Review: Outstanding! I'm absolutely blown away.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 14, 2012
Well, I can honestly say I've rarely been so surprised in my life. In a very good way.I heard about Ten Minutes in Heaven on Facebook when the author was having a free promotion on Amazon. I thought it was a novel. I had no idea it was a compilation of short plays. So, imagine my surprise when I opened it up and was swept into the unknown. This was my first time ever reading a play and I was so impressed I had to go back and do a reread right away.I've always been amazed with writers of novellas because of the difficulty of creating a good backstory, developing characters and establishing an interesting plot in such a limited amount of pages. If I was amazed before, then now I'm in awe of writers who can do the same with just dialogue, a few strategically placed words, carefully chosen character names and no narrative. Outstanding! I'm absolutely blown away!Since I'm not familiar with reviewing plays, the best I can do is to describe how I felt as I was reading these ones. During each one, I could easily imagine the actors on stage, what they looked like, how they were dressed, and their facial expressions even, where they were on stage and how they were interacting.  And honestly, even the scenery.  All without being told outright like what I'm used to.  All the while sitting back and enjoying each story as it unfolded with each one triggering a wide range of differing emotions and reactions. This is why I'm so in awe. How is this possible in so few words?A few of these short plays are so hilarious they had me guffawing my way through with happy tears on my cheeks. A few are a little more on the serious side and I tried not to laugh but it was hard with the residual giggles still lingering in my stomach from the ones before. One I didn't understand but I totally put that down to my own ignorance of the underlying social message. I'm not a person that is very good with subtle. Sometimes you have to hit me over the head with something in order for me to understand. That's why my brain can't really comprehend poetry.  All were entertaining, compelling and moving in their own way.Well done and kudos to this author. Ditmar has opened my eyes and absolutely gained a new fan! Looking forward to what he is planning next.