The Hospital by Juliet OC

Tony, ty for the flag and crit, I agree I got a bit carried away with the hospital description, I always find the balance in description difficult. As far as Ashley being the perfect nurse, in Flynn’s eyes she is, but I hoped to convey through her relationships with her patients that she was more in love with the idea of nursing AIDS patients than the patients themselves, clearly I have not achieved this and appreciate your comments. As for why Flynn would fall in love with a sick person, she wasn’t when they met, and the gap between ‘the garden’ and this piece is 16 years – with a lot of history in between, and I actually felt that Flynn’s reaction to Ruth was how most young people would feel at the time of the AIDS hype, but again I obviously did not convey this. In terms of how these pieces fit together, I am not sure one would necessarily follow the other, I am just writing about them as the ideas arrive, I’ll work out what to do with it all later, if it is worth doing anything with. But I really appreciate the time you took in critiquing, you can put the hatchet away now, and now you have set me a challenge, maybe the next one in this set will rock you world, just a little :) Juliet

I very much agree wit Tony. You are a brilliant writer, Juliet, and I can see the whole as an interesting novel if you bring it together in a right way. I found THE GARDEN more engaging and this story seemed less structured to me, too much detail (about Ruth's son for instant) that leads away from the essentials. Too much information, especially about side characters can confuse the reader and can lead to a loss in interest. I admire your style in writing very much , so don't get my little comments wrong. Yutka:)

Yukta, without this invaluable feedback i wouldn't be able to improve, i agree also that the 'side' characters got too much attention, i got lost in a memory (though the pieces are not strictly autobiographical, there are large elements of my experiences woven into the characters). So i will bear your advice in mind when i work on them as a whole, if they get that far. 'The grief cycle' is the next piece in this set, and i would appreciarte constructive feedback from anyone willing to offer it, i am still very much concerned with the characterisation, and whether Flynn and Ashley are rounding into believabe people that you are interested to know more about. http://www.abctales.com/story/juliet-oc/the-grief-cycle Juliet