Critiques by an Overzealous Children’s Writing Workshop Instructor

Submission Title: My Ponies
Author: Becky Hindleson
Age: 8
Genre: Nonfiction

Becky, Becky, Becky. Alright. First off, your choice of subject matter was derivative, hackneyed, and insultingly unoriginal. It seems every eight year old girl is prone to profess her obsession with horses, ponies, and all things bearing fur. Your audience has read this before. Why can’t more eight year old girls delve into deeper literary fields of exploration? Take a cue from Virginia Woolf for Christ’s sake. Was she always writing about ponies? No! I can’t even remember the last time I picked up a piece of writing penned by an eight year old that moved me on a deep, fundamental level – and this is a failing you as an eight year old are jointly responsible for. I ask you: how hard would it be to incorporate some political commentary, literary allusions or cultural insights into your work?

Your language is flat. Take for instance the first sentence of your seventh paragraph, “I feed my pony carrots and apples and he eats them.” What if you spiced this up like: “The ebony ungulate mammal feasted ravenously on the simple edibles I procured, licking them swiftly from my pale, trembling palm.” See? Better right?

Why not incorporate some intrigue? On page six you write, “I ride him in the field.” Try: “My lithe form sat ridged in the saddle, all the while my brain preoccupied with two vexing questions: whose dead body was that laying facedown in the morning hay, and had the murderer escaped or was he nearby, watching?” It’s not hard.

One thing confused me. Towards the end you write, “I ride my pony all over town.” This irrevocably shattered the sense of place which you previously established to be “on the farm.” I ask you, how is the reader expected to follow these dramatic shifts in setting with nary a transition? Horrified, I could scarcely bring myself to continue reading after this jarring error in continuity.

Additionally, the title is plural, indicating your ownership of multiple ponies. And yet only one pony is mentioned throughout your piece. While reading this I was perpetually nagged by the question: Where’s the other pony, Becky? Where’s the other pony?

Submission Title: Max Magic and the School of Mystery
Author: Holly Jaspers
Age: 12
Genre: Fiction

Are you serious? You actually wrote a story about a putzy English kid who attends a magic school? While it is commonly said that imitation is the highest form of flattery, since your story is pure drivel, it is the one exception to this rule. I am tempted to eat your manuscript so that I may later have the symbolic pleasure of exiting it from my bowels.

Let it be known that you have absolutely no ear for the British tongue. No, contrary to popular belief, people heralding from the UK do not say “bloody” multiple times per sentence. For example, look at your dialogue on page seven: “This bloody magic trick is bloody spectacular! Bloody hell!” Indeed, it is unlikely that these words, spoken in any sequence, would ever be uttered by a native Brit (unless at the behest of an idiot American such as yourself).

While I appreciate your attempt at capturing dialect, make sure your dialog is still comprehensible to your readers. On page four, the school grounds keeper (whom you lazily describe as “…kinda like Hagrid, only much better…”) says: “Aye? Me gots a’ tubbl’ wh’ ‘he ol’ gar stick – me cun’t log it!” What the hell was that? Best I can tell your character is complaining about an STD flair-up, though there is no other textural support for this presumption. Also, don’t spell “can’t” with a “u.” It does not make the word sound more British – it simply makes it look more obscene.

It is improper to refer to all elderly people of Britain as “stodgy buggers.” A “bugger” is not curmudgeonly or endearingly eccentric as it appears you believe. Actually, in British vernacular, it’s quite unfavorable and crass. Please look it up and edit accordingly. (Unless of course you intend to state that all people of Britain over the age of 50 are practicing sodomites.)

I would also like to add that peppering your narration with words like “quite,” “indeed,” “odd,” “shall,” and “perhaps” does not make you sound sophisticated. You probably think D.H. Lawrence is sophisticated. Ha! I’d bet you even think Philip Glass is sophisticated! Ha redux!

Thank you Holly for the hearty laugh, but please, never put pen to paper ever again.

Note: “Potterific” is not a word so please, for the love of Christ, stop using it.