Feedback

http://www.abctales.com/story/jc-thomson/a-teachers-life-a-work-in-progress Not the piece you asked for feedback on but it caught my eye as i am a teacher too. I see it is the start of a longer piece. So i thought i would offer you my thoughts. So of the scenes i really related to for example parents evening, and the writing is honest and captures the scene well. However. First: Who is it for? Trainee teachers, non-teachers etc. It feels a little self concious as you talk to the reader, and i felt patronised in places. second: who is the voice? You as a teacher or you telling us about being a teacher, it seems to jump between the two. third: what is the story? plot? As a straight diary i doubt it will hold much interest. But to develop a story around a teacher in a secondary school with some conflict etc might be interesting. fourth: what is going to make this story or diary unique, and this goes back to developing a voice, how will you get across your own way of veiwing the world so that readers get a different insight into this world. i think you have a good way with words but you are in 'tell' mode, i.e. you are telling the reader rather than showing us, and readers like to work out things for themselves. For example the scene with the parent/teacher don't tell us they are going to be blaming you for little Sammy's lack of learning show us through the dialogue. I hope this helps. Juliet

and some friendly advice don't post more than 2 or 3 pieces a day or you are likely to piss everyone off, and then they wont read your work.Juliet

Here's the link for Selfishness: http://www.abctales.com/node/559143 I find this kind of writing difficult. It needs to grab me - and to do so it needs to be very good indeed. I'm afraid that I found too many of the references in here to be obscure. I wanted to learn the heart of your soul from this - and I didn't. It's incredibly hard to do it well. I think you use words beautifully though and I can only recommend you to start with an actual story - tell it, use your descriptive powers and surprise us at the end.