blah blah blah

[amanda_isabel]

sorry for the title guys, i couldn't think of one.

anyway, i just finished writing a short story (my first, yehey) and was hoping to get some comments on it. i won't post it here because it's 19 pages (although it is double-spaced) and...

truth be told i'm kinda nervous (i feel kinda... what's the word? stupid?) about showing it, but i have to if i want to get any comments. anyway, please let me know if you're interested in reading and commenting on it. pm me or e-mail me :) at:

[email protected]

or

[email protected]


thanks!

[kathycf]

Sounds intriguing amanda. I will PM you with my email. :nod:

[rabid reader]

why not post the Windows Notebook verse on the page?

[unknown_lady]

hi honey

i really like to read your story why do not you write it here

and we can discuss it together

and if you do you could encourage me to write mine here and share it with all

[miss tenderness]

well, unknown lady and amanda I'd love to read both of your stories,so please please post soon:)

[kathycf]

Amanda, what happened about this? Everything ok?

[Jean-Baptiste]

Well, Amanda, I read your story, and thought it intriguing. I have to say that I want more from the italicizing narrator. I want more of what I see as the real meat of the story--the underlying theme. The letter's are interesting as an inroad to the theme; I wouldn't suggest anything like dispensing with them. I do see them as an integral and necessary backdrop for the entire significance of the story, but I'd like to see them relegated to just that: backdrop. Bring out the ghost! Let's have it!

Do you intend to mean that Ryan can only observe Lisa's life through the letters that she writes? In that case, do the italics represent an actual reply, one that Lisa can be aware of, or are they only for the reader? In any case, I'd like more from the consciousness of the dead. I'd like to see why these letters are significant to Ryan (I know that you're doing that, but I want more.) Perhaps, and excuse me for puting intentions into your pen, you wish to represent the action as it might actually be: one sided. If so, I feel that you could do away with the comments of the dead entirely, and make Lisa the proper narrator--tell us how she actually feels, how she actually copes, let her tell us the things that she doesn't put into letters. Let her explain why she's writing letters to the dead, and what she is sure his reply might be. That could be gripping, and much more straight forward. Having said that, I take it back. I do like the ghostly communications, directed solely to the reader or not. So give me more of that. Give that ghost a voice that he doesn't know is silenced. Let him carry his weight.

This is, again, a very intriguing story. The idea is wonderful. There are some questions that your readers might come up with, which could undermine the theme, but these can be dealt with by the narrator being allowed to step up and tell us how it is. With that, I must declare that I do not advocate mere explanation as a proper means of storytelling--but giving a freer reign to the narrator is not the same as explanation. Whichever character you choose to fill the role as narrator, living or dead (and I say that because, as I said above, either would perform the job with excellence) give us more from them.

Of course, I may have completely twisted your story into some horrific mess, unrecognizable even to its creator. I may have misinterpreted the word "Today" at the beginning of letter 1, or some other simple and stupid mistake, and was thrown off track from the start. If I've completely butchered things, forgive me. I do like your story, and these comments can be disregarded at your discretion. Please believe that by my revision-happy critique, I mean nothing like discouragement. Thanks so much for sharing your story with me.

[kathycf]

Hi, Amanda, I have had some trouble logging into my email account. I have now been able to download your story and will get back to you in a few days about it. Sorry for the delay...

~~Kathy