Melanie Fraser

Thank you @Raine and everyone, this is a lovely surprise! I enjoyed the challenge of writing some non-fiction. I loved everyone else’s entries too. A captivating variety as always, and such good writing.

I’ll go away now and think of a theme for the May competition.

The Portrait

In the mid 1980s I bought a Victorian water-colour portrait of a young woman: anonymous, unfinished, unsigned. In the window of a London antique shop the half-profile head and shoulders were almost life size but only her face was complete. I stood on the pavement and dithered. Did I like this picture?

Part of the problem was her…[Read more]

Congratulations, Raine. Your story has made me shiver with anxiety! Well done – fabulous writing.

Thank you John for setting the competition. I’m sorry March passed me by in a blur, what with one thing and another, and I didn’t manage an entry.

Great news, Janette! So pleased for you.

Congratulations, Janette. Lovely news.

Brilliant Daed. Congratulations.

How incredibly insensitive of her, Hilary. Of course you were excited and expecting something after being asked to meet her. What on earth was the agent thinking? But, as others have said, there mat be a positive side. Perhaps give yourself time to get some distance then decide if her suggested revision are for you or not.

And Janette – another…[Read more]

I just posted something which seems to have disappeared. Probably my error.

In brief, I liked this Literary Friction podcast about how we judge people by what they read.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/literary-friction-minisode-three/id1000387053?i=1000433931359

A brief reminder for potential participants that we’re half way through the month. Though as it’s a leap year we do get an extra day.

An author’s hypocrisy, offensiveness, crassness or general liverish misanthropy doesn’t normally put me off reading them. It depends what the benefits might be. Good writing, insights I might otherwise not acquire, my own curiosity – all are reasons to go ahead. There are some blocks, and adding money to the Roald Dahl estate is one of them.…[Read more]

A good question though, John.

Many thanks, @daedalus.

Having thought about it a bit more, I’m going to restrict entries to one per person.

Although lots of competitions allow multiple entries I think that as the Den monthly competitions are small, double entries would skew the chance of winning too much in a double entrant’s favour. If several people were likely to post two…[Read more]

Personally I think that would be fine, John. I can’t see anything in the rules against it. I don’t think you’d need a pseudonym either.

But before you go ahead I’ll check with a higher authority. @daedalus – over to you, please!

Thanks @KazG. Your thoughts on this are comforting. I was worried if I had to pull back and simplify more I might lose the voice, but I wanted to know if I needed to do a major edit on this aspect or not. I’ll stop worrying about it now.

But, as always, the feedback has been great at throwing up some other issues, so I shall get to work on Pix’s…[Read more]

I had a sticky scene that wasn’t working Squidge, and after some time away from it I reread and thought D’oh, of course she wouldn’t react like that. She’d be angry. It’s funny how the characters become real people in our heads.

Thanks for the heads up about Kingstone. I shall go take a look.

I did a bit of googling and everybody says something different. Apparently in 2014 there were more first person than third, so I guess it just varies.

I shall attempt to find more subtle ways of placing my characters, as you suggested. Thanks for all the help. I’ll keep it all in mind as I go in for the next round of edits.