Response to "על ידי זה”

Dear Writer,

WOW! This piece uses excelling imagery, I can literally see the scenes described play out in front of me. I love the use of sound like pop or crack, the balance between scenes and narrative explaining situations and the way you express your vulnerability on the bus. I really love the line “Who was going to break first, me or the “sandwich?" It's a really good turning point for the piece and places an incredible amount of weight on this key victory that you were able to use to turn things around.

Dialogue is used effectively and sparingly, but could use some more description, such as the line ‘“Always” I responded’ - how did you respond, were you assertive, did you whimper or maybe you tried to be confident but it didn’t come out that way. In addition, as a reader of this story with no clue how baseball works, the first two paragraphs move really (like really) fast and I found it difficult to follow. Something else I noticed you only really mention your wrist pain at the start of the story and at the end talking to your coach, but I think if you mentioned it once or twice throughout the rest of the day it will add more to the emotional turmoil.

The conclusion works really well, it zooms out of the story giving the reader a significance to the timeline of events, but maybe add a specific scene like “Sitting at the shabbat table looking back”, I think that works better than simply saying “Since then…”.

Even if you decide not to go with my suggestions, I have no doubts your piece will still be great, well done!

Best Regards,
Abi Greenberg