Elizabeth
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David,
As always, the humor and rhythms of speech between your characters are wonderful. I’ve made detailed comments on the dialog—and I suggest that those of you interested in how dialog works open my document uploaded here and take a look.
I know you edited for length, but this dialog needs body language (gestures and actions) to indicate strategies, tensions and subtext. And it needs causal (cause-and-effect) links to move from one topic to the next without the characters losing their motivation. When characters lose focus on their motivation, it lowers the stakes on whatever they were after. You have really high stakes topics here—murder and a request for help, an aging mother and a request for help—but no one seems determined to win the day. And these are siblings!
I love the material—it’s begging for you to do more with it. Hope this is helpful!
Warmly,
ElizabethJennifer,
This is wonderful. I teared up several times reading it. My comments are about:
1) How to interweave descriptions of Kati more naturally and less awkwardly into the flow of the narrative.
2) And how to include more description of her actions, gestures, facial expressions and all those things that give us a big part of the story.I also make a couple of copy-editing notes about quotations and commas and periods (which go inside close quotes).
Finally, I want to know the mechanics of how you edit for clarity without using editorial brackets (since I don’t see any) or changing the language. Do you have any models I could also examine, published works of this kind of oral history reporting?
I love the stories you are telling here, and I see that this is an important book as well as a really engaging one.
Warmly,
ElizabethDavid,
This is a wonderful scene. As you’ll see, I had reader’s questions (those are the kind that pull someone through a book to find out the answers, rather than questions that indicate a problem or issue that the author needs to address to move forward) throughout that paid off handsomely (excuse the pun) at the end. I love George—he’s got real charm that you bring onto the page—and the dynamic between the brothers is engaging. The stakes for how Miles’ love interest will react to George seem high now. I am curious how he’ll fit into the investigation, how he’ll be an ally, and how their life-long dynamic will play out or change. Make sure that each scene is key to the plot.The voices and dialog are wonderful and sometimes hilarious. I made a few cuts and comments. You want to avoid too much direct response in dialog. Characters tend to be on their own tracks. It is usually stronger to let them go there without detouring through niceties like “that’s right,” etc. I also noted where there was a beat change—a shift in strategy or focus within the dialog that is usually best handled by a descriptive line or a tag (he said).
Wonderful humor and dynamic here, David.
Warmly,
ElizabethJennifer,
I love the pace and warmth and engagement of this story. It really is like listening to someone tell the most important story of her life, about which she is passionate. It’s easy to read and to follow.
I want to be careful to support you in achieving your goals and your vision around this project. I just reviewed your introduction, so let me start there.First, I made a couple of notes about edits. Since most of the sentences flowed really well and are clear and vivid, I noted a couple that were grammatically awkward.
I loved the introduction and would be happy to have more of you and your experiences during the interviews inserted—that would definitely be my bias, and you have such a powerful perspective to bring to the book. But you also state that you do not want to make them more narrative, and that this is the book you wish you had had when going through the process. So I included my questions—not all or even any of which do I feel must be answered—to give you a sense of how open to and invested I feel in the material as you’ve presented it. I would definitely relish more!
I would also love to know if you have worked up a book proposal, etc.
I am excited about the story we’ve begun here and want to know what’s going to happen . . . and I can imagine how comforting and helpful and engaging it would be to a target market of prospective parents, too.
Warmly,
ElizabethJody,
This is wonderful—I am excited to go on this journey and learn all these lessons, meet these amazing people, hear their stories, see how your journey goes, and even go back with you and see what changes, what can change. I love the call to action, too, at the end.
Now I want the blow-by-blow. I want to be in the scenes as they are unfolding. I want to follow the narrative. The strongest part of this powerful overview was the little scene at the opening, where in tying your shoe, you miss the set up for what the fourth week brings. This is enough, practically, to pull us through the whole book.
I just went back to see that this is the end, not the beginning. By the end I hope we know these stories, yes? At least some pieces of most of them . . . Do for the others what you do for the Lithuanian—let us experience them. And let us experience YOU, on the road. This material is so fabulous, I am ready to go!
