Young Writers Society

Hi Audreise!
Well, I've not read something quite like that before. I really like the idea, though maybe it could use some work. I'm going to go a bit into detail with specific sentences and such first, then do an overview at the end that might help.

A lot of your sentences are sort of awkward. It's a father to son letter -- it should be pretty informal, though serious of course, because he's dying.

The news has burdened me to the point that to make a realization that I have to tell you brings me closer to death.

For example, this one. It's sort of cumbersome and confusing, and starts off oddly. In going to rewrite the sentence in a way that makes more sense to me -- you don't have to use it, but it's just to give you an idea. "You've heard the news by now, of course. It's burdened me -- the mere fact that I have to tell you this brings me closer to death." I'm actually not sure what you mean by the last part, so maybe you can work that out.

As I spoke in the last sentence I am moving on into the last stage of my life, the part where it all ends.

You don't need to remind anyone what happened just one sentence ago! You can just take that part out.

I have lived a presumably good life.

Presumably? It's his life, so he should know, one way or another. Or maybe he considers it to be good, despite what others think. Still, you don't need presumably in there.

My letters to you will be short or long, rambled on or to the point, and each one explaining a year of my life.

Assuming we get to read all the letters, we'll know if they're short, long, or rambling! I love the year of his life thing, and it's good that he explains that, but he doesn't need to explain what his other letters will be like. They'll be experienced.

Okay, now the overview. I really like the idea that he's writing one letter for each year of his life, but I can't get into the why. For amusement? For an autobiography? For future generations? While these may be valid reasons in a real life situation, they're not very interesting in a work of fiction. Not that they're uninteresting, but you could spice it up more! For example, maybe he had secrets in his past that he never told his son. Or maybe the son was adopted but this was his biological father, so they hadn't met until recently, and he wanted to show him his life! There are just so many cool places to go. Make the readers interested in this father, and what his life might have been!! Why should we care?

You've got a really neat idea, I can't wait to see where you go with it! You can tag me when you post the next one, if you want. Good luck with future writing!

-Q

Hello, Audreise!

I've always been fascinated with novels that include letters to and from characters, so I'm very excited to read and review this for you!

I think one thing this piece suffers from is run-on/redundant sentences, which makes it hard to follow at times. For example, the first sentence I noticed was this one:

The news has burdened me to the point that to make a realization that I have to tell you brings me closer to death.

Even after rereading this sentence, I'm still unsure of what it means or what you're trying to get at. I think this partly has to do with how much information you're trying to convey, as well as how you worded it. Try writing more concisely, in this bit at least. Details can be nice, but when they detract from the overall story and message, they can be detrimental to the work as a whole. (I believe the last full sentence of this work is also an example of this.)

Hopefully, to bring pleasure to future generations.

This sentence, on the contrary, is a fragment. I think either adding it to the preceding sentence, or extending the sentence to include a subject to explain what will hopefully bring pleasure to future generations will help!

This letter is quite short but I will write 48 more letters.

The above sentence very well may just be characterization of Sakeri Theodorescu and what seems to be his humorous side, but it seems very odd to be placed in the middle without any introduction of Sakeri being a humorous man.

And a very small nitpick -

with my auto biography of Sakeri

Auto biography should be one word (autobiography).

As an ending note, I think that although ONLY including letters as the foundation of your novel can work, it doesn't seem like enough to tell the whole story. In other words, after reading this, I feel like I've just been given a snapshot of a story, and not the actual thing. In other (other) words, I'm having a hard time catching the plot of the story, if that makes sense.

Anyway, please keep writing - and I hope you have a snazzy day!

-Snazzy