to wendy, from stu

It was a pleasure to finally get a chance to read your writing (seeing we have yet to be in a workshop together). You use a wide variety of techniques throughout all four exercises that compliment the subject matter you are dealing with and create a very real and realistic “mood”. One such thing is your description of setting. Not only is it is very vivid and well described, but it is used to establish the tone and reflect the action of the characters. It is a great strength in all of the pieces, and one that I admire very much. I find that in my own writing I have a hard time breaking from the action of the characters and allowing the setting to act as a character. Not only do I see it working this way, but is done in a very organic and fluid manner. It flows throughout the pieces very nicely and never seems forced or described for the sake of being described. I found very balanced and natural.

Another thing I notices in all of these pieces is that you have a great sense of pacing, which in a way this relates to your balance between setting, character, and action. While there is so much happening in each of these, it all seems to happen at the right speed. I never felt rushed and I never felt that I wanted things to speed up. The release of information and the events taking place moved at a nice pace and helped to pull me through the pieces. This is especially important in the first exercise, where there is a character that is drifting between external action and internal thought. I found the two to be weaved together seamlessly, both in terms of connection and transition. The pacing in exercise three is also very effective (although in another way), because it maintains a high level of tension while taking its time to draw the reader in. This is a very difficult thing to do, but I feel that you pull it off very well. I would suggest going further with this one and seeing how long you can hold up the tension. It would be interesting (and I want to see how the robbery goes).

Let me know if you’d like to chat more about these (or other stories). Great job and I look forward to reading more.