Young Writers Society

Editing!

Hello there! So I absolutely love this because it's got all that kind of humor that The History of Tom Jones was filled with (even though I haven't finished that yet. o.o) And you did a great job, at most instances, to master the voice and language commonly used long ago, so bravo for that!

Of course, I do have my knit picks.

that might lead her to believe there was anything left to salvage of her relationship with none other than the snagged and gagged Captain Rackford

Is he a captain now? Or always a colonel?

beady black eyes examining her surroundings through narrowed eyes, eyebrows arched

I don't like the double mention of eyes, either mix it together or cut one.

As Mrs. Worthington's shrieks attracted a little crowd, he attempted to skitter away from her to his mother, took one looked at all the blood on him and her, and lost consciousness.

I didn't particularly like this sentences mostly because of the overwhelming amount of pronouns. Weird complaint, right? I mean, the line makes sense, but it's hard to follow right off the bat. (Especially because I wasn't sure if Mrs. Worthington was his mother - or, for all I knew - his wife!) The sentence isn't bad, not at all, but you may want to clear it up. Perhaps like so? "....attempted to skitter away from her to his mother. However, Mr. Worthington took one look at all the blood on him and Miss Amelia and proceeded to lose all consciousness." (the "proceeded" is just a fondness of mine )

Miss Amelia then thought to faint also – and opened her eyes, a moment before, and out of the corner of her them for herself saw drops of red splattered over her pale pink gown, and next to her the sickly face of Mrs. Worthington's son, also with splotchy drops of crimson, and all those people, all those people drawn by the noise made by Mrs. Worthington now cradling Frederick Worthington.

This is a very confusing bit, mostly due to the typos at the very beginning. Also, I'm not sure why "all those people" cause her so much distress - you might want to make that more obvious.

a weed if there ever was one

and indeed admitted that it was her fault, all her fault. That it was her, only her fault:

I don't like the repetition in these lines.

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Now to your questions and my own larger comments. ^^ I think the start is wonderful, but you might want to make it a bit more obvious that the first two paragraphs are what's being told (more or less) between Mrs. Worthington and her acquaintance, just for flow's sake.

I rather like your characters, although some of them repeat too many thing too many times (I got rather fed up with how many people shouted Miss Amelia! over and over). I'm very curious to know as to why Frederick was in the bushes, so I really hope that gets taken care of in the second bit.

I'm not too fond of the monologues, not that you should take them out, only clean them up. Her mother's was all repetition, and if she's sobbing and repeating herself that's just fine but make it more obvious. As to the maid, I didn't have as much problem with hers, although the comments on her gesticulations was a bit convoluted and, like other things, could be cleaned up.

One problem I had was simply with your sentence structures. Like I said previously, you did a great job mastering the voice and language, as well as vocabulary, but I feel you used too many long sentences in this pieces. True, a lot of old things have a lot of long sentence, no short ones, but that doesn't mean you have to keep to it. I'd advise cutting things down. Not all things - just add variation. Use short, abrupt sentences when it fits best (for example, when they faint, or when there's blood). It's not that all of the long sentences were terrible, in fact some of them were well crafted in every way and I love it but certain ones are filled with too much information, hard to follow, and required a few readings for me to completely comprehend. They could do with less words. You don't have to write extravagant sentences all the time, or the extravagance of everything decreases.

Miss Amelia Lassiter was her name; potential to change that matter dwindled daily. A thin creek of soirée invitations at last dried up completely. As the hated rosebushes outside Lassiter House wilted when murdered by gardeners and the scorching rays of gossip and speculation, so did poor Amelia herself – and with her, the household.

I believe I understand what you're trying to say here. The ability for Amelia to get married went away. There were no invitation to parties. So Amelia never marries, and the household falls apart... But it took a few reads for me to completely understand it. I think you have beautiful language here - the first sentence is beautiful, just complicated. The second has a lovely metaphor, and I love that the hated rosebush was murdered (though, how by gossip?). However I just think it's too much all in one paragraph - one brief paragraph - or should be reworded. I could understand it, it just took some time.

My only other suggestion would be to talk more about the social event going on that day - a party. I kind of assumed there was a party due to the first paragraph, but then that being part of conversation made me think that the part in question (in the first paragraph) is not occurring in the story. And then all the people show up... I feel you should talk more on the social event. *nods* That's really all I have to say, haha, on that fact. Explain why they're there, what's going on. What is the party for, for that matter?

Anyway, sorry for so much knitpicky ness, especially because I do love it and I hope you tell me when you post the next part! I'm glad to see someone write well in this style - it makes me happy.

Best of luck!

Thank you so much! I'll definitely smooth things out in the beginning, emphesize the party and cut the repetitions (ha, everytime I opened the document, I added one, or so it seems now). Mmmhm, Frederick's rosebush appearance is in p.2, though I think I should work on his character a bit more there.

