Professional Critique for FIRST FOXTROT IN DUDLEY by Brian Hanley

Congratulations on being one of the top five submissions for this month! You have a lively and interesting piece of writing here, one which I very much enjoyed reading, and one which gives plenty of scope for discussion. I hope this ‘discussion’ will give you the encouragement and wherewithal to take your creative-writing process to the next level.

Plot and structure:
Firstly, you have a great title there! It’s confident, characterful and humorous, and pitches your novel directly to the commercial fiction market.

The basic premise of your novel is great: gay bloke living abroad finally puts his childhood demons to rest and proves himself against a backdrop of ballroom dancing (I love that touch!) and family tension. It’s essentially a novel of redemption and friendship. I hesitate to describe it as a story of revenge, even though that seems to be the crux of it, judging by your synopsis. I would also hesitate to describe this as chick-lit, even though I understand the parallels you are drawing here. There is a basic formula for chick-lit, which involves a heroine a reader can identify with, and a love story. Perhaps if you had more of romantic thread in this, it could be considered crossover gay fiction/chick-lit.

To take the storyline in its entirety… there seem to be quite a few gaps that need filling in. For instance, it is not made clear why the overseas nephew of the bride would be called upon to organise her wedding? What qualifies him to take up such a mammoth task? Are they very close? In my experience, wedding planning is strongly controlled by the actual couple in question. As a result, this angle just comes across as a bit ‘devicey’, but it’s easily resolvable. How about clarifying that he is being asked to organise the entertainment side of things because he’s a DJ in his spare time or is the youngest and hippest member of the family and the only one they can think of to help out on that front? Or something along those lines… And they want ballroom dancing, hence the package in the post etc. I’m just thinking aloud here…

Another angle I would strongly recommend you think twice about including is the subplot about Molly’s ex husband pretending their daughter is dying and using Steve as a go-between. I think this completely changes the tone of what I believe you want this novel to be – it’s just a bit too dark and twisted, and it’s not very believable that a) Arnie would use Steve like that and b) that Steve would withhold this information from his best friend for fear of distracting her from his own, comparatively mundane, problems. It does Steve no favours at all in terms of his sympathetic value…in fact, it makes him instantly unlikeable, which is not what you want with your protagonist. But I’ll talk more about that in the characterisation section.

Basically, I would urge you to keep the plot simple. Without the dying daughter strand, you still have a great premise, with lots of ingredients for a really strong commercial novel and a fabulously loud climactic ending!

Structure-wise, you seem to have a fairly linear structure here, with the occasional lapse into flashback, which works fine. Nothing more really to say about that…

Writing style and voice:
You have a lovely, engaging writing style that strikes a good balance between descriptive passages and narrative drive. Be careful however of lapsing too often into internal conjecture in the middle of a piece of dialogue, say, or a dramatic scene as it slows down the pace and flow of action a bit much.

In terms of Steve’s voice, apart from my comments above, his is a strong and engaging one, helped by the effective use of the first person.

Setting:
I like the juxtaposition of Amsterdam and Dudley! Amsterdam is a great city to write about, and you evoke it well in these opening chapters. It gives the novel a bit of glamour and edge to offset against what I imagine will be a less than triumphant return to his roots.

Characterisation:
I have already alluded to Steve’s character being slightly undermined by his selfishness towards Molly. But, for the most part, he is well drawn and fully dimensional. Maybe it comes later, but I did want to know more about his relationship with Menno and why his mother is so disapproving of him? Is it that she has a latent problem with her son’s homosexuality in general? How did she react when he came out? I feel there could be a little more background on him, as to what makes him tick, his influences etc, i.e. there needs to be more about his past than just the memory of being bullied by a girl. You want the reader to be on his side, as they will be making the journey with him, so the more you can open up his heart to them, the better.

There is a slight discrepancy between the synopsis and the actual chapters when it talks about Steve’s job. In the synopsis he has a ‘fairly crap job’ but on page 3 in the sample chapters, he seems to love what he does. And what does he do for this advertising agency exactly? How long has he been in Amsterdam? Again, more background is needed. In reference to my point about slowing down pace and not interrupting the action with this kind of detail, I would suggest dealing with all this background info in one go, by way of a comprehensive introduction of Steve… and then let his adventure flow and gather momentum. There doesn’t seem to be much physical description of him yet either – painting a vivid picture is the best way to lodge the character in the reader’s mind.

Molly seems like the perfect female counterpart, but again, I don’t seem to have gained a very clear picture of her appearance. I wonder if she could benefit from being a little less alcohol-fuelled and damaged? It sounds very shallow, I know, but I don’t think your intention is to write a realistic, gritty story – but a humorous, charming one – in which case, your characters need to be a little more glamorous, seductive and sympathetic. Hence my above suggestion about losing the thread about her dying daughter.

I wanted to know a bit more about Molly’s past too – for instance, how come she lost her daughter when it was her husband who was an unfit parent? I think it needs to be explained more.

Specific line-editing points:
Page para
1 2 Suggest cutting ‘even over the phone’ - it’s not really necessary.
1 6 Suggest cutting sentence: ‘It is a cardinal sin… ox’ the humour feels a bit forced here.
2 5 ‘She surrounded herself with better looking girls so she could have the pick of the boys’ Don’t you mean the opposite? If she is surrounded by uglier girls, she would indeed have more of a chance, no?
3 3 ‘She probably still lived in… or worse Amblecote.’ Suggest explaining what this means for the reader unfamiliar with that area??
3 5 invert ‘a developed’
3 9 ‘I began to plot…’ he threatens the same thing on page 1. Cut repetition.
5 I wondered what time of day this is? Is he at work at the end of his working day? For some reason, it feels like the daytime.
6 ‘I haven’t spoken to him yet … He’s away in Singapore’ so how has his mother managed to speak to Menno?
6 penultimate I think Molly should be a bit harder on Steve here. What she’s been through is way worse than his problem and I think she should let him know that.
7 5 She was about to call the barman a few paragraphs ago. Ok?
7 Suggest cutting ‘Contradiction in terms’ and ‘resisting the temptation...actually was’ as well as whole of next para as it slows down the pace too much.
8 3 ‘Dutch courage…’ it is why it’s called Dutch courage, no?
8 5 Tricky syntax: suggest ‘Leaned alarmingly to one side, like the drunks it housed’
10 1 repetition of ‘whir into life’
10 2 Suggest cutting. No need to recap for our benefit.

Final Analysis: As I said before, you have the basis for a potentially fun and commercial novel, with some real human drama and frivolous spice. But it does need some work. I would advise you streamline the plot a little, polish your characters and just let it flow. I think you have a natural affinity with the writing process, you just perhaps need to practice it more. Good luck with it and thanks for a great read!