And then only "certain letters". Like, not all of the letters he wrote, but just a few of them? And then finally, "from a combat outpost". Did he write all these letters (the ones he's haunted by) from a particular outpost? There's nothing wrong with any of these questions. I'm just not sure you intend us to be asking them.

Text:

Well straight off, there's very little wrong with this piece technically, so well done on that. I would put a comma after "bags" and delete the "and" in "Richard took off across the apron, hauling his bags and saluting when he was supposed to, and ignoring everybody else". I can see where you're coming from, but think the duplication of the conjunction weakens the sentence.

 You don't need the colon after "airman's voice behind him", a full stop would do.

 And I would put a comma after south in "A freak storm was moving south fast".

 But these are tiny points and apart from that, excellent technical ability. There were some formatting issues, with indentation of paragraphs and the odd line, but that could easily be part of the uploading process.

The only real quibbles I had were more of a personal preference, so while I'll lay them out for you, I'm not really saying there was anything wrong with what you've written, just suggesting a different perspective.

I'm currently blogging about "show not tell" and your first sentence is a classic example. "The war was over for Richard Palmer". How much more impactful and immersive is something like "Your war's over, soldier," said the flight-crew standing at the top of the ramp. He held out a hand. Palmer nodded…"?

I wonder at the word "unpleasantness". This is presumably Palmer's POV. "Unpleasantness" doesn't sound a particularly soldierly euphemism for war. It sounds rather more like something one of the "armchair generals" you were talking about in the previous sentence might have said.

I appreciated the metaphor "as heavy as a field pack" but felt you lost some momentum with the subsequent, rather alliterative, "wet as a sweat suit". Do you really need two metaphors there, or is that a bit indulgent? And of the two, I think the field pack analogy is the stronger one, despite the "sweat" associations of the heat.

I really like the image of the oily sunset, and how the silhouettes of the nondescript light-industrial/commercial units could look like they were from anywhere, leading him to wonder if he'd actually left Iraq. But does the sunset really "watch" him? And you relate this in a rather distant POV. I wonder if it wouldn't be better told more directly? "For a moment, as he stood at the foot of the ramp, he was disorientated. The far horizon, dark profiles of gas stations, motels and burger joints stark against the oily sunset, could easily have been Highway 80. Had he really left?" Or something similar. Perhaps that's a little too obvious.

I'm only familiar with the news footage of the return of combatants, but aren't the concourses always thronged by family, wives and kids, or is that just for the news-wires benefit? Either way, I think you've missed a trick there. I think I'm expecting wives and kids, and think most people would, or at least wouldn't question that detail. So there would be something poignant, and potentially character defining, if Palmer just shouldered his way past the throng and went on to the canteen on his own.

What's with the regret about ordering his foot-long chilli-dog? Is he allergic?

And then I don't really get why you're telling us, in some elaborate detail, what he's reading in the newspaper (that suddenly materialised). The weather is obviously a plot point. The hurricane Katrina aftermath litigation less so. If Katrina is to be a major issue in the story, then it's certainly a good time to introduce it, but I'm not sure that it's the best way. If dealing with the Katrina aftermath is to be a plot thread, then perhaps his reaction to the news is more important than what the news actually is?

As I said, no major quibbles, and overall an accomplished piece. The last two paragraphs might give an agent cause for thought. I'd refocus, or tighten them up a little before submitting, if I were you. But then I'm not!

Thanks for posting.

D'Estaing

www.editorial.ie

--edited by D'Estaing on 11/17/2015, 6:30 AM--

Hello Barnes,

Thanks for submitting, and (normal caveat) just one reader’s opinion etc. etc.  I’ve been resisting looking at D’Estaing’s review, so I’m coming to this fresh.  I’ll be interested to see what he says.

A couple of minor things first, relative to the title and SP.

Title: sounds very WWI or WW2 whereas the sense of a front seems to be a little lost today.

SP.  A veteran [of course, can you give us a little more?] returns from the war [which war?], haunted by certain [same – can you give us a little more – indiscrete, angry, shocking?] letters he wrote from a combat outpost. He finds that he’s a hero in his hometown. How can he explain he’s a fraud? [Or should he?]

There’s a lot to like here.  A returning soldier adjusting to life is interesting and has inherent dramatic stakes.  Then you add his planned escape from the storm.  There are some great turns of phrase that struck me:

…fading herd of patriotic bumper stickers…

…greeted by an oily sunset watching him from behind the profiles of gas stations, motels and burger joints along Belle Chasse Highway.  

…the air had the taste of burning petroleum…

There are three areas where I’m a little less sure, and I’d ask you to think about these.

1) Prose Voice and Dialogue.   The dialogue doesn’t sing for me, and seems out of kilter with the prose voice  I believe you’re trying to establish Richard as something of a thinker, even a poet, but it just wasn’t working for me.  “Home,” he said. “Home!” Is too little, too restrained, and then “Good patriotic fare for a warrior just in from the Peloponnesian campaign,” is just too much.  And neither of these fit with the writerly style of the prose.  The net, for me, is that you haven’t yet found Richard’s voice, at least not in the first 600, though I’m sure you find it later.  Bring that voice back into the first 600. 

2) Overreach and Economy.  Not unconnected to the above, there feel to be times when you go for too much and lessen the overall impact: ‘unpleasantness’ [oddly vague and euphemistic] ‘well past the autumnal equinox’ [too much] ‘cold bit his hands and face like wasp stings’ [too much for me] and ‘greedily’ [a chicklit choice.]  And economy: ‘was using enough concrete [that could otherwise] [to] build a highway…’ ‘Another [story] reported that the United States Attorney’s office [had opened an investigation into] [was investigating] building practices on the levees [before the hurricane.] ‘investigation’ repeats, as does ‘concrete.’  ‘ A [freak] storm was moving south fast. Severe thunderstorms were forecast for tonight in the northern parishes [of the state], with [a chance of] hail, tornados and freezing rain.’

3) Katrina.  The digression into Katrina didn’t work for me.  I’m interested in Richard, and in any case he missed the storm, right?  If this is more central to the story, OK but make that clearer, maybe that’s he’s taking that helo to the disaster area.

So while I do rather like this, I do think there’s an opportunity to elevate the dialogue significantly – even if you borrow some great phrases from later in the book.  And that needs to be in orchestral sympathy with the prose.

Best of luck with this.

TSWS

--edited by T.S.W. Sharman on 11/16/2015, 8:41 PM--

Barnes Carr asked me to post his feedback, because he was having a little difficulty posting to the thread for some reason:

 Dear D'Estaing and Tim,

Thanks for your comments re my humble opening. I thought you both made some very good points, which I'll keep in mind. This being a novel, everything can't be explained in the first 600 words, as you know. What I was trying to do was plant some foreshadowing as to what the story will ultimately be about. The reference to substandard concrete used in construction of the levees before Katrina will be a major part, as will those letters that Richard wrote home. They both involve lies that Richard and his family will have to face.

Meanwhile, I really enjoy this part of the website. Seems I learn something every time I read it.

Best,
BC

@D'Estaing: Thanks for starting this thread! You're doing incredible work here. (As are T.S.W. Sharman, Richard Maitland, et. al.) Would that every published writer had as astute and eagle-eyed a set of first readers as yourselves. The specificity of the criticism given in FAUX EDITORS is what renders it most helpful and constructive; for that matter the unflinching directness and artful tact (no small trick balancing both those seemingly contradictory qualities) with which writing errors are pointed out to submitting writers impresses and astounds. This is "for real". (As for myself, I get decidedly uncomfortable when reviewed writers squeal. Would you prefer to be patronized, I always wonder . . .)