Thanks again

Edit: Cleaned up the littler things, the repetitions need strategy and tactics and whatnot, so I'll save the headache for tomorrow

Hey hey! Okay so first impressions are that I like this a lot; you've got a good sense of style and there's enough hook to keep the reader interested throughout. Some of your sentences got over complex or were difficult to follow but that's easily smoothed out. Here's the line by line:

Esmé wrote:That Miss Cecilia Snowdown had set her victorious cap on Colonel Edgar Rackford was clear to everyone. [A bit of a mouth-full but I like it, nice use of reverse syntax.] She laughed at his jokes, unamusing as they were, deigned to listen to witless clumps of words making no sense whatsoever, and gazed up at him with perfect adoration unsubtly hidden behind, needless to say, most perfect maidenly modesty.

She brushed off sticks and leaves from her skirts, for it was in the garden that our disbelieving young lady had found herself in a vain effort to find any scraps of information that might lead her to believe there was anything left to salvage of her relationship with none other than the snagged and gagged Colonel Rackford – by unfortunate forces other than her own. [A very long sentence. I'd suggest cutting it in two.] She had followed the matron through trees and bushes and hedges, waiting for the topic to come up in conversation, sure it would eventually.

I think this perhaps goes a little too fast and there's a lot of telling and back-peddling. It would perhaps be better to start with Amelia discreetly following the other two ladies away from the party. You'd have the opportunity to introduce the characters more deeply while she listens in on an earlier conversation and there wouldn't be a need to back-track to fill in missing information.

Description

It would be nice to have a slightly firmer idea of what the women are wearing and what size they are. I'd also like to know their surroundings a little better. Have the women stopped to talk in the shade of some trees or maybe they're paused just a moment to admire a particular plant, perhaps they have seated themselves on a bench for a moment's rest. There is a lot of telling in this piece which creates a great narrative tone but draws the reader out of the immediate action. If you were to describe the smells of the garden, the feel of the plants around Amelia, the sounds of the voices. Maybe position the influx of senses from her point of view so that the reader only sees, hears and basically experiences the conversation as she would.

Also, I agree on there being too many repetitons of her name XD

Hmmm. I think there needs to be a little introduction and description of Frederick. Just a sentence or two that gives something interesting away about him or which gives us Amelia's opinion. And going to hide behind mummy? So precious. Perhaps Amelia thinks him quite the pathetic example of man? When you throw fainting in as well, he certainly appears that way so either give a redeeming fact about him or express a poor opinion. It gives the reader a hint of how they should react toward him.

“I do not know, I do not know what her dear father would say, may he rest in peace, I do not know...” bewailed the late Mrs. Harold Lassiter, [You realise this suggests she is dead... right? If you mean her husband has recently died, you could say newly widowed or recently widowed.] clasping her hands together and looking heavenward, toward the ceiling direly in need of paint. She held smelling salts, without a word given to her by Beth, and a monogrammed handkerchief which she ever so often dabbed at her eyes. Mrs. Lassiter had already apologized profoundly to Mrs. Worthington and her quite dumbstruck son for her daughter's conduct, in truth painting the situation in much darker colors than it ought to have been, and of course not mentioning that Frederick Worthington had been in the bushes first.

I think you could find something more interesting about Beth to comment on than her gesticulations. Perhaps describe her energy or her stance, maybe the tone of her voice or the scent of her perfume? Or stick with this one but don't write quite so much about it. I'd also like to have some idea of what Amelia is thinking or how she's taking this. Is she demurely listening, maybe even nodding her head? Or has she closed her eyes and pretends to be sleeping, hoping that the maid will leave her be? There's a lot of different ways to be passive and I don't feel a strong connection with Amelia yet, she spends too much time being talked about and not enough doing the talking or thinking.

Miss Amelia Lassiter was her name; potential to change that matter dwindled daily. A thin creek of soirée invitations at last dried up completely. As the hated rosebushes outside Lassiter House wilted when murdered by gardeners and the scorching rays of gossip and speculation, so did poor Miss Amelia herself – and with her, the household.

A good hook paragraph but perhaps it would be better to say that even the very memory of them shrivelled up by lack of gossip or a new wave of gossip? Explain what you mean more. It doesn't really make sense the way you've phrased it.

Okay! Question time

1. As I suggested above, I think you need to start somewhere differently. It gets confusing and too wordy when you're back-tracking to tell the reader that she's been following these women and oh yes, there's a party going on that they've walked away from.

2. Amelia seems a very passive girl and yet that in itself is a contrast to her following these ladies and hiding in the bushes. She speaks and does too little for the reader to form a strong impression.
Frederick strikes me as a pathetic excuse for a man who hides behind mummy.
Mrs Worthington is the most interesting character so far, she seems a lively, honest gossiper. Quite an unusual combination, I'd like to see where you take that.
Amelia's mother is a silly woman but clearly good heated and I'm hopeful there's more to her.
The maid was highly irritating.

3. I think the monolgues need to be broken up. Not removed but... made into a shared conversation or something? Or give Amelia a voice, even if it's only inside her head.

Aaaaaand that's it. I think you've got a good base here, I'm liking the plot so far, there's some lovely humour and I'd be more than happy to read that next part you mentioned. I hope this helps a little,

Heather xx

Woaah. You two are amazing. Amazing!

Kitty and Suzanne, thank you so much - now I feel that whatever I say, I'll be under-thanking, so I'm going to be quiet now and go edit. All those points are terribly, awfully valid and helpful nd I'm off now!