The Olive Branch
Boy learns a new word: hearse.51 total reviews
Comment from Tessa Kay
Death must be one of the hardest things to explain to a child, but you did it so effectively. The olive plant features throughout the story and ties it together nicely.
Very well done and beautifully written.
Here are my notes. Hope some of it is of use:
-Returning to sit...Dave explained - returning and explaining is not simultaneous, so better to use the normal past tense: He returned...and explained..
-I never asked Dave what his uncle's real name was. I studied the line of ants crawling up the tree between us. I searched for something to say. "How old was he?" - 3 times start with 'I'. Maybe connect the last sentence to the previous one by 'and'?
-didn't wake me up in time - cut 'up' for tighter sentence?
-He scratched his scabby knee with a bare, dirty foot while the other anchored to the checkered linoleum floor. - lovely description of body language. :)
Thank you so much for sharing this story. It was a joy to read despite the difficult subject. Glad you found it. :)
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reply by the author on 08-Nov-2015
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Death must be one of the hardest things to explain to a child, but you did it so effectively. The olive plant features throughout the story and ties it together nicely.
Very well done and beautifully written.
Here are my notes. Hope some of it is of use:
-Returning to sit...Dave explained - returning and explaining is not simultaneous, so better to use the normal past tense: He returned...and explained..
-I never asked Dave what his uncle's real name was. I studied the line of ants crawling up the tree between us. I searched for something to say. "How old was he?" - 3 times start with 'I'. Maybe connect the last sentence to the previous one by 'and'?
-didn't wake me up in time - cut 'up' for tighter sentence?
-He scratched his scabby knee with a bare, dirty foot while the other anchored to the checkered linoleum floor. - lovely description of body language. :)
Thank you so much for sharing this story. It was a joy to read despite the difficult subject. Glad you found it. :)
This rating does not count towards story rating or author rank.
The highest and the lowest rating are not included in calculations.
Comment Written 08-Nov-2015
reply by the author on 08-Nov-2015
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Tessa, I read this story for the first time in twenty-three years this morning before I posted it to FanStory. I was shocked at how we lived then---sleeping on floors to avoid bullets--and at how good my writing was. I copied and pasted your notes so I can improve my story further. Thank you for your review.
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You're a great writer. I'm so glad my review was useful to you. Thank you so much for the vote.
Appreciate it loads. :)
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You're most welcome.