Monday, February 4, 2013

Workshop: Angie's "A Blessing in Disguise"


Story Arc: Amanda is ill and has to go to the hospital all the time over a couple years because the doctor doesn't know what’s wrong with her.  Her friends and boyfriend are really supportive and make sure she celebrates her birthdays in the hospital.  Her boyfriend proposes and even though Amanda is hesitant, once Jacob offers to be the kidney donor she needs, she accepts his proposal.
Compliments:  I enjoyed the overall story – the proposal and kidney donation by the boyfriend is super cute and I liked the fact that Jacob’s and Amanda’s relationship was so strong.  I was almost relieved to see that the illness was to main conflict, and not something tragic with their relationship, because sometimes it’s just nice to read about a happy, supportive couple!  I felt like Amanda’s character had some good moments of voice, like when she states, “So now they are going to send me off to have more tests done.  Wonderful.” (3).  That “Wonderful.” really shows this character’s voice in that the audience can recognize the tone as soon as they read it.  Also, good job with your dialogue tags, or rather lack thereof.  The dialogue works well without the dialogue tags and remains clear as to who is speaking.
Revisions:  I felt like the overall tone and structure of this story needs to mature.  A lot of clichés and dead metaphors are present, which brings the piece down.  There are some grammatical/formatting errors that can be easily fixed – indentation for dialogue, comma errors, etc.  Also, I’m not so sure if I like the ambiguity of the fact that we never find out what’s actually wrong with her.  We know she needs a new kidney – but why?  Overall, I feel like this piece would be a lot stronger with more description and specific details.  What do these characters look like physically?  Instead of just talking about the temporary break-up, show us a scene from that time.  

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