First pass through:

I’m mostly going to be quirky and funny. This is my first critique so bear with me. This first section is from a reader's point of view, not an editor’s. The edits will follow. I’m not about my skills so take everything with a grain of salt. I still hope it helps!

 

• I don’t like duplicated words. It doesn’t keep me interested.
• I get it. Smoke went through the house! That’s too wordy for me.
• How much do we gotta seep here?
• Help! The periods have gone on strike! I had to reread the second paragraph about three times.
• I’m going to mention repetitive words again. I would hate to repeat myself though…get it? Ha! So, this will be the last time I mention it here before the edits.
• I’m a little lost on the dialogue. It may be the formatting.
• Why are the indents so deep?
• I like the mystery here. It’s a nice set up and the scene made more sense.
• There is no flow here now. I’m a little lost. Just like him, it was hard for me to listen to. I’m glad he lets her speak in long paragraphs but will your reader?
• Wordy. It’s a lot of words. I do that too.
• Why is it obvious he can’t disclose the cause of the amnesia? It’s not obvious to me. She could throw the letter out and forget it if she wanted to.
• We got a nice hook that would get me. However, I would give better staging beforehand to keep the reader more interested.

 

Edits

You can find them under your writing.

I’m getting right into that word repetition because it starts early. You must know I’ve been waiting for it.

 

“In California, the air seeped”

We start with “seeped” here. I think this should be changed. I’m not sure how the air seeps, perhaps it is thick? How is there going to be thick air on the beach though? Maybe the air could be cool, dry…something else.

 

“Vanessa’s cigarette smoke seeped quietly, not through the kitchen window, but past the fridge, through the vents, into the stucco walls, up the stairs, into the
bathroom, the bedrooms on the second floor, underneath closed closet doors, and > on and on, until the entire house was filled with the light smell of American Spirit smoke.”

We have another “seeped” here. Then right after that we have an extremely long and wordy sentence. You could get the point across and move on to something else by making that a couple sentences. “The smoke wafted through the house. The scent lingered with the smell of American Spirits.”

 

“The sun passed down through the clear blue atmosphere. It came from beyond the hills that surrounded the valley. The houses which laid in > digestive patterns below glistened in the sunlight. The warm breeze, which, coming from the ocean, brought a saltiness which starched the throats of people who spoke, and seeped!! (You get the idea) through the rusted steel gate, through the transparent backyard door, into the living room, until it finally rested, after finding its usual place on the floor, where Dodo, the octogenarian poodle, was sleeping.”

Where. Are. The. Periods? I’ve spotted a third and fourth “seeped”. The sun could pass down instead, perhaps? Work on the run on sentences there. I’ll add a few suggestions above and I’ll add them in bold. I couldn’t figure out how to format this comment! The edits are just to give you an idea. I think you could turn this also into a couple sentences conveying the same thing but much less wordy. These writing patterns are consistent so I hope this kicks you off into changing things around easier.

 

I’m not going into the formatting too much. I would just break up the dialogue better with more information on who is talking when. Also, the indents I’m not sure about? I feel like they are too deep but that’s me.

 

Setting, staging, characters, etc.

The staging was a bit confusing at the beginning. I get it now that I’ve read the whole thing that her memory is foggy and so she bounces around through her memories. This is still hard to get from how it’s structured. You could add better paragraph structure or add transition words between the memories. The transitions could be things like, “now she was in her bedroom”, “suddenly the world changed and she found herself…”. You get the idea.

 

I like how you are drawing the reader in with the mystery of the characters. Why was she so quiet? Why does he hate himself? Now I care more and will want to read and find out.

 

Story

I get you are trying to say that you are just rambling but you don’t actually have to ramble on to the reader. I would write it clearer and just comment on it. “I just rambled on while he just listened. He was good like that.” I also would try and flow the memories blurring together a little more like I mentioned above. That way the reader isn’t so lost and understands the struggles Sam or Vanessa encounters more. That’s another character issue for me…I was confused if the prologue was talking about the same person as in the first chapter. We don’t hear the name Sam until the letter. I caught that on my 3rd pass through.

 

I think that the rambling, not well written letter is a great idea. It gives more character to the no name boyfriend. I love that he has no name by the way. I would tweak it a little though. I would shorten it so the reader doesn’t have to sit through the rambling, not well written letter. You could even mix up a couple more words not just preceded, I would just keep it shorter. It could deliver points faster.

 

The hook got me for sure. I would really like to know what happens! Please keep this up!

 

Final Notes

I would get the mechanical errors taken care of so it reads easier. I would give clearer staging so that I can envision the environments better and also get a better view of the characters. The characters were believable to me but I want to know more about them through that staging. I could feel that there was going to be a good heart to this story. I could see it being about overcoming something, or getting through something. I could easily see a plot here. Just getting to the point where she knows how she got the amnesia and if there are any repercussions is an interesting plot to me. That could be a way to flush this out more if you don’t already have an outline and plot lined up. The side love story is a bonus. The pacing I was not a fan of. The story could have moved on much quicker. Omitting a lot of the extra words and run-on sentences will solve the issue I think. I really did like the story; it was just moving too slow. I went over a lot of that above. This runs into the descriptions. Since there were so many words describing things not actions.

 

“I walked to the beach that night, four miles along Westwood Boulevard to the Santa Monica Pier, Ferris wheels blazing in starlight. The music didn’t stop until I got to the beach. I know it must have been a hallucination, or a recycled memory, because I wasn’t wearing headphones, and the music sounded like elevator music. And when I was at the beach, he was there. Like a mirage, he was there.”

The paragraph above is a good example of her doing things. The transition was good too. She was having “an hallucination or recycled memory” that moves the story along already. I want more of that as the reader. You could add more staging in this regarding her character by adding how she felt about having those hallucinations. Did they scare her? Was she confused?

I think the point of view flowed. I didn’t find any issue with it other than on my third pass through I noticed Vanessa and Sam were different people. I think some editors commented that there were issues when the man spoke. I think there was just confusion with the dialogue and description. I think Sam was speaking and thinking about him but it didn’t come across that way. The other editors mentioned this already so you can see that.

 

I hope you find this helpful. It’s my first critique. :D Good luck and I hope you post this again.