tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005062827798430682.post7780014774285504450..comments2024-02-21T05:25:03.233-05:00Comments on Adventures in YA Publishing: 1st 5 pages workshop - July entry #4 revision 2Martina Boonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03358736828122139189noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005062827798430682.post-45084348248195900742011-07-25T17:59:38.692-04:002011-07-25T17:59:38.692-04:00You have done some great work with these revisions...You have done some great work with these revisions. Each one has really improved the story and opened up Meridian's world to me in new ways--and I thought she was great to begin with. All that to say, everything I was going to mention is in the above comments, so I don't have anything new to add. You are so close to having this ready! Great work and good luck as you finish it!<br />~MandyMandyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02469060850586944800noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005062827798430682.post-45451204930659621062011-07-19T12:13:51.703-04:002011-07-19T12:13:51.703-04:00I really like Meridian. I think she comes through...I really like Meridian. I think she comes through really well - the incredibly grammatically incorrect line gave me character and a laugh - I loved it. I missed that the blood was her mother as noted above so you may want to look at that. A nitpick: some of the sentences are so long, I get lost in them - I realize some of the voice is coming from the structure and I really like that - but you may want to look at a few of them since it stopped my reading as I went back to re-read. Really good revision.Carolynnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005062827798430682.post-12916606771025250472011-07-18T17:45:28.831-04:002011-07-18T17:45:28.831-04:00Much better, much smoother. The only nitpicky thi...Much better, much smoother. The only nitpicky things: I wouldn't have him say "fabulous" or "you were doing us a service" because it sounds a bit too old & fussy. Also, I'm just now figuring out: when she says a body surrounded by blood, she means her mother, right? Not envisioning Natalie? I didn't make that connection last time, so I'm not sure if that's what you mean. Good work on the revisions, though!Cathy Yardleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11968956085630495203noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005062827798430682.post-65710919694013947912011-07-17T22:40:54.656-04:002011-07-17T22:40:54.656-04:00I still love this piece. I feel like Meridian'...I still love this piece. I feel like Meridian's character is so different. <br /><br />This paragraph felt sort of info-dumpy: "He may have been the only person at the school I’d escaped who didn’t mock me—the incredibly grammatically incorrect nickname Madame le Freak had never passed his lips—but I didn’t plan on sticking around to find out why he’d followed me all the way from Fernsgrove. That place lost it’s charm quick, as Mom used to say before she moved us to a new town after the month or two it took her to construct a chapter of her latest travel book"<br /><br />Ask yourself what info is necessary up front and parse it out. For example you could mention her mother's specific job writing travel books here: "Every fragment I dropped onto the heap of splintered wood represented a European city I’d explored on my own while my mother went about her business with the locals"<br /><br />This one line kept tripping me up, and I wonder if there's a smoother way to say it. : " and the single muscle in my chest still held taut by the events of the afternoon, and not Natalie’s accident, loosened"<br /><br />Otherwise, great work. :DLisa Gail Greenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03648323153868702165noreply@blogger.com