Review for Dawn Kaufman's Story 9/12

Dawn:

There are many advantages to working on a piece like “Egypt Rising.” Mysteries can be adventures for the writer as well as the writer, as we discover the characters and the twists and turns along the way. Working on a story set in a place like Egypt can be rewarding aw well, for it allows the writer to discover other worlds and explore those possibilities for story and character. I had fun reading “Egypt Rising,” and I hope you had fun writing it.
So, “Egypt Rising” seems to me like a part of a larger whole, but what you have given us here can also work independently, I think. You’ve set us up with Sandra, a young archeologist who is working as the “cataloguer” on a new dig. This seems to be a job that isn’t high on the ladder of desirability: it is a job done at night, alone, and in spooky places. But Sandra makes a major find, the tomb of Bastet, a cat goddess(?). This is apparently something that Sandra had anticipated, or is an expert in, for she says on p. 6 that she had known it when she saw it. That’s good. In the end, Bastet confers upon Sandra the glory of the find, and helps her to come out from under Itzak’s apparently tyrannical thumb. But we get a glimpse that this is for Bastet’s own seemingly diabolical purposes. Good. As a set up, the scenario works well, and it can work on its own with some revision.
OK. Revision. One thing to think about in any story is character. Your central character here is Sandra. So what do we know about her? She is apparently smart, independent, and motivated as she is willing and able to do her job. She also has doubts and anxieties – she is constantly talking to herself. She also has some ambitions, but those are les clear to us. So my main suggestion for this piece is to make Sandra fuller as a character here in the first part. One thing it would be good to know is, What does she want? In both the larger and smaller sense. Now, you don’t have to come right out and tell us this, but try to show it to us. You’ve got a good vehicle already. On p.1 you say that she got up earlier than usual on this day. That’s good; it signals a difference in the day which is important for starting a story. So what we don’t know is why. Why did she get up early today? These little things can tell us a lot.
In addition, I think you are overusing Sandra’s tendency to think and talk to herself when you would be better served by showing us things about her surroundings and actions. For example, we can learn a lot about someone from the way her tent looks – what kinds of things she has inside. Or by what her routine is. By showing us these things you can also avoid the often awkward situation of having her both think and talk to herself in the same paragraph (this kind of structure is just way too confusing for the reader). So show. Here’s an example: On p.5 Sandra is looking at the urns to see if they’ve been moved. She says to herself, “The interns? No … the urns haven’t been moved.” So she’s talking to herself and telling the reader what she’s thinking. Instead, maybe she could do this: “She looked from the hole in the wall to the urns. There were no scuff marks in the thick dust of the floor, no other footprints even. They hadn’t been moved. No one else had even been this close, not one of the interns, not even Dr. Itzak. She was the first one to get this close.” See what I mean? No italics, no awkwardness for the reader. You just show us what she does. We’ll know what she’s thinking from her action.

All right. So that seems to me to be the main thing to work on now. Fleshing out Sandra by describing what she does, and in this showing the reader both what she is like and what she wants.

OK. Two items of formatting: first, do not put extra space between your paragraphs – unless by the extra space you mean to indicate a jump in time. And second, always include page numbers with your manuscript.

You’ve got a good thing going here, Dawn Stick with it and good luck. See me with questions and concerns.
CK