by Mary Ann Joyce and Rakel Joyce from the May 15, 2023 issue
Tagline: Jane is scared that setting up her mom with her husband's uncle was a bad idea...until she sees the sparks start to fly in the best way
Stream of Consciousness Observations: This is where I record my thoughts as I have them as I'm reading the story. In all honesty, this is usually because I'm criminally behind in my analyses.
Oh, my son's name is Brian. Great name. LOL
Ah, I have a brother in law who is uber-competitive. I wonder what board game they're playing. I love board games!
Oh, backgammon. I love backgammon!
They're serving lemonade. This is the beverage of choice in Woman's World stories. Well, that and hot cocoa. LOL Not throwing shade here. Just an observation about how even the smallest details can set the tone of a story.
What child doesn't want their single parent to find someone to share their life with? I am connecting with the couple here.
There's quite a bit of backstory here, which is fine. It's filling in the characters of Jane and Rose so they're more rounded. It's a bit difficult to achieve proper characterization in 800 words, but it can--and should, if possible--be done.
Oh, we're also getting a little bit about Brian and what made him husband material in Rose's eyes. This bit also gives you the motivation behind Jane's matchmaking attempt.
They have news to share? Ha! I bet we all know what the news is, which is fine. Sometimes a plot twist comes as a complete surprise, which can be so much fun. But sometimes the reader predicts, which is fine, because they usually will read on to find out if they were right or not.
A note about names that you may not have thought about...it can be a good idea, when choosing names, to vary the number of syllables and the beginning letter because otherwise you may be risking the reader getting confused. For instance, I wouldn't name two male characters Jim and John or two female characters named Lisa and Linda. I'd avoid names that rhyme or sound alike as well, like Carrie and Mary.
Aha! I was right. There's a baby on the way!
Photo credit: Mark Bonica via the Flickr Creative Commons License
5 comments:
It was a nice story.
This was an adorable story that was very well written.
The thing I noticed besides the backstory was the main plot getting the Mom together with the Uncle, but also the secondary plot about the baby coming.
Great job with such a small word count.
Great job, Pat!
Thanks, Kate.
Thanks all! It was a fun story to write with my daughter!
--Mary Ann
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