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9 Public Reviews Given
13 Total Reviews Given
Public Reviews
1
1
Review of A Different Path  Open in new Window.
Review by Erickson Lowell Author IconMail Icon
Rated: ASR | (3.5)
Wes,

I’m impressed with your enthusiasm about Vietnam, a topic of some interest to me, since I served there in the twilight of US involvement in the war. I like the opening sentence of your piece—four words that intrigue the reader and prompt him to read on. The rest of the essay is clearly written and well organized, and the conversational style put me at ease while pulling me through to the conclusion.

In response to your question, I do feel that the article would be improved by the addition of more detail. There is some good description there already. The entire paragraph under the heading “Back Again” is an example. I also liked this passage: “The thick, steamy air on that June morning seemed to slap me in the face…” I remember the feeling!

Other sections need the addition of more detail in order to bring things to life. When you say, “It was so very different from any country I had visited before,” some examples of how it was different will help impress that fact upon the reader. A few brief descriptors might just do the job. Likewise, when you state, “I thought of the people, the food, and the interesting places almost every day…” the reader will find that fact to be more real if he’s told a little about the people, food, and places.

Here are some suggestions about structure and mechanics (Please keep in mind that these comments reflect my personal preferences, and that it’s up to you to accept or reject the recommendations):

*I think it would be best to reduce or eliminate the use of qualifiers such as “maybe,” “really,” and “pretty.” If you read the following passages without the qualifiers, you will, in my opinion, find that they convey a stronger and more confident message:

         It wasn't a bad job, really.

         …hoping that my efforts maybe played a small role in making that student want to read that book.

         I really followed this election pretty closely.{/indent}

*I found several instances of what I consider to be superfluous wording in your piece. For example:

         That's how long I worked in the public school system in my home state of Florida before I decided I needed a change in my life, one that would take me down a different path than the one I had been walking on for so many years. The remainder of the sentence after the words “my life” could be eliminated with little or no loss of meaning, making for a tighter, more effective sentence and paragraph.

         ”…a friend originally from Saigon told me of his plans of going to visit his family…” Eliminate “of going.”

         ”Even just walking down the streets near my house can be an adventure in itself.” Eliminate “even” or “ just” or both.{/indent}

*The paragraph under the heading “Typical Day” needs to be restructured. It seems that you’re trying to cram a lot of information into the first two sentences—to the breaking point—and the result is an ungainly passage. I think you need 3 or 4 sentences to do the job that the current two are trying to accomplish.

*The third sentence in the third paragraph switches the subject from plural to singular in mid-sentence. I suggest the following wording: “It was rewarding to attempt to instill an appreciation for reading into my students, and then later see one of them in the library, her eyes fixed on the pages of a book, hoping that my efforts played a small role in making that student want to read that book.”

*The word “taxi” is capitalized in the middle of the sentence in the fourth paragraph under the heading “Coming to Vietnam.”

*I would replace the phrase, “this land,” in the fifth paragraph with the word “it.” Since you haven’t yet described Vietnam from the perspective of being there, the phrase seems out to place to me.

You have a good topic, Wes, and with some tweaking here and there you’ll have a strong article or book chapter. I for one would very much like to learn more about how the people of Vietnam see the world in general and the U.S. in particular. Keep at it and good luck!
2
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Review by Erickson Lowell Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Tee,

As was the case with my review of HOME III, I'll be brief, in consideration of your approaching deadline. I no longer have a copy of the earlier version of this chapter, but this one seems to be much improved. I saw none of the awkward and lengthy trains of clauses and phrases that I complained of in my previous review. Also, it appears that you've added information that's helpful in understanding your situation at the time portrayed.

Possible revisions are as follows:

2nd paragraph: "He was not [to] return to London..." "...in the Housing Corporation of [his] home town..."

4th paragraph: Comma after "destination."

5th paragraph: Move the word "elderly" so that it directly precedes "landlord," and add an "s" to "chairs" in "two-arm chair."

