The Official Writing Challenge
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Member
Date
01/24/14
Nice... or should I say 'ice. Short and sweet.
01/24/14
Nice... or should I say 'ice. Short and sweet.
01/24/14
One little typo: quests should have been spelled guests. Nice descriptive way you set the scene for this cheerful piece.
01/25/14
I like your friend Linda. Her faith and quick thinking together made the best solution. The Lord provides even in small things.
Very nice story. Quests through me off briefly until I realized it was a typo and it was supposed to read guests.

Your story supported the topic dead on!
Great job!
01/25/14
Loved it!

God bless~
I enjoyed this story. It's like a modern version of the familiar Bible Story. I appreciate how you credited God with the miracle as many people would have mentioned how clever Linda was. God does little things like this all day, we just need to open our eyes.

The one thing I noticed is a difficult concept for most writers. I'm guessing this was based on a true story because you introduced Linda as my friend. So by doing that, the readers can only see, hear, know what you see, hear and know. You had a POV shift by using phrases like she decided or Linda observed. You could fix this two ways. The easiest would be to tell it totally from Linda's POV (point of view). So instead of saying my friend, you could just say: Linda decided to have a lunch. That way the reader could know everything that Linda knows. In this case the difference is subtle, but I wanted to point it out so you can remember it in future stories. The other way would be to share your POV. This would also enable you to do more showing than telling. For example: Excited to spend the afternoon with my friend Linda, I knocked on the door before popping my head in. My eyes grew big, and my mouth watered at all of the scrumptious treats Linda had arranged on her counter. After hugging me, Linda bit her bottom lip. "Oh dear, I messed up and don't have enough lemonade for everyone."

That's just an example of what I mean by telling it through your eyes. I tried to show the emotions of the characters.

Again, in your story, the POV shift is almost unnoticeable. If I haven't been working on it myself, I don't think I would have even noticed. It's actually more of an issue of showing instead of telling. You did a wonderful job with the topic. You nailed it in such a unique and creative way. The message was clear, but not overstated. You have a definite gift. With just a little tweaking, Bible verse and prayer this would be an ideal article for a devotion magazine or to submit for the FW devotions. You really did an outstanding job and I totally enjoyed it.