Okay new game: hooked or not hooked.....

[RobJN]

Wow, the edits really do add some 'snap'... but I wonder if the pace is a bit *too* fast. Hm. Fine line in pacing that opening scene.

I do appreciate the advice on the "said" "asked" and "whispered."  As a good chunk of the work is dialogue, I'll need to go through with the diamond-edged red-pen

I thought it was going to just be a short story, or maybe a handful of scenes that would work themselves out.... But the latest word count on the project sits around 75,000 -- several hundred, at least, you've shown me I can do without.  Well, editing is what happens after I finish bleeding out all over the page.

*what*----best and neatest choice of words in this section that's going to drive me crazy until I get the answer---just what not who was she named for?   LOL

I'd almost forgotten that she snuck that in there. Crafty girl, that Beth... 

So, I take it you're hooked? [shameless plug] You can find the answer on the blog where the first draft is going up, bit by bit. [/shameless plug]

[LizW65]

I would add "answered" and "replied" to the list of dialogue modifiers.  Very, very infrequently I will add an adverb to the mix (e.g. "he said irritably") but I try to avoid them whenever possible*; one every 1000 words or so seems okay; otherwise it can get tiresome reading -ly, -ly, -ly all the time.

*if, for instance, I find myself using convoluted syntax and far too many words just to avoid the adverb.

[comprex]

Just a style thing, but it relates to pacing:  long words like 'amalgamations' tend to throw the reader off pace when they're in short-word text.       Consider 'hybrids' or even 'amalgams' or 'mutations' or ....

BTW, I heart ‘retort’.

[meg_evonne]

Just a style thing, but it relates to pacing:  long words like 'amalgamations' tend to throw the reader off pace when they're in short-word text.       Consider 'hybrids' or even 'amalgams' or 'mutations' or ....

  I didn't consider this but it makes complete sense.  Thanks for the tip Comprex!!!

Wow, the edits really do add some 'snap'... but I wonder if the pace is a bit *too* fast. Hm. Fine line in pacing that opening scene.

  YEP and that's where the author makes the stand--like Gary Cooper in High Noon!!!  :-)

I thought it was going to just be a short story, or maybe a handful of scenes that would work themselves out.... But the latest word count on the project sits around 75,000 -- several hundred, at least, you've shown me I can do without.  Well, editing is what happens after I finish bleeding out all over the page.

  Yeah, and we THINK we are in charge, right? 

So, I take it you're hooked? [shameless plug]

   Absolutely!  (especially after getting a clean look at your great dialog!

You can find the answer on the blog where the first draft is going up, bit by bit. [/shameless plug]  thank you.  i will.

Rob, I put a follow on your blog, why isn't it under your name?  And I start from the back right?  I think mine is under meg_evonne, but I rarely post there.

[RobJN]

Rob, I put a follow on your blog, why isn't it under your name?  And I start from the back right?  I think mine is under meg_evonne, but I don't post there, I just post once in awhile. 

Yes, the beginning of the tale is at the end of the blog, with the newest installment towards the "top."

[meg_evonne]

...but I don't post there, I just post once in awhile.

egads, I posted that sentence in an author's forum?  crimmineee.  Okay I was tired.

[Mickey Finn]

Guys, be careful here. There's potential, even in a paragraph, of story ideas territory.

I'm not saying stop, I'm just warning to be careful!

[Don Blake]

Fire, of course, is known for it's transformative properties.  Though primarily destructive, it can also burn away the impurities.  The finest steel, after all, is forged in the hottest flames.  I suppose you could say, then, that when Tom torched my car at a stoplight, he was turning me into a better weapon.

[LizW65]

"Meet Steve Adams.  By day, a mild-mannered cubicle drone in the offices of Semantech Corp; by night, a cape-clad crusader for truth, justice, and good grammar everywhere.  Look -- up in the sky!  Is it a bird?  Is it an F15 fighter jet?  No!  It's....THE READING RANGER!!!!"

(This is an idea for an origin story about a superhero whose cover story is that he plays a campy superhero on a PBS kiddy show.)

[meg_evonne]

Fire, of course, is known for it's transformative properties.  Though primarily destructive, it can also burn away the impurities.  The finest steel, after all, is forged in the hottest flames.  I suppose you could say, then, that when Tom torched my car at a stoplight, he was turning me into a better weapon.

My itchy editing fingers what to change to: "Fire is known for it's transformative properties.  Though primarily destructive, it burns away the impurities.  The finest steel is forged in the hottest flames.  So when Tom torched my car, he was turning me into a better weapon." 

But I know you are looking for an interesting voice here--so ignore my twitchy, itchy fingers!  I'm in editing mode on the YA---AGAIN.  arghhh. 

[meg_evonne]

"Meet Steve Adams.  By day, a mild-mannered cubicle drone in the offices of Semantech Corp; by night, a cape-clad crusader for truth, justice, and good grammar everywhere.  Look -- up in the sky!  Is it a bird?  Is it an F15 fighter jet?  No!  It's....THE READING RANGER!!!!"

(This is an idea for an origin story about a superhero whose cover story is that he plays a campy superhero on a PBS kiddy show.)

Like the premise!  Like the posting!  Love the layering of a Real Superhero who plays a grammar superhero on TV, whose day job is "mild-mannered cubicle drone"   Seriously, this could be the new "Captain Underpants", don't you think?  LOL  Where does he change his clothes?  In the little boy's restroom of schools?  Who would be the love interest--a big eyes, busty 3rd grade teacher? This really is a jewel Liz!

Yep, this is a Middle Grade gold mine, I think.  Hang on to this one!!! 

[meg_evonne]

young YA, beginning of my sequel.  I'm still editing the original...

"The text message read, “You suck.  Dare go near Randon & we'll make your life hell.” Eve punched off her phone. Texts with similar rants arrived regularly since she started her first semester at the American Rome School.  The first had been feeble attempts, but over the course of the semester they had become quite adapt at hurting and embarrassing her."

[LizW65]

Thanks, Meg!  Never thought of doing it as YA, but that makes a LOT of sense.  (I'd envisioned it as a satire of theatre in which the protagonist longs to be a serious actor but is typecast by his role in a kid's show and struggles against his destiny as a real superhero.  His love interest was supposed to be the costume designer on his show, and her name was Tasha Trent, because of course they ALWAYS have to have alliterative names. )

The threatening text message makes an interesting start to a story; I feel that in the interests of authenticity, however, it should be written in illiterate shorthand.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

The threatening text message makes an interesting start to a story; I feel that in the interests of authenticity, however, it should be written in illiterate shorthand.

Though that risks losing the sort of reader who looks at the first two paras and might then decide to stop if it looks like a whole book written in illiterate shorthand.

Plus, netspeak/textspeak of any kind will date really fast.  If you write it and it sells immediately you finish it, you'd be very lucky for it to hit shelves two years after you write it, and two years is most of a generation for online communities, no ?

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

My itchy editing fingers what to change to: "Fire is known for it's transformative properties.  Though primarily destructive, it burns away the impurities.  The finest steel is forged in the hottest flames.  So when Tom torched my car, he was turning me into a better weapon." 

But I know you are looking for an interesting voice here--so ignore my twitchy, itchy fingers!  I'm in editing mode on the YA---AGAIN.  arghhh. 

Your edits make it punchier, sure.  The question is whether punchier is what the voice wants.

As opening lines go, compare:

1) "OK, he's dead. You can go ahead and talk to him."

2) "You are reading this book for the wrong reasons."

3) "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way— in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

Each of them serves to set up a very defined voice, in distinctly different ways, no ?