Therapeutic! I highly recommend Paula's mentoring service. Four Fond Stars!

I am thrilled to recommend Paula’s mentoring service. For a short story, eleven pages in length, I received a fifteen page detailed critique pointing out aspects of my story: what worked well, from sentence construction to characterization, and what didn’t, with invaluable suggestions on how to improve pieces and parts.

Paula’s review covered structure, dialogue, imagery, mechanics, metaphor, characterization, beginning, ending, point of view – nothing was left behind. Each paragraph was analyzed, with sentences referenced for their impact and their fit, in isolation and in their sum.

Reading Paula’s review was almost surreal. It was as if you are reading--many months later--the precise thoughts you harbored while you wrote the story, as if she were sitting right next to you, on a ghostly chair--no, inside your head--saying "Hurrah!" for each stroke of brilliance, and "Tch-tch" and "Could you perhaps try…" for every awkward phrasing. Spooky, I swear!

This one service did more for me that a dozen books from experts on the craft of writing because she spoke of my story, because she responded to the emotions I felt and the difficulties I experienced and the compromises I surrendered to, while I wrote the story. She referenced the errors, gaffes, blunders, and the winning lines that secretly made me proud, and perfect and not-so-perfect paragraphs that I resignedly signed my name to. It brought everything home, because the context was my story, not Moby Dick, not Crime and Punishment, not Mocking Bird. My story!

Therapeutic!

I may never use this mentoring service again, for I felt like I learned more in this one experience than I am likely to garner from a dozen “how-to” books. And yet I know I will; I will because at the end of the day, Paula’s review made me feel good. It boosted my confidence, inspired me to write more, made me wonder. And it made me smile.

-- Deb Mukherjee