Feedback by Mike Nicol

Working Late — Patrick Cairns
Café dreams — Dave Chislet
No fear of Virginia Woolf — Jacklyn Cock
Pancho Gonzales and Maxwell’s Demon — Tickey de Jager
Walking among chickens — Vicky Scholtz

Working Late — Patrick Cairns

My main concern with your story is that I think the protagonist is too distant and intangible to get the reader’s interest and empathy. This probably occurs because of a third person narration which doesn’t really allow us into her head, and perhaps spends too much time “setting the scene”. My suggestion is that you recast the story entirely in the first person. For me (the reader) the issue at stake in the story is what brought her to this desperate situation. I need to know her name, her position in the company, her home life, her background, incidents that accumulated in her life until her situation became so dreadful that she decided to throw herself out of a building. Of course you could take a novel to describe all this, whereas with a short story you have to be succinct and telling with the details you decide to include. But my feeling is that if you found a voice for this woman you could create a very convincing story. At the moment, by dwelling on the details around her in the boardroom and on the street below, you have pushed her life into the background, and the reader keeps asking: but why does she want to do this?

There are also a number of stylistic points I think you should give some thought to. For example, you have a tendency to use a fair number of adjectives. The trouble with adjectives is that they slow down the narrative pace and clog up sentences and paragraphs. To a certain extent you can work with the assumption that readers will bring their own experience to the words. For instance, the boardroom table is mahogany — which for most readers will conjure up pictures of a dark, heavy table dominating a room. The idea of it being “sombre” is inherent.

In a deeply emotional story it’s not a good idea to transfer emotions to outside objects. Within the realist tradition of your story the moon can never be “nervous” just as it can never “breathe” “relief”. This sort of commentary distracts the reader and actually lessens the tension.

The over-use of words is something you should constantly bear in mind. In the paragraph beginning “Releasing her hand  ...” and the first sentence of the next paragraph you use the word “back” four times. In three of those instances the word is used as a noun, and once as an adverb. But because the occurrence is so rapid the sound interferes with the rhythm and gives the impression that the writing is slap-dash.

With regard to your protagonist I have some reservations.

Firstly, it may be that you know a woman who keeps a packet of cigarettes in her breast pocket (later you call it a “box”) but I can’t recall ever noticing a woman who did this. The women smokers I know would either carry a packet of cigarettes in their hand or keep the packet/box in a handbag. Having a packet in a shirt or blouse pocket sounds masculine, which is not the impression I have of this woman.

Secondly, consider this woman in her navy blue business suit: as this is “neatly tailored to fit her body” I see her wearing a skirt. If this is so then to sit on the chair the way she does means that she would have to hitch up the skirt, and somehow I can’t see her doing that — the action is too raunchy, too full of life.

Thirdly, the action of blowing out “careful, perfect rings” is too studied, too controlled, too precise for someone about to jump from a window.

I think you have here all the essentials for a really interesting interior monologue. You have a character who is apparently successful and concerned. She is well-groomed and precise. So why is she about to jump from a high window?

I hope this is of some help.

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Café dreams — Dave Chislet

I think you have an idea worth exploring here, but my feeling is that what is lacking at the moment is dramatic tension.

The story is about memory and nostalgia for a time that was exciting and vital, but it is also about trying to recapture this time — not only emotionally, by on-the-scene remembering, but also physically, by stealing the Bar Ones. Yet this latter element is revealed only in the last paragraph and without any of the breathless excitement the narrator must surely have experienced in committing the deed. After all, he is now an adult, and he comes across as a decent middle class individual not given to kleptomania. Perhaps if you examined this theme in more detail and introduced it somewhat earlier into the story it would go some way to creating tension — for example, is the woman watching him; how is he going to do it so she doesn’t notice; is he going to get caught; what would be the embarrassing consequences if he did get caught?

A reworking of your sentences would also free up the narrative. At the moment the reader is swamped by too much detail. The effect of this, unfortunately, is that it works against the very atmosphere you are trying to capture. “Less is more” may be a cliche but it carries a certain amount of truth for all that.

One way of dealing with this problem is to strip out most of the adjectives. Stylistically it’s never a good idea to rely too heavily on adjectives, anyhow. Often by recasting the sentence and by placing more weight on the verb you can create muscular descriptive sentences. Also, by varying the length of sentences within a paragraph you can build up that vital narrative tension. Prose relies on rhythm and sound as much as poetry.

