 Taltush/MeiMei 2007-05-13 . chapter 1At first the story was good. Your writing was solid and presentable. Your grammar was good. But then it all came crashing down. While your plotline is good and is a nice, sweet story, at some point your grammar became very poor and you had numerous spelling mistakes. Here we go...
First of all, proofread your piece. Everytime you have a sentence that ends with a period and a "I/He/She said", change that period to a comma. Plus, make sure the "he/she" is lowercased. Also, when you have the line where she swears at her father, the next sentence starts lowercased, but it should have the first letter capitalized. That needs correcting.
Spelling mistakes are also quite common. "Fowl" instead of "foul". There's also the line "and had last some serious wait" You MUST mean lost some serious WEIGHT, right? Because like this it makes NO sense. I think that some parts of your story were also left a little open and empty. Vague. Overall, it's okay, because it's just a short story. The ending gives the story a sense of closure anyways, which is very good. I just think you should reread your story and proofread it. All these mistakes need changing. |
 squiggle-line 2007-05-10 . chapter 1I love how you open this story with the detail about the jeans. It gives a good idea of her father's personality without explicit description.
"I laughed slightly, putting down..." At first I was confused about why she was laughing, but then reading the line: " 'Dad, come on, I'm not twelve.' " made it make sense. Perhaps you could switch the order of those two sentences?
Maybe: 'hooker red lipstick' instead of "lipstick hooker red"?
I like how you've written the father's reaction to Naomi's anger. It's very believable. Plus, since he's not a complete **, it makes him more of a sympathetic character.
The contrast between Naomi's family and Sophie's is intriguing and I wish we could have seen more of Sophie's family dynamic. Sophie's mother is a bit plastic though. The offer of food is nice but sounds sort of forced. Perhaps if you gave it some context (if Sophie's mom remarked that it was almost dinner time and asked if Naomi had eaten yet or something like that) then the scene would flow a little more smoothly. Missing question mark: "Naomi, would you like something to eat[?]"
"My mother had never smiled like that, or at all. She was always angry, always mad about something." Throughout the story, I wanted to know more about Naomi's mother too. I think this would be a good place for you to elaborate on her. What was she always angry about? Was it directed towards Naomi?
"I know I should totally [not?] smoke, especially for the wedding, but it's just so damned addicting." I don't really understand this line. Can she not go for more than two hours without smoking? What does smoking have to do with the wedding? Pregnancy, I could understand, but a wedding? I think your meaning needs to be clearer here.
"Even with all my father's gardening and money spent on the best organic fertilizers, we still had weeds. Now they were just organic weeds." :)
" 'Hi, darling.' She jumped up immediately, kissing him on the cheek." I think given the situation, this is horribly insensitive of Lily and borderline inappropriate.
"Because if he wasn't my father, if he was Lily's [groom], then who was I[?] The spoiled child sent off the boarding school so they [could] enjoy their honeymoon[?]"
"He laughed then, loud and full. His voice carried..." I don't understand why he laughs. It seems very insensitive to laugh at such a realistic worry. "...if I wanted to replace you[,] I'd buy a dog or a motorcycle or adopt a kid." Woah, that's kind of harsh. His only daughter is comparable to a dog?
I love the macaroni titanic, bumblebee cosume, and Hello Kitty cake details. Very nice.
"Does it [have?] to be Lily?"
I like how the ending is light-hearted.
The main thing that bothers me in this story is that Lily is not a very endearing character. Having an unlikable character in a story is fine except I feel like in this case, casting Lily as the bad guy makes the situation a little stickier than you might have intended. We don't see her interact much with Naomi's father so all we know of her is from Naomi. And from Naomi's negative portrayal of Lily, I don't really buy Conrad's attraction to her and in turn, I feel like Naomi forgiveness towards her father in the end is sort of a cop out. Throughout the story, you build up this great tension and then it all resolves with a single conversation. By the end, it's obvious that Naomi thinks her father's marriage won't be too bad. However, you haven't convinced me, the reader, that this will be true. Naomi's only worry about her father's marriage is that she will be replaced? After seeing how horrible Lily is, Naomi isn't worried that she's going to have an evil stepmother and try harder to convince her father not to get married? I think if you make Lily a nicer character (show that she loves Naomi's father), then Naomi's acceptance of the situation in the end will be more logical.
Overall, this was a very enjoyable read. I liked all the details and I loved how you wrote Naomi's father. The short story format works well too. Nice. |