I'll step into the lion's den in the full expectation of emerging bloody and mauled, heh! By which I mean to say: I trust the judgments rendered here. Oftentimes ego must chafe and bruise so that mastery of craft—or some first fumbling step in that direction—can be attained. If you choose to review my first 600 words, I ask that you not hold back or sugar-coat your criticism in any wise. True, I am submitting a short story and not a novel for review—but what matter, really, that small particular? In the harsh, read-to-reject world of commercial publishing most editors won't make it past the opening paragraphs of a submitted manuscript if the writer's voice doesn't immediately grab them. There simply isn't time in their high-pressure/high-stakes world to pussyfoot around with the maudlin, the moronic and the mediocre, regardless of the story's form. (Note: In the writing sample submitted below I have taken the risk of the frowned-upon "slow start". That's one strike against it already . . .)

.......................................

A MATTER OF DEBT CONCERNING THE GENTLEMAN IN BALTIMORE

Pitch: A short story concerning the death of a famous 19th century writer of tales of the grotesque and Arabesque

genre: weird tale

......................................

The sun was a molten sliver of bronze etching the horizon when the four-horse coach pulled up in front of the Greek Revival mansion with a rattling clatter of harness, under-carriage and hooves. Setting the drag-shoe to lock the wheels the driver swung down from his dickey box with easy, practiced alacrity and strode to the side of the coach to open the door for his passenger.

“Won’t be but a moment, beggin’ your pardon, sir,” said Thomas Bickles in his high-pitched, wheedling whine. He hand-cranked the cantilever dismount stairs into their locked exit position, stepped back and doffed his cap.

A giant of a man emerged from the coach, clad in a closely-tailored suit of rakish 1840s continental cut that only served to accentuate the brutish muscularity of his form. His face was a cicatrized horror of pock-marks and dueling scars. “Bring the luggage to my room.” A bass voice rumbled like winter thunder. “Place the hobnailed suitcase at the foot of the bed. Open nothing else on penalty of your life. Are these instructions understood?”

“Perfectly, sir.”

“Be especially careful with the bone-handled valise. I’ve not yet had time to inventory its contents of jewels and loose coin.”

Bickles' face betrayed nothing. “Very good, sir.”

Herman Reichenbach brushed past the driver and proceeded up the flagstone walk to the mansion’s front door.

***

An hour later Reichenbach reposed in his host’s lavishly-appointed drawing room on a high-rolled settee of celadon green and creamy white velvet, cigar smoldering in his right hand. A glass of brandy stood near him on a low table to his left.

“You may speak freely in front of my confederate, Mr. Reichenbach.” Salt-and-pepper bearded Thomas Hardy had a senator’s regal bearing and mien. He indicated the corpulent, bespectacled man in the black cutaway coat and vest seated opposite Reichenbach on a facing couch. “Sherman Slithers handles the public side of our business here in Boston: investments, book keeping, profit-making legerdemain—legal and less-so.”

Reichenbach grunted, sucked on his cigar to kindle its end a fiery red.

Hardy leaned back against the imposing leather-and-walnut edifice of the bar and thrust his hands into the richly-brocaded frock coat that draped his broad-shouldered frame. He wore a very wide cravat, the high collar of his spotless white shirt turned down slightly over the cravat’s silk. A gold watch and chain depended from his vest. “But before we address more pressing business matters, I suggest we settle the domestic trifle that has disturbed my home’s tranquility.”

Reichenbach nodded assent to this proposal from behind a cloud of bluish-gray cigar smoke.

Slithers giggled—a most unpleasant, burbling screech.

Hardy reached up, tugged a brocaded cord hanging from a gilt roundel in the ceiling that sounded a sonorous bell toll rolling through the carpeted gloom of the house.

A second or two later the butler glided into the drawing room—willowy, gray-templed, impeccably coiffed and accoutered. There was a faint smell of musk, perfumed powder and Onanistic over-indulgence about Mr. Gaines. “Yes, master?”

“Were any jewels missing from Mr. Reichenbach's valise?”

“No sir, the quantities tallied according to the figures you gave.”

“Very good,” said Hardy. “And how many five-dollar gold coins were found in this valise?”

“Sixty,” sniffed Gaines.

“Excellent. And the number of silver dollars therein?” asked Hardy.

“Two-hundred-and-eighty-one,” said Mr. Gaines.

Reichenbach took another long draw of his fragrant cigar.

Thomas Hardy smiled a humorless grin. “My guest informed me that he arrived with . . . how many dollars did you say again, Mr. Reichenbach?”

“Two-hundred-and-eighty two.”

“You are quite certain of this count?”

Reichenbach nodded, slowly. “I arrived here with two-hundred-and-eighty-two silver dollars. Exactly.”

Slithers giggled again.

“That's odd; very odd indeed. And most troubling. Our guest seems to have lost a coin 'twixt coach and guest bedroom. Would you usher my driver into our presence, please? Perhaps Mr. Bickles can clear up this discrepancy.”

“Certainly, sir.” Gaines exited with a raspy whisper of starched trousers and frock coat.

--edited by Carl E. Reed on 12/18/2015, 8:44 PM--

:::crickets:::          :::crickets:::

Uh-oh . . . I seemed to have killed the thread.

Not sure what happened here, but . . . As you were.

:::tip-toes quietly away:::

Nope. The thread is alive and kicking... a sleeping giant... a Brobdignagian behemoth. I'd like to know who's looking at it, 500 views this week, and not posting any of their own material...

But no, just busy that's all, and it's coming up to Christmas, and we do have lives beyond BookCountry, and we're not charging for this service (well, not here anyway).

Now. I pondered on your submission. It's not really in the spirit of the thread to be honest. What you're asking for is a straightforward critique of the opening to a short story. This isn't the beginning of a much longer work. You aren't going to be submitting this to an agent in the near future, or even considering it. A short story should be appraised holistically, not by section. By submitting it to a public critique you're at least getting some publicity for your story, which might encourage others to go and read it, which is a good thing. (If the critique is any good, of course...)

I'm tempted to indulge you anyway, because actually I just love the work, and it is Christmas. My fellow Faux Editors can make their own minds up as to whether they're going to do the same. But we should really stress that this thread is for a specific purpose, and that is to help people assess whether a manuscript that they are thinking of submitting to an agent in the near future will be read past the first two or three pages. There are other channels for getting decent critique. If there isn't one for short stories on BookCountry, then perhaps someone should start one?

Thoughts on "A matter of Debt..." will follow in due course.

@D'Estaing: Ah, yes; that makes sense! I was focused laser-like on that "first 600 words part" to the exclusion of everything else. 

In truth, I wanted to draw more attention to this thread and the work accomplished here. (Shame on me, but I only stumbled across everyone on FAUX EDITORS a couple of days ago when Lucy mentioned it elsewhere on the site.)

The other motivating factor behind my posting that writing sample was to demonstrate to other critiqued writers that near everyone, regardless of age or experience (I just turned 52 the other day), experiences that sweaty-palmed, falling-down-an-open-elevator-shaft sensation when reading criticism that catches the sharps and flats most of us commit when we're merrily fictioneering away. Regardless of how many times I revise my own words (and I always say I'm a rewriter, not a writer—my first drafts are unfailingly, uniformly, jaw-droppingly awful) I have been doing this long enough to realize (1) I'm blind to my own mistakes; (2) I am not a line editor, though I wish I had the skills of that hyper-critical, absolutely-necessary, tragically-under-appreciated bunch;  (3) it is the rare work indeed that doesn't have room for improvement, and finally (4) when responding to such criticism the professional thanks the reviewer for the expenditure of time and effort on their behalf, acknowledges where the reviewer has helped them and seeks clarification of points they may not have understood. True, the writer may briefly defend a choice here and there but it is the mark of a rank amateur to (1) cast aspersions on the reviewer's motivations, skills or methodology, (2) attempt to impress or over-awe the reviewer with barbed sarcasm, bitter asides or plaintive "you-didn't-read-the-whole-thing/ultra-GREAT-chapter #37-which-explains/justifies the imprecision/muddled mess/catastrophic failure of the plot/thematic elements/grammar and syntax of all that came before, and/or (3) stubbornly refuse to acknowledge where the reviewer has helped him or her.