I would like to use your first paragraph to illustrate what I mean:

“I stand on the hot tarmac” — this is possibly too flat. The narrator is barefoot: surely the heat would be burning the soles of his feet, so wouldn’t he be having difficulty in standing still? “  ... and regard the dirty, white-painted wall before me” — using “regard” in this way is singularly old-fashioned and sounds as if it comes from a nineteenth century novel. “Dirty, white-painted” is clumsy as a description; and would you not be looking at the cafe entrance rather than a wall? Try taking out the conjunction in this sentence and reworking it into two sentences. “The engine  ... day like this.” Once again a phrase like “being pressed into service” belongs in the same category as “regard” (as does the word “arrested” in the third last paragraph). Apart from that the sentence is too long and lumpy — in other words, there’s not much excitement in it. There is no need to locate the car, so you could take out the words “behind me” without losing anything while gaining pace and urgency. Similarly you don’t need to say “The engine of my car.” The reader understands in this instance that the engine and the car are one unit. If you had written “My car ticks and pops” the sense would have been perfectly clear. The phrase “on a day like this” is unnecessary, as the description “hot tarmac” has already set the scene and the phrase becomes clutter. “The trip  ... slow urban ritual.” This is not a promising lead-in to the story. It suggests ennui, a ho-hum, nothing much is going on. Even when nothing much is going on it’s important not to convey this to the reader. As we know, quite a lot is about to go on: not only the flashbacks but a brazen act of theft. And this is no longer a youngster stealing sweets, this is now the conscious, deliberate act of an adult who knows about right and wrong. Also, how do you hide two Bar Ones in the front of a pair of jeans? Jeans are fairly tight items of clothing. It’s a hot day so the guy is probably wearing only a T-shirt. Wouldn’t the bulge be noticeable?

I’m being pedantic quite deliberately because it is often these small details that determine the success or failure of a story.

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No fear of Virginia Woolf — Jacklyn Cock

I liked your story very much but I have a few suggestions which you might consider as they could increase the dramatic tension.

At the end of the first section you use a dialogue exchange between the two characters which is very effective. It is what characters say and how they react during these exchanges that gives them life. In addition, these scenes stimulate the reader’s imagination to “hear” the tone of voice, and actually provide a setting and movement within the setting. In other words, the intensity of the reading is enhanced and the reader is pulled into the narrative. If you used more dialogue sequences between Angela and Sarah the impact of Angela’s second murder would be far more dramatic.

Thus:

When Angela attacks her thirteenth victim you could emphasise the horror of the paragraph by having the man exclaim as he turns. Then go through the action blow by blow. For instance, what does Angela say when she cries out in pain. (Would she say something? Or would she simply howl?) How does she feel at this moment? When she strikes out blindly, is it through fear? And fear of what? Fear of being overpowered and raped again? Or fear of being caught out? A few short and telling phrases could give this paragraph considerable power. When Sarah gets home to find that the “something Italian” is simply out of a box, perhaps she could express her disappointment out loud and in Angela’s response we would hear her listlessness. Possibly, too, if you made Angela more agitated — she is, after all, deeply traumatised — you would give her more depth of character.

The scene where Sarah confronts Angela should definitely be played out in dialogue and action — how they move about the room, what gestures they make, how the confrontation slides into a horrible silence which is broken by Angela’s “pathetic” attempts to atone before they seek therapists/lawyers or whatever. A maxim always worth keeping in mind is: don’t state, demonstrate. This is a vital scene and should be expressed vividly. One last thought about this scene: if you ended the paragraph with the sentence “Sarah closed her eyes as the familiar fingers gently massaged her scalp” you would be suggesting her murder and this is much more effective than confirming it as you do in the current draft.

As far as the rape is concerned I think you need to give the reader more details. This is Angela’s motivation. The memories are “clear and vivid” — what the reader needs to know is what memories? Maybe the rapist had bushy eyebrows, maybe he said something odd — in other words, you might more effectively describe the intense awfulness of the rape by drawing attention to secondary images. Once again this doesn’t have to be lingered over. A few concise phrases and sentences would be more than enough.

Finally: I don’t feel that Sarah’s thoughts on feminism as she drives down from London have much bearing on the story. In a short story there is no space for digressions and this bit of discursive reflection lessens the narrative tension.

I hope you find these comments of some help.

