Hi John,
First, I just want to say I love the cover! Where do you get your pics from?
You've established an omniscient POV, past tense.
You've done a lot of telling. Some of this, could be changed to 'showing', therefore improving your characterisation. I'd also look up comma use and revise your piece with this in mind. Too, I'd look at your dialogue tags, they're not all needed and in many cases are redundant.
In terms of your... Show more
Hi John,
First, I just want to say I love the cover! Where do you get your pics from?
You've established an omniscient POV, past tense.
You've done a lot of telling. Some of this, could be changed to 'showing', therefore improving your characterisation. I'd also look up comma use and revise your piece with this in mind. Too, I'd look at your dialogue tags, they're not all needed and in many cases are redundant.
In terms of your structure, I think you could play around with your management of time so that you provide a better hook to the reader. Perhaps start off with an action scene, establish your characters within this, then when the reader is quite comfortable in what their reading and in the atmosphere (when enough of an anchor has been established) you could try a flash back, or else, I'd argue you don't even need the first Part, if you can artfully sprinkle in some of the exposition in part two.
When establishing your atmosphere, really think about the five senses (touch, sight, sound, taste, hearing) and try to evoke this in your narrative. The premise is great and I think with some more work, this story will be a good one.
Pg 5: I'd change 'much younger' to 'small'. 'their eldest son' is in apposition, therefore it should be framed in commas. Comma between 'home' and 'going'.
Pg 6: You've already established that the size of the room was a shock. Get rid of 'Butch wanted to go down to the bar', it is redundant given the previous sentence.
Pg 7: 'while going to the bathroom' is in apposition and needs to be framed in commas. Take out' Butch couldn't really appreciate the true beauty without seeing it himself', this you've shown well in the next sentence.
Pg 8: The dialogue here needs livening up. You need to imagine how people would speak, relax it a bit. Use some contractions, too. Because you've added in dialogue here about the kids having grown up, I think you could get rid of your earlier exposition about it on p5.
Pg 9: You don't need 'Mike turned the same question onto Butch', the fact you've shown the dialogue in the next sentence, establishes this.
Pg 10: You've got a tense change in your first few sentences ... the noise IS what ... This should be 'was'. Rather than telling us about Butch being drunk, you could think of a body movement that would show it.
Pg 13: I don't think you need 'Butch encouraged her to see' as you've already produced this with the dialogue. You've used the word 'run' in the third para when it should be 'ran'. This changes the tense.
I'll leave it there for now.
I can't wait to read your revised version, let me know when you get there. Stories can take many drafts to get right, I know mine do. Good luck.
Bek :)
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