Warmly,
ElizabethJennifer,
This is really exciting. I just reviewed this to help guide my edit of your first submission, so more in my notes there.
Warmly,
ElizabethDear David, Jennifer and Jody,
This is the place to introduce yourselves. Please say where in the physical world are you and a little something about yourself, and then let us know about your writing. In particular, what are you planning to work on during Salon this time? This is the place to get to know each other and support all your ambitions and aspirations!
Warmly,
Elizabeth
Jean,
I love Mae’s journey, both the literal journey to Venice and the journeys that are driving the story. Her escape from her divorce but also of her journey toward her art. You capture the confusions, hardships and pleasures of travel so well that I am swept along on the trip. Here, that making of one’s own day, home, schedule, the whole from scratch, that is both thrilling and mundane and sometimes very hard, is captured so well.
I had a couple of edits in my notes. One, about the rearranging of some sentences to move away from one long sentence with a long parenthetical remark indicates, too, my investment in all the details of her plans—I care about all of it.
Warmly,
Elizabeth
Julie,
Wow, this is another wonderful world you’ve brought us to. Interesting to follow the goddess and temple with another place concerned with women in another way. I am very curious why she is there and why she’s told the story she has, and even why they let a journalist in—that’s not always the best cover story for gaining entrée. I love having these questions, of course, so long as you have answers. That’s the pleasure of reading. The moaning is great in the same way—I can’t help wondering what is going on.
In general, you can take a little more time—let different ideas and actions have their own sentences, bring us fully into the story.
I love the action right away, the strong character of Mrs. Margaret Matthew, and our narrator’s hesitation and uncertainty throughout.
Warmly,
Elizabeth
Devi,
This world is so rich and full of conflict. Just fabulous. You know so much about the world and the characters, your challenge is going to be finding the scenes you want to dramatize and the information you want to reveal in action rather than in narration. What’s great about a discovery draft is that you uncover all kinds of potentially powerful scenes. There are at least two, and likely many more, lurking around at this dinner party. Right now, the action is hilarious and gives us a strong sense of the world and its characters. Now’s your chance to build to conflict and change. That’s what you are looking for in every scene—and what you have suggested in so many lines of backstory and summary here.
Warmly,
Elizabeth
Simone,
I love the theme of time and generations and the ways that our stories get set up by those who came before us or with us or who brought us into the world. I love the import of Greta’s story to Dominick, and of his own story, and the way that they seem connected, both un(re)solved.
My main comments are about wanting more clarity about the evidence and where it came from. I think this is for a couple of reasons. One is because it matters in guessing what’s true, what’s relevant. And two, it matters because it’s part of what’s unfolding as Dominick looks through this evidence. I would consider some options to make the stakes even higher in this scene.
One way would be to clarify that this is the first time he’s gotten to look through the file, and to let this be discovery for him instead of review.
Another way is to have him collecting this evidence and reacting to and evaluating it, rather than just having it handed to him as truth. It seems fraught with the possibility of error, or contradiction, yet it is presented as fact. Isn’t it his job to doubt it? Or to confirm it?
Otherwise, I love the tone and mood, the darkness and the emotion and the power of your writing. Wonderful.
Warmly,
Elizabeth
Jody,
This is terrific. I love the attitude and the humor (as always) and the real problem this is for Tracy. It’s unexpected but totally believable. You’ve got great dialog—with subtext—and great details and actions. Your main job is to interweave them. Focus on breaking up those beats. Read it aloud. Notice where you pause. You want a line of description there or a tag. Notice where you change your tone—and let us know the character is doing that. Read it aloud is the best trick here. Get the rhythm on top of this wonderful humor and vivacity and you’ll be set.
Warmly,
Elizabeth
Vijaya,
I am thrilled to see you beginning this letter again, picking it up. It is not only the ritual markings but the letter than have started now.
There is so much feeling and power here. As you can see from my marginal notes, there are places I have questions or want more, but right now the important thing is for you to feel your way toward what you want to say, toward how this relationship with your father is changing and growing—you have some beautiful insights about that here. Keep going, keep going, keep going.
Warmly,
Elizabeth
