Post the first 3 sentences of your WIP!

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kkbe

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Gynn

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From my hoping-to-be-finished-this-year WIP:

[FONT=&quot]Sir Wain staggered through the brush, intent on living a bit longer. Sweat dribbled across his spectacles and down his arms, soaking into the parchment plea he clenched. His wristwatch - an Earthan marvel - revealed half past five in its peculiar glowing numerals. Dark would soon come.[/FONT]

(Okay, so maybe that was four sentences, unless I toss a semi-colon in there!)
 

Bing Z

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[FONT=&quot]His wristwatch - an Earthan marvel - revealed half past five in its peculiar glowing numerals. Dark would soon come.[/FONT]

Everything before this sentence looks fine to me. A couple of questions:

a) Is Earthan a made-up brand? (I googled and couldn't find it) Is there a reason to introduce a brand here?

b) How peculiar are the numerals? I'd suggest either you explain how or skim it.
 

victoriajakes

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a) Is Earthan a made-up brand? (I googled and couldn't find it) Is there a reason to introduce a brand here?

b) How peculiar are the numerals? I'd suggest either you explain how or skim it.

I assumed Earthan meant from Earth, and that the peculiar numerals were our numbers.

If this is not the case, I would make some changes. :) Otherwise, I thought it was a pretty good opener.
 

Gynn

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I assumed Earthan meant from Earth, and that the peculiar numerals were our numbers.

If this is not the case, I would make some changes. :) Otherwise, I thought it was a pretty good opener.

Thank you for the compliment, and you are correct! It's probably not too easy to infer from just three sentences, but should be after the next few paragraphs.
 

Buffysquirrel

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I thought Earthan meant from Earth too, but I was a bit thrown by the sweat dribbling across the spectacles. In my experience it collects behind them. YMMV
 

Sonsofthepharaohs

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I thought Earthan meant from Earth too, but I was a bit thrown by the sweat dribbling across the spectacles. In my experience it collects behind them. YMMV

Ditto this.

Earthan? No probs. It may be a made up word, but the context makes it clear.

Peculiar glowing numerals? Ok, that didn't phase me either, although if they're so peculiar how does he know they indicate it's 5.30? Does their world even reckon time in such a way?

But the dribbling sweat pulled me up. It just sounds weird, IMO.
 

William K Elliott

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Playing around with a new opening...

Enrique Moltke awoke to the sharp tapping sound of metal hitting metal. As fear burned off the clouds of sleep, the figure of a man standing at the foot of his bed came into focus. The man, dressed in a purple sweatshirt and black jeans, tapped a metal bar against the wrought iron frame of Enrique’s bed.

Bill
 

victoriajakes

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Probably the seventh rewrite of my opening scene:

On that brisk Boston evening, Emily Price killed and died and killed again.

First, the priest. Righteous, obscene, cold and bloodied on the living room floor.

Then her own skull, giving way to the blunt force of a VCR.
I cheated, it's four lines.
 

Russ Mars

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[FONT=&quot]Sir Wain staggered through the brush, intent on living a bit longer. Sweat dribbled across his spectacles and down his arms, soaking into the parchment plea he clenched. His wristwatch - an Earthan marvel - revealed half past five in its peculiar glowing numerals. Dark would soon come.[/FONT]
As if this dead horse hasn't been beaten enough, perhaps you meant earthen (with an 'e', not an 'a'), a perfectly acceptable, useful word, as in an earthen bowl or earthen pot--made of earth --clay, stone, sand, mud, etc. However, unless you mean that his wristwatch is made of dirt, try man-made marvel, or Earth-made marvel, or human marvel. I sure understand what you are trying to say, but you may want to drag out (gasp) a dictionary or thesaurus and find the right word. You could even say, "...a marvel made on Earth..." It doesn't have to be phrased as is.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. ~ Mark Twain

Oh, and I wouldn't be too concerned with whether sweat dribbled on the inside or outside of the glasses. You did write 'across his spectacles', and that's clear enough for all but the most anal nit-picker. I can assure the more sedentary critics that when you're working your ass off in the heat, sweat drips all over the place.
 
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Sonsofthepharaohs

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As if this dead horse hasn't been beaten enough, perhaps you meant earthen (with an 'e', not an 'a'), a perfectly acceptable, useful word, as in an earthen bowl or earthen pot--made of earth --clay, stone, sand, mud, etc.

Which makes bugger all sense, and you know it. The context and capitalisation made it very clear what it means.

However, unless you mean that his wristwatch is made of dirt, try man-made marvel, or Earth-made marvel, or human marvel. I sure understand what you are trying to say, but you may want to drag out (gasp) a dictionary or thesaurus and find the right word. You could even say, "...a marvel made on Earth..." It doesn't have to be phrased as is.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. ~ Mark Twain

Did you actually stop to consider that in this world, they have their own made up word for things made on Earth? Because that's what I took it to be - their own word coined to describe things from that strange marvelous place called Earth. Like Romulan is a made up word to describe things from Romulus in the Star Trek universe.

Authors can do that, ya know. It's called cultural and linguistic world building.

I fight condescension with condescension.

Oh, and I wouldn't be too concerned with weather sweat dribbled on the inside or outside of the glasses. You did write 'across his spectacles', and that's clear enough for all but the most anal nit-picker.

Like you with earthan, ya mean?
 
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Gynn

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As if this dead horse hasn't been beaten enough, perhaps you meant earthen (with an 'e', not an 'a'), a perfectly acceptable, useful word, as in an earthen bowl or earthen pot--made of earth --clay, stone, sand, mud, etc. However, unless you mean that his wristwatch is made of dirt, try man-made marvel, or Earth-made marvel, or human marvel. I sure understand what you are trying to say, but you may want to drag out (gasp) a dictionary or thesaurus and find the right word. You could even say, "...a marvel made on Earth..." It doesn't have to be phrased as is.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. ~ Mark Twain

Oh, and I wouldn't be too concerned with whether sweat dribbled on the inside or outside of the glasses. You did write 'across his spectacles', and that's clear enough for all but the most anal nit-picker. I can assure the more sedentary critics that when you're working your ass off in the heat, sweat drips all over the place.

"Earthan" is the word they use in this story's world to denote items that have made their way over from Earth! I use the term frequently throughout, so I'm hoping the readers will understand. :snoopy:
Thanks for the comments and critiques, everyone (I adjusted the spectacles line, since two users noted it)!
 

heichan

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Here's mine.

The Buddhist temple was quiet save for the gentle sound of water slapping against stone. A weathered old local, his back bent and skin tanned from long years of hard outdoor labour, was using a wooden ladle to throw water onto a tall statue of a man surrounded by flames. The figure's entire body was engulfed in a soft thick green moss and, through the daily throwing ritual, was continuously fed from the large rounded basin set before it.

Does it make you want to continue?
 

Bing Z

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helchan, I frankly think "to continue or not to" is a harsh question for the first three sentence. As a reader I'd give a couple of paragraphs of chance unless it's bad writing to start with. Midway is my answer.

Comments:
a) The first sentence can be absorbed into 2nd/3rd. I'm especially held back at "sound of water slapping against stone" which is more naturally shown in the following sentence. So you are telling and following up with a more convincing show.
b) You have set a beautiful scene with a ritual, which may be typical at monastery/temple setting or something hella big. This and I don't know the genre of the story (or aisle at bookstore) make it hard to tell how much I'm gripped/hypnotized to get my wallet out.
 

heichan

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Thanks Matera the Mad and Bing Zabriskie. Your comments have been very helpful. I've got somewhere to start now as I go back and fix the opening.
 

Russ Mars

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"Earthan" is the word they use in this story's world to denote items that have made their way over from Earth! I use the term frequently throughout, so I'm hoping the readers will understand. :snoopy:
Ah, out of context, of course I had no way of knowing it wasn't simply a misspelling. Great! Works for me.
 

Russ Mars

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Here's mine.

The Buddhist temple was quiet save for the gentle sound of water slapping against stone. A weathered old local, his back bent and skin tanned from long years of hard outdoor labour, was using a wooden ladle to throw water onto a tall statue of a man surrounded by flames. The figure's entire body was engulfed in a soft thick green moss and, through the daily throwing ritual, was continuously fed from the large rounded basin set before it.

