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Review by plainmirror(m): 1:02pm On Oct 06, 2013 |
Re: Short Story Competition by Efemena_xy: 11:13pm On Oct 05 PlainMirror: My Travel Adventure Hello PlainMirror, I've just had a read of your short story titled: My Travel Adventure and here's my review. Please understand that these are just my views and opinions and you may not entirely agree with me. Feel free to discard those which you feel are of no use to you. Having said that, my aim here is to provide a well balanced, and positive critique of your story, while being encouraging, helpful, honest and supportive. Thanks for sharing your work. * HOW I FELT / EMOTIONS INVOKED: Well, well, well! I must say that initially, your grammatical errors were so off-putting, I just had to mentally bar my mind against them and focus on the story line. I’ve had a raft of emotions starting from being really miffed at the poor grammar, then slightly curious as I read on, and then outright clamouring to read more. (Ah! This shames me to admit!) * HOW I RELATE TO THE WRITING: Yes, sometimes we as humans do get stuck in ‘unforeseen’ circumstances and need to think on our feet. Sometimes, taking the risk is worth it and pays off, but what you (or the narrator) did was wrong. Yes, I understand that desperate situations call for desperate measures, but if he had been caught out, it would have been a completely different story. Over here, you’ll get a hefty fine slapped on you and you might have to appear in court too for trying to cheat the system. * TITLE: My Travel Adventure – An apt description for this piece of work. * STYLE: Narrative comedy combining a persuasive form of writing. * VOICE: Yes, you do have your very own special voice that was evident in your story. Just tone down on the vernacular which tends to be distracting. * PLOT: This story is based on the adventures of a head-strong, secondary school pupil who loves to live the ‘high-life’. An extravagant youth with an ‘easy-come-easy-go’ nature, he takes us through his secondary school experience towards the end of term. Dependant on his father for his financial upkeep, he discards the idea of banking his money with the school guardian only to find out that this move of his backfired. Stranded for cash on the last day of term, he tricks an ‘okada’ driver, swindles a bus driver and his conductor and manages to hold his nerve right to the very end. * CHARACTERS: The protagonist – PlainMirror Mr Alala, his guardian teacher An ‘Okada’ motorcyclist A bus driver and his assistant conductor * DIALOGUE: Good use of dialogue cleverly interwoven with the narrative piece. * TIME / PLACE / SCENE/SETTING: End of school term at Unity School, Ohafia, (Abia State?), Eastern Nigeria. The story starts out at the narrator’s secondary school then progresses to the bus park, from where he is meant to board a bus to Aba. * MY LIKES: An intruiging, light-hearted, captivating piece of comedy that I found really enjoyable. Definitely good for a weekend read! * MY DISLIKES: A lot of work needs to go in here in terms of copy-editing and proof-reading. This piece is raft with numerous: ~ Spelling and grammatical errors ~ Wrong sentence structures ~ Verb tense inconsistencies ~ ‘Head-hopping’ and distracting Point-Of-View infractions ~ Narrator tends to lose focus and diverge into unnecessary descriptions that do nothing to enhance the storyline * FAVOURITE LINE(S): I recited ‘Our lord’s prayer’ in my mind. Alast, Aba here I come. ‘Until you face a difficult situation, one. wouldn’t realize how much innovative skills he has in stock’ The last line is especially true and in dire times, can make the difference between life and death decisions made when boxed into a corner. The narrator managed to get himself out of a sticky situation based on a combination of luck and ‘thinking on his feet’. * AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT: Okay, I picked up quite a lot of errors in your write-up. I’ll mention a couple of them just once, but the onus is on you to apply the corrections to the rest of your work: ~ It was another season of relaxation and enjoyment as holiday was fast approaching. I had communicated with my dad some days back via our school payphone centre to send me some money for my transport fare back home and small pocket money for other miscellaneous expenses. That has been my modus operandi; I send message across to my parents few days to end of the term. My reason was to avoid falling victim of stolen money as it was a norm in our dormitory. Theft is common in school hostels/ dormitories [mostly amongst