Review 8-13-07

REVIEW OF: A.J. Garofalo

The Writer (Revised)

Recommendations: I feel this piece deserves a thorough re-write. Writer's Block is one of the most insidious monsters facing every writer. If you are going to use it as your theme, then it should be able to speak to all writers. This piece doesn't - yet.


In the opening...
Show us your main character(s), or at least foreshadow them
The reader knows from the first sentence the story has a main character called “Michael”. By repeating his name as you do merely distracts from the story line.

Establish the setting--where and when the story takes place.

There is no real setting provided other than the main character's apartment. Since this is a short story, and each sentence must be made to count, describing a setting isn't always necessary.

Establish the area of conflict.
Show-Not-Tell but don’t inundate the reader with so much minute trivia. The first paragraph is to show case your main character, his conflict(s) and get your reader involved with the story.

“Michael wanted to become a writer” – this sentence is vanilla in stating what will be the ‘crisis’ for this short story. I, your reader in this case, thought to myself “Yeah okay, heard this about a million times.” Why did Michael want this? Who was Michael that this was so important to him. You have a short story and not much time to get your reader’s (1) Attention (2) Involvement. Make each sentence count.


Set the tone of the story: solemn or excited, humorous or tragic.

The tone of this short story is...what? Is it tragic? Michael can't write. Is it solemn? Michael wants to write yet cannot. What is the tone of the piece exactly? Its fine to start out with one "tone" and finish with another but setting that tone so your reader knows exactly what you want them to feel seems to be missing.

Tell your story in scenes, not in exposition. A scene contains a purpose, an obstacle or conflict, and a resolution that tells us something new about the characters and their circumstances.
You never introduce your main character. We are left wondering who is Michael? Why should we care about him? Yes, writer's block is something we can relate to - but you do not allow us to relate to your character.

Develop your characters through action and dialogue.
Ahhh dialogue that old friend, someone who eludes us and trips us up when we least expect it to. Advice to writers is to sit and listen to people talk. Make notes on the pauses, the added words, repetitions of phrases and colloquialisms used. Your dialogue is stilted. I can not believe a construction worker talks the way you have Jeremy talking.

Give your characters adequate motivation for their actions and words.
In the conversation you write between your main character and his love interest, there is a small sense of familiarity between them, yet you do not exploit this. How does the love interest know that the main character can write? If she is going on blind faith you haven’t shown that to the reader at all.

Make solutions of the problems appropriate to the characters
Michael uses advice from his love interest in the ending to resolve his conflict, or begin to resolve it. He should be able to show some emotion about that yet he is more interested in getting other opinions to his work, his new story. This side of your character, his indifference to advice given, would make most people angry, yet you don't show the reader any of the frustrations that Shannon (love interest) or Jeremy (best friend) would show. Yes, your story is about Michael, but by using your sub-characters you build the main character up, give life to him and allow the reader to better understand and know him.

Conclusions:
As stated in the beginning, this story deserves a re-write. There are grammar issues, verb tense mix-ups, minor spelling errors, but the heart, the soul of this story is missing. Writers all suffer this malady. Give us the opportunity to say "Oh yeah! I've been THERE before!"