Chick-Lit

I’m pleased to present the first chick-lit critique for this blog. Christa definitely has the voice for it. Enjoy!

DAUGHTERS OF THE BRIDES
Christa Allan

"Have you seen how your daughter is dressed for her date? Teal blue faux alligator stilettos? When did she even buy those? This is more embarrassing than when she sprints down the driveway in that bedspread she calls a robe to grab the morning paper. I sure hope you're ready to body slam yourself against the door to stop her. She's not leaving this house dressed like that," I sputter, not believing that I am asking my grandmother for help.

[Entertaining first paragraph. Then to get to the end and realize she’s talking about her mother. Too funny! Now for the down side. I don’t mind starting out with dialog. However, this dialog is a tad lengthy for the start of a book. I felt like I was floating a little too long—even though the dialog itself was very entertaining. If you break in with a bit of action or setting after the second sentence, it might be better.

Also your dialog tag…sputter. You’ve got such great dialog, I knew from the first sentence that the speaker is worked up, and it just gets better. You showed me how agitated she was, so it’s not necessary to tell me afterwards.]

"Grace, honey," Grams is heading toward the very doors I'm standing in front of, "she's your mother. You talk to her. Lord knows, I served my time. Decades and decades of it. Good luck with that. Call me tomorrow. I'll be waiting to hear how it turns out for both of you."

"Grams…" I plead. [Here again is a tag that tells something already obvious. You can simply delete. It doesn’t need a speaker attribution.]

"No, Grace. I'm not going to be late for dinner. Tonight's Mexican Fiesta night at LaMancha's. Besides, Dede's waiting for me to pick her up. John won't let her drive at night anymore. Says he's tired of buying new mailboxes for everyone in the neighborhood. Sometimes that man is just so cheap…" [great characterization from the way she talks alone] Her voice drifts off as she reaches around my waist for the handle of the front door.

"Darlin', you really need to scoot your little self out of the way. I can't open the door, and Dede and the girls do not like to wait."

The GIRLS-that's Grams little "grey in real life sisters"- all play in the handbell choir at the First something or other Church she's a member of. Every third Thursday is their dinner night out, and this was it. There would be no stopping her, even if her daughter, my mother, was leaving the house looking like I should look for one of my dates. Well, looking more like I wished I could look. Hmm. Maybe I've just analyzed the problem…all those years of therapy paying off.

I trail behind my grandmother's snappy little steps as she power walks down the sidewalk to the driveway. I feel like I am ten-years-old again, matching my pace to hers as I used to do when I'd track her at Lakeview Shopping Mall. She always had to trot to keep up with her husband Jake whose long stride almost tripled hers. And even though she said Grampa Jake was now distance walking in heaven, she kept up his pace.

She folds herself into the grey leather front seat of her silver Lexus and tosses her cell phone on the passenger seat. Grams said she picked the color of her car to match her hair. When Grams zipped by to show it off a few months ago, my mother told her that she was certainly relieved Grams didn't have to pick the sea foam green model. [I’d shorten this. It’s funny, but long enough that the point almost gets lost. Try, “…to match her hair. My mother was relieved Grams didn’t have to pick the sea foam green model.”]

I look at my watch. Almost seven o'clock. My window of opportunity is about to slam itself shut. In fact, it is close to backing out of my driveway.

"I can't believe you're bailing and not going to help me out here. She would listen to you." I am whining. I am [I’m—contractions are more natural] also contemplating endless baskets of tortilla chips, thinking I could chaperone the GIRLS' night out. At the speed my social life's declining, I'll be asking for honorary membership soon. Maybe I'll enjoy playing in the handbell choir. Definitely would have to do something about those sapphire blue robes. Maybe add a scarf or low slung belt.

Grams' radar hones in on my mewing. She pats my hands—or maybe she's slapping them. Her perfectly shaped French manicured nails look like the after picture next to my squared off, cuticle-impaired fingers. The patting increases in direct proportion to the tightness with which I am clenching the car door.

She speaks to me in the same voice she uses when Alfred, her emotionally deranged Schnauzer, drizzles on her wooden floors when she arrives home after a long day out.

"Grace, the last time Eleanor Faith Bourgeois Nelson listened to me was twenty-five years ago on the day you were born. If I hadn't met your father at the hospital that morning, she'd still be arguing with the doctor."

The fourth of April had become holiday dinner table conversation family lore. [It’s my opinion that you should delete the part in red. On the one hand, it’s character. On the other, it sort of clutters up the sentence.] My mother had refused to stay in the labor room bed. She had just read the week before that walking helped speed delivery and reduced the pain of contractions. My mother, the voracious bookworm, is always reading something somewhere. Information is power, and my mother wields it like a Visa card with no limit. Anyway, story goes the nurses had given up. They knew a woman in labor was a force to be reckoned with, and they were not going to be the reckoners. They called Dr. Hebert. He found my mom power walking around the nurses' station, pointed her in the direction of hospital labor room, and issued his warning, "No bed, no baby."

My mother, of course, then wanted to argue the ridiculousness of his threat. By this time, Grams had appeared on the scene. "I told her no way my first grandchild was going to be born next to the snack machine in the hospital hallway and that she had better march herself to her room."

"I was going there anyway," would always be Mom's snippy reply. But Grams says she thinks a still small voice, probably an angel sent by a weary God, told my mother she may risk being pregnant forever if she didn't get back to the labor room.

My father's participation in this event, as my mother would say, began and ended the nine months previous. Dad would add that watching his wife square off with the medical staff was entertainment he could have charged for that day. Andrew Nelson always knew Elly was as stubborn as she was beautiful. He said her hard-headedness was a small price to pay to be able to look into those intense coffee brown eyes.

[If you listen to the rules, the rules say no backstory in the beginning. I say, hang the rules. This is a delightful story and adds so much to the mother’s characterization. I want to meet this woman, and she doesn’t come on the scene in this piece. Just warning you, however, that some editor or agent down the line might want you to ditch it. I’m not sure if the last paragraph adds anything, though.]

But now, Grams was shifting her ES into reverse.

I lean into the car to kiss my grandmother on her cheek before she abandons me. "Okay," I sigh. "Enjoy yourself. One of us should. I'll call you tomorrow."

Grams smirks. "I'm not attending your pity party. But good try, though. Go talk to your mother. Maybe she'll loan you those shoes one day."

***

I thought the writing was great, with just a few common mistakes. To get to know this promising writer, visit her blog, www.cballan.wordpress.com.