guys] where there is a combination of different characters; the good, the bad, and the ugly. Your opening sentence was quite promising, but then it was followed by a raft of grammatical errors and tense mix-ups. ~ My Suggestion: “It was another season of relaxation and enjoyment as the holidays drew near. I had communicated with my dad a few days ago via my school’s payphone center to send me some money for my transportation fare back home, and a little pocket money for any other miscellaneous expenses that might arise. My reason for sending such messages to my parents a few days to the end of term was to avoid falling victim to theft – a common occurrence at my hall (hostel) of residence…” ~ Personally, I think this reads better as it’s tighter and you send your message across in fewer, clear-cut lines. The last two sentences about theft being a common activity at your school are redundant as you’ve already told us that a few sentences earlier. ~ Your mentioning characters being “good, bad, and ugly” mostly among guys should also be discarded because it’s a POV (Point of View) infraction where you’re jumping from the protagonist’s narration to the author. This scene is told from the protagonist’s point of view, so he would have to know this information. Putting this in parentheses and providing information to the reader from the author is called Authorial Intrusion. This confuses the reader because he or she loses track of who is telling the story. You do this a couple more times throughout your story: **[unity school no be beans naa] - Your sudden diversion into vernacular or Pidgin English is breath-taking. It leaves the reader astounded and wondering what’s really going on here. Don’t get me wrong – a little used here and there, in dialogue and direct speech is okay, but when it features heavily throughout your prose, you give the reader the impression you’ve suddenly given up trying to write in simple, clear English. It also makes you come across as a lazy writer. But most importantly, you need to keep focus of who your intended audiences are. If this is strictly for Nigerians or the few West Africans who understand Pidgin English, as opposed to the rest of the world, then just be aware you’ll be limiting the potential sales of your story. Only a minority understand vernacular (which incidentally varies from country to country), and fewer even, are prepared so spend money purchasing such works. ** [girls inclusive atymes] – You must make concerted efforts to spell out your words. You won’t be doing yourself any favours by writing in a way that’s comfortable to you, as opposed to adhering to the rules of grammar and sentence structure. Yes, it’s hard ‘unlearning’ bad habits, but if you want to be a better writer, you’ve got to get stuck in and try improve upon your sentence structure. For what it’s worth, you don’t say, “girls inclusive atymes.” You say, “and girls inclusive”, or “sometimes, including girls”. ** [ I am d generous type who loves to make people around me happy] – I’m the generous type who loves making the people around me, happy. ** [dat kind Manchester united for EPL] – Although discouraged especially in fiction writing, IF you must use abbreviations in your write-up, then you must spell them out the first time, afterwards you can continue with the abbreviations. Never assume your readers know what you’re referring to. I’m not a footie fan and I’m wondering what EPL means? You also don’t say ‘dat kind…’ It’s ‘that sort of…’. ** [ we dey chop three square meal daily] – Unnecessary POV infraction that’s best deleted. ** [ I wondered if dat was d mssg my dad sent but on a 2nd thought, discarded the idea] . – I wondered if that was the message my dad sent me, but on second thoughts, I discarded the idea. When writing numbers in prose, you must spell them out if they’re less than 100. So anything that is ninety-nine and below must be spelt out. Bear in mind also that you need to hyphenate compound numbers. So say for example the number 24. Don’t write 24. Write twenty-four. ** [ money don enta be dat ni] -Unnecessary POV infraction that’s best deleted. ** [I feigned innocence] – Feigning ignorance… (always use strong, active verbs as opposed to weak passive verbs in your sentences) ** (if things doesn’t go according to plan) - If things don’t go according to plan. (singular: thing, does, doesn't), (Plural: things, do, don’t) ** (I normally keep my travel tickets for some reasons I cannot phantom) – Normally, I tend to keep my travel tickets, but for some reason which I couldn’t fathom (not phantom). ** (maybe trying to bring out wallet or readjust) – Perhaps, bringing out my wallet or readjusting my seating position ~ non beneficiaries – change to: non- beneficiaries Dialogue and Dialogue Tags When writing prose, you must endeavor to make the distinction between spoken speech, your character’s thoughts and the narrative itself. To do this, enclose spoken or direct speech in quotes, and your character’s thoughts in italics. Now let’s take a look at a sample dialogue between your main character and his house master, Mr. Alala: “Anyways,” he continued, “your dad called me yesterday.” “Ok sir”, I nodded slightly [ money don enta be dat ni] Mr Alala gazed at me for seconds before he continued, “your dad sent you some money thiis morning through waybill, but he did not disclose the amount to me. He said it is for your transport fare to Aba.” “Thank you sir,” I replied beaming with smile. “Eeehm Bright why has your cash column in my register been inactive since the commencement of this term? So you are now too big to have a guardian eeeeh,” Mr Alala pressed further. “No sir, it is just that you are not always around each time I come to the staff room to meet you.” [I feigned innocence] “That is your choice to make, but please don’t visit me with missing money issues,” he concluded and left. As you can see, I’ve included quotation marks in your dialogue between your characters, thereby making it easier for your readers to discern who’s speaking. (Note: if a speaker’s speech runs into a new paragraph, open up the first paragraph with speech marks, but don’t close it till you get to the end of his or her spoken speech at the end of the last line.) Now, let’s look at dialogue tags. These are phrases such as, “he said”, “she said”, after spoken speech. When you have two characters discussing amongst themselves, you should cut down the use of these tags to minimum use. Take a look at the same quoted speech, further modified: “Anyway, your dad called me yesterday.” “Ok sir,” I nodded Mr Alala gazed at me for a few seconds before continuing, “Your dad sent you some money this morning through waybill, but he didn’t disclose the amount to me. He said it’s for your transportion fare to Aba.” “Thank you sir,” I replied beaming with smile. “Eeehm Bright why has your cash column in my register been inactive since the commencement of this term? So you are now too big to have a guardian eeeeh?” “No sir, it is just that you are not always around each time I come to the staff room to meet you.” “That’s your choice to make, but please don’t visit me regarding missing money issues,” he concluded. * MEMORABLE WRITING: This bit got stuck in my mind as I found myself almost biting my nails, hoping the narrator won’t get caught and eager to find out what happened next: He started the ticket gross check from the front passenger seat and everybody flashed their tickets to his face Plainmirror inclusive. However, his search wasn’t justified as he had hoped to catch a scapegoat without ticket so he beckoned on everybody to come down from the bus for a second thorough search. This time I shuddered but maintained my cool so as not to draw unnecessary suspicion. I better coordinate myself well if not my spot in the bus will be sold to the scores of students still waiting for bus. Not after it has also caused me a big embarrassment because some girls and junior students were also inside the bus. It was already getting to some minutes past three O’clock and had a journey of about two hours thirty minutes ahead of us. So some students complained bitterly capitalizing on time factor. The driver checked the tickets again as we individually entered the bus but his quest was to no avail. He however shifted the blame to his mate and ignited the car engine. * ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: A very interesting piece which I thoroughly enjoyed. Granted, the numerous errors were off-putting and I was tempted not to continue beyond the third paragraph, but, I’m glad I did. A great deal of work is needed to polish this piece of prose, but PlainMirror, take it from me that you are indeed a rough diamond! A final word of encouragement here: Having the best command of written English is admirable but will not sell your story if you bore your readers to tears. Thankfully, you don’t fall into that category. I’ll advice you to keep on reading books. Expand your vocabulary and never, ever stop writing. With hardwork and a determination to succeed, you’ll eventually get there. Wishing you all the best and keep up the good work! Well done. Cheers, Efe. (Quote) (Report) (Like) |
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