Carr's comments on Peter's story 11/9

Peter,

There are some things working well here in your untitled (“The Dance Mach 5” ?) story of a high school kid who goes to a dance and meets a girl who might turn out to be his true love. First, I think you’ve captured the tone here. This is the kind of night – junior prom, I assume – that leads to wistfulness, reflection, and change, and I think you’ve really nailed that here. For example, when they arrive at the dance, the narrator wants to stay behind in the truck and get high. I think so that he can pause and assess his situation. That’s good.

I also think you’re very close to having a real story here. There is a strong sense that the narrator is changing, that he is close to a realization about his life, and I think that you are setting us up with all the elements here to see that change: you have the comments about city/county at the beginning which seem important, and you have the obviously important dancing issue. Those can both work very well, and they will lend themselves to showing instead of telling.

OK. So what to work on? First and foremost, I think you need to flesh out the skeleton of this story. Right now I don’t think we know enough about the characters to really get what is happening. What I suggest is that you have the narrator comment much more on his surroundings. We need a lot more description of Chase and the environment – the city, the dance. And then allow the narrator to comment on those things. This will allow you to get in some memories, to show us what kind of person the narrator is. It will also allow you to establish a conflict. Right now there isn’t one – except that the narrator isn’t much of a sober dancer, and in the end that isn’t enough. We need to know what he wants, both on this night and in his life.

Second, I think you would do well to let something happen here that is unexpected. This is a story, after all, so let it be a night worth telling about. But the key is to let the narrator’s actions be a consequence of his character, even if he does something unexpected, which he definitely should.

All right. Finally, work on two mechanical things: correctly formatting dialogue, including using tags early in the speech; and avoiding comma splices (using a comma to connect two independent clauses when you need a period).

This has a lot of potential, Peter and shows some very good instincts. Good luck revising and see me with questions.
CK