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Here are my 2 cents Dee,

you know I can not critique about punctuation and grammar, because mine is probably not better than the fifth grader.

So about the story: I can almost smell the pine burr in the wood burning stove and relate with the young boy and his mother, see the old man, mumbling something to him self getting ready to step outside to the early still cold spring.

With that said , I think that it is too early for the Copperhead, from your description is still too cold for it.

Other than that, just listen to the girls here, I am sure they know better 'bout those stuff.

:)

Powergirl, it is so good to see you here taking part in this exercise. Thank you for your comments.

I'll keep your thoughts about the Copperhead in mind when writing the second draft.

I hope it is ok for me to jump in, I am very new here so if I am out of line, please tell me.

I enjoyed your story. There were a couple of things that caught my eye as I was reading that I thought of as "critique" but nothing that you would not catch on the rewrite except for (maybe) this: Some of the stuff seems too forced or obvious. It feels like you are trying too hard to paint a picture of simple country folk. I would try to let that evolve a little more slowly. I think the response about the run-on sentences and the Aunt Tiny comment speak to that. For example, I would leave off the "we called her Tiny" till she actually played a role in the story. Or something like that.

Thanks for posting and exposing yourself to this process. This is all very new to me and you have inspired me to hang around awile and make an attempt myself.

Dorthynoz, welcome to TWG.

It is more than ok for you to jump in. I hope many others who are new to TWG, or haven't been posting, will jump in and comment.

Thank you very much for your helpful comments. We hope you will stay awhile and we look forward to you posting a story of your own.

Before moving on to the second draft of Soaking Life UP and the second phase of this exercise, here is a comment from another writer whose comments on use of dialect in this story go along with the earlier comments of CarolT about "less being more" when it comes to dialect in any story.

The writer commented, "You know, it is funny to me how easy it is to know the Southern slang (dialect) when one is from the South. Of course, you don't use slang (dialect) in every sentence, but I was thinking that way so I changed it in my mind while reading (the story.)"

A second draft, solely reflecting the critiques that have been given, will be posted later today.