Homicide by David Simon

Could only read what I found on the Amazon site but I wanted more. Simon brings you right into the action, real time. He writes in the present tense with color and energy. Characters have distinct personalities and voices. Dialogue is character driven. Simon stays with the scene for a long time and when he moves away, he is still connected and close to the real time action. The cadence and word choice feel authentic to the characters and the place.

ML Cornwall: The Jim Dandy- Draft 1

There are some wonderful moments in this piece: "He was the first and only man I knew who could smoke an entire cigarette in two lung-filled drags." Love that. But not sure where your story is going or the through line. Your material is rich..you were right there! But not clear to me (yet) what you want to say about your experience. Any thoughts on why Friendly closed? Did you see it coming or was serving ice cream just a blissful way to earn some money? Your story needs a hook, a point-of-view.

Myra Shah- Draft 1

This is a very endearing story and I liked the way you opened your piece. You literally led us into the building and to Mary Nicholson's new apartment. Lots of good detail but I felt like you breezed through your story. We never get to spend time with Mary or get to know her as a person. We see her doing lots of things but we don't know how she feels. It would be great if you could show us more. Take your time. I'd like to feel closer to Mary and what this big change means to her. Obviously she's healthy and coping. Perhaps if you went into depth with a couple of her activities, we could get closer to Mary and feel her emotions.

Amy Peters: Draft 1 - "Poker"

Great detail all the way through. The scenes were vivid and I felt like I was right there. But I was thrown by your organization. Your table scene was great but I got confused by all the cutting in and out. Not did I know who Annette was when she was introduced. I think it would be stronger if you let the tournament scene play out and then cut to the background and context.

Also, the online poker bit is an important development and detail but it gets swallowed by the rest of the piece. Watch how you structure your timelines.

Stephen’s 1st Draft: Comments

While reading, I kept thinking of Townie, a memoir by Andre Dubus III, which I just read. Like Kano, Dubus felt small and weak, defenseless against the kids who bullied him and who made him feel inadequate. It filled Dubus with a rage he had to fight his way through. It was powerful and raw and I kept thinking it would be an interesting read and perspective for you.

You have so much to say and this is an interestng story. There is the history of jujitsu and how it links to UFC, the judo master, Kano, and your own journey into the world of martial arts. It’s a great weave of intersecting tales. While I wanted to read more, I also wanted to feel closer to you and your material. Martial arts are physical and totally out of my knowledge zone. I need to feel what martial arts are like.

I loved the line: “When the enemy comes, welcome him. When he goes, send him on his way.” Could this perhaps be a way to open your story? I also like the way you brought us into The Karate Kid. That’s a great scene and a telling moment of where the story might be heading. It gives us a first quick window into you and your journey, and introduces us to the world of martial arts.

More scenes like this I think would help us (the reader) feel closer to you, your story, and your passion. I can;t wait to read more!!

John’s 1st Draft: Comments

I was hooked from the beginning, and you were bold to open with a reference to 9/11. It's been done. But of course, your story did not stop there, and you kept piling on one interesting scene after another, like a slow reveal of this guy Williams we are trying to figure out.

Would love to know more about Williams, who’s a bit like the Waldo of southeast Asia. He’s been everywhere; he knows everyone. How does he resolve his insider view of Afghan politics with the way the US manages its foreign policy? Can only imagine Williams gets frustrated??

Eager to see where this interesting story goes.

Lucky Thirteen: Sylvia, 1st Draft Comments

This is such a rich setting and your narrative is most compelling when in character with Sylvia. The dialogue is fun, authentic, and takes us deep into Sylvia's time and world. But I thought the piece loses energy and your voice when it retreats into exposition. Sylvia is a strong character and I miss her when she is not sharing herself.

For me, the story starts with the second graph, which gets us into the story. If info in the first graph is important, then perhaps there is a way to weave it as reflection or back story to the thread of the story. Also, you described Sylvia's high school as "any typical New York City public school." Doesn't sound typical to me. What about a scene showing us what the high school is like?

Not sure where this story is going, but I definitely want to know more about Sylvia's world!

