Hey Ted,
Thank you for for putting up this announcement, I hadn't really thought anyone would be interested

It just goes to show how much more fun working in a group is. I came into this site when it was about 6 months old and have seen it grow beyond all recognition. More power to you Ted, and all your staff, you are doing a wonderful job.

Thank you Aves and dannyq for taking the trouble to comment --- much appreciated. and cheers to you all,
all the best with your own writings,

Carole
Cazutt

Welcome, Eilidh. Did I forget last time? I know I wrote a silly typo. Could should read as couldn't, but expect you gathered that. A good read, to your usual high standard.

Welcome to Sh from YouWriteOn

Title : Finding the Light

Author : S Harris

Genre : Novel

Synopsis
Minnie's life has stalled - after a decade of caring for her father she's in no state to survive redundancy. Then she inherits a house in Cornwall. Life, love and sunshine are within reach - but is she ready?
The system randomly selects a few members to welcome each day, past and present, from all the many members joining. We hope you enjoy the site.

Hello Emma

Thank you for taking the time to do such a detailed review of Lottie, (my pet name!)

I agree with all the bracketed changes and have just finished making them -apart from the gorillas, as many are brown. I've studied them . As for Lotties age, it is something that others have mentioned and I'm working on it. She has to have been alive for the Boer war for Tommy to know her (that's for stuff in later chapters) and for the sinking of the Titanic. I know I have to think of todays 14 year-olds, but back in those times she wouldn't have been so grown up.

Shifting the whole story into the present day is something that I am reluctant to do, though you are not the first to make that suggestion either. I will give it a lot of thought.

Thank you very much again. You have been a great help.

Do or do not, there is no try.



Bloggy-I Write Therefore I'm Happy

Emma

Thanks for the detailed review, I have got a series of deadlines looming, so will read your review in detail over the weekend.

I scanned it quickly and can say the following: you are not alone in suggesting that the more colloquial use of 'It's' instead of 'It is', etc. I just haven't had time to heed the recommendation. I am more comfortable with written Spanish than English - Spanish is much more formal, hence the lack of colloquials.

As to the mother and father characters, that has been an issue with some reviewers. On that one however, I have stuck to my guns. The mother and father are the lunatic and the mouse that you read about in many newspaper stories of dysfunctional relationships, eg, the Fritzls. The lunatic is more evidently sick, but don't be fooled by the mouse. It is not love that binds them together, but a deeper, darker need. Active and Pasive pairing, call it what you will, but this mode of relationship, whilst not normal, is very real.

In fact, the mother is based on my own mother. She did things equally loony as Diana Walton thinking she could sail to Australia just because her father captained oil tankers. So on this one I am not budging! The fact that I am writing this is testimony to a degree of innate survival skills.

But what I will look at is how this is presented, and take a look to see how to make it more believable to more people.

On the other hand, you can't keep everyone happy. If you do, you lose your character and once that happens, what is the point?

I like the title of your story, hope I get to review it sometime.

Regards

Andrew

Thank you so much for your positive review! And you didn't forget to give useful comments!

You made my day. Keep writing.

Wow. That is fantastic. Bloody well done!

Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect.— Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)

Hi
I've sent Mary an email to tell her how my daughter, sister and I recovered from M.E. and fibromyalgia and I've posted on another thread but just in case you don't spot that I thought I'd better add to this one. My daughter was bedridden with M.E I couldn't walk up stairs and really struggled to function or care for her. Then we went on a course called the Lightning Process. The website is www.lightningprocess.com or www.raincastles.co.uk The premise is that people with M.E. have an intolerance to adrenaline. They show you how to cut the adrenaline production and bingo - instant energy. It's about a year and a half since we did the course and all three of us are functioning as normal human beings. No pacing, no pain, and amazingly no brain fog. I've also written 3 stories since the course, all of which have been posted on this site. If you know anybody with M.E. they can contact me for more info if they want to. Email's on my page.

Always good to hear of another success.

Read the titles of some of my erotica on my Website...

Great news, congratulations!

(I'm not so hot with the emotiwhats, sorry) you can learn to drive in a Rolls Royce; you still have to learn to drive.

Thank you

......Thank you

.............Thank you

Happy Days!

Well done Brian,


Andy

About the Reviewer: MICHAEL LEGAT

After a highly successful career in publishing, mostly as Editorial Director firstly of Corgi Books and later of Cassell, Michael Legat became a full-time writer and tutor of Creative Writing. He has published five novels and eighteen non-fiction books, the latter including the Best Sellers An Author's Guide to Publishing and Writing for Pleasure and Profit.



RED SHADOWS



William McCormick



This is a very impressive piece of work, by a writer who clearly knows what he is doing, where his story is going, and is not daunted by a very ambitious project which demands a great deal of research. That research appears to have been carefully done, and it is good that you have not tried to put across any of your background material directly to the reader, but have allowed it to emerge as part of the story.

In these four chapters the joint protagonists, Wiktor and Otomars, are strongly characterised. Their parents and Anna and the Kaltenbachs are lightly sketched in, but they have (at least, so far) small parts in the story and enough has been done to ensure that they are more than mere ciphers.

