Young Writers Society

(Ah-hem, anyway.......)

This is a holographic review!!!!!

First issue to tackle: I think that we need a better understanding of what is going on. I think that I have the basic idea that your character is in a restaurant, they're trying to order food with terrible Spanish, and this is a monologue, yes? Those are the basic, basic ideas of your piece, otherwise known as your foundation. However, beyond that, we're not getting a very good sense of what's going on. It's a bit like knowing what a movie is about, but not understanding any of the details or watching a movie in a language hat you've just started to speak and the actors are talking really fast. You get some slivers of what is happening, but you're missing most of it or the fine details that give it it's charm.
Some of the spaces where I find details missing includes the start, the place where you can snag or lose a reader. I'm jumping onto a whole other boat saying this, which is beyond my current point, but it does tie into it a little. Bear with me.
Confusion is one of those things that makes a reader want to go away. It's a bit like reading a book, but the author is jumping from topic to topic without any reason. You, as the reader, wants to leave, yes? I'm not saying that this work is like that (in fact, my example is a bit extreme), but you probably get the basic meaning of my point: if a reader is confused, they will leave. Where this confusion comes from is right from the start, right from letter no.1 and "muy bueno". Like I've mentioned before is how we don't know where this is taking place. Because there are more Spanish-speaking countries than just Mexico, we don't know that this takes place there automatically. I know that "chips and salsa" is a hint, but I'm not really feeling like that could be enough.
The only way that I can think of fixing this is by having a little description--standard script-style--of what is going on, the placement, etc. Have your character walk into the restaurant and describe the scene. Have them sit down at a table (I will note my confusion about this part soon) and start the scene.

Como estas? … Gracias. … De nada. … Yo tengo un perro. … Me llama (insert your name). … Feliz Cumpleanos! … Feliz Navid-- Oh, si. Gracias. Quiero agua? What? My dog? No. Aaaaguaaa. Agua. Si. Agua. Gracias.

I know that when you have ellipses in between sentences with dialogue, scripts, etc. that means that someone else is talking, but I feel really confused about this part. I think that your narrator is practicing to themselves, but I feel as if it's something else, which messes up a bunch of other things in my head, no only to be demolished yet again by these lines:

Well now they can’t speak in English or Spanish! Great! What? Am I in Germany or something? (pause) Ooh! Chips and salsa.

I thought that they were sitting at their table, but the German-not-English thing seems way too out of the blue to support that. (I even had a theory that they were talking to a waiter.) And then....Wait a minute.....Didn't they just order chips and salsa? Whhhhhaaaaaaaaaa???? And then they go to order food..... Uh-huh....
Can you see how I'm confused? I'm getting the words, but no actions. It's very hard to tell what events are taking place since I'm getting the skin, but not the meat of the scene.
I realize perfectly well that it's intended to be a monologue, but I don't really think that it's working. I'm about to do three versions of your solution: one that works better than the others, but eliminates the piece's status of a monologue; another that doesn't quite works as well, but will still keep the monologue, one-character thing; and the other which is almost the same as the second solution, but eliminates the need for more than one character.
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1.
Like I said, you're going to need more than one character of this one. It involves turning this whole thing into a script with lines, stage directions, and a cast of characters. Have your main character walk into the food place and have them fail at Spanish as well as interact with the other characters. All confusion will be extinguished at this point and easier for the reader to understand.
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2.
Include stage directions, but keep the monologueing. This might not clear all confusion, but will certainly help your piece massively. This is meant really for more of a reader to understand, but actors are technically readers of the script, so if someone were to try preforming this, they would be really confused without the stage directions. What are they supposed to do? Basically, include stage directions so hat your actor knows to do something. However, this option requires extras present so it loses the solo-monologue feel. (Your actor will basically be interacting with the other characters, but they won't be speaking.)
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3.
This is basically the second option, but more likely to be plagued with confusion. This one does not include other characters, but stage directions are needed. This version will be a bit like Our Town, except the other characters are invisible as well as the props and your MC is the only one that exists. However, you're going to have to re-write some of the lines so that it explained what is going on to the audience, but be careful about stilted lines!
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Well, that's it from me! Pardon if this review sounded harsh. I did not intend it to be this way. I'm just here to help, really. But please don't mistake me with not liking this because I actually really enjoyed reading this. I always get excited when a new script is posted because hardly anyone posts them and I absolutely adore reading/reviewing them. Thank you for reading and if you have any questions about my review or about what you could do to improve your monologue, don't even hesitate to ask. Give me a novel's worth of questions if you have to.
Never stop writing!
~Holographic Ladybug