Adam Smith (Untitled)

This story seemed to have several classic story elements worked into its framework. First, we have the orphan girl growing up in London, Margaret. Immediately, the audience identifies this character as someone to be both pitied and sympathized with. Not only is Margaret an orphan, but she also is placed in a story that has eerie similarities to Little Red Riding Hood: an elderly feminine “relative,” a home environment that discourages talking to strangers, and constant mentioning of “wolves.” This combination of archetypes created a character that the audience will be familiar with from the time she is introduced. Second, we have the stoic and unrelenting “stepmother” of sorts who does everything she can to restrict the afore mentioned orphan girl. Unlike other evil mothers, however, Lucy appears to be someone genuinely concerned with Margaret’s safety. And finally, we have the seemingly pleasant London boy, Marcus, who turns out to be despicable. This felt to me like an Artful Dodger meets Bill Sikes; charming and winsome, but also brutal and unfeeling.

While these characters are easy to identify, they are inherently not very original, and so I had a hard time separating them from their already established predecessors. I might suggest looking for ways to make your characters a little more distinctive. The story as a whole seemed to focus on the tension between safety (and the inherent restriction therein) and freedom. The protagonist, Margaret, appears to want freedom initially, but later finds that her overly-protective adopted mother is correct in saying London is a dangerous place.

            What distanced me most from this story as a reader was the perspective from which it was written. Instead of having an intimate or descriptive narrator, most of this piece appears to be written as a historical account, revealing only surface details and events. I would have much rather read about what Margaret was thinking or what struggles she had internally than about what she did on a daily basis. Another distracting aspect of this piece was the incongruity of certain details. For instance, Margaret transforms into Marguerite without warning, and Lucy first lives on 61^st Street, only to mysteriously move to 22^nd Street without any explanation. These are easy fixes, but they really distract from the main flow of the story. My primary suggestion would be to reconsider the authoritative voice of this story and look for ways to make the descriptions more insightful rather than observational. There is a lot of potential in this story, and I think with some revision it could have a lot of things working for it.