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27 total reviews
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Comment by | | | | | Review Stars
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Rating of Chapter 1 - Harry: Fine Taste of Integrity
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This chapter is an example of some of your finest dialogue. It moves along lightly and gets stronger at the end. Very much well done. Nice hook at the end, leaving me to wonder about both the protagonist and the antagonist, which is probably rare. so it was a pair of three dimensional characters interacting. Excellent.
[And someday when vastness is a tangible commodity employers pay wages for] This is just delicious. A return to reality.
[(Massaging his temples, sighing; sounding
exhausted.) ] This is nice. Easy to visualize.
[yang yens for its yin] another bit of playful dialogue. There's a name for it that escapes me. It's nice shock too, if the reader was just bumping along.
[Nothing is getting past you! You leave me no place to hide!] Well, maybe he's less Don Quixote and more Candide, if he were a contemporary fellow looking for employment and Pangloss had left him to his devices.
[A fine, balanced summary. ] Pure joy. Nice that the shift from long sentences from Harry and short from Mr. Kincade are reversed. It's a nice change in tempo that keeps the reader engaged.
[I shall enroll in their pension plan, their medical, their dental. I shall attend all the company functions--the picnics, the Christmas parties.] yes, that is corporate life, isn't it? Mandatory fun supplemented by perfect teeth.
[Let me tell you of my subtler charms.] musical and..I think the word is prosaic, precious.
[Better to keep it at Mr. Lowery. ] Yes, yes. This could have been lifted from the screenplay from one of the better movies that came out in the 80's. Hardscrabble but likable rogues.
[I would make an excellent spy, no?] This had me smiling again.
[Come on, people, we don't have all day.] Commonplace phrase, but as the reader, I don't have the impression that's how he actually feels. Maybe this is actually his calling. He certainly had time for Harry. It's a nice bit of dissonance to end off.
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Comment Written 07-Oct-2016 |
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reply by the author on 08-Oct-2016
You've shown me time and again, you offer the most comprehensive reviews from the standpoint of content and it's effect on the reviewer. That is so appreciated.
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Rating of Chapter 1 - Harry: In Search of a Father
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Jay, some lively dialogue here. As the reader, I'm left wondering if he's a sort of Walter Mitty, always dreaming and fantasizing about big things or if he's actually done them and still found himself shipwrecked. It's an interesting and powerful question.
[I early longed for warm sands and siestas.] A nice surprise, this phrase was totally unexpected. It had me smiling right away. It certainly speaks to the demeanor of the protagonist immediately.
[for my first liberation. ] Ah, okay so this was an intriguing phrase selection. Most people don't think of jobs as liberation. So - maybe he's not so excited about employment after all.
[pounding the badlands on persistent ponies] I can see you smiling while you wrote this. Lots of Ps. And pounding the badlands is a very original turn of phrase.
[Certainly, a continual change of employment was imperative.] Nice shift. It gives weight to his comments before, which Mr. Kincaide noted as well. There's a nice cadence as we discover things at the same time as the antagonist.
[(Tapping the end of a sheaf of papers against
the desk, setting the stack neatly lined up at
its edge.)] This is a nice touch. I could see it in my mind. It also speaks to his personality: particular, precise, orderly. Not everyone does such things.
[So, my soul has always been dry as crackers?] Wonderful dialogue, nice and sharp. So Mr. Kincade has an edge, and maybe a sense of humor.
[Still... we have these pesky vicissitudes] Nice circular pattern, looping the dialogue back, a little payoff for the reader that was minding the details.
[Marshall, you and Betty would have shown him the door already.] Nice hook at the end. A great place to end the half-chapter. We're left wondering if he's going to get tossed.
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Comment Written 07-Oct-2016 |
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reply by the author on 08-Oct-2016
Amazing. Simply amazing, Reed. I can't thank you enough for the time you took to read-stop-comment, go back and read-stop-laugh-stop-comment. Reed, you've had experience teaching reading interpretation classes, haven't you? I SO thank you!
Jay
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Comment by| 2019 Short Works Writer of the Year | | | Premier Author | | | Premier Reader | | | Poet Rating
 Rank: 114  (+40) | Author Rating For Short Works
 | Author Rating For Novels
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| Review Stars
Rank: 254 | | | |
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Rating of Chapter 2 - Progeny of a Generation of Gardenias
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| I think, more than anything, I am charmed by these two men (your believable characters, so rich!) mainly because they both loved one woman so deeply, and are able to tell one another. What a sad, yet glorious tribute to the human heart. Pure romance, this script, and the nostalgic flavor is intense, dreamy.
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Comment Written 27-Sep-2016 |
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reply by the author on 28-Sep-2016
Ah, thank you, Dawn, for reading this. I need to get to work on act III.
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Comment by| 2012 Script Writer Of The Year | | | Premier Author | | | Premier Reader | | | Poet Rating
| Author Rating For Short Works
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Rank: 289 | | | |
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Comment by2018 Novelist of the Year.
2017 Short Works and 2017 Script Writer of the Year. | | | Premier Author | | | | | Review Stars
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Rating of Chapter 2 - Progeny of a Generation of Gardenias
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This is a beautifully revelatory part of the story. Now the dust has settled and Harry and Zachariah are getting to know each other. Here it is the relationship between mother and father, mother and son, that connects the men. Harry learns of the early times before he was born. Zachariah learns of his wife's efforts to keep him out of Spain and protected from the Mafia. Letters are the source of communication, a communication initially passionate and eventually cold. The mother has done all she can to keep her son and man alive while her lover travels the world to scratch an itch and salve his ego for being rejected.
The love remains in all elements of this triangle, but it's not communicated. Only the mother knew what had happened. As Harry explains things to his father, the barriers between them begin to shatter. At first, embarrassed by his son calling him father and expressing devotion to the idea of him, he softens and his emotional resolve melts away. At one point he tells Harry to stop calling him 'father', but Harry says Zachariah at least owes him that right. His father touches his shoulder at a moment of cautious bonding thus showing the dream Harry's long held may be coming to light.
I really got into the directions this time instead of solely focusing on the dialogue. It makes a huge difference in terms of imagination. It adds extra dimensions to the character and emotional appeal of both players.
This is so much a story about love and family and overcoming the barriers life and circumstances throws up. The triangle of love is almost completed.
Beautifully scripted and the storytelling is rich and rewarding for the reader.
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Comment Written 24-Sep-2016 |
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reply by the author on 25-Sep-2016
I am more than verklempt over the way you plunged into the breath of this scene. I got the feeling you felt it was completed as is. Am I correct? In a way, son and father are connected. But there's the question of the life insurance.
Mark, thanks again, and for the six stars.
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reply by mfowler on 25-Sep-2016
No, Jay. I knew there was more. And it probably would have been too neat. But, I thought there was bringing together of emotions and stories that gave the relationship a kind of glue that may be central to the story. I wait to see how you destroy my illusions. LOL
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Comment by | | Premier Author | | | Premier Reader | | | Poet Rating
| Author Rating For Short Works
| Author Rating For Novels
| Script Rating
| Review Stars
Rank: 297 | | | |
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