Tagline: As Carolyn Danner finally finished raking up the vibrant fall leaves blanketing her sprawling lawn, she gets a surprise visit from an energetic pup--and his breathtakingly handsome dog sitter--that turns the seasonal chore into a heap of unexpected happiness.
Observations: The first thing I wanted to point out is something I haven't mentioned in a while. When writing a Woman's World romance story, you need to establish that the main characters are single. Obviously, you don't want to just say, "Mary was single." There are many more clever ways you can do this. In this particular story, the author wove it into the narrative.
She had considered hiring someone to rake her big yard now that her husband was gone...
I really loved the part where Attoun described Chester messing up the leaf piles. It was well done and I had no trouble visualizing this. Descriptions like this one aren't easy, which is why writing is an art. It's worth mentioning that you shouldn't dash off a story and send it off. My bet is that Attoun revised and revised until everything was just right. I mean, those verbs--bounding, pouncing, whooshing--those don't just spring to mind. But they are perfect.
I also haven't mentioned the "show don't tell" thing in a while. "Show don't tell" is a phrase that is often bandied about as an ironclad rule and I'm here to tell you it's not. Especially in a Woman's World story. You only have 800 words to use. Sometimes you have to summarize the action, as in this excerpt:
Surprisingly, they fell into conversation as easily as long-lost friends. Carolyn learned that Stan was recently retired and also single. They shared many interests from junking to blue-grass music.
See, you could show this happening, like I did here...
"So, Sam, what do you do for a living?" Carolyn asked.
"I retired recently after forty five years as a high school teacher." Stan sighed. "I always thought my wife and I would travel after I retired, but she passed away."
"I'm so sorry to hear that."
And so on. But as you can see how many more words it took to show what the one sentence of telling did. So sometimes, you just tell stuff.
Unaltered photo by Selena Smith via https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/.
3 comments:
I loved this story, Kate. Not only was it well written, it was joyful and enjoyable. Brought back wonderful memories of my kids when they were little and we had a dog who loved to play in leaves and snow. I especially like what you pointed out here for the future WW writers. Nice job.
THanks, Pat! I try to make this an educational blog.
This was a great story. It really showed autumn well.
Post a Comment