Thursday, April 18, 2013

Sky's "Driver's License"

Story Arc: The main character, Anthony, was a woman who wished she could be a man, but is struggling with whether or not she will truly be happy or have any regrets if she really does switch genders.  She has a daughter with her partner, Dominique, and Dominique encourages her/him to have the sex change operation done. In the end, Anthony seems settled and happy with his/her decision. 
Compliments: This is definitely a topic and issue that is not seen often in literature, but is a very real personal struggle. Even though this story is mostly conversation, there is still a lot of tension present due to the big, not easily solved, issue. And I feel like you presented the struggle in a very real and not-too-dramatic way. The description of the characters was nice and clear, as well. 
Revisions: The setting and situation is kind of confusing in the beginning. I'm not quite sure where the settings change and that gets confusing, and we don't really learn of what Anthony's problem/concern is for a little while and I wish it was brought into the story and made clear sooner on.  Dialogue is not always very realistic, especially with the child - try not to get too expected and cliche with her characterization. Also, it was sometimes hard to tell when who was speaking when/what between Anthony and Dominique. Try to make their voices more separate. Be sure you find a balance between dialogue and action - sometimes there were long stretches of dialogue in which we didn't really know what was happening with the characters' movements and such. In general, just be careful that this is not an "issue" piece.  This is definitely a good topic to write about, but can easily take a turn to becoming LGBT genre fiction. 

1 comment:

  1. Was there something in particular that made you think it seemed like it was about an "issue" rather than about Anthony as a character?

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