Encounters with the Archdruid: John McPhee

When I grow up I want to be able to write like Jonh McPhee. What makes him great is his ability to make complicated topics intellgibible. Talking about land conversation could be dreary but McPhee is a master at "show don't tell." Weaving his protagonist, David Brower, founder of the Sierra Club, through three different topographies with three different opponents, we get to see Brower in action in defense of his passion. In each beloved setting, we see Brower collide with his adversaries. At remote Glacier Peak we meet Charles Park, geologist and mineral engineer, who would sacrifice a magnificent mountain in pursuit of copper. On pristene Cumberland Island we meet Charles Fraser, a self-styled managed land developer. In the depths of the Grand Canyon, while on a river trip through the rapids of the Colorado River, Brower spars with Floyd Dominy, builder of dams and Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation. Brower's single mindedness never waivers even when we witness his ousting from the Sierra Club. With Brower as their champion, the real hero of this story is the natural splendor he loves.

200-word observation

On the southeast corner of Rindge Avenue and Yerxa Road in North Cambridge, Diane Alicarde has stood sentinel for the past 25 years. Since a friend told her she should check out the job, Alicarde has been the crossing guard at this busy intersection, giving safe escort and friendly greetings to kids, parents, dogs, and young professionals scurrying to school and the neighborhood T and bus stops . Behind her is the solid brick, single-story Peabody Elementary School, once called the Fitzgerald, where her five children, three boys and two girls, went from Kindergarten through eighth grade.

"I was doin' daycare from my home just aroun' the corneh," says Alicarde who now lives in Woburn with her retired husband in a two-family house. In the apartment below lives a son, his wife, and daughter. Alicarde and her husband look after their granddaughter while her son and daughter-in-law work. She and her husband are Italian, and on Sundays they cook big family dinners.

"Before I took this job," says Alicarde, "I asked my Mum if she could watch the kids while I came over here for an hour in the mornin' and an hour in the afternoon. I've been comin' here ever since."

"Mornin'," says Alicarde as she steps off the curb and raises her white gloved hand to let a tall dad and his small son cross the two-way street. Some kids with large backpacks strung across their shoulders take advantage and also run across while the cars are stopped. At 8:30 in the morning, Rindge Avenue is busy. With her one raised hand, Alicarde has stopped two lanes of traffic. Lined up and waiting for her signal to pass is an SUV, several sedans, a painter's work truck, a yellow school bus on its way to the horsehsoe curb in front of the school, and a city bus traveling east on its way to the nearby bus stop.

Alicarde has a small compact frame. In her padded black regulation parka, she is more round than tall; her face dwarfed by the white flaps-up cap pinned in front with a silver badge. Out from under the fringe of cap fur and her crop of short wiry gray hair, crow's feet crinkle around her gray eyes. The "Traffic Supervisor; Cambridge Police," patches stitched to both arms of her parka declare she is official. Five years ago the city issued neon green vests. Printed in bold black letters across her chest is the word TRAFFIC.

When on the corner, Alicarde is hard to miss.

Out at Sea: A comparison of two stories

Life's Swell by Susan Orlean is a tour de force. Instead of being turned off by Orlean's beefy paragraphs, I went down the rabbit hole with her. Her writing was as alive and in the moment as the surfer girls she wrote about. Coveting Gloria's wild hair, wearing clothes that could be either wet or dry, the color and texture of the surf, speaking in dialect - all images and dialogue that put you right there on the beach, in the water, and under the bright sun with the girls. Orlean's dialogue showed us who these girls were: their energy, their need, their hunger to be. The small bits of information interspersed throughout: the remoteness of Hana and the fatherless families and poverty of these girls' lives, provided enough tork to plunge us head long into the heads of these tough surfer girls.

Lost in the Waves by Justin Heckert was a study in contrast to Orlean's. Where Orlean used dialogue to create immediacy and "show us" the girls, Heckert used exposition. It was obvious Orlean advantageously observed and spent time with her subjects. Heckert's dramatic thrust was a recreation that he described. He didn't observe. He retold. His stance as a writer was also more distant than Orlean's. Although spending a night bobbing out at sea, not knowing if you would survive or whether your son was dead or alive, is horrific, I kept thinking of what his ex-wife would say to Walt. I empathized with his ex-wife. Walt had proven, yet again, he had really lousy judgement.

Man vs. Lions, Tigers and Bears: Three stories from Zanesville, OH

Reading these three stories about the same event was indeed a great exercise. While the facts were the same - Vietnam vet releases his vast collection of exotic animals and then kills himself - each story reflected a unique voice and story line.