All of which is to say: Cheers! Damn, you guys are good. Scary good . . .

--edited by Carl E. Reed on 12/18/2015, 8:43 PM--

A MATTER OF DEBT CONCERNING THE GENTLEMAN IN BALTIMORE

Pitch: A short story concerning the death of a famous 19th century writer of tales of the grotesque and Arabesque

genre: weird tale

......................................

The sun was a molten sliver of bronze etching the horizon when the four-horse coach pulled up in front of the Greek Revival mansion with a rattling clatter of harness, under-carriage and hooves. Setting the drag-shoe to lock the wheels the driver swung down from his dickey box with easy, practiced alacrity and strode to the side of the coach to open the door for his passenger.

"Won't be but a moment, beggin' your pardon, sir," said Thomas Bickles in his high-pitched, wheedling whine. He hand-cranked the cantilever dismount stairs into their locked exit position, stepped back and doffed his cap.

A giant of a man emerged from the coach, clad in a closely-tailored suit of rakish 1840s continental cut that only served to accentuate the brutish muscularity of his form. His face was a cicatrized horror of pock-marks and dueling scars. "Bring the luggage to my room." A bass voice rumbled like winter thunder. "Place the hobnailed suitcase at the foot of the bed. Open nothing else on penalty of your life. Are these instructions understood?"

"Perfectly, sir."

"Be especially careful with the bone-handled valise. I've not yet had time to inventory its contents of jewels and loose coin." 

Bickles' face betrayed nothing. "Very good, sir."

Herman Reichenbach brushed past the driver and proceeded up the flagstone walk to the mansion's front door.

***

An hour later Reichenbach reposed in his host's lavishly-appointed drawing room on a high-rolled settee of celadon green and creamy white velvet, cigar smoldering in his right hand. A glass of brandy stood near him on a low table to his left.

"You may speak freely in front of my confederate, Mr. Reichenbach." Salt-and-pepper bearded Thomas Hardy had a senator's regal bearing and mien. He indicated the corpulent, bespectacled man in the black cutaway coat and vest seated opposite Reichenbach on a facing couch. "Sherman Slithers handles the public side of our business here in Boston: investments, book keeping, profit-making legerdemain-legal and less-so."

Reichenbach grunted, sucked on his cigar to kindle its end a fiery red.

Hardy leaned back against the imposing leather-and-walnut edifice of the bar and thrust his hands into the richly-brocaded frock coat that draped his broad-shouldered frame. He wore a very wide cravat, the high collar of his spotless white shirt turned down slightly over the cravat's silk. A gold watch and chain depended from his vest. "But before we address more pressing business matters, I suggest we settle the domestic trifle that has disturbed my home's tranquility."

Reichenbach nodded assent to this proposal from behind a cloud of bluish-gray cigar smoke.

Slithers giggled-a most unpleasant, burbling screech.

Hardy reached up, tugged a brocaded cord hanging from a gilt roundel in the ceiling that sounded a sonorous bell toll rolling through the carpeted gloom of the house.

 A second or two later the butler glided into the drawing room-willowy, gray-templed, impeccably coiffed and accoutered. There was a faint smell of musk and Onanistic over-indulgence about Mr. Gaines. "Yes, master?"

"Were any jewels missing from Mr. Reichenbach's valise?"

"No sir, the quantities tallied according to the figures you gave."

"Very good," said Hardy. "And how many five-dollar gold coins were found in this valise?"

"Sixty," sniffed Gaines.

"Excellent. And the number of silver dollars therein?" asked Hardy.

"Two-hundred-and-eighty-one," said Mr. Gaines.

Reichenbach took another long draw of his fragrant cigar.

Thomas Hardy smiled a humorless grin. "My guest informed me that he arrived with . . . how many dollars did you say again, Mr. Reichenbach?"

"Two-hundred-and-eighty two."

"You are quite certain of this count?"

Reichenbach nodded, slowly. "I arrived here with two-hundred-and-eighty-two silver dollars. Exactly."

Slithers giggled again.

"That's odd; very odd indeed. And most troubling. Our guest seems to have lost a coin 'twixt coach and guest bedroom. Would you usher my driver into our presence, please? Perhaps Mr. Bickles can clear up this discrepancy."

"Certainly, sir." Gaines exited with a raspy whisper of starched trousers and frock coat.

Title:

Hmmm. "The" gentleman, or "a" gentleman? Is the matter of debt concerning him, (ie he is concerned about it), or is the matter concerning him (ie it's about him)? A bit confusing, to be honest. I'm not at all sure what inference I'm supposed to be drawing from this title, yet it seems to have a specific meaning.

Pitch:

Personally I don't like the repetition of "of". "of a famous… of tales… of the grotesque", or the duplication of "concerning" both here and in the title. I'm not really sure how you can get around the first point, but a simple "about" would circumvent the second, if you even need such a beginning. I think a strong pitch doesn't really need to start with "This is a story about…" That would seem to be the very antithesis of "show not tell". You might as well say, "Once upon a time…"

Additionally, is it important he's famous? Do we care less if he's not famous? Would we not read the story if he was an unknown writer of the grotesque and Arabesque? That seems to weaken your premise, to my mind. Extraordinary stories happen to ordinary people. Stories of mind-numbing banality happen to famous people ("Gwyneth Paltrow's bikini slipped and you could see her nipple!" shock-horror) yet vast numbers of the population seem to lap them up. Is the story of what happened to him only interesting because he is famous? It would appear so, because that's what you wrote in your pitch. He wasn't a "skilled" writer, or an "eccentric" writer, or a "lecherous" or "penniless" or "vampiric" writer. He was a "famous" writer. That's the only modifier you've applied to the noun "writer".

Genre:

Is "weird tale" a genre? Interesting. Weird, but interesting.

Text:

Personal preference immediately kicks in with reading the first two paragraphs, and I'm not sure I'm going to get on with this story.

It's apparent you've researched 19th century transport. It's very apparent. It's also very apparent you want to show off this new-found knowledge at every available opportunity. But I just don't need to know that the apparatus with which you lock the wheels of a four-horse coach is called a drag-shoe. If I was reading a history of horse drawn transport I might find this fact enervating in the extreme, but I'm not. I thought I was reading a murder mystery. Was he run over? Then Thomas "hand-cranked the cantilever dismount stairs into their locked exit position". Did he? Well good for him. I'm glad he knew how to do it. He must have been reading this story. But what on earth has this got to do with the death of the writer of grotesque tales? Do you see what I'm getting at? You're filling my head with stuff about carriages. I don't want it in my head really. It's interesting, in a kind of "interesting" way, but I really couldn't care less. I'm not in the market for a horse drawn carriage (if the price of diesel keeps going up I might be, but at the moment it's dropping like a stone, which is kind of handy). Is it a period detail? Well yes it is. It might be a meticulously researched period detail, but it's entirely superfluous unless it's got something to do with the story.

I'm leaving aside the specification of the building as "Greek Revival". Is this fact relevant? I doubt it, unless he was killed by falling masonry.

That's your first 101 words. Could also be put as "Someone turns up at a big house". Seven words. That leaves 95 words to say something relevant about his arrival, like why he was going there, who he was, what he was thinking as he approached, etc etc. You've squandered the first half page of your story with, let's make no mistake, beautifully written, but in the final analysis, ultimately irrelevant verbiage.

If you'd previously written "The four-horse coach pulled up outside the mansion", the next paragraph would have slipped down fairly easily. "A giant of a man" - descriptive, "clad in a closely-tailored suit of rakish 1840's continental cut" - nicely phrased, although I can't think why you need "1840's" there (and its "1840s", no apostrophe). If you need to be that specific about timeline, why not say it at the beginning? And if you're trying to make the point that he's fashionable, I think we get that from all the other description.

