Review for April Meehan 10-24

To: April Meehan
From: Carr

Re: “Grunt: A True War Story”

April,

There’s an awful lot to like here in your story, “Grunt: A True War Story.” Right away you capture a certain mood and the voice of the narrator by giving the father an unusual nickname: Yes Sir! No Sir! That’s very good. And there are a number of excellent little details here in your story: the image of rocketing through space (2); the list of names they heard (3); the “rustle of the leaves printed on his camouflage uniform” (6); the use of the military acronyms (6-7). Those all serve to really ground us in these little girls’ world.
I also think you’ve got the hint of a kind of pivotal scene here, an event which throws these girls’ world even farther off kilter. You mention a gunshot on 6, and I know that’s important. How I’m not sure yet.
So, my primary suggestion for you with this story, April, is that you establish a FRAME for the story. Right now there is no discrete time frame within which the reader and narrator travel. Thus I think you would be served by creating one. Perhaps this can occur during a fall, or even a month. But don’t be vague about it. Tell us the story about these girls’ lives during that month or season. Tell us what they do, what they want to do. And include all the great details you have now within that context. Doing that will help to ground the reader, and I think it will enrich your story. For in a certain sense that’s what you need here – the story. I think you have it in your head now, but it’s not translating to the page. So work on describing MORE SCENES – from start to finish.
There are some more minor points – like about the organization of your first two pages (the separation of paragraphs one and four is confusing – in comp class it would be called incoherent). But I think that kind of thing would be cleared up by the establishment of a frame.
There are also some issues of word choice, etc, which you will notice in the manuscript. One thing to really work on here is choosing words that create and evoke a military feel.

All right. Overall I think this is very promising work, April. I definitely encourage you to continue working on this. Definitely.
Please see me with questions and/or comments. Good luck.

Carr