Thank you so much for you review. The only reason that I have added everything that is going on in my life at the beginning is because the party scene I was in justifies the way I was trying to hide everything that was wrong with my life. Later J turns into my comfort zone, and replaces the partying. So anyways, the party scene actually has a reason for why it is in there is just hasn’t come up in the story yet:) Again your review has been the most helpful by far!
Novel Treatments / The diary of a single mom…
Being a mom was not planned per say, but a blessing nonetheless. I am not perfect nor is my life for the fact, but I wanted a baby when the timing was perfect. It wasn’t the perfect time though for the mere fact that I was in my prime so to say. I was twenty-two and loving life. I had just quit a bar tending job after meeting a certain someone. We will call this certain someone “J”.
J was a townie that had just moved back from the wonderful state of California where a football scholarship went wrong. I have actually been in an on and off relationship with him for two years now and I still do not know the full story on that! So anyways, as I was saying J had moved back to the god-awful small town that I so happily lived in. At the time, I didn’t really care much for him. I still can’t really touch on why but something rubbed me the wrong way about him.
I got a job at a local bar that had just opened. It was the first time I had ever bar tended but I was extremely excited for the mere fact that it was suppose to be the best bar this town had ever saw. When I first started working there I would have to say that it was amazing (for our town anyway). I would have to say that it was a good five times bigger than any of the other bars in our town. I realized that I failed to mention that even though I live in a small town, it is home to a rather big university, so I knew the money and the business would be good. It was good too…..too good! You know that moment in your life when you make a choice that your mother just does not agree with but you reassure her that it will be okay, and it is. Well that wasn’t exactly this case. This just happened to be one of those things that my mom just so happened to be right about.
Once I started this job the money really began to roll in (I was working a second job as well though so that helped). I didn’t know what to do with all of the money. I would sometimes bring home eight hundred dollars in a week. to some of you reading this, you might be thinking that it really isn’t that much, but let me assure you for a twenty-two year old that is use to minimum wage, this was nice. I was use to being broke. I had been working a full time job since I was fifteen and moved out when I was seventeen. I lived a very broke life! So like I said this was all new to me. Something started to happen to me though when I started working at that bar. It happened quick than hell and I didn’t even realize it till I was completely different. I had all too soon turned into a party girl.
After just a few weeks, I ended up quitting my second job. It just didn’t seem to fit into my new lifestyle. I found myself not being able to quick up with myself. I was working a eight to four shift at my other job, then going home to get dolled up to go to the bar. At the bar I would work seven to three, and finish the night up partying till six in the morning, leaving me with two hours to sleep which wasn’t cutting it! So like I said I quit! Then to make matters worse I didn’t seem to want to work at the bar as much either. So then my days began with getting out of bed at three or four, (go ahead and call me a lazyass, I was!) getting to the bar by five. Then spending the next hour calling everyone in my contacts to find a drinking buddy for the night which wasn’t extremely hard most of the time. That didn’t last too long though because I ended up digging myself into a huge hole! I ended up spending all of my money at the bar so I really didn’t end up ever making anything. Usually by the end of the week I had wracked up a bar tab of three hundred dollars, and couldn’t pay my bills which didn’t fly with my roomie/best friend.
This part of my life is when “J” comes in. J started working at the same bar as a bouncer and that is how this how my personal nightmare of a life started and where this story begins. Now I still to this day say that I had a well-deserved “wild spurt” to tend to! I had just gotten out of a six-year relationship and realized I was not doing what everyone else my age was doing, which was having fun! J and I actually started getting along so good because he loved to party just as much as I did, so in turn he became my long lost friend. We became inseparable and had quite an amazing time together. Soon the bad feelings about him disappeared, and I closed the door on my conscience. As much as J liked me, I didn’t feel the same way back, not at first anyway. To me he was a fun person to flirt with and nothing more. That is until I needed him.
There is a time in every persons like where they start to spiral downward and they seem to be the one person that doesn’t notice it. My family along with my best friend tried to tell me that I was partying a little too much but I plain and simply did not agree. For once, I was having the time of my life. I was finally free. The best part about it was the alcohol hid everything I didn’t want to feel. I learned many lessons in this stage of my life, the most important being this: Do not try to hide ignore, or bottle those most precious yet wounding feeling because at one time or another they will resurface at least two times stronger! I realized this the night of my emotional breakdown, I was too drunk to function but not drunk enough to make me numb. That is when I realized that what I was doing wasn’t making it go away, it just delayed it for a bit.
