Sleeping Beauty by Phillip Margolin Read Free Book Online Page B

historical novel. Mindy Krauss and Lori Ryan were housewives and bridge partners who were trying their hand at a mystery, and Brad Dorrigan was a computer programmer who had majored in English Lit and spoke earnestly about the coming-of-age story he had been working on for several years.
    â€œOkay, great,” Maxfield said. “Well, we certainly have a diverse group. That’s good. It means that we’re going to get different opinions when we critique each other’s work. And that is one of the things we are going to do here.
    â€œNow let me talk about criticism for a moment. Each week I’m goingto read something that someone in the group has submitted and each of you is going to be painfully honest with your opinions. That doesn’t mean that you are going to be mean or spiteful. The only type of criticism I expect here is constructive criticism. It’s perfectly all right to dislike something, but I want you to tell the writer why you don’t like what he or she has written and I want you to suggest how the work can be changed for the better. So think before you speak.
    â€œMy job will be to moderate these proceedings but I’m also going to give you tips that I hope will improve your writing. When we start each class I’ll spend some time talking about character development, outlining, and other aspects of the writer’s craft. Now, I don’t like talking to hear myself speak. I assume you’re here because you are motivated to improve your craft. So, ask questions. Remember, in this group there is no such thing as a stupid question.
    â€œAnd with that introduction, unless there are questions, I’m going to start our first session with a brief discussion of the method I use to develop story ideas.”
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    They took a break after the first hour, and Terri talked to the other members of Maxfield’s class. Except for Brad Dorrigan, who took himself a little too seriously, the other aspiring writers were a pleasant group.
    â€œOkay, back to the grind,” Joshua Maxfield said when fifteen minutes had passed. Terri carried a cup of coffee to her place. While everyone got settled, she checked the notes she’d taken about developing story ideas.
    â€œI said that we’re going to spend a portion of each meeting critiquing each other’s writing,” Maxfield said. “Tonight, I’m going to read a chapter from a work in progress and everyone will comment.”
    Terri was nervous that her manuscript would be the subject of the first critique. The other students looked just as worried. Maxfield squared up a short stack of paper that lay in front of him. He picked up the first sheet.
    â€œI am a God. Not The God. I am from one of the lesser pantheons but a God nonetheless. I don’t make a practice of announcing thefact, and those that discover my powers never tell. On a balmy spring evening in mid-May I introduced myself to the Reardons of Sheldon, Massachusetts.
    â€œI chose the Reardons because they were so ordinary, the type of people who occupy space while alive and are not missed when they die. Our experience together would be, by far, the most amazing event in their boring lives.
    â€œBob, a short, overweight man who was losing his hair, was an accountant. Margaret sold makeup at a department store on Main Street. I imagine that she had once been attractive. She still worked hard to keep her figure, but her skin was beginning to wrinkle and her legs were marred by cellulite. Their only daughter, Desiree, was seventeen, a junior in high school. She was of normal intelligence, and her looks were average, but she was physically advanced. I’d caught sight of her when she visited her mother at work. Her tight shorts showed off her taut buttocks and long firm legs. Her T-shirt was cut to display her flat, tanned tummy and sensual navel. Oh how I desired to lick it.
    â€œWith my appetite whetted by my first sight of Desiree, I laid