Woodsmoke (an extract)

by Eileen D. Frost


critique: Martyn Bedford



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Introduction


Firstly, congratulations on “winning” this appraisal. It’s an indication of the regard in which your writing is held by fellow writers on the YouWriteOn website that the opening chapters have rated highly enough to place you among a select few for this month. It is also, evidently, a reflection of the amount of skill, thought and effort you have put into revising and improving the earlier version. Hold on to these positives when you come to some of the points I raise in the following appraisal; while there is much to admire in your extract, I’ve tended as I always do to concentrate my feedback on those aspects which, for me, are less successful than they might be. In the end, I hope this constructive critical input will be of more help to you, in developing this novel and your writing in general, than two or three pages of complimentary remarks (nice though they always are to receive!) As you’ll see, I’ve put down a few notes on each chapter in turn before coming to some more general points and conclusions. It isn’t possible within the scope of this critique, I’m afraid, to offer a detailed line-by-line set of annotations.


Appraisal


(Chapter 1)

Billy and his world are well introduced, here. I like the “voice” you create for Billy; even though his is a third-person viewpoint, there is a strong sense of his thoughts, attitudes and perceptions his “character” informing the narrative tone. We see the world through Billy’s eyes. This is important, if he is to succeed as the main protagonist and, therefore, the focus of the reader’s interest and sympathy. The use of third-person, though, does usefully enable you, as author, to distance yourself, and us, from Billy’s narrative viewpoint where necessary to give a more omniscient overview of the world, and the times, in which he is growing up. You strike this balance effectively, in my view.

I do have some queries, though, in relation to this opening chapter mainly to do with plotting logistics and plausibility of character motivation/dynamics. Specifically, the questions are:

1. Would the dustmen carry on emptying bins into the dustcart after the air-raid siren has sounded? Wouldn’t they have taken shelter, along with everyone else? If they would carry on with their work (either through bravado, or complacency, or for some other reason) then this needs to be made clear by an additional line of narrative.

2. Billy stuffs a fist in his mouth to stop himself from being sick at the sight of the mutilated dog . . . but, given that this is 1943, and he will have witnessed many raids by now, surely he would have seen enough similarly sickening sights, and worse, to have become less prone to nausea when encountering gore and gruesomeness? Again, perhaps it needs an extra line or two to the effect that, while he has witnessed some horrible things in his young life, the sight of an innocent, helpless dog having been shot to pieces was the hardest for him to stomach. Or something of that sort.

3. Billy and his sister arrive home just after the Stukka has flown overhead, twice, strafing the street they live in with bullets. Their Mum, certainly, would have heard the plane and the machine-gun fire very close at hand and, seeing her children on the doorstep right afterwards realising they hadn’t taken shelter during the raid I feel she would be bound to remark, specifically, on the Stukka incident when she opens the door to them. Even without knowing exactly what happened, or where they were, she will realise that they couldn’t have been too far away and could easily have been killed. A line or two to this effect would be very easily incorporated into the “where have you been!?” dialogue.



I have one other concern, regarding Chapter 1. I’m not sure about the wisdom of opening the novel with two very dramatic incidents in one brief chapter (the Stukka episode; then the windows of Billy’s home being shattered in a bombing raid while the family takes shelter in the garden). Better, in my view, to focus on one incident the Stukka, I would say and use this as a lead-in to the overheard conversation between Mum and Dad re the issue of evacuation. Having two dramatic episodes back to back reduces the impact that either would have, allowed to stand alone; it also makes the storytelling more cluttered than it needs to be in establishing Billy’s situation at the outset.



(Chapter 2)

Following on from this last point, I would suggest incorporating the bomb-blast scene retrospectively here, in Chapter 2, by tweaking the scene in which Billy’s father refers to the incident. You could have Billy reflect back on what happened. It would also segue quite naturally to the scavenging for shrapnel scene, at the bomb crater.

One or two concerns, in this chapter. Firstly, it’s something of a cliché to have the bully, Trapper, talk in a slangy idiom (“Gis it ere” etc) when Billy’s dialogue is written in “correct” English. The “baddy” is the working class oik wot can’t speak proper. Surely, all the kids in this neighbourhood would be similarly working class (Billy’s dad works on the docks) and would have similar idioms of speech? I’m not suggesting you should make Billy’s, and everyone else’s dialogue, slangy that can become an irritant and a literary affectation, if overused. Rather, I’d suggest toning Trapper’s speech down a bit in this respect.

Another, more significant, concern centres on Dave. We are told that he is Billy’s best mate, going back several years, but we don’t really get to see this. Nor do we get much of an impression of Dave visually, but more importantly in terms of his character. As a consequence, when Billy hears that Dave is among those killed in the bombing raid it is hard for us to be sufficiently emotionally affected to share Billy’s distress over the loss of his friend. I would suggest working in a more developed scene in which we see Billy and Dave together, and get a better hook on Dave himself, so that his death has the impact it needs to, for us as readers.

Some logistical/dynamics questions again, at this point:

1. If Billy’s dad saw the ad for the cottage in the Portsmouth Evening News the previous evening, why didn’t he mention it to his wife in the overheard conversation after the air-raid, rather than discussing evacuation of the kids as if this was their only option?

2. As he prepares to fight Trapper, wouldn’t Billy have handed his prized piece of shrapnel to his best mate, Dave, rather than just to anyone in the crowd?

(Critique continues next post)