"cicatrized" - funky adjective. You'll either have people applauding or their eyes glazing over. They should be applauding.

Notwithstanding the speech being of the character you're describing, I think the dialogue should start on a new line, for clarity's sake.

I didn't understand the "open nothing else" reference. The butler/dogsbody has been told to deliver the hobnailed suitcase (really? Hobnails?) to the foot of the bed, not to unpack it.

And the line "Be especially careful with the bone-handled valise. I've not yet had time to inventory its contents of jewels and loose coin" seems more and more like "Please rob me" with every time I reread it. Where did he get it from, if it's not his?

"Herman Reichenbach brushed past the driver" - I'll admit it - I'm a big hater of the "spell the name out" school of thought. To me, there's nothing more unnatural than a name just plonked into the narrative for no apparent reason. It completely distances the reader from the prose, and I fail to understand why some people don't get that fact. It screams "amateur" to me. That's not to say, of course, that plenty of well-known writers don't do it. How much easier, and ultimately more immersive and interesting and plot developing would it be for the carriage passenger to walk up the steps and be greeted at the door with "Herman Reichenbach, I believe? You are…" He paused…  "welcome" or "Herman Reichenbach! What are you doing here? Are you mad?" or "Herman Reichenbach! I haven't seen you since senior year. God, you're looking old!"?

"An hour later Reichenbach reposed in his host's lavishly-appointed drawing room on a high-rolled settee of celadon green and creamy white velvet, cigar smoldering in his right hand. A glass of brandy stood near him on a low table to his left." - Are you writing a short story, or stage directions? 11 words out of 28 of the first sentence are descriptive, that's close to 40%. Does that not ring alarm bells with you? Adjectives or adjectival phrases bog the text down. They really don't help comprehension of plot or narrative flow. Some detail might be deemed necessary, but not nearly half the text.

"He indicated the corpulent, bespectacled man in the black cutaway coat and vest seated opposite Reichenbach on a facing couch."  You've set the bar so high with specifying how exactly the room is laid out that you're having to come up with awkward constructs like this. He was "seated opposite… on a facing couch". How could he be seated  anything other than "opposite", on a "facing couch"?

"Hardy leaned back against the imposing leather-and-walnut edifice of the bar and thrust his hands into the richly-brocaded frock coat that draped his broad-shouldered frame" - Okay. Enough with the hyphenated adjectival phrases, too.

"He wore a very wide cravat, the high collar of his spotless white shirt turned down slightly over the cravat's silk. A gold watch and chain depended from his vest.  - Okay. More adjectives.

"Hardy reached up, tugged a brocaded cord hanging from a gilt roundel in the ceiling that sounded a sonorous bell toll rolling through the carpeted gloom of the house." - I said, enough with the adjectives.

"There was a faint smell of musk and Onanistic over-indulgence about Mr. Gaines" - I love this, but I'm not sure you intended me to love it. Onanistic doesn't take a capital and means… well… self-pleasure… "masturbation" if you will. So Mr Gaines smells of musk and looks like he masturbates a lot. Hmmm. What is he, cross-eyed? Does he have hairy palms? How can you tell by looking at him? And also it doesn't really sit well with the rest of his over-elaborate description "willowy, gray-templed, impeccably coiffed and accoutered". "willowy, gray templed, impeccably coiffed and looks like he knocks one out on a fairly regular basis".

There's a glaring hole in the only tiny bit of plot in the piece so far. Reichenbach arrives. The next moment we're interrogating the staff because one of his coins is missing. At what point did Reichenbach establish what was in the valise? He's only been there an hour. When he arrived he didn't know what was in the valise (he tells the driver "I've not yet had time to inventory its contents of jewels and loose coin"). So soon after he arrived he must have said to his host "Excuse me, I've got to go and count the money that I didn't know I had". He must have gone upstairs and inventoried it. Then he left it up there and came back down again. Then at this point, displaying signs of intense OCD as well as gross negligence, Reichenbach runs back up the stairs, saying "I haven't counted my money for five minutes", and counts it all again, finding one silver coin missing. If he was that paranoid about it, you think his valise would have a lock.

What a total dweeb. I hope he does get run over by a four horse carriage with the drag-shoe rendered inoperative by a wily butler, and I hope the cantilevered stairs crush his chest.

You said it's a short story. With the adjectives cut out it would be a haiku. And the plot has holes that you could run a four-horse carriage through. I didn't get started on the punctuation ("em" dashes instead of "en" dashes, incorrect ellipses, dodgy hyphenation). No. Needs a lot of work. Leaving aside my personal issues with reams of description, there's nothing to this. In 600 words we don't really know anything about Reichenbach, where he is, who his host is, what their relationship is, where (if indeed it's not his) Reichenbach got the valise from. In a short story every single word has to be absolutely necessary. You've gone to an impressive amount of effort to describe this sumptuous baroque atmosphere. I don't know why. I don't know who the characters are. I don't know what the plot is. And we're 600 words in.

You can clearly write. You have a great feel for the period, a great lexical store to draw upon, impressive vocabulary. The dialogue at the end is great, nicely phrased and paced. I just really, really struggled with the rest of it.

This critique runs to over 1800 words. I'm not sure why I bothered - I don't think you're going to thank me. Ho hum. Thanks for posting anyway. I hope some of it's of help. You're quite free, of course, to dismiss it all as the ravings of an embittered lunatic.

Happy Christmas to all our readers. I hope this thread gets a bit busier in the New Year. We don't bite, you know. 

D'Estaing.

www.editorial.ie

--edited by D'Estaing on 12/19/2015, 7:42 AM--

@D'Estaing: Bravo!!! Excellent critique; many thanks.

I'll confine my follow-up remarks to a couple of brief comments re: selected comments of yours.

...............................

Title:

Hmmm. "The" gentleman, or "a" gentleman? Is the matter of debt concerning him, (ie he is concerned about it), or is the matter concerning him (ie it's about him)? A bit confusing, to be honest. I'm not at all sure what inference I'm supposed to be drawing from this title, yet it seems to have a specific meaning.

Carl: The specificity of the determiner "the" vs. "a" makes sense once the story has been read in full. You asked only for the first 600 words. 

.......................

I'm leaving aside the specification of the building as "Greek Revival". Is this fact relevant? I doubt it, unless he was killed by falling masonry.

Carl : In a word, yes. It conveys to the reader the fact that this mansion they're pulling up to has Doric architecture: pillars, cornice, architrave, etc. A "telling detail" which allows the reader to visualize the building.    

....................

(and its "1840s", no apostrophe). 

Carl: Ummm . . . Agreed. There is no possessive apostrophe in the text I posted, so . . . ?

......................

And the line "Be especially careful with the bone-handled valise. I've not yet had time to inventory its contents of jewels and loose coin" seems more and more like "Please rob me" with every time I reread it. 

Carl: Exactly. It's a set up.

..................................

"He indicated the corpulent, bespectacled man in the black cutaway coat and vest seated opposite Reichenbach on a facing couch."  You've set the bar so high with specifying how exactly the room is laid out that you're having to come up with awkward constructs like this. He was "seated opposite… on a facing couch". How could he be seated  anything other than "opposite", on a "facing couch"?

Carl: I take your point, but technically-speaking, a couch opposite one character could be at 90-degrees (or other angle), reverse-facing, or otherwise positioned.

.......................

"Hardy reached up, tugged a brocaded cord hanging from a gilt roundel in the ceiling that sounded a sonorous bell toll rolling through the carpeted gloom of the house." - I said, enough with the adjectives.