For my taste, Chris Jones' "Animals" (Esquire), was the most compelling and most dramatic. Back story digression and reflection was minimal giving Jones clean time and space to build his dramatic tension and linear retelling of the story's gruesome night. Scene by scene, Jones' developed his story's action line and stratgically introuduced his cast of characters. Jones took advantage of his scenes to advance the action, assemble his cast of characters, and describe the role they played in the unfolding drama. While the night's outcome was known from the start, this did not detract from the tension Jones skillfully built. His choice of clear language and short sentences added to the feeling of momentum in the story line. In essence, this was a story about men on a hunt.

18 Tigers, 17 Lions, 8 Bears, 3 Cougars, 2 Wolves, 1 Baboon, 1 Macaque, and One Man Dead in Ohio, by Chris Heath (GQ) is a 180 from Jones' story. While Jones threaded his story through the events that took place the night of October 18 in Zanesville, OH, Heath glosses over the night, just giving the facts as a set piece for the center of his story: How could the night of October 18 have occurred? Where Jones seemed to have no interest in what made Thompsom tick, Heath is consumed with Thompsom's psychology and the choices made that night. His story seeks to answer two key questions: What drove Thompsom to collect his dangerous menagerie and then kill himself? Did the animals have to be killed? Heath's retelling is less dramatic, but the reporting and backstory richer. I too wanted to know why the animals had to be killed. I feel Heath went a long way to answering that question for me. Instead of using his characters to advance action, Heath used his characters to reflect on Thompsom's life and the legal mechanisms that both enabled and destroyed Thompsom.

Man or Beast? written by Jonah Ogles for Cincinnati magazine, I thought the least compelling and most biased. I understand his use of the present tense when writing about Thompsom's actions the night of October 18, but I found his tense transitions jarring, especially when he switched to past tense when talking about Thompsom's back story. I also thought he worked too hard to convince me of PTSD as the cause of Thompsom's behavior. Perhaps he was the most sympathetic to Thompsom's plight? I thought this tact too simplistic. Heath's story was more sophisticated and dynamic for understanding the back story on how and why this tragedy unfolded.

Toxic Stress: Why Some Babies Develop PTSD



Narrative:
My son, a Russian adoptee, did not cry when we adopted him. At 14, he is now in a residential therapeutic school.

Plot:
When a fetus or infant senses persistent threats but no protection, stress can emerge. This month the American Academy of Pediatrics will issue a landmark warning that this stress is toxic and can harm children for life.

Story Development:

The flight from Moscow back to the U.S. was long. Over nine hours of uninterrupted air time and yet, Nick, just 5 months, barely slept, nor did he cry. It would be a week before my husband and I would learn Nick had been traveling with the painful bi-lateral ear infections that would plague him until at four he had his tonsils and adenoids removed. But on that day, at 32,000 feet in the air, we could only smile with wonder at the stoic baby we had brought into our lives. With our 3-year old daughter slumbering in the seat next to us, we felt complete.

When Nick finally slept, he slept for three months until he awoke from his nap on a muggy afternoon in mid-August. As if a switch had been turned on, Nick was now hyper-alert. Eight teeth sprouted in one week. He ate voraciously. At 14 months, he would be taking his first tentative steps. At 4.5years, he would demand the training wheels be taken off his bike. He never wobbled or asked for help.

A photo taken at our summer home in Maine late that first summer, Nick sits on my lap. He now fills out his short overalls and t-shirt, he is baby plump. In my hands I am holding Nick’s naturalization papers. My lips grazing his pale blonde hair, almost imperceptible on top of his round head. When I breathe in, his scalp smells like something that has singed, as if the internal workings of his brain were smoldering.

scene: Pre-school biting, fight on the stairs, “does not play well with others”

Structure:

Scene: Dialogue scenes to demonstrate emotional issue
Reflect on scientific context
Interviews with authority, Jack Shonkoff, Jarvard
Scene: Wilderness therapy setting
Reflect on science behind modality
Interview field therapist, Erica Thiesson
Gap btwn recognition of toxic stress and lack of therapeutic responses
Scene?
Reflect on societal implications
Interview Adam Pertman, ex director of Evan B Donaldson Adoption Institute
Scene with Nick at new school - his hopes for the futre