Daniel, I apologize for such a late submission, I have been sick, and dealing with my grandmother who has recently broken her arm. I would first offer Brook Landon's advice in reading your works aloud before submitting them. The power of the piece relies on the sentence. A writer carries the reader's attention along the sentence, as I am doing to you as you read this. You read aloud in the voice of your mind, and the mind can only hold so much at a time. That is why the sentence needs to be consciously created as a vehicle to carry the reader's attention, from the beginning to the end. Remember when you write you are speaking to someone in their head, and when we speak to others we are generally more capable in effectively communicating than when we write, that is until we just learn another form of speech, only this one one-sided and written down. That is why reading aloud will help you to be able to hear how other people will read you. The ear will help you notice what the eye can't see. Writing for me is similar to speech, and I think this is evident in the readings of our anthology, or any successful writing. When our writing sounds like a collection of conversation, details, characterization, in one big jumble, then that is what we're going to come accross as. I do the same thing myself and then wonder how to proceed. I think to be successful we have to do more thorough investigation of the study of the genre in which we are writing. I think we have to have a clear idea of what we're trying to accomplish in mind, and then cut whatever doesn't fit that idea or theme, as it is easy to come up with more and more ideas, instead of focusing the ones that we already have. A piece of writing to me, should be like a snapshot of a time and place, a complete idea that can stand by itself. Perhaps by studying the various drafts that you did that you will be able to compare and contrast them to see what works and what doesn't. Some suggestions for your first draft, as that is the one that I looked at.
1). End of second paragraph. "steaming cups of caffeine". Until you know for sure what is in the cups you assume it contains caffiene. You and I know what you mean but it is only because we both assume it is coffee.
2). Beginning of third paragraph. “looking out the small glass”. Another assumption for the reader that you are looking out the window. More description is needed to define what the window is.
3). Middle of third paragraph. “utter death”. What does utter death smell like? A suggestion is a butcher shop. Nothing smells worse than a butcher shop. This is another instance where you could use descriptions to describe and add atmosphere to the story.
4). Beginning of fourth paragraph. “As 11 am rolled in”. How does time roll in?
5). Beginning of fifth paragraph. “traveling by third rail”. This needs to be described as not all of us are familiar with trains. What the reader may or may not know must always be kept in mind, as we do not all have the shared experiences.
Hope these suggestions help.
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