Carl: You would prefer: "Hardy reached up, tugged a cord hanging from a roundel in the ceiling that sounded a bell in the house"? I don't. Literary minimalism is a blank-faced idiot god (as Bradbury has noted); I don't worship that defensively-crouched deity.

.....................

There's a glaring hole in the only tiny bit of plot in the piece so far. Reichenbach arrives. The next moment we're interrogating the staff because one of his coins is missing. At what point did Reichenbach establish what was in the valise? He's only been there an hour. When he arrived he didn't know what was in the valise (he tells the driver "I've not yet had time to inventory its contents of jewels and loose coin"). So soon after he arrived he must have said to his host "Excuse me, I've got to go and count the money that I didn't know I had". He must have gone upstairs and inventoried it. Then he left it up there and came back down again. Then at this point, displaying signs of intense OCD as well as gross negligence, Reichenbach runs back up the stairs, saying "I haven't counted my money for five minutes", and counts it all again, finding one silver coin missing. If he was that paranoid about it, you think his valise would have a lock.

What a total dweeb. I hope he does get run over by a four horse carriage with the drag-shoe rendered inoperative by a wily butler, and I hope the cantilevered stairs crush his chest.

....................

Carl: Heh! Funny. But you're taking Reichenbach's words at face value; words intended to tempt Bickles into making the mistake of thinking he can filch the odd coin or two from another of Hardy's visitors.

....................

You've gone to an impressive amount of effort to describe this sumptuous baroque atmosphere. I don't know why. 

Carl: So that I can establish a story tone and mood of sumptuous baroque atmosphere.

....................

You can clearly write. You have a great feel for the period, a great lexical store to draw upon, impressive vocabulary. The dialogue at the end is great, nicely phrased and paced. 

....................

Carl: Thank you, D'Estaing! High praise indeed.

....................

This critique runs to over 1800 words. I'm not sure why I bothered - I don't think you're going to thank me. Ho hum. Thanks for posting anyway. I hope some of it's of help. You're quite free, of course, to dismiss it all as the ravings of an embittered lunatic.

.....................

Carl: WRONG! I do thank you; I will rewrite with your criticisms foremost in mind. Again, this is EXACTLY the kind of criticism I was hoping for: intelligent, nuanced, leavened with wry humor and forcefully-argued in favor of your own perceptions. (How else are we to know how our words run through another's mind?!) You did me a great honor by reading and reviewing my words closely; any confusion engendered by lack-of-detail (or surfeit of detail, as the case may be) is entirely the fault of the writer, not the reviewer.  SALUTE!

....................

Happy Christmas to all our readers. I hope this thread gets a bit busier in the New Year. We don't bite, you know.  

....................

Carl: They don't! Much. Heh! Anyway, I'm still alive, and so will you, err . . . be . . . if you choose to have this brilliant bunch 'ave a go at yer words. 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS, EVERYONE!  

--edited by Carl E. Reed on 12/19/2015, 12:48 PM--

Hi Carl,

Glad you came out of the process smiling. See, everyone? It's not that hard...

Not to workshop the text, but you did say "seated opposite... ...on a facing couch". Not a "couch at an angle" or "a reverse facing couch". The phrase was quite specific. That's all I have to go on when critiquing.

If Bickles works for Hardy, and the whole Reichenbach visit is an elaborate set up to incriminate Bickles, I'd wonder, why bother? Why continue to employ him?Why go through the whole charade? And if I was Bickles I'd hire a lawyer and plead entrapment and have the case thrown out.

And when you're defending the ambiguity of the title, you say "it makes sense when you read the whole thing". But that's presuming that someone does read the whole thing. Maybe they don't get that far. That's always the risk. The first 600 words. They've got to pull you in.

Incidentally, was the Sherlock Holmes reference intentional? I presume so.

Hi Carl,

Thanks for submitting and breaking the drought. And (normal caveat) just one reader’s personal opinion etc. etc.  Also I’ve not looked at D’Estaing’s review, so I’d suggest looking for points of intersection, although my notes are generally a little more “holistic.”

I have no hang ups about this being a short story – I think the same things are required of the opening, regardless of how many thousands of words come after.

There’s a lot to like here, especially in some of the descriptions…

… a molten sliver of bronze etching the horizon – some might find that too overwrought, but I think it worked. 

… with a rattling clatter of harness, under-carriage and hooves. Nice.

… a cicatrized horror of pock-marks and dueling scars. Really liked this.

… He hand-cranked the cantilever dismount stairs into their locked exit position, stepped back and doffed his cap – this has some really nice economy to it.

… handles the public side of our business here in Boston: investments, book[-]keeping, profit-making legerdemain—legal and less-so – a nice piece of dialogue.

… Gaines exited with a raspy whisper of starched trousers and frock coat. Again, very nice.

I also very much like how you launch us into this with no exposition (as far as I could tell) and get to the drama – the missing coin – fairly quickly.

Now, as to suggestions.

I found the descriptions became intrusive and overblown.  Although I recognize you’re writing in an ornate 19th century style, it’s tough for me as a modern reader.  I think it would be possible to pare down without losing the intent.

I cited a number of instances that really worked for me, but here are some that didn’t:

…high-pitched, wheedling whine

…closely-tailored suit of rakish 1840s continental cut

…winter thunder.

…lavishly-appointed

…high-rolled settee of celadon green and creamy white velvet,

…Salt-and-pepper bearded

…corpulent, bespectacled man in the black cutaway coat and vest

…imposing leather-and-walnut edifice

…richly-brocaded frock coat

…broad-shouldered

…a cloud of bluish-gray cigar smoke.

…a brocaded cord hanging from a gilt roundel in the ceiling that sounded a sonorous bell toll rolling through the carpeted gloom of the house.

I’m not saying get rid of them all, just pare it back.

Early Dialogue

You have three lines of pointless dialogue from Bickles near the beginning – I’d just kill that.  And then why does Reichenbach say to a driver, not even his driver: “I’ve not yet had time to inventory its contents of jewels and loose coin.” (also I didn’t think the word especially in the preceding sentence sat well.) I suspect it’s key to the story, but you can do it differently, perhaps by Reichenbach just staring at the driver, or even trying to carry on of the bags himself. The rest of the dialogue is fine.

Naming

I really had trouble with this.  Reichenbach (falls)! Thomas Hardy? Bickles, Slithers (OMG.)  This really took me out of the story.  It has a Dickensian feel, but it’s just in the uncanny valley of not-quite-there.

You variously use Hardy and Thomas Hardy – I’d look to keep that consistent.  May be other instances with other characters.

Hardy says Mr. Bickles – I don’t think he would use the Mr. for a driver.

Drama

The drama around the missing coin is undermined by the lack of seriousness, starting with “the domestic trifle that has disturbed my home’s tranquility.” We have various inappropriate grins and giggles following that, and nobody seems to mind too much.  But wouldn’t this be much more effective if treated as seriously as it would have been back then (or today) with the potential for expulsion and imprisonment.

Maybe you think the following presents the stakes and drama, but it feels too offhand: “That's odd; very odd indeed. And most troubling. Our guest seems to have lost a coin 'twixt coach and guest bedroom”

Also, why on Earth is the butler doing the inventory of the jewels and gold and silver?

Because there’s no other motivation you build for any of the characters, for them to treat the theft lightly makes the whole thing feel terribly wooden and absent stakes, which is a shame.

Some small stuff

…Reichenbach nodded[,] slowly

…according to the figures you gave [me]

…A second or two later the butler – that’s very quick indeed, but too quick maybe.

A gold watch and chain depended from his vest – is depended right?

Two-hundred-and-eighty[-]two

I hope some of this is helpful, and I look forward to reading the whole thing.

TSWS

--edited by T.S.W. Sharman on 12/19/2015, 6:19 PM--

@D'Estaing: 

.........

Glad you came out of the process smiling. See, everyone? It's not that hard...

