Transgender gf of mine trying to get break in Writing world - please check out

[gjamestgirlfan]

A Transgender girlfriend of mine has recently just had her novel published as the editors choice, so she is getting some publicity i was hoping some people on this board would be happy to give her story a chance and give her a vote and comments if had time be much appreciated.
She is a fantastic girl and has had a really tough time but is now hopefully getting break in a very very tough industry.
Even if one of you votes will be worth it.
All you need to do is to put in your email address, and a username and then confirm this application in your email account and then vote for.
Thank you soooo much for your time.
Gaz

http://www.textnovel.com/story/Remembering-June/7137/

[loveboof]

Was hers 'remembering June'?

[gjamestgirlfan]

Was hers 'remembering June'?

yeah it is Loveboof, thanks for even going onto the page and giving her a chance, like say each person has different tastes but its about being given opportunity isnt it and then being lucky, she has been given break of being given editors choice 2011.
I have just seen that you edited your post, i do hope that you wasnt being rude about her story, as its each to own tastes and also i guess your not a writer yourself, so dont understand the differences.

[Stavros]

I read it, and my first comment is to congratulate someone who starts a novel (really a novella in this case) and finishes it. I have met several people over the years who claimed to be writing a novel that in reality never ended-although you never know, some great books failed to find a publisher when first presented.

First, the plain narrative style makes it easy to read, but that also means that if the reader has no empathy with the characters or the situations, it can become tedious. Although the narrative alternates between the sisters, for example, there is no distinctive change of language or tone -if you flip back and forth through the pages you would not be able to tell which of the sisters is telling the tale.

Second, there is too much drama -the mother's funeral; the re-appearance of the long-lost father -who then has a stroke; the attempt to be reconciled with his children; divorce; pregnancy; abortion; loves found loves lost -its just too much in one place; it crowds the narrative and its hard to tell which of all these events is the most important, the most significant, even if the mother's funeral and the revelation of her indebtedness should be the core of the story.

Third, the meaning does work: the incomplete family as a symbolic frame through which the sisters either do or do not make the same mistakes as their parents. Infidelity and rows about money destroy most marriages, but I think this could have been explored more and with more subtlety.

I think for it to work, it might have been better to tell the story of one drama from four different perspectives; or four different stories from four different sisters, each one giving an insight into one of the others. But this is fine tuning. I think if Tessa James works on style, on developing a distinctive voice her writing will mature. She needs to change the dialogue to make it more individual; and maybe develop ways of describing the world in which these people live that is more subtle than name-dropping cars -this only works if it matters what kind of car people drive, and so on.

Most important is that I think Tessa James has talent, it just needs to go in a different direction; maybe experiment with style. An extreme form of family drama, certainly one of the finest in American literature, is As I Lay Dying, an extreme form of brilliance which Faulkner carried over into The Sound and the Fury. A tough act to follow!


However, I don't recall reading any passage that made me squirm with embarrassment -there is an annual competition for bad writing, this year's winner won with the following opening sentence:
"Cheryl's mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories."
Here is the winner of the 'purple prose category':
"As his small boat scudded before a brisk breeze under a sapphire sky dappled with cerulean clouds with indigo bases, through cobalt seas that deepened to navy nearer the boat and faded to azure at the horizon, Ian was at a loss as to why he felt blue."

I think Ms James can rest assured her writing is better than that!

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...e-2326215.html

[Prospero]

Excellent post Stavros.

i read some of it also and congratulate your friend on having the skill to finish a novel. it is a tough challenge. ideas may come easy but after the inspiration, there is a very long slog to completion. Good luck in helping her get it out to a wider readership.

[loveboof]

I have just seen that you edited your post, i do hope that you wasnt being rude about her story, as its each to own tastes and also i guess your not a writer yourself, so dont understand the differences.

I don't know why you would guess that, but I can assure you I wasn't being rude - just critical. But then I realised that this isn't the time or place...

To be honest, I didn't particularly like the chapters which I read. This wasn't down to taste, simply the writing style. But I wish your friend well, and I doubt very much she will care if some anonymous bloke on the internet didn't particularly dig it.

[gaga99]

To be honest, I was turned off by the first sentence. I tried to go back & re-read it, but it just seemed overly dramatic for the sake of drama. Not saying it's a bad work, it's just not my cup of tea.