The Good Egg

 by Mary Ann Joyce from the April 5, 2021 issue

Tagline: Dory and her best friend, Jack, are searching for treasure at the annual Easter egg hunt...but what they find surprises them both: a chance for love.

Observations: Wow. Just...wow. If you're looking for a shining example of what a Woman's World story can be, this is it. The writing is so perfectly restrained and tight. Remember my post about overwriting? This is the opposite of overwriting. 

Here is the sentence that really jumped out at me and said, "I am not overwritten!"

His blue eyes flashed in the emerging sunshine.

Bam. It's a very simple sentence, but it's effective.

An over-writer might look at this sentence and feel it's too simple and embellish it in an attempt to Describe with a capital D. She might want to add a simile (or two) and at least one more adjective. She might choose a verb like bedazzled or blazed or shimmered. Can we agree that bedazzled would be overkill, considering Dory is just coming to realize she's attracted to Jack? Similarly, blazed is not only too much, it's difficult for anything to blaze in broad daylight. Shimmered is a wonderful word, but not quite right for this sentence because if things can't blaze in broad daylight, they certainly can't shimmer either. Shimmering is fainter.

Some of you may be thinking, "Oh, who cares if something can't really blaze in broad daylight?" Actually, you should care. One of the most, if not the most critical skill a writer must develop is the ability to choose the right words. It's not just a matter of looking a word up in a thesaurus and willy-nilly choosing one. You must be able to detect and understand the nuances of words and how they're used so you can use them yourself effectively. This is why good writers are avid readers. You can't understand how to correctly use the language unless you've been exposed to it. A lot. 

By the way, if you hire me as an editor, I'm more than happy to help you examine your word choices. I usually avoid this type of laser-focused fine-tuning and concentrate more on tone, plot, characterization, mechanics and punctuation. I don't want my clients to feel as if they're being nit-picked to death. However, if this is something you're interested in, just mention that to me at the get-go. :) Click here if you're interested in hiring me to edit your Woman's World story.

I also wanted to give Joyce a *Kate Willoughby Handshake for surprising me with the whole golden egg surprise. That was just delightful! I definitely did not see that coming and it was an adorable moment that I'm sure made every single reader wish they had a man as romantic and as creative as Jack in their lives.

*The Kate Willoughby Handshake is similar to the Paul Hollywood Handshake from the Great British Baking Show. It means the author succeeded in dazzling and surprising me.

Photo by jmv via Flickr Creative Commons License