Story Title: A Good War
Author : Jasper Dorgan
Genre : Short Story, Historical, Literary Fiction, Mystery
View Story Rating : Best Seller Chart Book
Synopsis
Gretchen learns that wars make orphans. And sometimes heroes.
Critique by YouWriteOn literary professional Melissa Weatherill
About the Reviewer: Melissa Weatherill worked for literary superagent Ed Victor before becoming an editor at Simon & Schuster where she worked for five years on women's fiction, literary fiction, crime and thriller. She commissioned, edited and published authors such as Jules Hardy, Annabel Dilke and Kate O'Riordan, and worked closely with many others including Adriana Trigiani, Will Rhode, Victoria Glendinning, Jennifer Weiner and Kathy Lette. She is now an independent editor and reviewer for books and film, freelance editing fiction and non-fiction for publishing house including Macmillan, Orion, Hodder and Grove Atlantic. Melissa also assesses books and screenplays for film companies such as BBC films.
Professional critique for A GOOD WAR by Jasper Dorgan Well done for getting into this month's bestseller chart… you have written an extremely moving and accomplished short story, that it is no surprise it has received such interest. I almost feel more inspired to write a glowing review of it rather than a critique, but that is not very constructive, so I will use this as a platform to discuss your writing in general, and hopefully the advice I give will be beneficial to you in terms of where you take your writing from here.
Plot and structure: Your story brought to mind very much that wonderful film La Vita è Bella. It almost has that tragicomic sensibility, where brutal happenings are disguised as games. It is war depicted through the eyes of a child, whose innocence, imagination and innate positivity protect her from the horrors of her reality. Her voice and language in turn protect the reader. But they also present the reader with quite a jigsaw puzzle to decipher – the real story is heavily disguised, almost too heavily in places, I would say, as there were a couple of references almost too oblique to understand. For instance, the clandestine operation Herr Gunther runs from his funeral home, where he meets people under the big hedge. Are the 'tears of happiness' as a result of some passage to freedom he is providing with false documentation for Jews, and which precipitate his execution for betrayal?
As I read it, Dieter Gunther is essentially a good man, engaged against his will by the Nazis to assist in the extermination of the Jews at the nearby camp and to remove all gold teeth and jewellery from the corpses, but what isn't clear is the reason he is allowed to take all these sickly spoils to his home and melt them down? Or has this been sanctioned by the authorities? Is the 'bag of horseshoes' the result of their labours in the smithy, which then gets secretly palmed off to his friends and eventually goes to fund the school built in Gunther's honour at the end? I think somehow you can afford to give a little more in explanation. I'm all for the 'less is more' approach in fiction, but one can sometimes be too oblique, unless of course this is a deliberate technique to keep the reader as confused as little Gretchen, hence the 'mystery' element you attribute to it.
In a sense this works very well, because it is not so much what happens, as how it is told and how we perceive it that matters. This is very much a voice-led narrative, which takes me neatly on to the next section.
Character and voice: It is Gretchen's voice, her experience, her journey, that takes us through the various stages of the war, and she does so with all the innocence, grace and blind faith that only a child can know. She is as fully fleshed as the heroine of a full-length novel … in just a few pages you manage to give this girl a past, a present and a future. It is her wellbeing and safety we are gunning for throughout the story. And at the same time she tells the story of her father, who is essentially the hero of the piece. Through her eyes, and her fierce pride and love of her father, we learn a great deal about this man, albeit with the hazy lens of innocence, yet what comes out first and foremost is that he is a good man, who, despite his unwilling assistance in the Nazi evil, is first and foremost a father who loves his child with a force and purity that somehow exonerates him. One could argue that the risks he takes to help others, puts Gretchen at risk, and yet as we see from the ending, he has succeeded in protecting her, because she survives the war almost as innocent as she was at the start. It is almost as though the war hasn't tainted her. (You could therefore also argue perhaps that retaining the same voice of innocence and childishness after six years indicates a lack of development in her character.)
Writing style:You write extremely well and clearly have a natural gift for language and story-telling. Here you use a spare, unsophisticated language (by which I mean it reflects that of a child) which effectively keeps us at arm's length from the horrors: the sparkling gemstones and the piles of gold rings Gretchen discovers represent a grotesque darkness that is almost unpalatable, but thank God for her point of view which makes it just about manageable.
Your descriptions of wartime Germany are colourful and vivid, but again, they have the gloss of childish perception. You have a lovely turn of phrase – 'Why would we harm them when they give us their cheeses?' brilliantly encapsulates the ludicrousness of war – and a there is a poetic rhythm about the repetition of 'the best mortician in Regensburg'.
Harking back to my comments about the obliqueness of the story, this is mainly influenced by the spareness of the language you employ, so perhaps you could enrich it a little more in the necessary places to enable us to occasionally watch and learn through a less hazy lens.
Final Analysis: I am very impressed with this short story – it is thought-provoking, tragic, yet strangely uplifting too. It is timeless, and could pertain to any little girl in any country witnessing any war. Even in such a small amount of space, you create the ideal narrative with a beginning, middle and end, good characterisation, tension and drive. In a way, this is much harder to pull off in short story form than a full-length novel, so all the more reason to be pleased with your work.
As I'm sure you are aware, the short story market isn't the most generous these days. It's a genre that is loved by many, but unfortunately it doesn't sell (apart from those by very well-known writers) and so it's not an area publishers are looking to invest in or expand. There are only very few lists out there that do publish short story collections. And even the fast-dwindling literary magazine scene is no longer such a reliable way of getting short stories published and seen. So, basically, in terms of commercial viability it's not the best area to choose if you are wanting to get your writing noticed/published/etc. If you wanted to send this out to agents, I have no doubt you would get a positive reaction to your writing, but ultimately it would be rejected on the basis of the restricted opportunities available to this genre. It is however, a great way to practise, which perhaps is all you are trying to achieve with this story anyway. If you haven't already, I do urge you to turn your hand to writing something bigger. I think you have the potential to write a really fabulous piece of full-length literary fiction. If you have the flair and sensitivity to put yourself in the shoes and voice of a little girl in WWII Germany, and achieve this amount of pathos and tension in a few short pages, then I think you could do something much bigger, braver and bolder.
I hope this report gives you some kind of useful feedback. I wish you lots of luck with your creative writing, and send you many congratulations (and thanks!) on a wonderful read.
NEW - Critique - A Good War
15 Mar 2008, 11:47
Miaow. 
I thought AGW was great and would love to see you take it further.
I wonder if she'll accept your proposal?