search

ufjschool / ob-s14

Orange & Blue issue for Spring 2014 -- Energy
0 stars 5 forks source link

Edit "abelman.md" #31

Closed jrthieke closed 2 years ago

amberdawson commented 10 years ago

I will edit this

jrthieke commented 10 years ago

Hey Devon, I was just reading over all of the individual stories that have been submitted thus far. I know Amber is also editing this, but here are just a couple of my thoughts as well, so you can have variety of opinion:

  1. Impressive that you got a story on this guy; he seems like a pretty big shot. I’m debating where this could fit into the magazine; maybe before Sarah’s story about athlete’s mental health, as a Segway into that larger group topic? I’d like to hear your thoughts on this too.
  2. Some spelling issues: mentioned (graph 4), diagnosis (graph 13),
  3. You have a couple of places where the story breaks and you seem to have written notes to yourself for future edits. Just don’t forget about those.
  4. In graph 16, where you wonder whether or not that one sentence is repetitive, I think it is. Leave out the second clause; just say he wrote the first six episodes.
  5. Graph 21: you say effect, it’s affect.
  6. Structurally, I think you could move some of the stuff about his time in college and backstory closer to the front, so it can create a balance. Right now, the whole story flows as a progression from sad to positive. I think more of a circle, starting with positive, dropping down to sad, and then bringing it back up would be cool. You wouldn’t even have to change your lede; you can start with the rock bottom stuff, shit into an anecdote about Mr. Positive Push currently, then dive back into his past depression with the hospital bed line. That’s just another idea, accept it if you wish; I think the way you have it now is fine as well, I just think the other way would let readers know where the story is going a little better.
  7. Since this is a magazine about Energy, maybe you could emphasize the positive and negative energy aspects of this story a little bit. You address those sort of in your third-to-last and penultimate graphs, and I really like it. I think making those a theme throughout the whole story would cement this story’s place in the magazine, as well as provide a dynamic for the rest of the story flow.
  8. On the whole though, I don’t really have much else to say. You wrote this story well, and I think you captured the essence of his problems well so far (and you noted you need some more examples, which will only improve that). Just make sure you get the rest of the information you want to get, and I think this story will shape up well.

I hope you consider some of my suggestions, but the story still is great without them. Good luck with finishing this up!