Orion Critiques

Each month an editor for leading publisher Orion provide feedback on the YouWriteOn Top Ten. The stories extracts reviewed can be viewed by clicking on the View More link on the YouWriteOn homepage below the following text: ‘Each month YouWriteOn's Top Ten Chart is read exclusively by editors from Random House & Orion - publishers of many of the world's bestselling authors’


Displayed below are the professional critiques by Orion Editor Natalie Braine of The Hidden Cost and Hepworth Pop, The Mermaid and the Chicken Poo

Professional Critique of THE HIDDEN COST

Dear Robert

Congratulations on being selected for a professional critique by your writing peers at YouWriteOn.com. I really enjoyed reading your sample pages of THE HIDDEN COST and I was impressed by the imaginative storytelling and wonderful characterisation. While I don’t think the material so far needs a great deal of reworking as it is already in good shape, what I hope these editorial notes will do is comment upon the story’s strengths, provide you with some useful pointers as to how you can hone and develop the existing chapters, and also guidance on what to pay attention to as the novel progresses.

Structure:

The structure seems like it will be bookended by the present day, with Pelham as a 99-year-old man, while the main body of the narrative will revolve around a lengthy flashback as Pelham reminisces about his time working undercover for the government in the days leading up to WWII. Given that the structure of the narrative seems to be dictated by Pelham’s recollections, you should ensure that the skeleton of the story never seems like it is meandering. You need a clear-cut structure and a defined narrative drive for the reader to keep turning the pages. From the pages I have read, the material so far suggests that Pelham is likely to veer off on tangents. While this is fine in small doses, it is important that these moments don’t overshadow the narrative.

Plot:

I liked the opening – of an older man reflecting back on his past glory days. It is clear that Pelham has led an interesting and unusual life, and his unique delivery should make for an engrossing read. The story is full of unexpected plot turns that take the narrative in a whole new direction, and force the reader to reassess what they have just read. I thought it was very cunning that you didn’t reveal that the unnamed man that Pelham has to go visit is in fact Winston Churchill until the end of their exchange! This casts a very different light on the plot, changing it from a story about a man pulled into events but a random group of men, to a man who may very well alter the course of history!

While I liked many of the metaphorical descriptions contained within the prose, in some instances I felt that these were taken too far, and often detracted from the plot. Such as on page 6 when Pelham refers to himself as ‘a thin cat stalking a swarthy mouse’. This image is fine, but then its effect is compromised with the following sentence: ‘Oily mud reinforced with manure was seeping through my grey paws’. Sometimes, less is more, and a metaphor is more powerful if it is subtly employed rather than over-used. Similarly with the line: ‘Quill spoke with a flatness any accomplished pan wielder could have caught on Shrove Tuesday’. This feels like a laboured description and doesn’t quite fit in, interrupting the natural flow of the narrative, and pulling the reader out of the story. This is an attempt to be witty yet it doesn’t quite work and just feels a bit awkward and a little bit clunky. Pelham even goes on to say in the next sentence: ‘If I may press the metaphor, I was the lemon already halved and about to be squeezed’. Such lines like this add little to the narrative. And in the very next paragraph he states: ‘I gulped a gulp to put a bullfrog to shame’. And similarly with: ‘Mr Churchill came between us like a plump ripe tomato rolling up to nestle between two sticks of celery’. You are clearly trying to be comical rather than vivid here, but I don’t think it quite works in this instance. As I’ve already said, less is often more, and in some passages, these descriptions almost seem to be stacked up on one another. This doesn’t enhance the prose; if anything, it encumbers it. You need to be conscious of this as you write and try to ensure you keep it in check. As I’ve said, in small instances it is fine, and will be all the more effective for it, but over-use it, and its effect will be diluted and will merely become distracting for the reader. However, such lines as: ‘Quill’s moustache rippled along the smooth beach of his upper lip’ I thought were fantastic. If you strip away the unnecessary and extraneous descriptions, it will allow great lines such as this to really shine through.

Characterisation:

I liked that the ‘hero’ of the story has just been released from prison, and that beneath the veneer of self-confidence and cockiness lies a real vulnerability. I loved how he likes to pose and even attention-seek with such behaviours as: ‘I gave my cigarette a suave Bogart flick onto the road’. Whilst he likes to come across as the picture of style, he isn’t afraid to expose the other side to himself to the reader. He all too readily admits his vices and his fears, and his frankness endears him to the reader.

A lot of writers find it difficult introducing their characters and interweaving personal details naturally into the narrative without it feeling shoehorned in. I think you sidestepped this pothole with Pelham reeling off his vital statistics to the chauffeur. Pelham is offhand and jovial about it. I loved the line about how he got his scar across his jaw: ‘the said beer glass was at the time in the hands of a tart who forgot she owned a heart. She called it getting fresh, I called it being friendly’. It is details like this, which intimates he is possibly a bit of a womaniser (coupled with the line: ‘I’d always had my reserve chorus line for the rare occasions when I found my crooked arm lacking a charming companion’), and the fact that he has just been released from prison for an, as yet, unknown crime, that imbues him with an air of mystery and enigma, and spurs the reader to find out more about him. Pelham is an intriguing protagonist and it is almost as if he knows this, and he’s going to tell the story his way, and he’ll take his time if he so chooses! Pelham figures as both player and observer; he is both part of the unfolding action, and full of knowing observations that at the same time distance him somewhat from what is happening. He acts as both narrator and protagonist, which works surprisingly well.

Setting:

Your description of the setting was great. I really got a sense of the looming prison, the muddy barn, and the descriptions of Churchill’s house were fascinating! You avoid including chunks of prose describing the setting, but instead interweave small details, so it very much becomes the backdrop for which the main action hangs on.


Tone:

The tone is light, playful and quite mischievous. I thought such lines as ‘Despite my sentence at Eton and education at Brixton’ were great. Neither Pelham nor your story take themselves too seriously. The narrative also has quite a knowing tone in parts, with lines such as: ‘You may in your own wisdom deem it necessary to add to this tale a pinch of the old food improver, but be careful, you may have trusted too readily all that has been laid before your eyes over the years’.

Told from a first-person point of view, we see the world through Pelham’s eyes. Pelham directly addresses the reader throughout, and this device makes the tone of the narrative all the more intimate, as if Pelham is personally inviting the reader into his world and guiding them through it. By acknowledging and referring to the reader, you have set up a dialogue between the reader and the main character, and this will no doubt involve and engage them further. The tone feels quite conversational and chatty, almost as if Pelham is opening up his past and laying it bare for the reader.

Minor page-by-page notes:

Page 3 onwards: you do not need to capitalise ‘sir’ unless it is a title, as in Sir David Attenborough. If someone is addressing someone as sir out of politeness, it should be lowercase.

Page 5: ‘...enough to shovel a question into his shell-like and sufficient for me to scoop up his rejoinder’. Feels like a word is missing. His shell-like what?

Page 7: ‘The object that marked him out as unrelated, in character if not in flesh, was the thin pencil moustache...’ That is in flesh though, as he is referring to a facial feature. Surely it should read ‘in flesh if not in character’?

Page 14: ‘She lifted abruptly and brushed past me’. Lifted what? Again, feels like there is a word missing here.

Conclusion:

I hope these notes have been helpful to you. As I have already said, I think the material so far is in good shape, and with some polishing and developing as you go along, I’m sure you will be able to really make this leap off the page. I wish you the best of luck in making that happen, and hope you continue to enjoy writing.

Best wishes

Natalie Braine