Story: 'Oh! what a tangled web we weave.'

[mikomi]

My bit for Nov.I don't know if it fits the brief, you decide .

 

Oh! What a tangled web we weave.

[Mantaspook]

Hi Mikomi,

 

I’ve had a swift read through your story and there is a lot of room for improvement, there are quite a few typos and clunky phrases that need looking at to make the story more fluent.

 

Rather than give a detailed critique at this stage I’ve uploaded a copy of your story with the contentious points highlighted, have a close look at them, see what you’ve done wrong and then have another go at re-writing them.

 

This is a good example of what I mean:

 

"gone was the almost thread-bare stair carpet, now replaced with quality Axe Minster, shiny new laminate flooring laid down in the lounge,"

 

1 Almost thread bare carpet? It either is or it isn’t.

 

2 Axeminister is all one word when talking about carpets, my spellchecker thinks it’s two words as well, remember you’re the final editor.

 

3 The words ‘laid down’ can be removed from that sentence, they are superfluous.

 

Therefore the above sentence may be altered to:

 

“Gone was the thread-bare stair carpet, now replaced with quality Axeminister, shiny new laminate flooring in the lounge,"

 

A excellent tip is to read your work out loud, it’ll give you a good idea where the punctuation should be, I’ve highlighted a few obvious ones but I’ve not done them all.

 

Have another look, do the corrections & upload a version 2 (Don’t delete version 1 though!)Then we’ll return to this story at a later date and have a go at improving it further.

 

Highlighted copy

[pattricia]

I still like your stories a lot , Mikomi. I enjoyed reading this. Well done.

[Malanimal]

Did like the feel of the characters and the story, the descriptions of places gave colour. Agree with manta's comments. There were a couple of things that didn't scan, like at first is seems Sally doesn't have a job:

 

times were hard for her, at least I was bringing home a wage.

 

but then:

 

she would use her savings and the little money she got from her part time job as a night cleaner

 

 

A problem I had for some time was writing stories that no b*gger could follow! I would think I was relating the story but got back the text equivalent of scratching heads. Your story is miles better than that, but there are times where I got lost. It comes down to telling the story in a way that the reader is taken with the flow, for example:

 

Weeks passed Sally had become a recluse not even venturing out of her door, rumour was Paul had left. I made my mind up I was going to see her after work if it was true she would need a friend to talk to, that was until the early addition of the ECHO was dropped onto my desk in-front of me .”That’s your neck of the woods “,” Don’t know her by chance “. Steve said

 

Here linking words like 'then' and 'that' are omitted, which is no bad thing imho, however, there needs to be punctuation to make it clear. A bit of expansion to set the scene also.

 

Weeks past and there was no sign of Sally, she had become a recluse, not even venturing out of her door. The rumour was that Paul had left. I was at work and tapping a pen on the desk when I made my mind up, I was going to see her. If it was true, she would need a friend to talk to. That moment the early edition of the ECHO was dropped onto my desk "That's your neck of the woods" Steve said, "don't know her by chance?".

 

Liked the feel of it, hope the comments ect are useful. Cheers.