Member Story Review – January 2025

On the second Tuesday of each month, we choose one member’s story for review by the Life Writers community.

Tonight, we discussed John Roche’s story, “Eight Million People, Part Two,”

View the story notes for this session here. One of my goals for these story notes is for you to use this information to create a personal editing checklist. Complete this fillable editing checklist of edits specific to you and your work.

The Member Story Review is a great way to improve your writing and editing skills and learn how to give constructive feedback to your fellow members.

Take advantage of this great opportunity and upload your story here for review in a future Member Story Review session.

00:00:29 - One space, not two, between sentences

00:01:17 - Official names and acronyms

00:01:38 - Vary your sentence structure

00:02:33 - Interior monologue is italicized and in present tense

00:03:00 - Dangling participles

00:04:14 - Use of symbols

00:05:09 - Italicize titles of larger works, quotation marks with small works

00:05:41 - Use of symbols with photographs

00:07:15 - Review of when to italicize or put titles in quotation marks

00:08:35 - Italicize names of magazines, newspapers, and such

00:10:31 - What was the story about?

00:11:55 - What did he do well?

00:17:09 - How can he improve the piece?

00:20:01 - Are captions needed when photo are added to a story?

00:20:46 - Make sure your dialogue and interior monologues are authentic

00:23:10 - Flatlands as a neighborhood and a street

00:25:03 - Dangling participle on page five

00:25:46 - Be consistent in use of directional information, i.e., east, west, etc.

00:26:13 - Adding sensory detail besides sight

00:27:39 - Playing off television and movie titles

00:28:35 - Evaluation of the story's ending

00:29:49 - An appeal for more stories for member story review

Lessons in this Course: