Thursday, January 16, 2020

A Prince for Christmas

by Patricia Gaddis from the December 30, 2019 issue

Tagline: When Elizabeth Blake jokingly asks Santa to bring her a prince, she never expects that her Christmas wish for love may actually come true.

Observations: I'm so excited to be critiquing a story by Patricia, who has edited many of my own stories. Sometimes a good editor is not a good writer, but Patricia is both. This will be a stream-of-consciousness analysis.

The first paragraph really does a nice job of setting the tone and describing the setting. Reading it, you can almost feel that snowflake melting on your tongue.

I liked this bit:

"Better call her dad," Heather advises. "They're divorced...like us."

That the little daughter includes herself in the divorce was poignant to me. As a child of divorced parents, I can assure you the kids are just as deeply involved in the divorce as the parents.

Oh, they moved recently. Hm. Away from the dad?

Ah...Heather says she wants a daddy for Christmas, so maybe the dad is out of the picture somehow. Either way, it's probably best to explain these kinds of things so the reader isn't pulled out of the story, wondering.

Oooh, he's a fireman? Yes, please!

That was a charming story. Well done, Patricia.

Photo by Alistair Young via Flickr CC license


2 comments:

Pat said...

I loved this story for so many reasons: Christmas, the prince, the two families. Just a great job in my opinion.

Sandy Smith said...

This was a great story. I liked how she worked in the Prince Charming.