Thursday, February 2, 2012

Response to "New Coach" by Lauren Sides

This was a story about a girl named Kaylee on a competitive high school cheerleading team who is hoping for a scholarship from her sport. The team gets a new coach, though, and the guy is a real asshole and a creep to boot. The coach's ridiculous demands land her with a pretty serious injury and threaten to permanently injure her if she keeps giving in. In the end Kaylee decides that her self-respect is more important than being on the cheerleading team with the nazi coach and she walks out on it.
      I think the overall story is one of the things that is working very well here. It was interesting and engaging and really makes you feel like you're there with the character. The characters are interesting as well, and it's not hard to see whose side we're supposed to be on. One thing that can be said about it is that the story is told with a minimum of characters. Really all we get is Alex and Kaylee. Chelsea is there somewhat and so is Kaylee's mom, but even then that's only four characters. I liked that minimalist aspect. Another thing that's working is the specific scenes we get in between the summaries: Alex's first day of practice, the day Kaylee got injured, and the day she quit. All are interesting and well done.
      This brings me to suggestions for improvement. There is a lot of summary in this piece--a lot of telling us what happens without showing us. This story is interesting enough that I think we want to see more scenes. I want to see Kaylee fighting with her mother, I want to see her spiral into an eating disorder, etc. I think it would be more fun for the reader if we are shown things instead of being explicitly told them. Also, the story starts with Kaylee already injured and then goes back. I don't think this is needed and I think it could play out in chronological order (maybe start with the scene of their first coach telling them he's leaving, then move on to the scene of Alex's first practice).

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