The Big Picture’s author, Tasha, attempts to paint broad portraits with her words.  The first chapter is devoted to the little details of a room, and the woman in it, as she finishes making love to a man, his body wounded from an accident.

It sounds like an interesting middle to a story:  why are they together? How did he get hurt?  Unfortunately, it’s an interesting idea that gets dragged down by technical problems.

From the ground up, good writing is like building a house (to use a simile).  You need the right tools and a good foundation, or the best architectural design is going to collapse.  Tasha clearly imagines these people, cares about them as a writer, and wants readers to do the same.  But the tools are lacking.

For one thing, the story changes tenses, between past and present, from sentence to sentence, without rhyme nor reason.  Like, I am writing this sentence right now, but by the time you read it, I will have written it in the past.  Because of this simple problem of sentence structure (most stories are written in past tense) it becomes difficult to tell when the present and past of this story take place, once there begin to be flashbacks.

The next problem:  too many details, not enough story.  I really don’t care that there are six bracelets on Sandy’s wrist, I want to know what’s happening between her and Rob, and why.  I don’t want to know that they just had sex; I want to know how they met, why she’s cheating on her husband, and what led them here.  If this is a romance, why are we being told about the important parts of falling in love, instead of seeing scenes showing it?

The most frustrating thing for me, as a reader, is that other readers commented on these problems in the first chapter alone (let alone the rest of the story) and yet little has changed.  I’m not saying anything the author hasn’t already heard.  But good writers listen to their audience and learn from their mistakes.

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