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

Dear Patrick Cairns

The rewrite and change to the first person has worked wonders for the story and it now has a quite palpable sense of tension. There are still a few remnants of the original third person in the text but a search for her and she would clean that up. Also, the first two sentences in the paragraph where the protagonist says she is 33 years old need to be recast and joined.

I still have some reservations about the “nervous moon watching” and I’m not convinced that you need the final four paragraphs. The chair standing before the window and away from the table is a striking image and to me says it all. What you gained with this image is somewhat undermined by the smoking references that follow. These technicalities aside, I think the story works well.

With best wishes.

Mike Nicol

Café dreams — Dave Chislet

Dear 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 surely must 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: 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 does?

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 to work against the very atmosphere you are trying to capture. “Less is more” may be a cliché, 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; 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 café 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 also 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 secrete 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.

Hope this was helpful.

Mike Nicol

No fear of Virginia Woolf — Jacklyn Cock

Dear Jacklyn Cock

This is getting better and better, but rather than sing your praises I have a few more suggestions.

If Angela keeps the rape secret — tells neither Geraldine (good addition) nor Sarah, and has no therapy — it will become more intensely the reason for the failure of her relationships and her acts of revenge. (It also focuses on the devastating consequences of the rape. In this respect you might consider changing the phrase After her rape to After she was raped, which locates her as a victim of savagery.) Angela’s attempts at self-healing through art and literature are well portrayed, as is the attention you give to food — in fact, these details give the story considerable depth and say a great deal about the psychological states of the characters.

I had a problem with Sarah’s reaction to discovering that Angela is a killer. I like the fact that she doesn’t confront Angela: the confusion is very credible, as is her decision not to go to the police. But I wonder if she wouldn’t want to draw Angela towards a therapist and if this shouldn’t be the nature of her conversation with Angela rather than the esoteric feminism they indulge in. To me this exchange is too textbook, too academic, and I suddenly lost these two people. I wonder if you shouldn’t look at this section again and try to do it in the bumbling, stumbling way it might play out in reality?

Some pedantic points: in their first conversation you need to soften the shift from their domestic sniping to the reference to the “stripper”. One linking sentence should do, because at the moment the mood shift is too sudden. You also need to do a spell check and look carefully at punctuation. There is a reference to an “Alex” in the Christchurch paragraph which should read “Angela”. I know these are small points, but should you send the story to a magazine it’s worth bearing in mind that often spelling and punctuation can make the difference between acceptance and rejection.

I think you’ve solved some problems very imaginatively and I wish you well in giving the story another honing.

With best wishes.

Mike Nicol

Pancho Gonzales and Maxwell’s Demon — Tickey de Jager

Dear Tickey de Jager

I must say I enjoyed the story much more this time round: you have made it more substantial and focused the narrative. Stories that rely on dialogue without identifying the protagonists are difficult to pull off, but the opening discussion works effectively and so does the following “classroom explanation”. Just one false note I felt when the ball rose, drifted across the room, and fell into the narrator’s hand — surely there should be some reaction from the class, if only that no one seemed to notice!

With best wishes.

Mike Nicol

Walking among chickens — Vicky Scholtz

Dear Vicky Scholtz

I think this story has really come to life but can I make a few more suggestions?

The final telephone conversation works well but I wonder if you shouldn’t also get Rob in on the act so that Traci’s arousal is not only her doing. I realise what you’re saying here about her, but I feel Rob should be somewhat of a participant.

Peter’s explanations of how his life has fallen apart are perhaps a little too detailed. If you keep his “fucked-upness” vague — ie not rooted in mother and boyfriend, but in his own neurosis, it’ll work more effectively. Also shorter rather than longer, and maybe if he keeps repeating phrases to show that he is at the end of his vocabulary — in other words that even language is failing him — you could increase the vagueness.

The paragraph beginning “I can’t wait...” would, I believe, be more effective if you deleted “there are things I have to do ...” and put the ellipsis in after “stay with you...”. Then run the next two sentences together by deleting “had a bad feeling about what that might entail. She …”

For me the story still ends naturally with the sentence: “Traci knew that her words, once uttered, would spawn consequences no longer within her control.” The final paragraphs are, I feel, overkill and lack subtlety.

With best wishes.

Mike Nicol

to the top

© Kopiereg in die ontwerp en inhoud van hierdie webruimte behoort aan LitNet, uitgesluit die kopiereg in bydraes wat berus by die outeurs wat sodanige bydraes verskaf. LitNet streef na die plasing van oorspronklike materiaal en na die oop en onbeperkte uitruil van idees en menings. Die menings van bydraers tot hierdie werftuiste is dus hul eie en weerspieël nie noodwendig die mening van die redaksie en bestuur van LitNet nie. LitNet kan ongelukkig ook nie waarborg dat hierdie diens ononderbroke of foutloos sal wees nie en gebruikers wat steun op inligting wat hier verskaf word, doen dit op hul eie risiko. Media24, M-Web, Ligitprops 3042 BK en die bestuur en redaksie van LitNet aanvaar derhalwe geen aanspreeklikheid vir enige regstreekse of onregstreekse verlies of skade wat uit sodanige bydraes of die verskaffing van hierdie diens spruit nie. LitNet is ’n onafhanklike joernaal op die Internet, en word as gesamentlike onderneming deur Ligitprops 3042 BK en Media24 bedryf.