6th paragraph: Eliminate "were" from the 3rd sentence. Also, I didn't understand the meaning of the phrase "held by mother" within the context of the sentence. Possible interpretations included that the market was held by your mother or that you were held by her, but neither seemed to make sense.

7th and 8th paragraphs: The phrases "meet her home" and meet our father home" seem to need the insertion of the word "at" or to be restructured in some way. (Perhaps it's a figure of speech with which you are familiar and I'm not.)

8th paragraph: "an oncoming transformation of the [this] environment into the environment..." [replace second 'environment' with the word,'one' (to eliminate redundancy)]

12th paragraph: Place a comma after "Their yelping, theatrical greetings..."

13th paragraph: I'm unclear as to what the term "African" refers to within the sentence--place or language? Perhaps you didn't mean to have the"n" at the end of the word.

I hope that this admittedly hasty review reaches you in time for it to be useful. Good luck!

Erickson
3
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Review by Erickson Lowell Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
Tee,

Your story takes place within a setting that is exotic and fascinating to this American reader, and your style complements it well. As I’ve noted previously, your sentence structures, which are unconventional from my perspective, can be engaging. I’ve commented in the past on their luxuriant quality, which is present in this piece also. There are numerous evocative passages fueled by a rich vocabulary. Here are some examples of phrases and passages that I liked:

“presumptuous mockeries”

“…the cold of the Harmattan and rain was a paltry, airy and insubstantial substitute”

“Nigeria became for me raw pods of cocoa beside refined tablets of delicious chocolate confectionaries.”

The entire second paragraph is also impressive. It does an excellent job of describing the flowering of your relationship with your father while bringing out much about his personality.

Having seen this selection before and after its most recent revision, I can say that you have improved it significantly. Introducing your brother’s name, thereby making him a little more real to the reader, was a good move. Several improvements in word usage and sentence structure, though perhaps not noticeable to the casual reader, have also been helpful. I’m especially happy to see that you’ve eliminated the apparent contradiction in regard to the duration of yours and Solo’s “resistances,” and that you have clarified the time element in regard to the imaginary gratification contrivances that you and Solo anticipated with such faithfulness.

In reading this piece I found some instances of missing articles of speech (“a”, “the,” etc) or usages of articles that weren’t quite appropriate within their context:

1. ”…next, it was a factory, before it finally became (a) calculator…”
2. “…promenades to and from parks in (the) company of our mother or playmates…”
3. “For some reason, my imagination invested (the) most part of the London streets with…”

There were also occurrences of lacking or misused prepositions and mismatched plural and singular words:

1. “…tasty balanced-diet (of) Nigerian food…”
2. “…in spite of the need to stay puffed up in several warm-keeping outfit(s)…”
3. “At worst, fumes from cars exhaust pipe(s) would fill the air…”
4. “…--unanglicised, BLACK Nigeria people, just as—(I believe that “like” would be more appropriate than “as”)—the Yoruba speakers.” (Or your could say “just as the Yoruba speakers were”)
5. “These sacred contraptions of our fantasies underwent metamorphosis (this last word should end in the plural form—es” rather than “is”)

The specific examples above are, of course, technical details, many of which can be resolved through the use of a good spelling/grammar check in your computer software.

In regard to writing style, I have some suggestions for you to consider:

1. It seems to me that there are fewer passages that are difficult to follow than was the case in the preceding chapter in your anticipated book, but I do think that the third-to-last paragraph is problematic. It’s difficult at first glance to understand that this passage, having no verb, is actually a list, or series of clauses that are dependent on the last sentence in the preceding paragraph—even though that preceding sentence ends in a colon. Solutions might include adding the phrase “in the form of” to the end of the preceding sentence, to clarify what is to follow; and/or breaking the passage up into a series of complete sentences

2. Prune words or phrases that come in pairs. The second word or phrase, which may or may not add some subtle shading of meaning, can weaken the effectiveness of the sentence by adding superfluous wording. These include:

