[stylist] Robert's gratitude submission

Sat Nov 24 23:43:02 UTC 2012

Robert,

I miss your thought provokers and the lively discussions they always
sparked.

I think you capture a young voice in this piece, which is really good
since the main characters are young students.

A couple suggestions:

I think you can further explore and go deeper with something like this.
The story as a thought provoker works, but as short fiction, it's a
little flat. Ask yourself why we should care about these characters,
what is compelling here? If you expand this at all, you can explore
these characters and make the story about more than a morality story of
sorts.

The one thing lacking in this piece is the depth of the characters. They
are more of an outline right now, but with a strong structure. I want
characters to leap off the page; I want a reason to care about them and
their plight. Again, as a thought provoking piece, we know what we are
looking for, what we should consider, but as pure fiction, we want more.

Second, you provide good descriptions, but consider sensory descriptions
beyond the visual, and more importantly, try to find ways in which to
describe internal characteristics without stating them. For example:

You write, "'Mentoring is what happens when you have a more experienced
person teaching someone who has less experience." Spoke up Bree, the
soft red curls of the precocious, totally blind 10-year-old bounced as
she delivered her answer.
"Hee-hee, it can be fun, too!" Volunteered Chelsea, Bree's partner, a
tall dark-haired, partially sighted-15-year-old, who was at an awkward
stage in life (giggles and absent-mindedness)."

You describe Bree as precocious and Chelsea as being awkward. Are there
ways to show this instead of just tell us? Work on making these
descriptions more action-oriented than exposition.

And when including a dialogue tag after dialogue, there's a comma before
the quote unless using a question mark or exclaimation point.

So it should look like this, " Mentoring is what happens when you have a
more experienced person teaching someone who has less experience {,"
Spoke up Bree}

And I would split all this info into two sentences as well. It gets to
be a little  much, and the sentence is clunky.

the soft red curls of the precocious, totally blind 10-year-old bounced
as she delivered her answer.

Also, you write, "'Ee-U!" Said Chelsea, her tone leaving no doubt of her
feelings."

Due to the dialogue, it's a little redundant to then include, "Her tone
leaving no doubt of her feelings." The , "Eee-u," is suffices. Also, I
assume you wrote eee-u phonetically, but the proper spelling is just ew,
though honestly, it probably doesn't matter these days, grin.

Otherwise, this has a nice flow. It's a strong start to something you
can expand.

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter, editor, Slate & Style
Read my blog at:
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/

"History is not what happened; history is what was written down."
The Expected One- Kathleen McGowan

Message: 3
Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2012 16:48:00 -0600
From: "Robert Leslie Newman" <newmanrl at cox.net>
To: "'writers nfb'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Subject: [stylist] Robert's gratitude submission
Message-ID: <01ce01cdc9cc$96bca830$c435f890$@cox.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Hi you all. Below and attached is my short piece of fiction that I would
appreciate your assistance in making it as good as it can be. this is
one of my THOUGHT PROVOKERS, a series that I ran for 11 years; all 154
of them can be found upon my personal website, URL at the bottom of all
my emails. I am working my way through them in order to --- improve
them. (They are still being used by many blind related agencies, college
programs  for counseling purposes and training of new staff. 

THOUGHT PROVOKER 118

The Mentor

"What does the term mentoring mean?" Asked the teacher. She was
addressing 10 blind students--five high school students paired with five
elementary students. 

"Mentoring is what happens when you have a more experienced person
teaching someone who has less experience." Spoke up Bree, the soft red
curls of the precocious, totally blind 10-year-old bounced as she
delivered her answer.

"Hee-hee, it can be fun, too!" Volunteered Chelsea, Bree's partner, a
tall dark-haired, partially sighted-15-year-old, who was at an awkward
stage in life (giggles and absent-mindedness).

"Very good you two. Now class, let us re-visit our goals in terms of
mentoring. First there is the obvious in how you are paired, one high
school and one elementary student. Then in regard to our second major
mentoring experience for this program, each of you pairs will be
assigned to mentor an elderly person who is new to blindness."

The next day, Chelsea and Bree arrived at the home of their mentee.
Chelsea rang the doorbell. The inner-door was opened by an elderly
woman. "Yes?" She said through the closed screen door.

"Hi." Answered Chelsea. 

Stepping out from where her taller partner had thoughtlessly blocked her
from view, Brie interjected, "Mrs. Johnson. I'm Bree and this is
Chelsea. We are your mentors."  

"Oh yes girls, excuse me. A person with poor vision can't be too
cautious." Said the woman, unlocking and opening the door. 

"If I had been in front, you probably could have seen my white cane and
knew it was us." Said Bree, trying to be tactfully helpful.

"Possibly, young lady. Hold still and let me have a look at the two of
you." Said Mrs. Johnson, stepping close, turning her head to the side
using her peripheral vision. "Pretty. Now how about we go into the
kitchen, have tea and get to know one another."

Seated at the table Mrs. Johnson said, "I'm sorry I'm going to have to
ask one of you to pour. With my vision I'm filling the saucer, as often
as I fill the cup." 

"Oh please, let me." Chelsea said, jumping up. 

"Excuse me, Chelsea!" The force of commitment in Bree's voice, grabbed
the moment, "We are here to teach and here's our first opportunity. ---
Mrs. Johnson, put your hands on top of mine and I'll show you how I
would do it."

Hands positioned, Bree continued. "Okay, here's the pot; good it's not
too heavy. There's my cup. See how I bring the spout over, feel it right
above the cup --- when you tilt the pot, feel it touch the rim and my
finger, too?"

"Yes and your finger is poking down into the cup."

"Yes, I'm a little nervous and don't want to overfill it." Answered
Bree, a small self-conscious grin sounding in her voice. 

The three of them talked and talked and had a great visit.

Next day- "Okay mentor teams, time to report. You've had your first
visit." Said the teacher. 

Bree and Chelsea were the third to report. "We had an awesome visit."
Said Chelsea. "We go back next week."

"Mrs. Johnson is 72." Reported Bree. "She has macular degeneration,
that's where you lose your central vision and she told us all about it."
Bree went on to tell of those things she and her partner taught their
mentee. "My most favorite part was when Mrs. Johnson talked to me about
ageing as a woman." 

"What?" Chelsea wined in a puzzled tone.

"That was when you took your marathon bathroom break.Anyway, she
discussed how you must change your attitude and do things differently as
you get older. And, I'm embarrassed to divulge this, but I never knew
what age wrinkles were like. I mean, my grandparents all died when I was
young and so I never got to know them. But now I know about wrinkles,
Mrs. Johnson showed me."

"Ee-U!" Said Chelsea, her tone leaving no doubt of her feelings.

Turning to her partner, hand on hip Bree said, "I beg your pardon. In
all due respect to the dignity of Mrs. Johnson, she showed me the
wrinkles on her hands and then the loose and sagging skin of her
forearm. So to sum up, I mean, we were there to teach Mrs. Johnson about
blindness, but she taught us about ageing, too. I learned that mentoring
can happen both ways." 

Robert Leslie Newman