J and I finally hooked up New Years Eve. I don’t even know how or why exactly. My roomie had gone out of town so I had the house to myself. I ended up having to close the bar that night so I wasn’t able to actually enjoy the New Year until three in the morning, nonetheless I did. I ended up throwing a small party at my house that included me and six guys (J being included). Many of the guys I found extremely attractive as well, but I ended up with J that night. Now I have said before that I had just gotten out of a long relationship not too long before this. For those of you who have been in a relationship for any long period you know how it is to kiss let alone be with another person, it feels unfamiliar and scary. When you kiss that person you think that those are not the lips you are use to, which can be comforting but SCARY! Well I have to say that it wasn’t like this at all. It felt just right. It was comforting in every way that I was looking for (even though I didn’t know I was looking). Before long he filled that void and became that “comfort zone” I needed.
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Lunsford reviewed Version 1 -
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carolinahermit reviewed Version 1 -
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I like imagery, but it’s not absolutely required-I find it best to picture my stories as movies
It wasn’t the perfect time, although I was in my prime
You overuse the word “fact” although it is a style
I wouldn’t use “out town” twice-bigger than any other bar around.
I’m 44 and $800 is more than twice my best paycheck-
Every one of my contacts
You worked at a bar-add some specific stories-bar bets-fights, dates gone bad, people bounced-it’s too general as is-also more details on the party life would help
Most precious yet wounding feelings
How awkward it is to kiss, let alone
You need more details then this-it reads more like an outline
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Sharon reviewed Version 1 -
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tarleisio reviewed Version 1 -
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This was written by someone who obviously and quite consciously wants to write. You have a story in your head and it wants out in the worst – or best – possible way, and the only way for that to happen is to just…hit the keyboard once, and keep hitting…
You have definite potential, and you have something you are simply compelled to say. This is all good, and it only gets better with practice. Now, you might benefit from a few tricks and tools of the trade, and for grammar and punctuation, you can’t do much better than “The Chicago Manual of Style”. It will teach you much you never even knew, and even more you already know but had just forgotten about.
The next tool in your toolbox should be to read or reread the books you love, and begin to notice those little rabbits the writers pull out of their sleeves that make their stories sing. Why – where and when do they do what they do to make you as a reader pay attention and how do they hold your attention? If they can do it, so can you, and what you don’t know yet, you can learn!
In my personal opinion, the one thing you might use a little better in your story is focus. Your beginning is a bit meandering – a little detail here, a little back story there, but you’re trying, you’re trying to move your characters along to where you want them to be, and for that, you need to ask yourself; what are you trying to say with this scene? It’s a classic trick of all writers, at least the ones worth reading, to start with a situation, and that much, you already have - your meeting with “J”. Start there. Forget, for the moment, all that happened before, where the female character was in her life before, how she got to where she was etc…just concentrate on that pivotal moment. See it, maybe, like a movie would show it. Describe it. What color shirt was he wearing, were there candles burning in the room, who else was there?
Imagery, back story, all that other stuff that constitutes…a novel, a completed story, can come later. Just focus on that one moment in time. Polish it a bit, check for spelling and grammar, write in a bit more description, maybe. How does the scene end? Write that, too. Think ahead to the next scene, and maybe the next after that, and never forget to keep a stranglehold on the focus of each scene, and you might learn what works for you as a writer works for your readers.
We all learn as we go, and if we don’t learn, we don’t grow. Your story has definite potential, you are…trying! Keep trying, keep learning, and keep writing, and I can promise you, that I, at least will keep reading what you write if you do!
rsaioxkreual reviewed Version 1 -
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It has a lot of emotion, but that emotion isn’t grabbing at the reader. Right now, I have no feelings for the main character. You need to make the reader feel intense emotions, whether they are good emotions or the bad ones. Also, you need to show us, rather than telling us. Right now it is quite like someone reading off a piece of paper. There is no gripping descriptions, or captivating dialogue and the characters are very plain. I suggest that you re write this, and rather than just telling us about everything that happened, you show us. Show us the kiss, show us this ‘J’ character coming in with a scolarship gone wrong. We want to feel thie characters and believe that they are really, living and breathing people.
