May 20th, 2019 - The Presentation on Egypt

Dear TNY,

There is serious heartbreak for the reader in “The Presentation on Egypt”, but the bad part is that the heartbreak is occurs because of the petering off of a very good story.

That’s my biggest beef.  The first third is so good.  So many surprises.  So much uniqueness.  The language is clear (not fresh, but clear).  Specifically, the way that Paul kills himself is legit and very smack-in-the-face.  And the whole lighter thing is just the best.  I found myself thinking that we might be on to something, TNY.  That you and I were on a journey I wanted to be on.  And I was so pumped up.  But then you failed.

So, the failure here is the warp-speed travel through time via summary to the future, and then what was done there.  It’s like I can see the beams the writer is using for framework to get us to this ending.  And that’s fine, I guess.  But the ending is pretty fucking mundane as it is written.  Worse than that is that we have pages and pages of scene (yay!) but the scene is boring (boo!).  It’s just Anna and Danielle talking about banal garbage (Buddha isn’t boring: their conversation is) and the only way it could possibly be moving the story forward would be following the intention of winding up at the aforementioned mundane ending.  And that’s not good enough when the start of the story is so good.

So that’s what I’ve got.  It’s a great intro to something that then simmers early and finally cools before the ending occurs.  And that’s upsetting.  But expected from your editing chops, TNY.

Nick