Kylie Putnal’s story “Love Harder”
was about a mother learning the importance of spending time with her family.
The story was incredible for a first draft and was encouraging to read. It had
all the elements of a story arch and the protagonist Nichole changes by the
end. Putnal obviously makes time for quality reading and it really shows in her
work; I remember her saying she liked Dickens, and I saw after reading that she
wasn’t kidding, her intimate descriptions were proof of it.
There were some points where I was
let down or unimpressed, but other points where I audibly made a sound of
enjoyment. One of those parts was the introduction of Amber, to me it was a
paragraph of perfection. The lightening, the movements and sounds that Nichole
made, then the power was out and when it came back on Amber was sitting next to
her and clutching a bear. The hand softly on Nichole with wide brown eyes
staring and waiting was a perfect crown for the incredible scene. It was so
poetic and so clear at the same time and I spend long nights trying to
accomplish what Putnal did in that scene on page 3.
I also like that Nichole wasn’t a
reader or writer. Too many times our protagonists are book lovers or writers or
movie addicts and all the other billions of people that aren’t artistically
oriented are forgotten about because the writer is channeling himself too much
into the character. To write about a businessman or woman is always a feat.
Some small things I would change
would be the overuse of “pseudo-intellectual” words, to borrow a term from
Chris. Words like “vying,” “epitome,” “vast windows,” “incessant,” and others
were used at times that seemed forced and only there for the sake of making the
story have a larger vocabulary. Putnal has the iceberg effect done very well in
the rest of the story but just because a word is accurate doesn’t mean it fits.
Also Amber is too articulate, she
should say profound things but not so perfectly, let the gist be communicated
but imagine a 7-year-old. And especially if she doesn’t have any siblings, she’s
not going to be a very good talker.
Hats off to this story, I wish I would
have read it before we workshopped it so I could have lathered more praise.
No comments:
Post a Comment