Here’s An Editorial Critique Of Your Spam Email, We11sFarg0@1RS.com
Sorry, We11s, but your hard-luck story wasn’t quite moving enough to get me to open my wallet. Your work shows promise, though, and since I’m an almost-professional writer, I’ve taken the liberty of offering some suggestions.
Let’s start with your opener:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am sorry to bother someone of your superiority, but I must humbly request your generous indulgence.
I emigrated from my birthplace in Nebraska to Las Vegas last year and assumed three positions: telemarketer (day shift), security guard (swing shift), and busboy (graveyard shift).
Two weeks ago, I was walking home from my restaurant employment when I was robbed by three brigands.
Consider fleshing out the scene a bit more. Maybe try something like this: “I was shambling down a deserted alley in the dewy-dawn hours, my snot-laced fingers clutching my termination notice as vapor wafted from a manhole cover like steam from a Grande Caffè Latte, when …” (That quote was taken from my self-published novel, You Promised You’d Read This, which you can order from my personal website by clicking HERE.)
They obtained my billfold containing many bills, and my 100% solid gold BFF ring, a good luck heirloom that had been in my family for more than a hundred years.
Great details, though I found the “bill” echo a bit jarring. Also, don’t forget the rule about hyphenating compound adjectives.
They also beat me until my broken nose bled.
I enjoyed the lyrical playfulness of beat/broken/bled. For more examples of how alliteration can add a pulsing beat to sentences, click HERE to see my critique of a book review in Slate. (Go to the comments section and scroll down until you find my username, MFAJulie83. If you find my observations helpful, I’d appreciate a like.)
Then the thieves forced me with a gun to write them a check. Two days later, they cashed it and stole all my money, $7,425.02 USD.
Now is the time to slow down the pace and tell us how you felt about being robbed at gunpoint. Were you frightened? Angry? Helpless?
I am ashamed to ask this unworthy favor of you, but I most desperately need $428.23 USD to buy insulin pills for my brother, who has eight years, so he won’t lose his sight the way he lost his two legs.
I didn’t see that coming!
To build empathy for your brother, you need to bring him in earlier. Start with a name (my current faves are Bayou and Kwanzaa). Then supply vivid details. What was he like before he lost his legs? Did he play soccer, perhaps with a homemade ball made of duct-taped newspapers that he’d stolen from a recycling bin, a transgression for which, say, he’d been whipped by cruel foster parents who’ve secretly pocketed the millions they’ve received for the boy’s care from his real father, a billionaire industrialist/spy/movie star who’s currently working undercover on the International Space Station?
Or maybe hopscotch?
Can you kindly pay me what money you are able? My bitcoin wallet number is 53eRM78ii2TYimgX978Mhtzpi9r44CctB21.
How do you get a bitcoin wallet number anyway? I’ve been using a Venmo tip jar for my poetry (see, e.g., I Am Sinew, Nostrils, and Rage, Oakmont Hills HOA Newsletter, July 2022, p. 3), but nobody seems to know how to use it.
It hurts, as I well know, to have your work criticized, but hang in there. As Elizabeth Gilbert (of Eat, Pray, Love fame) put it, “[Y]our writing will always disappoint you,” which is why you must approach it “like a holy calling.”
BTW, I once met Liz at a book signing, though all too briefly, due to the pushiness of the people in line behind me. After I gave her a copy of my novel along with a brief verbal overview, she said, “Sounds intriguing.” She never got back to me about a book blurb, though I suppose I could use “ … intriguing.”
Or maybe “INTRIGUING!” so as to avoid the ellipsis?
