Message-ID: <31940asstr$997434604@assm.asstr-mirror.org> Return-Path: X-Original-Path: not-for-mail From: Katie McN X-Original-Message-ID: <3nl5nt85r23f1rdnslp9179c504s25mrko@4ax.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2001 11:36:45 PDT Subject: {ASSM} {REVIEW} REVIEW - BECKY and ME as told to Adrienne Brown Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 05:10:04 -0400 Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail X-Is-Review: yes Approved: Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories,alt.sex.stories.d Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d X-Archived-At: X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation X-Story-Submission: X-Moderator-ID: newsman, Vulpine BECKY & ME (c) 2001 as told to Adrienne Brown. All rights reserved. Morgan recently posted a story called "The Callaways: Jean & Jim." Some of Adrienne Brown's friends were mentioned in the story and decided to "set the record straight." They did it in the story Becky & Me with the help of Adrienne. The story can be found here: What can you say about a story that ends with this piece of advice? "And so, that's it. Just remember my advice: in this land of plenty, a girl must spread her legs and grab any opportunity that cums her way!" The story is a humorous piece describing the life of two women by the name of Ms. Grant and Ms. Richmond who operate a Personal Services business where they provide very personal services, indeed. In addition to the discussion of Morgan's story, we also read the bios of the two women. They've gone an awful long way in a mighty short time. When I first started reading the story, I discovered one of the characters was named Amy Grant. I usually don't care for Fan Fiction stories and seeing the name of a well known Christian Musician gave me pause. There was no reference to the famous Amy Grant in the story which was a relief for me. The story is fairly long and contains quite a bit of narrative summary. This would normally turn me off, but the story is told so well, it didn't bother me. I felt like I was sitting over a cup of coffee listening to one of my friends tell me a story. A very nice writing effect. The story started out with the suggestion of second person, but maintains third simple throughout so we get the best of both worlds as far as I'm concerned. Adrienne developed a voice for her character, Amy, who is the narrator of the story. I had no problem seeing the character. Early in the story we are told that Adrienne edited the story so the combination of poor grammar in some places and phrasing of an obviously educated person in others was not a problem. This was a smart move on Adrienne's part. Mentioning that she was editing the story prevented me from being trouble by some of the language. There are several Post Scripts at the end of the story where the narrator discusses how the story was created. These were fun to read, but would not have been enough to get me past the language. I made a note of this technique and may use it myself someday in a story. Thanks, Adrienne. There were quite a few phrases that painted a picture of the narrator. Here is one that gave me a giggle: "Since I'm not the brightest bulb in the string of lights, ... " Dialog like the above was used in the story along with a few cases of incorrect grammar to remind the reader that a lower class person is talking. The following was found in the story a few times: "Becky and me disagree ... " Grammars errors like the above happened periodically, just about the time I was forgetting that the character was a hooker who got through High School and College by granting personal favors to her teachers as opposed to actual study. This worked well for me. The nature of the story didn't provide a lot of opportunities for dialog. I found most of what the story contained to be well done. There was one section, however, that bothered me and I wonder if it could be improved: 'She paused just a moment. "Another thing. Whoever that Morgan is who wrote that story seemed to know his way around that place. I mean, how many three hundred acre estates are there up in Deerfield? And how many of those have not one, but two nearly identical sprawling ranch-style homes built around an eight-lane Olympic size swimming pool? Would you believe it? The Dawsons--Jean and Jim--live in that second home! And each of those homes have built-in climate control systems, very unusual. '"So, when I saw you and Ms. Richmond named... I mean, saw your names in the story, I just wondered." '"Well, it's possible that we may have met Mr. ... What was his name again?"' It's usually a good idea to break up long winded dialog like that shown above. Normally, no more than three sentences should be written before something else happens. Dialog speeds up the action and so is very useful in excitement building. Too much dialog gives the reader a subconscious feeling that he or she is racing and soon feels put upon. Extensive dialog can be broken up with what writers call a beat. This simply means adding a little action in the dialog to maintain a reasonable story pace. In this case, Adrienne might consider adding some action to indicate the character was getting excited just before the words: "Would you believe it?" I think additional action is needed just before: "So, when I saw you and Ms. Richmond named ... " I mentioned earlier that there was a large amount of narrative summary in this story. It works well for the most part with the exception of this part: 'Anyway, Rachel blushed ever so slightly and then plunged ahead and toldus about ASSM, which, of course, we knew about already (_but notthat our dear sweet Rachel read it!_). We thanked her, let her get to work, and thought no more about the story. Until last week. That was when Rachel, going over our bookings, informed us that although business volume and new inquiries were still at the seasonal rate, conversion of inquiries into personal contracts had dropped off drastically. We went over the records with her and found that the drop off began with the posting of "Jean & Jim." Two in the first week, none since then.' This paragraph needs work. The conversational tone of an uneducated rustic doesn't come through here. To be honest, I found this hard to read at any level. It really slowed the story down and I'm glad this was not how the rest of the story was written. There were a couple of minor things that I'll mention here since I know Adrienne is looking for all possible input. We find this sentence: " ... but that was strictly business; the marriage was collateral on the loans ..." I suggest getting rid of all semicolons. They are hardly ever used in published fiction and certainly wouldn't be something one would expect in a story told by a low class person. The semicolon could be replaced by a period and the next part reads perfectly well as a sentence. I noticed that an ellipsis was used a few times in the story. It was not overdone and used properly in dialog. Normally an ellipsis is typed as space ... space. This is the normal rule for manuscript preparation. Anyone who wants a fun read should take a look at Adrienne's story. She does a nice job writing a humorous piece which is a challenge for many writers. She also has good story telling skills and keeps the readers interest throughout. Two thumbs up from Katie. -- It's me! Your pal, Katie McN Read all my stories at: www.asstr-mirror.org\~Katie_McN\ -- Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated. +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | alt.sex.stories.moderated ----- send stories to: | | FAQ: Moderator: | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Archive: Hosted by Alt.Sex.Stories Text Repository | |, an entity supported entirely by donations. | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+