Carl: Indeed, people! For god's sakes it's called criticism and not "mutual writer-critic love fest" for a reason. I'll take directness, dry wit and uncensored reader feedback over the subtle, honeyed belittlement of patronization any day.

..............

Re: the couch question (heh!)

Carl: I know; I need to work on not being so bloody exacting in my description of where certain pieces of furniture and/or characters are in relation to other pieces of furniture and/or characters. You echo here feedback I received elsewhere: "This reads like someone verbalizing a blueprint to a blind man. Trust your reader a little more to set the stage correctly in their mind; and please believe me when I say that we don't need you, the author, to get out micrometer and protractor and spell everything out to the nth degree of precision." Still learning here . . . 

...................

If Bickles works for Hardy, and the whole Reichenbach visit is an elaborate set up to incriminate Bickles, I'd wonder, why bother? Why continue to employ him?Why go through the whole charade? And if I was Bickles I'd hire a lawyer and plead entrapment and have the case thrown out.

Carl: This is difficult to explain without (a) giving the whole story away, (b) sounding like I'm engaging in special pleading, and (c) coming off more confident than I am about the choices I made here. Succinctly as I can: These are powerful, evil men who are about to murder Bickles (Hardy's driver) in especially outre and savage fashion. To them this is a mere trifle—albeit one these sadists are looking forward to. Once the reader witnesses Bickles' murder they will understand the very real jeopardy the gentleman writer of the story's title is facing. He owes this cabal a considerable sum of money; money he cannot repay. Reichenbach will be dispatched to, err . . . dispatch him, in turn.

.....................

And when you're defending the ambiguity of the title, you say "it makes sense when you read the whole thing". But that's presuming that someone does read the whole thing. Maybe they don't get that far. That's always the risk. The first 600 words. They've got to pull you in.

Carl: Granted. That's the problem with every story title that resonates with the reader more strongly after the tale has been read than before. We're in agreement here: It's a risk an unknown writer cannot afford to take. Consider the title a placeholder, then, until I can come up with something better.   

....................

Incidentally, was the Sherlock Holmes reference intentional? I presume so.

Carl: Eh?! (He mono-syllable'd in startled uneasiness.) Good grief, no! Not consciously, anyway . . . 

................

LATER: Reichenbach Falls. I remembered. Damn, that name will have to change. (Can't have the reader wondering all through the story, what's the connection here?)

--edited by Carl E. Reed on 12/20/2015, 2:01 AM--

@ T.S.W. Sharman: Thank you for the close reading and finely-honed review! I very much appreciate you pointing out the words and phrases that sounded especially lapidary, pleasant and/or effective to your ear. This, after all, is why a writer writes. 

--edited by Carl E. Reed on 12/20/2015, 1:55 AM--

Cool. Thanks for being such a willing and enthusiastic subject.

I guess you were going to run into a bit of a critical head-wind submitting a style piece to what is essentially a commercial review process, but full marks anyway. I'd like to read the full thing too, if only to assess how much of your claim that it all makes sense in the end I agree with .

Ultimately we're only trying to help. Important to keep that thought foremost on both sides of the 'desk'.

Cheers,

D'Estaing

editorial.ie

@D'Estaing: And thank you, once again, for helping me improve this tale. I hope everyone reading this thread realizes two important things happened here: (1) I received direct, no-holds-barred criticism which (2) improved the story. Period; the end. That's it; that's the point of the whole process! I—and you, Book Country author—will be a better writer if we don't ask our reviewers to coddle us. 'Cause for damn sure industry professionals—agents, editors, publicists—won't.

--edited by Carl E. Reed on 12/20/2015, 9:00 PM--

I've read this whole thread now. I have to admit to some initial reticence - I'm by no means a Book Country veteran, but I did wonder who was muscling in here. Then I saw that's not the case - you're offering a real service, which others are free to take up or not, And I appreciate both the spirit in which the critiques are offered and the pertinence of the remarks. And since it seems you're not getting a huge amount of submissions, I might as well take the plunge. No hurry at all - it's the festive season!

Pitch: What should have been the end to a perfect holiday turns into another case for Magali Rousseau – one she will soon regret getting involved in.

Title: Perfume Island. Genre: Mystery

***************************

Not enough oil. And the knife was too small. Damn!

Tossing the knife aside, Magali slid her fingers into the gash and pulled. With a sound of creaking leather, the two halves came apart. She set to work with the knife again, jabbing at the core to prise it away. Meeting resistance, she grabbed and tugged, ripping out chunks the size of a golf ball. Bits of it clung to her fingers, covered her hands in slime. She poured on more oil, rubbed them together. The slime turned into a slippery, viscous syrup. She sighed, wiping the sweat from her forehead with her arm.

Not a good idea, this. Still, at least they’d have a laugh when she told Charlotte.

Where was she, anyway? Should have been back by now.

She stepped out onto the balcony. Here and there in the puddles of light from the rare, feeble street lamps, gaggles of youths were wandering moodily about, gesticulating and shouting. On the market square where she’d bought the fruit, a couple of men, urged on by supporters, appeared to be spoiling for a fight. Magali’s breath quickened. She ought to ring Charlotte, tell her to be careful. The riot still wasn’t over.

Unless they’d already got her. Stopped the car and dragged her out and… No, don’t be silly. They wouldn’t do that to a tourist.

She went back in, tore off a strip of kitchen roll, and wiped her hands. It made little difference. Less oil, but the gooey stuff remained, and tatters of tissue clung to it now in twists of shrivelled fleece. She was rubbing and scraping, wanting to giggle, inclined to groan, when the phone rang.

‘Charlotte?’ Gingerly, she held it between the tips of her fingers.

‘Just to let you know I’m on my way. Shouldn’t be long.’

Magali let out a quiet sigh of relief. ‘How was it? Did you find everything?’

‘Mmm. Took me a while to find the flippers. But the supermarket was fine. Still not a lot of choice, but more than the Sofidep. A bit pricey, though. How about you? Feeling better?’

‘Yes, it seems to be easing.’ An attack of cystitis she’d overplayed in order to do the cooking. ‘I went out, actually. Thought I’d get something special for dinner.’

‘Special? What for?’

‘Do you know what day it is? Anniversary?’

‘Um... Your divorce?’

‘Not far off,’ she said with a laugh. ‘You and I met a year ago today.’

‘Wow! That’s nice. Nice of you to remember.’

‘Well, it changed my life quite a bit. To put it mildly.’

‘Mine too.’ A couple of seconds passed. ‘So what’s on the menu?’

‘Fish curry. Skipjack.’ There was so much more that could have been said, but then, she thought, they’d have time over dinner. A review of twelve astonishing months – though whether Charlotte would think of it that way remained to be seen. ‘And there was going to be jackfruit but I’m afraid it’s got the better of me.’

‘You mean you actually bought one? Whole?’

‘Yeah, I went overboard a bit. Thought it’d last the whole holiday if I freeze it. But right now it’s staring up at me like something out of Alien. And emitting this musty smell that stinks out the whole flat.’

‘We’ll do it together when I get back,’ Charlotte said. Then muttered an expletive. ‘God, this road’s dodgy!’

‘Take care when you get into town. There’s some sort of riot going on. Nothing serious, or at least... It’s got a bit quieter now but there are still some men roaming around. Or boys.’

‘Really? I didn’t notice anything.’

‘Not when you left, no. It started after. Just a demonstration, but then it got out of hand. You know they had that street party or whatever before we arrived? Well, someone – Charlotte!’

A thud. A shriek of surprise. Then a succession of crunching and cracking, followed by another thud.

Then silence.

Hi Curtis,

 Of course I fully understand your reticence. As I tried to say at the very beginning, I was a bit nervous about transplanting an idea that had naturally germinated in one writer's site, which had its own ethos and clientele, to another site, wholesale. There are a number of issues which we have had to prove:

The first and foremost is the very idea of the thread. It's counter-intuitive to most authors to subject their work to a public examination. Embarrassing? Humiliating? Nerve-wracking? "I'd rather die" one writer told me on Authonomy. But this same writer was looking for a publishing deal. The irony seemed to escape her. At some point, we (as would-be published authors) are all going to have to make this leap.

What's the benefit of this format? The benefit is that out here in the open we can all, author, editor and observers, share our learning (and yes, we editors learn from the experience as well, both as editors and, almost more importantly, writers. I wouldn't do it if I didn't. It takes me usually between two to three hours to properly review a submission. The previous review I did on Carl's opening, immediately above, ran to 1800+ words - that's three times as long as the piece itself. That's a commitment I wouldn't make if I didn't feel it was of some worth.).

The third but by no means least issue is our (the editors') ability to, as objectively as possible, competently and sympathetically assess the submissions to the thread. Realistically that was only ever going to be proven by example. I hope now, after nearly 11,000 views and four pages worth of case studies, that's been sufficiently proven to convince the doubters.

But... it is a little quiet. If you have a blog, mention this site and this thread in particular. If you or someone you know is looking to submit to an agent in the near future, tell them about this facility. It's free. It can't do their book any harm, and it might even help them get past those pesky gatekeepers. Sure, if their book isn't quite as agent-ready as they thought, it might be a bit of a blow to the ego. But better here than on a real-life agent's desk. But most importantly, if you have a work you'd secretly quite like reviewed, please submit it. You have nothing to lose but uncertainty. I make no bones about it. I have an editorial business and I'd love to get a few more clients. But this thread is genuine, honest, and free. What's to lose? Perhaps it's worth a New Year's Resolution?

Curtis, thanks for posting. I'll be on to your submission directly. Whether I can get to it before Santa has made his annual nefarious assault on my bank account remains to be seen. I've locked the doors and barred all the shutters, but the fat, bearded fecker keeps getting in somehow.

D'Estaing

www.editorial.ie

--edited by D'Estaing on 12/22/2015, 4:33 AM--

Perfume Island

Title:

Okay. I guess you'll have a topical cover, or a byline "Another Magali Rousseau case" on the front?

Pitch:

Succinct and to the point. A pitch to a real agent should include more detail, obviously.

Text:

Not enough oil. And the knife was too small. Damn! - Personally, to get that "in the moment" feel, I would put real time thought in present tense. This isn't an error, but it's something you might want to think about. So this would become Not enough oil. And the knife is too small. Damn! And italicise it, so that we know it's direct thought. My reasoning would be that when you think about something that you're currently engaged in, I believe you'd think in present tense - "Damn, I need a bigger knife", not "Damn, I needed a bigger knife". She would only think to herself "the knife was too small" when she was looking back on her efforts at some later date, wouldn't she? Perhaps it's just me.

This chopping of the jackfruit paragraph. There's a lot of it, nearly 100 words, and as we find out that she felt she had been ultimately unsuccessful in preparing it (although I'm not sure why - we're not told) - I'm not entirely convinced by its inclusion. Wouldn't you be better off describing her preparing the curry? Using words 11 - 105 of your first 600 on something that I'm pretty sure won't play any further part in the story is a bit of an unnecessary gamble, I think. And I didn't get why she poured "more oil" on to what was already a slimy mess, but then I've never prepared a jackfruit. Maybe that's what you do.

The next two lines of thought again I'd make present tense (and first person, otherwise technically you're out of Magali's POV) - "At least we'll have a laugh when I tell Charlotte", and "Where is she, anyway?".

streetlamp - all one word, and "rare"? I get what you mean. It just looks odd. Streetlamps aren't an endangered species. There are just not very many of them. "Sparse"?

wandering moodily about, gesticulating and shouting - You're using an adverb to describe their wandering, and then elaborating with other verbs, which don't really fit with the adverb, to my mind. Can you shout moodily? I'm not an adverb nazi, but I think you could lose it. I'm not sure either, about "wandering about". That phrase lacks menace, for me. The aftermath of a riot should be more tense I think.

On the market square - in the market square?

Gingerly, she held it between the tips of her fingers - that adverb really isn't necessary.

Took me a while to find the flippers - what flippers? The piece so far has been about food preparation. Was Charlotte out buying sports equipment? If this is the end of the holiday, wouldn't they already have this kit? And would she venture out in the middle of a riot, or even the aftermath of one, to buy some swimming gear? Seems unlikely. I would have thought being caught up in a riot would have been a pretty scary and intimidating experience. If you had to venture out for food, fair enough, but leisure gear? Magali asks "Did you find everything?" I find myself wondering what else was on Charlotte's shopping list. Magali's got the dinner in hand, but Charlotte went out to the supermarket. What for? If it was for medication for Magali, perhaps that would be a better plot-line?

Nice dialogue between Magali and Charlotte. You find yourself thinking… hmmm, I know who's more invested in this relationship…

There was so much more that could have been said - about the food? No, I think you mean about the whole year and the emotional impact meeting Charlotte has had on Magali, but the juxtaposition is odd.

Twelve astonishing months - is this how Magali would describe it? "Astonishing"? Not "wonderful" or "glorious" or "lovely"? You might be right, we don't know what Magali's relationship with Charlotte is yet, but at this stage I think the reader would imagine it is an emotional/romantic one.

Thought it'd last the whole holiday if I freeze it - okay, so it's not the end of the holiday, but closer to the beginning. It's a well-appointed holiday apartment, with freezer facilities. Would she freeze it, anyway? Wouldn't the fruit keep in the fridge? How long are they on holiday for?

There's some sort of riot going on - was this not happening when Charlotte was leaving to go shopping? And is Charlotte not aware of it where she is? It seems a very localised riot? So how long has Charlotte gone shopping for, half an hour? An hour? Magali was concerned about how long she'd been gone for earlier. Has the riot just started? The way you mentioned men wandering about moodily made me think that the riot was nearly over, or at least winding down, and next you say It's got a bit quieter now but there are still some men roaming around, which confirms that impression.

You know they had that street party or whatever before we arrived? - I might be being pedantic (goes with the editing territory) but this begs the question, how did they know there had been a street party before they arrived? Balloons all over the street?

Then I think for the reader you need to put Magali saying Charlotte!, after describing the accident. In some ways that's more chilling than the order in which you have the events:

A thud. A shriek of surprise. Then a succession of crunching and cracking, followed by another thud.

Then silence.

"Charlotte!"

Anyway, serves Charlotte right for being on her phone while driving.

As a piece of writing it's quite well written, but it raises so many questions, not all of which I think you want us to be asking. The jackfruit seems to be a plot cul de sac, but you make a lot of it (nearly a fifth of the opening 600 words taking every reference together), leaving me wondering why mention it? Charlotte has gone out, but I'm not sure how long for. It must be quite a while, because Magali herself went out after Charlotte left, going down to the market to buy fruit, and has since had time to prepare dinner. And in the interim a street party turned into a demonstration which turned into a riot, which is still going on but doesn't seem very… well… riotous. And since this demonstration that turned into a riot started just after Charlotte left, Magali must have gone out into the middle of it when she was doing her shopping, because Charlotte didn't know about the jackfruit, or what was for dinner, until the phone call.

I think the characterisation and the dialogue are all great (although there were a few word choices that surprised me, "rare" and "astonished" for example), but the plot, or even just the chronology of events, hasn't been fully thought through. When I first read the piece, it all seemed to stack up, but I started pulling on one loose thread and the whole knitted cardigan came apart. I'd suggest working out the exact schedule of events, and where your two protagonists are at each stage.

