Discussion of "October Chill: Emptiness (7)" by writerwannabe

Man, theblackhand's chapter was a bitch to follow! I couldn't figure out what to do with James, he was in such deep, deep ****. So...I passed the buck. Let Malena take it from here...lol.

I salute you. My chapter was indeed a hard mash, I admit. In saying that I allowed the hat to fall off his head for two reasons:
1) To break the control it had on James, see what the next masher would do. Would he end up killing Malena? Could he convince her he was telling the truth about the murder of Katy?
2) Also for the preacher to maybe come back and retrieve it OR the possibility of Malena falling under its spell...
You played this perfectly. I was amazed at this chapter. You ended your chapter exactly as I had hoped. Imagine my surprise when Malena put that hat on...
Wonderful, wonderful writing. This chapter had is me hooked. This is one of the best OC mashes I have read that is left for the next masher to follow.
Brilliant........Well deserving of a 5.

Ditto theblackhand! Shocking and intriguing all rolled into one!

cant believe I missed this until now! Excellant chapter WWB! I freaking loved this.
black hat wearing five.

Beautiful! What a great turnaround - intense and sweet! 5555555!

Excellent job!!! So, if you win, you'll have to drop the "wannabe" part of your handle. I think you should anyway, at this point. 5!

Overall I think you've done a great job of telling the story here. You have a great sense of pacing and movement. I'd maybe like a little bit more description at times, but on the other hand, that could drag the pace down, so you can just ignore that comment...

Character development and dialog work nicely. I felt like I was getting to know them not only through their words and actions, but in their reactions and assessments. You did a lot of showing, as opposed to just telling.

One place you could tweak a few words and do that even better would be this line:
“Finally, I had to stop. Malena was wiggling around a little bit and I was exhausted.”

The “wiggling around” part is great showing, but it is bookended by two tellings. A quick edit can help that even more:
“Malena was wiggling around a bit, and I was finding it hard to catch my breath. My legs were cramping. I had to stop.”

That's relatively minor, and the kind of thing that gets worked out in editing.

I point out a couple other MINOR suggestions below, more as ideas for you to consider as you revise (this, or any other writing you do). There are other things like those below throughout the piece, but these are representative samples:

“I took only a few steps before realizing that I’d forgotten the hat. I turned back, scooped it up and ran toward what looked to be a kitchen.”

This seems unlikely, with a woman draped over his shoulder. Adding something like “I almost lost my balance as I struggled to scoop it up...” or any other nod to the woman over his shoulder would make it a bit more real.

“I was sweating like a pig.”

Ok, this is one of those times when I'm going to say don't use a cliché, not because it is a cliché (because, on one level that would be ok for this character) but because it made me ask the question: Do Pigs Sweat? And why is this a common phrase? I actually stopped reading your story (something we don't want readers to do) and looked it up. (FYI, pigs don't sweat much, really, which is why they have to wallow around in the mud to cool off...)

There are a few “write tight” things like this:
(Original) “It took awhile, but I finally got through the whole story from start to now.”
(Better) “It took a while, but I finally got through the whole story.” (from start to now doesn't add anything, unless he already knows the future, and you are making it clear that he didn't share what will happen later.)

Trust me when I tell you this, there are a million of those kinds of things in every 10 pages I write, and it is usually edit number 3 or 4 before I catch most of them. So that's no biggie...but I wanted to give you a couple little things to consider.

Overall, I enjoyed this chapter a lot. I think you did a very nice job with it.
-esw

Wow...thanks, ericswatt. That was one of the very best critiques I've ever received, here or anywhere else! Right on about the cliche. I didn't give it any thought when I wrote it. I usually avoid cliches but...well, sometimes they seem to be right, to fit. LOL...I sure didn't know that pigs don't sweat much. Now, I'm going to look it up and find out why! Thanks, again...very much.

My pleasure. I really enjoy the process of sharing suggestions and critiques. I really do believe that it is very hard to "catch" some of these things yourself, even with multiple re-readings. I also believe that it becomes easier to avoid certain things and generally improve the more of these you can identify and think through. And often, when I'm identifying some point of tightening or refining in someone else's work, what I'm really doing is wondering if I don't need to go back to this story or that one and look for the same thing myself! :-)

Hey, Dad..surprise!...great story!!