JP Wagner

Ok, so I sent this to a couple of online magazines. It got rejected, the general consensus seemed to be that there was no apparent character growth in the story (and that tammy seemed more like 7 than 9) so, I edited it some. Here's the new version, all opinions appreciated!
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Maggie’s middle-aged reflection frowned back at her. She turned her head from left to right, examining her face.
“There they are,” she said with a sigh.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Maggie!” her husband had said before leaving for work. “You’re gorgeous!”
“I’m getting old.”
“No you’re not!” he’d assured. But it was no use. There they were, in front of her, proof of her age.
“Mommy?” a soft voice asked.
She turned to her seven year old, smiling. “What is it Tammy?”
“What are laugh-lines?”
“What do you mean, honey?”
“I heard you and daddy talking about laugh-lines, what are laugh-lines?”
She smiled, wrapping her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “Nothing important, sweetie.”
“They sound like fun!”
She laughed whole heartedly. “Yes, they do sound fun, don’t they?”
“Do I have laugh-lines, mommy?”
Maggie’s curved lips turned inward. “No honey, luckily, you don’t have them yet.”
“Why not?” Tammy asked, raising her voice another octave.
“Because, they’re only something you get when you’re older.”
“But that’s not fair!”
Maggie laughed. “No, it isn’t fair.”
“I want laugh-lines mommy!”
“Trust me honey, you don’t.”
“You have them, mommy! I want them too.”
Maggie sighed, looking back and forth between the mirror and her daughter. “You know what, honey? Come to think of it, little girls have laugh-lines too.”
Tammy stood up straight, her smile showing from ear to ear. “We do?”
“That’s right.”
“Where are they? Show me!”
“Hop up on the sofa,” she instructed.
Eager to comply, Tammy ran to the living room couch and jumped up onto it. Maggie followed. “Give me your foot.” Tammy stretched out her short leg, and her mother grabbed her gently by the ankle. “You see all these lines, here on the bottom of your feet? These are your laugh-lines,” she said coyly.
“Those?”
“Yes, those,” she nodded. “Do you know why they’re called laugh-lines?”
“Nuh-uh,” Tammy shook her head.
“This is why!” Maggie said as she gently ran her fingernail across the little crevices on the bottom of Tammy’s foot. There was a shriek and a giggle. Tammy recoiled slightly. Maggie held a gentle, but firm grasp on her daughter’s ankle. “See?”
Tammy giggled. “Yes!” she muttered between laughs and she squirmed, never pulling her leg too hard, not really trying to escape.
“Do you know what laugh-lines mean, honey?” Maggie asked, still tracing patterns on her daughter’s foot.
“What mommy?” Tammy asked, laughing earnestly.
“They mean you laugh a lot,” Maggie replied, sighing gently. That’s all they mean, she thought to herself. You laugh a lot. She smiled at her daughter. Her laugh-lines were showing.

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Quoth The Raven "Nevermore"

SparkyLT

I like it just as much as before, but I gues if I have to come up with some nits...

Wouldn't use 'grabbed'. Maybe "...and her mother caught her ankle [I want to eliminate 'gently' here, because you use it a little later]."

I would change this bit to: "Yes!" she giggled as she squirmed, never pulling her leg too hard, not really tring to escape.

That's really all I can come up with for now. Oh, except that 'mommy', when being used as a proper noun, oughta be capitalized, and you don't usually have it as an appositive when Tammy says it; is that because you didn't know it should be like that, or because she's a litte girl that that's the way she talks?

Mike

It's too cutesy, in my opinion. I have no clue how to fix that particular blunder, so let's look at character growth...

Firstly, there's Maggie's current dilemma. She discovers "laugh-lines" on her face. No, I will not revert to George Carlin's thoughts on euphemisms, you can call them what you like, but the point is that she is unhappy with the thought of getting older as proof of these now apparent wrinkles.

So how does she change her mind (thus 'growing in character') about these unhappy thoughts she's been having?

Well, she certainly doesn't interact with her husband and grow. Eliminate him! He's useless.

She has a conversation or "heart to heart" with her daughter. Or, at the very least, she lies to her kid, as a lot of adults tend to do. This is pivotal point, the hot and humid section where growth happens.

The daughter, Tammy, wonders why she doesn't have laugh-lines and insists that she get them right away in, of course, the most annoyingly cutesy voice one can muster in dialogue. Through this conversation, Mother Maggie is supposed to realize how ridiculous it is to be worrying over laugh-lines and getting older when she has her charming little daughter to tickle all day long. So how does she convince herself? She has this spiteful moment with gentle sighs at the end, where she brainwashes herself into believing that laugh lines mean you laugh alot.

To me, any character growth and character insight get overwhelmed by all the fondling between mother and daughter. You want Maggie to grow from worrying over her laugh-lines to not worrying over them, yes? So add a bit more depression at the beginning.

Oh she's really unhappy. Terribly. She doesn't even see her husband leave for work because she's too busy peddling her woes to the mirror two inches in front of her face. Distraught, perhaps even driven to indulge in overeating or overmoisturizing or whatever useless distractions that drive her to unsucessfully forget about the wrinkles, she goes that entire morning in this funk until she meets up with her spunky, adorable child.

Color in the cute, create the connection between mother and child, but please, please, don't overdo it.

The daughter asking the "what are laugh-lines I overheard you talking to Daddy" question is good. That progresses the story.

Where to go from there? Well, you presumably want Mother Maggie to realize laugh-lines don't mean she's going to get shuffled off to a retirement community any time soon. Tammy is only 7 or 9, anyway. What's your moral here? To laugh more in life? To spend less time worrying? Whatever it is, you only have a finite amount of words to reach it, so spend them well. Perhaps use more of those inner thoughts one uses when writing in italics. I think that when writing as short a story as this is, you should start at the extremes of the character (Mother Maggie Near Suicidal Over Laugh-Lines & Mother Maggie Now Happy With Cute Kid) and work towards a middle ground so it doesn't appear too contrived and go Full House on us.

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- Mike

JP Wagner

well the character growth in the first sense was supposed to be she realized that she was being silly and should just have fun with her daughter rather than worry.

in this version the character growth is supposed to be she realizes that laugh lines arent all that big a deal to worry about, because they come from laugher, which is ultimatly a good thing.

i dunno how much more i can put in without making it longer than anticipated, this was supposed to be a short short.

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Quoth The Raven "Nevermore"

BoredMormon

Just to be annoying, I liked the original better.

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I'm a reader, not a writer. So you can ignore whatever I just said. BM out.

JP Wagner

well, i kinda did too. actually, I've already changes the story three more times since posting this one. lol


it got rejected for "no character growth!" even tho there was in the origional one. she got distracted from her aging and stuff.

then again, who said there needs to be character growth for a story to be good? this is what bugs me about today's breed of editors and judges. people who can't write, come up with steadfast rules about what makes good writing. and that usually produces really crappy writers. in my opinion anyway.

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Quoth The Raven "Nevermore"