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Pancho Gonzales and Maxwell’s Demon — Tickey de Jager

I am going to play Maxwell’s Demon and suggest you come at this story from a different angle.

My feeling is that in its current form it reads more like an anecdote for a science class than like a short story. I think it lacks structure and, most importantly, a plot. My reaction when I reached the end was, ok, the guy can write, but so what? I still didn’t know who “Tickey de Jager" — the fictional one — was. I didn’t know what he looked like. I didn’t know what he felt about his success, or if he was excited at playing Gonzales. Let alone what it felt like to be beaten, ultimately, by Maxwell’s Demon.

It seems to me that there is considerable scope here for an extremely funny story if this were retold (and this is simply a suggestion) by a Tickey de Jager who gets to sign a pact with Maxwell’s Demon. In other words, a version of the Faustus myth.

In the present “story” the use of dialogue as the main narrative device tends to alienate rather than engage the reader. The gestures, the details, the scene setting, the atmosphere — the stuff of drama — are missing. There is no narrative tension to hold the reader’s attention, let alone make him feel anything for Tickey de Jager.

If it is true that Gonzales’s opponent is not recorded in the book of Wimbledon results and that a left-handed smash — I’m assuming he was right-handed — is listed in the Guinness Book of Records, then the exact references could usefully be quoted above your story. By keeping Tickey de Jager as a maths/science teacher there is every reasonable opportunity and excuse for a pact with Maxwell’s Demon. The rise to the Wimbledon Final could be dealt with cursorily, but the actual game against Gonzales should be given more blood and guts. Wouldn’t Tickey de Jager be power-crazed now that he can give the experts such a run around? Surely this meteoric rise to sporting fame (and subsequent vanquishing) must have some effect on your protagonist?

Another suggestion: perhaps the tennis match ends in Gonzales’s favour simply because Tickey de Jager’s pact with Maxwell’s Demon ends before the match can be concluded. (This would allow for another element of tension in the match itself, assuming the reader is privy to the contract’s final hour.) Using this scenario you could always explain away the famous left-handed smash as a sign of Gonzales’s desperation, rather than Maxwell’s Demon playing both sides of the game.

I realise this sounds like a radical reworking of your “story”, but I believe a plot is needed to give coherence to the ideas and to turn the characters and events into a story without quotation marks.

I hope this was of some help.

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Walking among chickens — Vicky Scholtz

Your story has a great deal of potential but I think you need to supply a little more information and detail about Traci and Peter. Some more physical descriptions (hairstyle is always a good one) would be helpful, especially in reflecting how they change over the years; this would also give the reader an indication of how the characters see themselves. You may well find that it would suit your purpose to have Peter change very little while Traci is constantly adapting and changing to new circumstances. She, after all, is a survivor, he isn’t.

As your story covers a fairly lengthy time span it might help if you put in breaks to indicate the passage of time. You could use numbers, dots, even an extra line space. It would seem to me there are natural breaks that could be inserted: thus section 1 includes the first three paragraphs, section 2 the next three, and section 3 the remainder.

There is a maxim worth remembering when writing that simply says: “Don”t state, demonstrate.” Most of your story is “stated” — which is fair enough because the climax — the third section — is where the guts of the story plays out. The pace of your writing propels the reader through the first two sections easily enough but you might think about inserting a few lines of dialogue into each section. This would serve to make your characters more immediate and bring out telling aspects of their personalities.

When it comes to the final telephone conversation between Traci and Peter you need to “demonstrate” — in other words the reader needs to know what they say to one another. Traci’s physical situation — naked, in bed with her lover, ready for more sex — has elements of comedy you could usefully explore, against the tragedy of Peter’s plea. As the point of view is Traci’s you could give her facial expressions, gestures, actions that demonstrate her awkwardness, her agitation, her inability to arrive at a compromise. Peter will remain a lonely, disembodied, desperate, demanding voice which should work towards making the ending even more poignant. This way you should get the full impact of Traci’s decision and you may find that this will produce a natural end to the story.

On the other hand a reflective, whisky portrait of Traci may still provide an evocative ending. Perhaps this is where she could mull over memories. At the moment I don’t think her attitude in the final paragraph is convincing, even though you have been careful to describe her as a “tough cookie”. The essence of the story seems to me to be less about her “toughness” and more about the demands — unreasonable or otherwise — the past sometimes makes on the present.

Hope this is of help.

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