Rolling Duffle Blue

Posted October 7, 2005 By admin

Rolling Duffle Blue

Can you please critique my writing?

All the while Caleb was in basic training, I found myself staring up at the ceiling making our future plans. In my mind, I had set in stone the blue print of our lives together. We were going to have a blue house, this many children, I was going to be a mother, and he was going to be a baseball player. We were rolling the dice, but this time around my engagement ring was my lucky charm.

Days and days went by. I found myself setting on the porch swing, waiting for his bus to pull up and his duffle bags to be dropped out in the front yard. But when I only waited, no bus came and I was alone, dreaming up designs in my crude ring. I wanted him back home.

The first paragraph has potential, but it is far too vague. If she is dreaming of a future so specifically, make the dream vivid to us readers with DETAIL (ex: Our first little girl would have rounded, chubby red cheeks and Caleb's strong nose. Her hair would be fine like my mother's, but her chocolate brown eyes would be thickly fringed with my long lashes). Don't be afraid of detail! It's what readers crave!
When you are writing, always keep in mind a specific picture you want to paint to us. Be aware of the moods and conotations attatched to the words you use... how you write reflects to us how the character feels. (ex: in the first paragraph, I imagine you wanted to convey to us the feeling of a dream unfolding before our eyes. Therefore, you should use words that bear a dreamy feel--in order to captivate us with your character and her dreams.
Try to make us identify with what she's feeling. One of the best ways to do this is by emotional display--please note that this does not mean that you should say "I suddenly felt sad--beyond all beleif." This is call summarization, and it is not captivating, entertaining or charming. Instead, utilize physical description to achieve your purposes. Think back to a time when you, yourself, were "sad beyond all belief". What were your physical reactions and sensations in reaction to the emotion? Now the bland sentence transforms into a literary work of art: "His words washed over me, a wave of rage that slapped me in the face, and I felt my chest collapse as the emotion swept over my heart. The ocean that had been drowning me over the last few weeks finally broke its dam, and suddenly my face was wet with its overflow. I felt the rivers run down my cheeks and the cold wind made them cold against my skin. A tickle began at my nose, and I scrunched it up to stop it from running just like my eyes had begun to."
But even more description than mine, because I''m tired and my writing stinks right now. Description is key! Paint us a picture! Orientate me! Where did this scene even take place? The only clue we got was waaay down in the second paragraph, "on the porch swing", and that was not enough as it was!
Where is this all happening? One thing that really helps me with this is closing my eyes and imagining the scene unfolding like a movie. If you were to be directing this story for a movie, you would need to know where you were shooting the scene, correct? You would need to know where and when and how a character is going to move throughout a scene. You would need to know the emotion the actors would need to display to express inward turmoil, and know why exactly the scene is in the movie. All these things you would need to know were you bringing the script to the Big Screen.
Well, sister, you are bringing your book to the Big Page, and you are the director--the author! You, just like a director in a movie, need to know all of these things and express them in an interesting and efficient way to us readers.
Keep writing! You are doing well!