Does it make you want to continue?
Sure, I'd read it.

Allow me one little grammatical correction. Where you've written, "The Buddhist temple was quiet save for the gentle sound of water...," is a bit erred. The word 'save' as used means 'other than', so I'd delete the 'for' so it reads, simply, "save the gentle sound of water..."
 

Sonsofthepharaohs

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I don't know if it's considered bad forum etiquette to crit in this thread, but I'll offer a few comments.

The Buddhist temple was quiet save for the gentle sound of water slapping against stone. A weathered old local, his back bent and skin tanned from long years of hard outdoor labour, I find this a bit TMI unless this guy is important, but from his annonymous introduction as 'old local' I'm thinking he's a bit part was using a wooden ladle to throw water onto a tall statue of a man surrounded by flames this is a bit pedestrian. personally I'd reword to make it more active, something like: 'flicked water from a wooden ladle, so that it crackled and hissed against a statue of a man wreathed in fire'. I'm also not sure if the statue is literally surrounded by fire, or if it's a staue depicting a man on fire. It's very ambiguous. The figure's entire body this is overwritten - if the figure is engulfed, then we can assume it affects the whole body was engulfed in a soft thick green moss too many adjectives - lose at least one, and I'd suggest 'soft' and 'green' are both redundant, as we know these are generally the characteristics of moss and, through the daily throwing ritual, was continuously fed from the large rounded lose one of these adjectives basin set before it. This is what confused me, because I expected the stone to be hot and the water to crackle and hiss, but now it seems the statue isn't so much wreathed in flame as covered in moss, and wet. This sentence in also very passive

That's a lot of comments for 3 sentences - apologies if I overanalysed :D

Does it make you want to continue?

In all honesty, I wouldn't read on if I had this many problems with the opening.
 

Buffysquirrel

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Allow me one little grammatical correction. Where you've written, "The Buddhist temple was quiet save for the gentle sound of water...," is a bit erred. The word 'save' as used means 'other than', so I'd delete the 'for' so it reads, simply, "save the gentle sound of water..."

I hope it isn't too anal to point out that you're wrong.

If the sentence read "There was no noise in the Buddhist temple save the gentle sound of water", leaving out the "for" would be correct. But as what is included (quiet) is different from what is excluded (the sound of water), the "for" is correct.
 

heichan

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Thank you, Russ Mars. I appreciate your input and I'm glad that you would give my writing a chance and read on. I shall be super vigilant with my grammar.

Kallithrix, whether it's bad form or not I'm certainly happy to get detailed crit. Thank you very much. Your comments will really help as I edit the chapter. It gives me an idea of what to look out for.

Thanks for the clarification, Buffysquirrel. I know that 'save for' sounded natural to me as an Australian English speaker but I'm also very aware that what is natural and what is correct are often different. It always pays to double check.
 

MrFrankenstein

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Narrative-wise, I tend to enjoy hitting the ground running, and also flying by the seat of my pants - so here's the opening from one of my works in progress...

My younger sister Alice has never been quite the same since the death of the baby. She rigged up a makeshift altar in the cellar, dedicated to our dead sibling. She thought no one knew about it, but Vincent saw her carrying in a piece of lumber from the beach.
 

William K Elliott

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Here's mine.

The Buddhist temple was quiet save for the gentle sound of water slapping against stone. A weathered old local, his back bent and skin tanned from long years of hard outdoor labour, was using a wooden ladle to throw water onto a tall statue of a man surrounded by flames. The figure's entire body was engulfed in a soft thick green moss and, through the daily throwing ritual, was continuously fed from the large rounded basin set before it.

Does it make you want to continue?

Too passive.

My take:

The Buddhist temple was quiet save for the gentle sound of water slapping against stone. A weathered old local, his back bent and skin tanned from long years of hard outdoor labour, threw water from a large round basin onto a tall statue of a man surrounded by flames. The ritual kept the figure's entire body constantly engulfed in a thick green moss.

YMMV of course.

It does capture my imagination though. I am interested to see where it goes.

Bill
 
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