Ebony,

Your story is lovely – it has this nice fairytale quality to it that I don’t encounter often. It’s not only the use of 3rd person, but in certain places even the rhythm has a bit of oral a storytelling feel, like your second paragraph: “People traveled hundreds of miles to see her….

You do a lot of telling in this piece – you even use that word “told” a few times. The reader is put at a distance as if the story is about a land far, far away. I didn’t feel I was really in the story until Amanda and her mother step into the seamstress’ shop, where this sort of “legendary witch” becomes a real person.

You might consider looking at the paragraph where “They arrived” and flush out that experience a bit more. I think going from the stories told about the woman to meeting her in person is an important transition – like walking from one world into another. The question is, given the final message, do you want the words to be from this sort of fairytale character, or from someone very real. It seems from the change in perspective that you’re aiming for the latter, so the room they’re in perhaps should be described in a very tangible way, maybe even pulling some of the first paragraph in – the very basic objects of a seamstresses shop. Even then we’d continue to feel her magic though – in how she’s able to interact with others.

Just some random thoughts – I hope they make any sense!

I think you could do more with this witch character – she’s intriguing!

Hi Ruthanne!

This is a fun read! You did a great job of developing John Baron Grey’s voice and have given the reader a strong sense of who he is from how he thinks and speaks. And of course, with John watching Katie, you also give us a sense for who she is, which was an effective approach for introducing her as well. I thought your decision to throw this line in at the start – “Katie isn’t Fey. She’s Kin, and that right there is a whole barrel of trouble.” – really set the stage for the story, though of course, we only begin to get a sense for the trouble in this particular passage.

For me as a reader, I got a little thrown off by the reference to Edward Cullen. You’ve written a piece that has a sort of timeless quality to it. This is a story where there are very traditional ways of thinking about family. You reference a famous side character from a story that has been around for ages, and then there’s the point about the prophesied dragon where you have John making the assumption that the reader will know about how prophesies work (which many of us do because prophesy is one of those story elements that has a long past). But then: Edward Cullen. It’s funny, don’t get me wrong, but as we get further and further along in time, I suspect fewer and fewer people will get the joke. [Who is Edward Cullen??] Off the top of my head, I can’t think of another figure you could plug in there, but for me, the introduction of this contemporary character was jarring.

That said, I’m sure that was partly your point. The reference does make clear the time in which the story is taking place and I’m sure that’s meant to be a bit surprising to the reader (if they’ve not already figured that out). Is there maybe another way this could be conveyed that will let your story stand on its own?

I suspect your audience enjoyed this piece. I know I did!

–Gwen

I’m with the majority here (as of this post). My audience is me.

Most members of my family are not big readers and they’d be far more likely to read non-fiction than fiction. They’d be looking for short pieces that express ideas or experiences in an intelligent way, ideally with a bit of humor. I need to get better at short, as this post (and others) will demonstrate!

Among those family members who are readers, most are readers of fiction. My sister-in-law seems to prefer quiet novels, my sister enjoys suspenseful ones, and I have a college-aged niece enjoys a touch of young romance to be thrown in. I have one brother who reads books (not just headlines or tweets) and he seems to read fiction and non-fiction, but I have 3 others who probably have read less than a handful of books between them in the last couple of years.

I suppose my initial audience for my fiction would be my 13-year old niece. She’s the family’s most avid reader who reads at a level quite a bit above her age. She reads a wide range of fiction, though I sense she tips in the direction of the mysterious and suspenseful. This is an individual who loves to read so much, that when she goes on vacation, she’s excited for the long car ride because it gives her time to read 4-5 books or more from the backseat of the car.

I had a blog once that I wrote for pretty regularly for a period of time. I felt like I was going out on a limb sharing what I was writing, but I also felt like I was doing something, other than just writing for myself, and that felt good. But as the weeks went on and I just had a family member or two occasionally respond – very occasionally – I decided it was probably not worth maintaining it. In part, while it was related to my core project, it was distracting me from working on it. Beyond that issue, the longer I lacked for an audience, the worse I started to feel (not surprisingly). There are obvious reasons why I didn’t have an audience – I wasn’t out there promoting it or even commenting on other peoples’ blogs and giving them an opportunity to track back to my work. (The chance of someone stumbling upon it was very, very slim.) Rather than do the work of figuring out how to connect with others around it, I just let it go. I suppose I didn’t feel enough commitment to it to go the extra mile.

All of the above gets to one simple point: I don’t have much of an audience right now (outside of me). I’m consuming content from the internet all the time, but I’ve chosen to connect only with family on Facebook and beyond that I’m not a part of any communities. I believe they would call me a “lurker.” Somehow, I need to get out there more. And that’s why I’m here, of course!

Hi Susan!

Like Margie, I liked how you started off with the Tiffany Lamp. With the story itself being focused on desire and motivation and other intangibles of life, the lamp sort of grounded it – made it more tangible, while also setting the stage with this colorful visual image. Also like Margie, I felt this was just the beginning of what could be a larger piece. I wanted to know more about the experience that drove her to Oregon and also about how the counselor position does or does not help her heal and/or pursue her dreams. In a longer piece you might be able to do more, too, with the canoe/river metaphor and I think there is something more to be said about how her “understanding came too late.”

I might suggest rewording this bit: “as her blood spilled across her work place while she honed her skills cutting glass.” The spilled blood is indicative of her effort, of course, and probably to be expected when cutting glass! But adding “across her work place” created – for me anyway – this grotesque picture of blood everywhere and immediately made me think the story was going in a direction that it ultimately did not.

🙂 Gwen

Hi Lise! It can be hard to keep up with an online course in the midst of everything else life can throw your way. I’m with you – being able to work at your own pace as circumstances dictate is very appealing. A few months ago I had to let Tribe Writers slide — someday soon I’ll get back to it. Congratulations on moving forward, despite the terror. One step at a time!

Susan, your comment, “I think a group of your peers trumps family and friends,” is an interesting one. I’ve sort of come to that conclusion as well, at least as far as family goes. My family loves me and I love them, of course, but while we’re similar in a lot of ways, our tastes vary tremendously. There’s also this sense among us that we’re each “doing our own thing” and that there’s no obligation to follow what each is doing. That sounds odd, sad, really, and in some respects it is. But for that reason, I don’t expect that any of them will be an audience for what I write. I think it’s more likely that I’ll have strangers reading my work before I’ll have family or friends reading it!