#My1stStory - The Review

So those of you who read my last post (to see it, just scroll down) will know that NaNoWriMo wanted to hear the story of your first story all in the name of spreading the joy of my favourite event of the year - NaNoWriMo of course.

The day after they asked for this they also asked for a review of the first story.  Although I'm a few days late, I thought it'd be fun.  Also, I looked up my notes on this story so I could do this thing just right.  Oh the laughs I had with a PowerPoint full of notes.  I cringed as I read the plot points, in real life, not just in my head.  There was a physical cringe moment.  I knew it was bad but . . . this was something else.

I'll put my reviewer hat on and see what happens.  I'll try not to be the author as I write this.  Here it goes . . . oh and by the way the book had a title (and can you believe it was going to be a trilogy!) which was 'Phoenix Feathers'.

'Phoenix Feathers', for an amateur piece of writing, was very ambitious, it's only a shame that the ambition never turned into action, or indeed plot.  The very basic plot line that was in place - in parts - didn't really seem to be going anywhere.  Myself and the characters were just wandering around looking at the buildings and the trees and the people and so on, but nothing was happening.

The characters' dialogue seemed to mirror this.  Although most of the time the characters' speech was attempting to lead us down a path of plot, we often got lost along the way.  I felt as though just as something was going to happen and the story would be off to some strange new place, the characters stopped speaking short of the point and left me disappointed as I'd have to read more dragging description.

While we're on the subject of characters, those in 'Phoenix Feathers' were one-dimensional, fond of being over emotional and often tiring and uninteresting.  Taking off the reviewer's hat for a second, I remembered while reading my notes and looking to see that I'd given each of the characters birthdays, that I'd crafted their personality on their star sign.  My god, what an evil thing for me to do!  No wonder the characters were one-dimensional!

Putting the hat back on and adjusting my hair now as we get to the more technical bits.  'Phoenix Feathers' is written in the third person and is the only time I've attempted to write a novel in this way.  I'm a first person girl through and through.  I like to write books in it and read books in it, that's just my preference.  So I have no idea why I went for the third person, none at all.  But because of this there's no emotional connection between the reader and the main character - Melody.  We don't care about her, not a single morsel.  And I'm not criticising using the third person, I'm criticising my terrible use of it.

Adverbs.  Yes I'm sorry.  I have to talk to you about adverbs now.  (adverbs being words ending in 'ly'.  Words that describe a verb (a doing word).  Here's an example: 'creeping silently'.  'Silently' being the criminal adverb here.)  The rule is for those unaware, that adverbs ruin your life!  My example is if you're saying someone said something sarcastically, shouldn't the reader, from the dialogue, already know the character is being sarcastic?  And also from my bracketed example at the beginning of this paragraph, the word 'creeping' tells you all you need to know, 'silently' doesn't add anything at all.  It did take me a year or so to accept this and god did I like to use my adverbs before this.  Now I can't stand them in any piece of writing whatsoever.  It makes it less powerful.  Adverbs take away and add nothing.  Please, for my peace of mind, no one use them ever again.

As 'Phoenix Feathers' was written in a time before I had my adverb epiphany, I'll allow a few of them, I'll read over them.  You know, shudder and move on.  For example: definitely and suddenly I suppose I can stomach.  But not only those ones were used, oh no.  Sinful adverbs were thrown across the scrap of a novel.  Such as: tunefully and cautiously.  In total thirteen different adverbs were used - some more than once - across what is less than 2,000 words long.  I hide my head in my hands and weep at this, but you live and learn.

I also found it very strange that random capital letters were used in dialogue, such as: "My Face." and "They're Violet!"  I will point out these are sentence on their own (believe it or not, it's much more fun to leave out the context) but even so, there is no need for all the capitals.  And I only noticed it this time of reading through.

The title doesn't escape unscathed.  Having read the little that was written and all the background and later plot points, I can tell you that there is nothing to do with a feather or any feathers of any kind.  For the life of me I can't remember why that title.  I guess I thought it was cool or something.

As I've already mentioned, 'Phoenix Feathers' was only 1,800ish words long and so was nowhere near finished.  It was a chapter.  One chapter.  Containing only two of the characters.  So I suppose the biggest criticism I have is that it was never finished.  If I'd carried on even one more chapter I would've learnt so much more.  But I must admit, I'm unsurprised I stopped because I caught on rather quick that 'Phoenix Feathers' was going nowhere fast, or anywhere at all in this case.

Even I have to admit, although it's been fun ripping it to pieces, 'Phoenix Feathers' wasn't all bad.  On the bright side there were some phrases in there I was fond of when I wrote them and remain fond of to this day and make me smile.  Such as "Melody stood there in the most familiar room, with the most familiar person, and yet, she felt lost." and "you never appreciate the colours of the world until you play Eye Spy."

I mustn't just criticise 'Phoenix Feathers' though as, like I said in my previous blog post, I did learn a lot from it and it was one of the many experiences that led me to write again, to keep trying.  This experience taught me that although it didn't come out right and I didn't really know the technique and I needed to put in a lot of hours, I could write.  I could because I'd already done it.  It was bad, of course it was, but it was real.  I had made a story in my head all of my own.  And wow.  How amazing is that?

Molly Looby
Author / Editor / Ghost Writer / Writing Coach

Got something to say, want me to do some freelance work or perhaps to tell me something I might not know about writing (go on, test me!)?  Email me on molly.looby@hotmail.com