Also, try and cut out of the parenthesis around some of the words. They aren’t needed and are only adding word to the word count. We can get the point you are trying to tell us if you showed it, rather than telling.
Basically, this needs a good re write. Try and look at it from the readers perspective- would you want someone telling you an entire story?
bosley reviewed Version 1 -
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I felt the material was too much telling, and not enough dramatization of events. Also I thought there was a lot of information dropped on the reader much too quickly. I think the subject matter is workable and has a lot of potential. One suggestion I have, that even though is based on autobiographical material (as mentioned in your notes), would be to write in third person. Also I suggest you may want to break the following material down into scenes and rewrite as scenes rather than just telling. I think you’ve got a good start, but over all, I felt this was more like notes than a draft.
despondentgnome reviewed Version 1 -
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Images always help a story, but they are hardly necessary. If you have difficulty painting a portrait with your words then try other avenues. Find other styles of writing that fit your abilities. Personal narratives would be the perfect fit from you, from what I have read above. Also try switching it to 3rd person, it gives you the chance to let the omnicsent narrator fill in extranieous details.
Dayle reviewed Version 1 -
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I did like this story, but feel it may actually be more at home in the diary or blogging secton? I know the title of the piece is “Diary of a single mom” and this story reads very much like a diary. I almost felt as if I shouldn’t be reading it.
I would be keen to read more on this and see how your story developes and how things with J lead to becoming a single Mom.
The only other thing I would say is, with exlimation points, less is more.
rosalind reviewed Version 1 -
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It’s not that the story is so bad, but it is very distracting. It’s almost written like a woman chewing gum and saying “ya know,” every few seconds. I enjoyed what you wrote, but constantly saying anyways, you know how, as if you’re talking to the reader in some parts, and then going out on your own in other parts leaves the reader afloat.
Being a mom was not planned per say, but a blessing nonetheless. I am not perfect nor is my life for the fact, but I wanted a baby when the timing was perfect. It wasn’t the perfect time though for the mere fact that I was in my prime so to say. I was twenty-two and loving life. I had just quit a bar tending job after meeting a certain someone. We will call this certain someone “J”.
You start out talking about being a mom, but then go off on another tangent talking about your career, your lifestyle, your drinking, everything but the baby. Confusing.
I am not perfect nor is my life for the fact, but I wanted a baby when the timing was perfect. It wasn’t the perfect time though for the mere fact that I was in my prime so to say.
Overuse of the word perfect. You really shouldn’t use an adjective like that more than once on a page.
I had just quit a bar tending job after meeting a certain someone. We will call this certain someone “J”.
I had just quit a bartending job after meeting a certain someone who will be referred to as “J”.
The story was interesting, as you what to know what happened and why, but I would cut down on the wordiness and repetitive phrases. Good luck, and would love to see the edited version!
It would be easier to condense these sentences.
Prestonina reviewed Version 1 -
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Ok, I’ll start with what I like. You’re writing what you know, and you obviously have put a lot of thought into it, and, actually, you might have stumbled upon something that has potential. Finding what you want to write about isn’t even half of what you need, though, actually, in my opinion it’s maybe about a third, and even that is being kind. You need style to accompany it, you need to be able recall these experiences and word them in a way that will not only be clear, but add something. (I know you already asked for help in this in your comment, so I don’t mean to be condescending, I swear.) Firstly, do some red penning. Sit down, be uber mindful of grammar, and tear your baby of a writing piece to shreds. You should feel that your soul is crushed at the end (that’s when you know you’ve done it right.) Once you’ve done that, I would do a complete rewrite. You’ve seen one way you like wording this. Now try taking it in a completely different direction. You will find (or at least I have) that you will encompass everything you’ve learned in this one and make it ten times better. Other than that I will give you a couple of specific style things that rubbed me the wrong way. I would try to weed out the addressing the reader. This works sometimes, but I think in this you need to work on the formalities before you throw them out. You resort to conversational English quite often, as well, which is also fine, but since you are writing this from first person already that’s not a challenge. Try creating a true voice. Keep writing. I would like to see this a few versions from now :)
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