Wednesday, November 6, 2019

A Sweet All Hallow's Eve

by Maria Gorman from the October 28, 2019 issue

Tagline: When Jessica Kane opens the door to her home to hand out Halloween candy, she never imagines that love will be waiting for her on the other side.

Observations: The premise of this story is adorable. A single dad and his daughter are trick or treating, and the little girl has to go potty, now!

I am a little confused because he is dressed as Aladdin and "looked every bit the part of a prince," but later he holds out a blue painted hand and offers her a magic wish, which is definitely the genie.

Maybe something was missed in edits? Lord knows I've made mistakes like this before. Unfortunately, this is the kind of thing that might pull your readers out of the story as they try to figure out if they were reading too fast and misunderstood or what. I want to emphasize how important it is to revise and proofread your stories. If at all possible, have someone else read your stories too. We writers often don't catch obvious mistakes that people with fresh eyes will notice right away.

On the other hand, maybe this wasn't a mistake and the author was just going with a general Aladdin theme, instead of making him the Aladdin, because I'm reading the last line:

Tonight she met her own prince of thieves--and he'd definitely stolen her heart.

Adorable ending, by the way.

Photo by Faylyne via Flickr CC license.

3 comments:

Pat said...

I loved this story, Kate. The single dad with a kid that needs a potty was so real and so possible to me.

Re: the Aladdin thing. I was picturing the blue cartoon, Disney Aladdin. I figured the character thought of him as a prince because he was so good looking and she was attracted to him.

Over all, a great read.

Anonymous said...

Yes, the switching back and forth between the Genie, who is blue and can grant wishes, and Alladin, who is the Prince, did throw me off. There was a mix-up there for sure that probably some people didn't catch. I'm just very well-versed in Disney characters, themes, etc. because of kids, grandkid. And I wouldn't necessarily think WW would use a story that mentions the potty, although it is natural and believable that a child would need to use the bathroom. Just isn't my idea of something to put into an 800 word romantic story! Overall a cute idea though and sweet story.

Sandy Smith said...

This was a cute story. I enjoyed it.