Emma,

I have already reviewed your story, and YWO does not let me double up, so here is the review (you can review Adios, Aurora (rev 3):

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This is much better, there are more arcs of tension than in York Minster’s roof. Now, on to stage two of Andrew Wrigley’s How to Write for Children (and over looking the fact that as I have never written for children, I have no idea what I am talking about, other than a dubious claim, that I too, was once upon a time a child…).

I think that now you have resolved the tension, you need to go OTT on the comedy front. Think roller coaster. Think what Spielberg would have to add to the script to make it into a film. Always take risks (we can all play safe) and never be lazy. Writing should be an interation. Get the basics down in iteration one. Get the arcs of tension in iteration 2. Add the Spielberg bits in iteration 3. Etc. Work it until you have milked the potential out of every scene, every opportunity.

The children in the garden, listening to the adults for example. Maybe they should fall off the roof, through the grape vine and splat into the cake that Mrs Bossard has just baked her twenty cats (by the way, where is the mad old lady who has 60 cats? She could be a great character, although she would absolutely stink of cat pee). Think Indiana Jones, the gags and the visuals have to just keep coming. Every scene must have one. Shark Boy and Spotty Boy going for the coin, no one sees Spotty Boy making an arse of himself. Missed opportunity!

Nitpicks

1. Disgusted, he off after his mates. [missing: ‘set’]


2. I can’t remember if cat’s dig…? Isn’t it dogs that do that?? Re Guzzler digging up the Snowdrop’s tail.

3. The section that opens:


His father didn’t think it was silly a few days later, when even more cats had disappeared. ‘They seemed to be vanishing into thin air,’ he told Mrs Bossard, as a search party set out from the village hall to comb the woods for any sign of the cats.

I think you need to push the boat out in places. For example:


But the next day more cats disappeared. And the next. And the day after that. And so Jake’s Dad stopped think it was silly.


‘They seem to be vanishing into thin air…’

4. On queue, Mr Drinkwater… [I think it should be ‘On cue, Mr Drinkwater…’ CUE, not QUEUE]



What I really liked:

I like Hannah being olive skinned. Why not make her French? I remember when I was at School in Edinburgh, this girl from Zimbabwe turned up. All tanned and full of sunshine. I think she must have been an absolute corker, because we (the boys) all got into our heads that if she touched you, you had to hit the spot with a karate chop. I think we all had the hots and didn’t realize it... So make her exotic. Milk the character for all you can. ‘There’s carrot top with the blinkin’ frenchie…’

All in all:

I have done the ratings, so you know where I am. This is much, much better. The fact it is so much better is the reason that I now think that you should go all the way and really pack in the punches, the gags, the humour, the visuals, the outrage. Make a lot of your adults much more extreme, much more charicaturesque (or however it is spelt). Think of new characters, such as the lady with 20 cats, and then it turns out there is a lady who goes one better and she has 60, but then it turns out she has 165 because 47 have just had kittens since the last time they were counted. That way you can have more cats disappearing, so you get more tension, because they are now almost below the existing record, etc, etc.

Score: 4: needs iteration 3. This has to be really comic to work. I know you can do it.