OUT OF THIS WORLD
L. Willocks

Critique by literary professional Michael Legat

This is without doubt one of the most interesting submissions from YouWriteOn that has come to me for comment. The plot is imaginative and challenging and has a number of original twists, and the writing itself, to judge from these pages, is easy to read, uses good rhythms, and makes, with its allusions and ironies, the right kind of demands on the reader. You have Humpty Dumpty’s facility of making words do what you want them to, and clearly have no difficulties with grammar, punctuation and spelling. You also manage the beginnings and endings of your chapters well. And I very much liked, for their oddity, the little headings that you give the chapters.

You have an observant eye, and your characters are strongly depicted. The very first paragraph of the book is excellent, telling us economically but very effectively just what Portia is like. The characterisations are also good in respect Miss Paper and Tammy (of both of whom I shall have more to say later) despite the fact that they appear to be minor characters, and even of Cat. Terminus is still a bit of a mystery, but I am sure he will be developed fully later. You also have an observant ear, which means that your dialogue sounds natural and within character (although I did have a doubt about Tammy’s ‘time to haul ass’ which sounds so very American).

One of the most important and successful of the book’s element is its humour, which I enjoyed greatly, especially because it is slipped in quite slyly, with the amusement of a creator looking at what has been created, and its subtlety makes it the more effective.

I also liked Chapter 2. Cat has her own special voice, and I was only sorry that in these first pages of the novel there were no more episodes in Cat’s career, in which she loses more of her lives/bells, for me to enjoy.

So you chalk up a large number of positives. What about negatives? Well, I think there is one big one, which is the opening of the book (I don’t mean the first paragraph which I’ve already commended, but the whole of the first chapter and a large chunk of the third). It’s just like Alice’s sister’s book which, you will remember, had no pictures and no conversation. It’s the conversation I wanted, because dialogue, unless it is merely conversational wallpaper, gets a story moving. But you give us instead a biography of Portia which is flat and goes on far too long. I think this kind of material (but only those parts of it which are really essential) is much better doled out in small chunks as the story progresses, sometimes perhaps in flashback form, with some of the information conveyed in dialogue form, and quite a lot of it omitted altogether. A leisurely start to a novel was acceptable in Victorian times, and many of the writers of that period certainly took an age to get going, but nowadays, people don’t have the patience or the willingness to absorb a large number of background facts before the action begins. The rule that a short story should start at or immediately before a moment of crisis can be applied to a novel too. If you don’t do this, if you delay getting the story underway until the entry of Mr Frankenstein, which is its real beginning, then you risk boring your readers or sending them to sleep. So if I am asking you to cut most of the beginning of the story, will that mean losing the excellent first paragraph? Not necessarily. If, for instance, you were to begin with Portia getting out of bed and preparing Cat’s breakfast, her description of her own invisibility could come in there. That would in any case be a better place to start because even though it is only a conflict with a cat, at least it is something which is happening in front of our eyes, as it were, rather than a recital of background facts – it is action rather than narration, and action is almost always preferable. We need drama, and conflict of some kind is the essence of drama. You may not like that idea, but I would urge you to rearrange the opening material and to cut as much of the present version as you can. Give us some excitement at the beginning. Incidentally, that little Chapter 2 works very well for three reasons: it is short, it is told in the first person, who makes it more immediate, and it has quite a lot of drama.

Looking at your synopsis, it appears that Miss Paper and Tammy will not have any further part to play in the story. If that is so, then I wonder whether you should not diminish their roles in these opening pages. As soon as you name a character, you are saying to the reader, ‘Remember this person, who will play a further part in the story later on,’ and this is particularly true if you give a character so unusual a name as Miss Paper (incidentally I did wonder when she first appeared whether her name was being deliberately mispronounced for comic effect – because she was so ‘refained’ that ‘Piper’ sounded like ‘Paper’ – like that of Mr Mybug in Cold Comfort Farm, but obviously not). I know if I were able to read the whole book I should be waiting for Miss Paper to reappear and play some part in the story’s development, and if she is not going to do so it might be a good idea to give her no other name than ‘the curator’ or possibly ‘Miss Curator’. As for Tammy, although it would be a pity to leave out the tomato ketchup, I would cut her right back, make no attempt at a characterisation and leave her simply as ‘the girl’.

The following is a comment rather than a criticism. Since Portia is going to spend the rest of the book with Terminus, I wondered whether Herr Frankenstein is the right sobriquet for him – too Germanic, too much connected to the original Frankenstein (or, worse, as the popular misconception goes, to his creation). A couple of alternatives: Heath cliff, Rochester, even Darcy..

Finally, thank you for giving me such an interesting piece. If I were still a publisher, on the basis of what I have read, I would certainly want to see the completed novel. I wish you good fortune with it.
Michael Legat

I know I'm just an ordinary person, not a professional critic not even a very good writer. But I am a very good reader. I've read the good, bad and indifferent, from every genre. I totally disagree with the review. I laughed myself silly right up until Portia met Mr Frankenstein. The description of a student was absolutely spot on, especially stepping on her work as often as she could. To lose such a graceful introduction to the story would leave it naked. The paragraph of the cat was unnecessary, it was obvious from Frankenstein saying the cat let him in exactly what role the cat did and will play. A very clever piece, with hidden treasure waiting for the attentive reader to find, if they but cared to look beneath the cleverly written surface.