• “….against the precipitate alteration in diet, which should have been gradual and transitional.”
• “…some invisible, supernatural entity or an ever-ready angel of the Almighty…”
• “…that we could readily create whatever we wished out of nothing or condense our thoughts or imaginations into…”

3. Eliminate quotation marks from words and phrases such as “black,” “blacker than black,” “abnormal,” “factory,” etc. I realize that you want to place these terms within a context that is separate from your current perspective, but the context of the writing itself makes that clear. I believe the elimination of quotation marks, which can seem apologetic or dismissive, would strengthen the message you are conveying about your point of view as a child.

4. My final suggestion relates to content. This chapter, in common with all of your writing that I’ve seen, is strong on description—bringing images to life. The previous chapter seemed to contain more events—more action in addition to the rich imagery. That added an element of “what’s going to happen next” that helps to pull the reader along. If it’s possible to include some more specific events that illustrate the message you’re conveying about the conditions of your childhood, I think it would be helpful.

I hope that my comments have been helpful in some way. I’m impressed with your appetite for constructive criticism and I can see that you’re working hard on perfecting your book. It has a lot to offer. Please keep at it! Good luck!
4
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Review by Erickson Lowell Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (3.5)
Tee,

Although my rating of your piece may seem to indicate otherwise, I enjoyed reading it. The enthusiasm and detail that you brought to bear in your account of meeting your father and other relatives in Nigeria evoked colorful and convincing images in my mind. I felt as if I were inside the mind of a four year-old in strange circumstances and among strange people. At the same time, your portrayal of the adults evoked sympathy, even though they were viewed from the perspective of a wary child and with no explicit examination of their inner thoughts.

Your style of writing, with its lengthy sentences composed of many clauses, seems to me to come from another era. That kind of writing can result in passages that flow elegantly, carrying the reader along. I think that the last sentence in your second to last paragraph is an example of that.

Unfortunately, I found many other passages to be difficult to follow. Some sentences had no verb. The second sentence in the first paragraph is an example, but there were several others. That can work in oral conversation, but in written form it throws the reader (or at least this reader) off. It’s especially confusing in a lengthy passage.

At times, it seemed as if you were trying to cram a lot of information into one sentence, when two sentences or perhaps a whole paragraph might serve better to fully develop the idea. Still other passages were simply awkward and difficult to follow. The third sentence in the second paragraph (“My mother was from…”), although not especially long, is an example.

These factors prevented me from enjoying your piece to the extent that its content deserves. Nevertheless, your account, which I assume to be part of a larger work, has a lot of potential, in my opinion. I would be happy to review it again, at your request, if you should decide to revise it.
5
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Review by Erickson Lowell Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.5)
Tannus,

Your story has a strong beginning with good description, and it sets up a narrative tension that continues through to the end. At each point, there’s a question hanging in the air that pulls the reader on to the next paragraph. I liked the can-of-worms metaphor—it’s colorful and helps maintain the air of mystery that pervades the story.

I think your piece has the potential for a much higher rating than the one I’ve given you today. That could be accomplished by tightening up on the sentence structure and eliminating word redundancies. Here are a couple of examples for you to consider:

3rd paragraph: The word “find” or “finding” is used three times in the first two sentences. You might change them to read something like this: “In addition to the usual artifacts of pots and relics of jewelry, we uncovered another find—exposed bones.” In this way the word “find” is used only once and its reiteration doesn’t weaken the interest level of the passage.

5th paragraph: Perhaps the first three sentences could be made less choppy and repetitious (the word “bones” is used in each sentence) by combining the second two, for example: “They were later dated at 10,000 years ago and turned out to be sheep.”

These are examples of awkward or repetitious phrases that can be found throughout the piece and that weaken the effect of a good story. Some additional editing on your part could turn this into a solid and absorbing account.

You’ve made a good start on this story. KEEP WRITING!
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