Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27708312-20170202163909/@comment-31166511-20170309004450

The circus hide & seek was ok, but a little sparse on descriptive detail.

I assume that you've been to a circus sometime? Or that you have some special interest in them?

Imagine walking around the circus grounds. You can see everything, just like Dipper did. But then you realize that you can't hear or smell anything.

How many sounds were described in the story? How many smells. You might be imagining the details in your head as you write. But if it isn't written down in the story, the reader doesn't.

Go back over what you wrote and add those minor details that make a reader forget, just a little, that it's just a fictional environment.

Dipper's side comment about the high prices at the Snack stand didn't feel right. Dipper isn't hyperfocused on cash like Uncle Stan. The snack stand should evoke very different memories for Dipper.

Maybe he'd think about the time Mabel tied a dozen candied apples to her hair and started to spin around. But she accidentally trapped herself in a catch-22; she couldn't spin fast and make the apples rise into the air, because it hurt when they pulled her hair! But she couldn't stop either, because the sticky candy coating would ruin her favorite sweater!

Dipper offered to chop off the locks of hair that were tied to the apples, but Mable screetched "No!" I'm not sure what would happen after that or what solutions the twins would attempt to get Mabel out of her predicament.

Are you familiar with the short stories of O. Henry? "The Gift of the Magi"? It's a bit sickly sweet, but it's a love story about a poor couple who don't have money to buy each other Christmas gifts.

Skip this paragraph, if you don't need me to summarize the story. There are only two things of value the couple have. One is the watch that the man's grandfather gave him. The other is the woman beautiful long hair that has never been cut in her life. So the man pawns his watch to buy her hair ribbons, and she cuts off her hair and sells it to a wig maker to buy him a gold chain for his pocketwatch (wristwatches weren't common when the story was written). In the end, their presents are useless, but they realize that love is the most precious gift of all.

Well, that's what you're EXPECTED to think. But all I can think of is that guy got REALLY screwed if he traded a valuable antique watch for ten cents of crappy silk ribbon. And the woman must have really twisted someone's arm to get enough cash to buy a CHAIN OF GOLD! To me, the moral is that the dude is a gullible idiot who shouldn't be allowed to go shopping ever again. The girl's hair will grow back, but his watch won't! She should go to the pawn shop and use her bargaining power to get the watch back. Then next year she can cut off a year's worth of hair, sell it, divide the money 75/25. Give him the 25% percent to buy a cheap crapy gift for her. She can then use the 25% to buy two terrific bargain gifts for both of them. Finally the rest of the money goes into an interest-bearing account so someday they can stop wasting their income renting a rathole apartment. Love is a precious gift, but smarts will tell you that financial independance is the best way to express love.

Now how to adapt the classic story Gravity Falls style?