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Discussion
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Dear Highly Valued Readers,
I am thinking of calling of this story “Earthquake Country” — what do you think? What do you think of the ending? I was thinking initially planning on having Dee succumb to the pressure to join the group — so I realize I may need to rewrite/redirect parts to fit this ending better (make Margaret more likable?) . . am open to all your good suggestions regarding the ending . . changing it/ expanding it/etc. (originally it was going to end with Dee concurring with Christine’s final baby) Now I’m wondering if the mother/Amy dynamic needs to be deepened/complicated/developed somehow . . even though I want the story to be about Dee (and not to go over 3500 words) I will make the setting richer and Dee’s internal thoughts/perceptions a little more pronounced.Anything else?
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Replies
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Hi Mollie,
I love the description of poor Margaret trying to climb the thorny tree, and the truly awful girls down below who don’t even react when she appears to be in genuine physical danger. They’re so awful, but isn’t it a sad truth that some girls at that age can be! I wondered what Margaret’s motivation was in agreeing to climb the tree. Does she really want to be in the club, too, or is it purely to make Dee happy, to have a friend, which is heartbreaking! It would be great to see Dee feeling a little more tortured by the whole scene as well.
Up to this point Dee seems to be going along with the mean game with little intrusion from her own conscience, but she comes to her senses when she sees that Margaret is potentially in real danger with the scorpion. She looks at Christine and Courtney, who don’t react to it at all—they seem detached like her mother does. This is the point Dee decides she doesn’t want to be in the club, which felt a little abrupt in terms of her change of heart. I wanted to know what she was thinking about the other two girls specifically at this point to better understand the turn in the story, just briefly: did it upset her that they were so detached given the scorpion, or disgust her, or did she finally see that they were beyond mean, that they were actually heartless and dangerous? And if so, is this how she also sees her mother? I was surprised that Dee agreed with Christine “in some ways” about Margaret acting like a baby; I see the parallel between Margaret and Amy (in the sense that they’re both “babies” in different ways) but I wonder if it would be interesting to explore it a little more from the angle of innocence and purity along with the great physical imagery you already have (the tears, the running nose). Maybe this goes to your question about making Margaret more likable: if you give her a few distinct admirable qualities, such as good heartedness (which you’ve already done a bit of with the cookies in the last submission, for example) and had Dee wrestle a little more with her conscience (she threw the cookies away, but did she feel a little guilty when she did it since it was nice of Margaret to give them to her?), her leap to Margaret’s side in the end could still feel unexpected but at the same time inevitable, which I think would be a great place for the story to land in the end. Maybe Dee is the one who picks up the pink glasses and snaps them in two!
And I do like the title, Earthquake Country!
Jean
Hi Mollie,
Earthquake Country is a beautiful title for this and adding in a bit more imagery about the setting sounds like a great idea. Even going further in describing one single joshua tree, or cactus, or the sky would give us a greater sense of the desolate landscape Dee has found herself in…
I like the dialogue and the action in this piece — Margaret’s climbing up and Dee’s rescuing her and climbing down with her. I am so glad to see that Dee’s conscience won over — but if the stakes were a bit higher — a more dangerous dare, perhaps, or if we knew more about Margaret, what other hardships is she facing — or even if we knew something personal about Christine or Courtney — maybe something unexpected to make us have more stake in the outcome, or make us conflicted about the outcome — there might be more dramatic tension. You evoke so well the loneliness and powerlessness that school-age kids so often feel, that fleshing out each character — maybe seeing one of their parents, or a sibling, or what their houses look like — or how they talk to a teacher, or even what kind of car they get into at the end of the day — would make me even more invested in your terrific story. And just a few more descriptions might go a long way in making the characters more multidemonsional. I look forward to reading more and look forward to reading even after the salon ends!
Mollie,
I am stopping here (at about 540) because I just realized that this is well over the word count. I am not sure why you submitted over the word count, but I hope you do not do this with journals, as it will alienate editors.This was taking me longer than it normally takes me to edit a 500 word piece, and that clued me in.
My main notes are the POV problem and the need to slow down, to give us more specific images from Dee’s POV. (Some of what Jean and Simone raise have to do, in fact, with this distance from Dee’s POV in the last scene before her change of heart.)
You’ve got a great set up and this is a strong climax. The connection she makes between these girls and her mother is a powerful way to tie the story together and to show her making change in both threads through her actions in this one. (I did wonder if there was more to the mother thread than I remember–more scenes.)
I’ve glanced over the ending since hearing back from you via email, and I love “Dee felt better about herself than she had in weeks,” but worry that Margaret’s breaking the glasses is a bit facile. It may be a matter of pacing and beats—for example, moving Margaret’s action into the middle of her dialog. (Jean had a suggestion about this final action, too. I think slowing down with the ending a bit will help you find the exact right note/ action.)
Warmly,
Elizabeth
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