The hospital setting in Angela
Brown’s story “A Blessing in Disguise” is very believable and thorough for the
most part and doesn’t seem too contrived. However, my friend recently received
a kidney after waiting fourteen years for a donor so maybe the miracle that
it’s a match could be played up more. I like the way that the story starts with
action as it begins to work its way into the plot.
The elements of story were present:
Amanda is sick and Jacob loves her, it peaks when Jacob asks her to marry him
and she declines. Resolution comes with his donation of a cure and they decide
to get married.
I would have liked to have seen
much less telling; it seems like most every character and setting is simply
explained and is not shown. The few times that Brown successfully shows
something, it is ruined by an explanation after the showing. An example is on
page nine right after Jacob comes into the room with the news that he can
donate his kidney, Brown writes, “He must want me to marry him bad to donate
body parts.” Brown isn’t trusting the reader at all to pick up on that
blatantly obvious situation, and after reading, I feel cheated from my small
discovery.
Time management also is something
that could be worked on. I didn’t feel any time pass on page two from when she is
in the hospital on her birthday to when she says she had an attack the day
before. Later on in the story, it’s her birthday again, which is either
inconsistent with the rest of the story or she is back in the hospital on
another birthday, which should be noted if it is the case.
Paula and Kerri don’t seem
important enough to be as much a part of the story as they are. There are
extensive explanation’s of their characters where Brown does a lot of telling,
but they never show any more importance in the story besides being in the
hospital room and they do little to set scene or plot or other characters.
The tense needs to be made
consistent. It is definitely a first draft but has potential.
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