The story begins well, and although the pace is a little leisurely, the material is interesting enough to keep the reader turning the pages, and the synopsis promises a narrative with plenty of drama. However, while you are right to feel that a long and complicated story spread over a long period of time and involving a large cast of characters does not need to begin at a breakneck pace, I would like to persuade you to do a little cutting, which will tighten the narrative. Take out anything which is not absolutely necessary: the longish stretch of dialogue when Otomars finds Wiktor among the Letts, the scene when Anna is playing the piano (unless her musical gifts are going to be of importance later in the story) and to a lesser extent, because we need to know about Wiktor's shooting skills, the scene when Rudolf takes the boy to target practice, are all candidates for shortening. I advise almost every author whose work I comment on to look for words, phrases, sentences, even whole paragraphs which could go without being missed. We all tend to overwrite.

So is there nothing else to criticise? Well, I do have a few words to say about a point in the story which puzzled me, about the style in general, and then a string of minor points.

What puzzled me was that Bats, who is apparently in sympathy with the Latvian revolt, not to mention the rest of the crowd, should allow the family to escape after the fire. And why was the wagon gutted, and why didn't any of the mobs the family passed through stop them or attack them more seriously? I think you need to explain this.

I also wondered about Otomars's future as it appears in the synopsis. He is so positive a character that it seems strange that he should waste his life in that way. I am sure you know you are doing, but should there perhaps be something more in these early chapters than his flirtation with Mrs Bata to suggest that there are weaknesses in him?

As for the style, you often use short sentences, sometimes without verbs, and this gives a jerky effect. I would like to suggest that in many places a comma should replace a full stop, or the sentences should be linked with a conjunction. In particular you have a habit of interposing paragraphs of only a few words ('And that made all the difference.' 'Before it all changed.' 'Perhaps I could.' etc.), using them as a kind of summary of what you have already told us, or perhaps to underline the point. (Of course, I don't mean in the dialogue.) You have obviously done this deliberately, feeling that the device gives extra weight to the previous paragraph, but in almost all cases I would eliminate these short sentences, which not only add to the uneven effect of the whole, but which I found a little patronising, as though I could not work it out for myself. I tried reading two or three pages aloud, omitting these sentences, and it seemed to me that they could go without being missed.

This point aside, the prose is mostly rhythmical and effective, and indeed at times in descriptive passages has a striking almost poetical quality. Just occasionally I would suggest that it becomes a little too lush. Look for instance at the paragraph in Chapter 1 which begins 'For hours, through a string of tiny villages, I trailed this strange parade…' – much of it is bursting with adjectives, to such an extent that they become obtrusive. Adjectives (and adverbs) are dangerous words – the more of them you use, the weaker they become, and it rarely does any harm to cut them. The corollary is true, and as an exercise you might try writing a descriptive piece without a single adjective, and then allow yourself to insert just one, and see how powerful it becomes.

In a sentence a few lines above that paragraph you have 'false gypsies, fake fortune-tellers and faux Jews'. The three adjectives (especially 'faux' – a rare word which is likely to pull the reader up short – and you use it again later) brought me out of what I was reading and made me think, 'He's trying to avoid the repetition'. I think you would be better off either deliberately using repetition ('fake, gypsies, fake fortune-tellers, fake Jews') or covering all three with just one adjective ('fake gypsies, fortune-tellers and Jews'). The same careful avoidance of repetition occurs when 'the Yule log' becomes 'the festive timber', and in that case rather than 'festive timber' I would use either use 'log' without an adjective or perhaps 'festive log'. This may seem like a very minor niggle, but I think anything which seems odd in a piece which is mostly so well written is worth pointing out.

Some other minor points:

Several times you use 'screamed' to describe the way someone speaks, but I didn't feel in any of the instances that it was really the appropriate word. I think 'cried' might be better.

Erene says, 'They've lit the house on fire.' Surely 'set' would be preferable to 'lit'.

I don't think one can have more than one widow's peak.

Do you really mean that Otomars kissed the Baron 'on the elbow'? Is this a habit among the Baltic Barons? It sounds a strange manoeuvre to me. Does the kissee raise the arm so that the elbow is pointing at the kisser? Either cut the sentence or explain it

Instead of 'She minimised my statement' sounds like a business letter. I would prefer 'She was trying to brush my comment aside'



What about prospects for publication? A couple of years ago it was very difficult to sell historical novels, but things have changed and I would think you have a good chance of interesting a publisher. I would hope so, anyway. I have certainly enjoyed reading your work. And I wish you luck with it.



Michael Legat

Thanks for your review of complicit - you make some interesting observations. Not sure if I will edit again, but if I do I'll bare in mind your comments.

Title : Red Shadows (Revised)

Author : William McCormick

Genre : Historical, Literary Fiction, Novel, Saga

Read Opening Chapters


Synopsis
A failed revolution sets two brothers on a collision course.

The professional critique is displayed in the next post.