Post the first 3 sentences of your WIP!

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Smiling Ted

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Hmmm. Okay. This is the sequel to my current novel, published last April:

The church was surprisingly hard to break into.
Not that Henry had much experience with church robberies. Any goliard would tell you that you could mock a priest and you could cheat a bishop, but actually robbing a church was just bending over and begging Dame Fortune to jam a spear up your backside.
 

Buffysquirrel

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H'interesting. I'd cut out the second "you could" but that's just me.
 

Blinkk

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Hmmm. Okay. This is the sequel to my current novel, published last April:

The church was surprisingly hard to break into.
Not that Henry had much experience with church robberies. Any goliard would tell you that you could mock a priest and you could cheat a bishop, but actually robbing a church was just bending over and begging Dame Fortune to jam a spear up your backside.

I thought this was fantastic and very well done. I would absolutely keep reading. (And I learned a new vocab word...goliard.)

Congrats on the publishing. :)
 

richcapo

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I arrived home to a hungry cat, letters, and a dead body.
To keep things parallel and moving smoothly, I'd add a modifier to "letters."
Most of the letters were on the kitchen table, although some lay on the floor. Henry was all over.
Again to keep things parallel and smooth, I'd state where the cat is. And I'd add some razzmatazz to the cat sentence and Henry sentence to match the mail sentence.

I'd re-write it as something like, "Most of the letters were on the table, some lay on the floor. The cat was in the shitbox, as was the bulk of his piss and excrement. And Henry was the fuck all over."
 
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richcapo

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The knock on the door cut through the heat of the lazy summer afternoon.
How does sound cut through heat? It's not as if heat can block or obscure sound after all.
I shoveled another bite of rice into my mouth and glanced at the door. My mother wiped her hands on a towel and left the kitchen to answer.
You should probably establish first that the protagonist's mother was in the scene prior to her opening the door. A little description of the mom and the food the protagonist was eating -- like whether the he or she likes rice for breakfast -- would be a good idea, too.

I'd re-write it as something like, "The knock on the door cut through the loud pitter-patter stomp stomp of my obese mother's feet as well as the irritating crunch crunch of the last night's petrified rice. I struggled to find it tasty and swallowable [why not create a word?] and failed miserably at that. Hard rice -- ick.

Mom crossed the kitchen and opened the door, ..." et cetera.
 
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Buffysquirrel

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Thanks, rich--but I think it would then become your story, not my narrator's! :D
 

Sonsofthepharaohs

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Again to keep things parallel and smooth, I'd state where the cat is. And I'd add some razzmatazz to the cat sentence and Henry sentence to match the mail sentence.

I'd re-write it as something like, "Most of the letters were on the table, some lay on the floor. The cat was in the shitbox, as was the bulk of his piss and excrement. And Henry was the fuck all over."

When you said 'razzmatazz', it seems you meant 'grossness and profanity' then. That's rather changing the tone of the piece, don't you think?

Much prefer the original, although I agree with the previous suggestions, and would either reorder the list or add a modifier to letters.
 

richcapo

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The original didn't have a tone in my opinion, and it was clunky as hell. As for my suggestions, take them or leave them. I'm fine either way.
 
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richcapo

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Here's mine- first draft of my novelization of my novella Beautiful Trgaedy.

They had never said “I love you” before tonight. But he has said it first, so he must mean it, Daphne's train of thought raced.
There is no train of thought here, just an assumption/conclusion. If you showed how you got from A to Z, then you'd have a train of thought.
Sitting in front of the glowing computer screen with the biggest smile ever on her face, she reeled at the thought of someone saying “I love you”, and meaning it.
I think you could make less more here by simply saying "She reeled at the thought of it." Then you can speak of her smile and her computer.
 

richcapo

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"Daniel McKinnon decided, watching the ceiling rotating above him, that he hated Tuesdays. As his stomach lurched in time with its spin, he decided also that he hated Wednesdays. And probably Thursdays."
I'd state that McKinnon is a drunk off the bat. I'd also rearrange some stuff and jazz up the days of the week riff a bit. Something like:

"Daniel the Drunk decided that he hated ceiling fans -- this one, like all the others, making him nauseous with its droning, attention-grabbing spin. (Why can't I plug my ears and look away?) He also decided that he hated Tuesdays. And Wednesdays. And probably Thursdays, too, and ... whatever the hell day of the week it was. It didn't matter, really. One inebriated day is the same as another."
 
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Buffysquirrel

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I agree with the previous suggestions, and would either reorder the list or add a modifier to letters.

Letters originally had a modifier (I forget what) but I took it out because I didn't like having three nouns all with adjectives attached. I shall reconsider!


The original didn't have a tone in my opinion, and it was clunky as hell.

So it had a clunky tone, at least.
 

richcapo

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Letters originally had a modifier (I forget what) but I took it out because I didn't like having three nouns all with adjectives attached. I shall reconsider!




So it had a clunky tone, at least.
Clunky isn't a tone in my book. For the sake of argument, I'll pretend that it is, however: It's not a good tone, so it's a no-no in my opinion.
 

Buffysquirrel

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I think that depends what you're trying to achieve. However, I have to admit, clunky wasn't it, on this occasion.
 

Sonsofthepharaohs

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There's no need to keep hammering the point home, you know :).

Quite. But some people do come in here with the attitude that THEIR way is the best way, and their mission is to help the rest of the world realise it. :Shrug:
 

VonAngel

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Alrighty...here's mine.:chair

With tangled shoelaces and blood-stained hair, Rebecca escapes into the fresh morning air, leaving the past 14 hours of captivity in her dust. She hears her captor panting behind her and adds momentum to her limping run. Her footsteps lead in the direction of a bungalow at the end of the street, where Mr. Johansen heads to his car for his morning commute to work.
 

Kimmy84

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Alrighty...here's mine.:chair

With tangled shoelaces and blood-stained hair, Rebecca escapes into the fresh morning air, leaving the past 14 hours of captivity in her dust. She hears her captor panting behind her and adds momentum to her limping run. Her footsteps lead in the direction of a bungalow at the end of the street, where Mr. Johansen heads to his car for his morning commute to work.

Clearly I am by NO MEANS an authority on writing, but as a reader I get waaaay too much info in the first three sentences. Id prefer less info and more emotion/detail.
My suggestion would be to expand the whole section and add in details such as where she escapes from: the front door? the window? Id leave out the elapsed time, add it in further down. I just think the whole thing needs a bit more mystery. Its almost like you can read the entire book in the first three sentences.
She was held captive, got hurt, is now escaping...

I cant tell you HOW to re write it, and I wouldn't try. But I'd go back over it carefully and try again.
 

BethS

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Hmmm. Okay. This is the sequel to my current novel, published last April:

The church was surprisingly hard to break into.
Not that Henry had much experience with church robberies. Any goliard would tell you that you could mock a priest and you could cheat a bishop, but actually robbing a church was just bending over and begging Dame Fortune to jam a spear up your backside.

Good voice and it makes me want to keep reading.
 
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