Hello! I’m one of your editors this week. I’ll begin with the technical aspect and move onto a general overview following. Corrections are in brackets (empty brackets denote a comma deletion):
-He was a bully; he used sarcasm to put down students in his class, did not instil[l] in them a love of literature and clearly disliked teaching. Despite that, he is one of only three English teachers I had over all my years of formal education[ ] who taught me anything I have held onto.
-I remember sitting on the floor after the end of the normal school day, age 9, numbers less than one hundred should be written out (here and later in the story)
- I expect he is no longer alive[,] but his legacy lives.
-Periodically[,] I return to those books I loved as a child:
First a note on the technical: I would be careful of your overuseage of semicolons. As Kurt Vonnegut famously said: “Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons … All they do is show you've been to college.” Now, I don’t necessarily take that hard line, but I do believe in the spirit of that law if not the letter. If a period will do, I say use it-in most cases. Sometimes a semicolon just feels like a natural link, but my (personal) rule of thumb is never more than one in a short piece. Certainly not more than two.
That being said, I can’t fault your writing. It’s clear that you are well educated, and this was well articulated and well written, as your past pieces have been. I can’t find any fault in this. It is nice to see something more personal from you, and I am very pleased to see you pushing your boundaries. I can see how your love of writing factors into your profession, but how it must also be a source of creative frustration.
I guess my only advice might be to see you push the line even more. Like yourself (and many others), I began writing fanfiction and slowly transitioned to original fiction. Fanfic is great for that, because it allows for a broad range of writing styles: you can write ready-made character adaptations and follow them faithfully in the world another person created, and slowly branch from that as you gain confidence as a writer, adding a few new characters, places, and situations until a lot of it becomes original content. I sense that that has happened for you, and I’d like to see you make that leap to full original fiction. I think you’re ready! You have everything you need, so I guess I would say I’d like to see you challenge yourself and the skills you’ve been honing to see what you can do.
Thank you for sharing something personal. I know it takes a lot of courage to open up about yourself. I like how you used the prompt, too-very nice take on the theme. In all, I would call this a success!
Re: Your BF edit!fawatsonJune 26 2014, 07:29:37 UTC
Thanks for your comments. I take your point about my punctuation. A lot of my fan-fic is written in Mary Renault's universes which means I have trained myself to use her style of punctation which is quite old fashioned now. I need to change it depending on what I am writing. As always you have been very helpful.
-He was a bully; he used sarcasm to put down students in his class, did not instil[l] in them a love of literature and clearly disliked teaching. Despite that, he is one of only three English teachers I had over all my years of formal education[ ] who taught me anything I have held onto.
-I remember sitting on the floor after the end of the normal school day, age 9, numbers less than one hundred should be written out (here and later in the story)
- I expect he is no longer alive[,] but his legacy lives.
-Periodically[,] I return to those books I loved as a child:
First a note on the technical: I would be careful of your overuseage of semicolons. As Kurt Vonnegut famously said: “Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons … All they do is show you've been to college.” Now, I don’t necessarily take that hard line, but I do believe in the spirit of that law if not the letter. If a period will do, I say use it-in most cases. Sometimes a semicolon just feels like a natural link, but my (personal) rule of thumb is never more than one in a short piece. Certainly not more than two.
That being said, I can’t fault your writing. It’s clear that you are well educated, and this was well articulated and well written, as your past pieces have been. I can’t find any fault in this. It is nice to see something more personal from you, and I am very pleased to see you pushing your boundaries. I can see how your love of writing factors into your profession, but how it must also be a source of creative frustration.
I guess my only advice might be to see you push the line even more. Like yourself (and many others), I began writing fanfiction and slowly transitioned to original fiction. Fanfic is great for that, because it allows for a broad range of writing styles: you can write ready-made character adaptations and follow them faithfully in the world another person created, and slowly branch from that as you gain confidence as a writer, adding a few new characters, places, and situations until a lot of it becomes original content. I sense that that has happened for you, and I’d like to see you make that leap to full original fiction. I think you’re ready! You have everything you need, so I guess I would say I’d like to see you challenge yourself and the skills you’ve been honing to see what you can do.
Thank you for sharing something personal. I know it takes a lot of courage to open up about yourself. I like how you used the prompt, too-very nice take on the theme. In all, I would call this a success!
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*Scurries off to change typos, etc.*
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