The other slight oddity, which might just be because we're only reading the first 600 words, is that none of what happens here seems to tie in with your pitch, or the genre. The focus of Magali's thoughts on their relationship is pure (intelligent) chick-lit. The riot and the accident are suspense/thriller material. Where does the mystery come into it? I was led to believe by the pitch ("another case for Magali Rousseau") that this was going to be a detective story. This might turn into one, but there are all sorts of other leads in this first section that I think are just confusing the picture. If, as you might be implying by "another case", this is one in a series, and you are presuming the reader is already familiar with the character of Magali and her personal circumstances, then maybe you can afford to digress to this extent at the opening of the book. But that's a big call, and I think an agent would just be confused with this as it stands, to be honest.

But thanks for posting. Hope it's of some help.

D'Estaing

www.editorial.ie

--edited by D'Estaing on 12/28/2015, 8:55 PM--

Pitch: What should have been the end to a perfect holiday turns into another case for Magali Rousseau – one she will soon regret getting involved in.

Title: Perfume Island. Genre: Mystery

***************************

Not enough oil. And the knife was too small. Damn!

Tossing the knife aside, Magali slid her fingers into the gash and pulled. With a sound of creaking leather, the two halves came apart. She set to work with the knife again, jabbing at the core to prise it away. Meeting resistance, she grabbed and tugged, ripping out chunks the size of a golf ball. Bits of it clung to her fingers, covered her hands in slime. She poured on more oil, rubbed them together. The slime turned into a slippery, viscous syrup. She sighed, wiping the sweat from her forehead with her arm.

Not a good idea, this. Still, at least they’d have a laugh when she told Charlotte.

Where was she, anyway? Should have been back by now.

She stepped out onto the balcony. Here and there in the puddles of light from the rare, feeble street lamps, gaggles of youths were wandering moodily about, gesticulating and shouting. On the market square where she’d bought the fruit, a couple of men, urged on by supporters, appeared to be spoiling for a fight. Magali’s breath quickened. She ought to ring Charlotte, tell her to be careful. The riot still wasn’t over.

Unless they’d already got her. Stopped the car and dragged her out and… No, don’t be silly. They wouldn’t do that to a tourist.

She went back in, tore off a strip of kitchen roll, and wiped her hands. It made little difference. Less oil, but the gooey stuff remained, and tatters of tissue clung to it now in twists of shrivelled fleece. She was rubbing and scraping, wanting to giggle, inclined to groan, when the phone rang.

‘Charlotte?’ Gingerly, she held it between the tips of her fingers.

‘Just to let you know I’m on my way. Shouldn’t be long.’

Magali let out a quiet sigh of relief. ‘How was it? Did you find everything?’

‘Mmm. Took me a while to find the flippers. But the supermarket was fine. Still not a lot of choice, but more than the Sofidep. A bit pricey, though. How about you? Feeling better?’

‘Yes, it seems to be easing.’ An attack of cystitis she’d overplayed in order to do the cooking. ‘I went out, actually. Thought I’d get something special for dinner.’

‘Special? What for?’

‘Do you know what day it is? Anniversary?’

‘Um... Your divorce?’

‘Not far off,’ she said with a laugh. ‘You and I met a year ago today.’

‘Wow! That’s nice. Nice of you to remember.’

‘Well, it changed my life quite a bit. To put it mildly.’

‘Mine too.’ A couple of seconds passed. ‘So what’s on the menu?’

‘Fish curry. Skipjack.’ There was so much more that could have been said, but then, she thought, they’d have time over dinner. A review of twelve astonishing months – though whether Charlotte would think of it that way remained to be seen. ‘And there was going to be jackfruit but I’m afraid it’s got the better of me.’

‘You mean you actually bought one? Whole?’

‘Yeah, I went overboard a bit. Thought it’d last the whole holiday if I freeze it. But right now it’s staring up at me like something out of Alien. And emitting this musty smell that stinks out the whole flat.’

‘We’ll do it together when I get back,’ Charlotte said. Then muttered an expletive. ‘God, this road’s dodgy!’

‘Take care when you get into town. There’s some sort of riot going on. Nothing serious, or at least... It’s got a bit quieter now but there are still some men roaming around. Or boys.’

‘Really? I didn’t notice anything.’

‘Not when you left, no. It started after. Just a demonstration, but then it got out of hand. You know they had that street party or whatever before we arrived? Well, someone – Charlotte!’

A thud. A shriek of surprise. Then a succession of crunching and cracking, followed by another thud.

Then silence.

-------------------------------------------------------

Hi, Curtis, and thanks for posting.

I work somewhat differently from D'Estaing, in that I'm concerned more with first impressions and my knee-jerk response to it.

I understand from the pitch that Magali is on holiday, but I have no idea where so I can't mentally put myself in the scene (the clue is much farther down the page and cloaked in far more subtlety than I want at the start of a book).  The first 100 words meant nothing to me, as I had no idea what Magali was wrestling with, so you lost my attention.  Even when I found out it was jackfruit, I was none the wiser, as I had never heard of it.  What you don't want at the start of a book when you're trying to hook the reader's attention is for the reader either to have to start over reading from the top when he realises what Magali was doing, or---worse---to have to break off and Google "jackfruit" to discover it is a fruit native to Asia ("Ah, she must be somewhere in Asia, then"), and to wonder whether jackfruit is what I think is properly known as "durian."

In practically every other respect, I agree with the editorial critique you've had from D'Estaing.  With one exception:  "Not enough oil.  And the knife was too small" works perfectly well for me as is, provided the Damn! is in italics to show thought and, by extrapolation, present tense.

The dynamic of the relationship between Magali and Charlotte is shown effectively, and bodes well for an effective grip on characterisation. 

Hope this helps a little.

--edited by Richard Maitland on 12/29/2015, 7:56 AM--

D’Estaing and Richard, this is excellent – just what I need. Many thanks! There’s plenty here for me to ponder, maybe decide to alter, maybe not, but the point is that a fresh pair of eyes, trained, perceptive and sharp, can work wonders. I won’t reply here to the comments themselves, which are all pertinent, and will help me to create  as gooda first impression as possible. Because of course, as has so often been said, when submitting to agents, it’s not so much the extract that’s brief, but their time, attention span and patience. Very often, they’ll find a reason to reject well before 600 words. So the main function of the first 600 is to get them to read the next 600. And so on.

You’re quite right that what we accept from an agent without the slightest accompanying explanation, we’re less willing to accept spelled out in detail on a thread such as this. When submitting to an agent, I have the feeling I’m throwing a bottle into the sea, but this thread can help to make sure the message inside is as well-expressed as possible. We can’t expect to get anywhere if we’re not prepared to submit our work to public scrutiny. That’s the whole point of workshopping a text on a site like Book Country; this thread is simply a more concentrated version of that, focusing on those vital first 600 words. As such, I think your fears about transposing the concept wholesale to BC are unwarranted.

Just one remark relating to my submission. You felt the jackfruit was a ‘plot cul-de-sac’, but in fact it becomes a recurring metaphor for a ‘sticky’ situation which at the end will play a significant role (though I fully agree it could do with paring down / reworking here). It’s difficult not to make assumptions that extend beyond the submitted extract, but I’m wondering if the best criterion is simply to ask if each sentence is effective in leading the reader on to the next. By which I don’t just mean well-crafted sentences but an intriguing story emerging. I believe that’s all that needs to be looked for in the first 600 words. Perhaps this is what Richard means by more of a knee-jerk reaction, closer to an agent’s than an editor’s, the agent’s approach being to look for a reason to say no. To edit the first 600, as you do, D’Estaing, is a challenge indeed! But the result, I assure you, is greatly appreciated. I shall post about this thread on my blog, as you suggest, and in the meantime, thank you once again for the time and commitment you put into this. It’s invaluable – and that’s the opinion of someone on whom Lucy has conferred the status of Book Country veteran .

Very best wishes for the New Year.

Curtis

--edited by D'Estaing on 12/29/2015, 7:21 PM--