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My goal was to finish my 2nd draft on this story before the end of February. Whew! Made it! Now I need readers for the whole story, though I will accept crits on the first 13 that I have posted before. What I really need is can I leave out a section in the story and still have a story. I'll explain better to anyone who volunteers to read the whole piece. I know the intro needs work. The story gets stronger later on. I've thrown everything into this draft and am ready to trim what isn't needed.
Julie put six plates on the kitchen table while listening in on the family room discussion. “The idiot challenged me to a fist fight, of all things.” Degan said. “So I made him an example to get other warriors off my back.”
“How long did the coma last?” Toka asked.
Julie took the vegetable pot off the stove and caught Tika’s eye roll along with Nika’s vexed look.
“Who cares?” Degan said. “He challenged me.”
The pot banged the countertop, and Julie marched into the family room. “Is that all you feel about beating an already defeated man senseless?”
“Watch your place, Earther,” Degan said. “In this house we follow Noramian customs.”
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I like this better. My only nit is that there is a reference to Nika and Tika but no identification. Are they twins? I'd read more.
Posts: 195 | Registered: Jan 2011
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I think there's a good story coming - just slow coming out of the kitchen (I liked it better when Julie threw the food on Degan.) I suggest you work a little on avoiding passive action (instead of "The pot banged the countertop", try "Julie banged the pot on the countertop.")
Posts: 406 | Registered: Mar 2007
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quote:...avoiding passive action (instead of "The pot banged the countertop", try "Julie banged the pot on the countertop.")
Actually, those are NOT equivalent phrasings.
Here's something I learned from CJ Cherryh: sometimes you use this sort of backward (passive voice or close to it) expression to make things move faster, AND without focusing our attention the wrong way. So:
I lurched to my feet and knocked over my chair.
-- that's slow-moving and awkward.
However... this is more direct and more full of motion, even tho it's technically partially in passive voice:
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Thanks everyone for your responses, and I'll try to get my story sent to you, EVOC, very soon. I promise. I want to get this story ready to send out before the end of March.
I don't know why, Smiley, but I never thought Nika and Tika as twins, though I see how that could be. Actually, they're mother and daughter, and this comes out early on in the story.
And No Time to Think; The part where Julie throws Degan's dinner at him is still coming up. Someone in an earlier crit suggested "showing" why she did that. It also gave me time to let the reader in on some things early on. Like I said; I put everything into this draft. My next one will be aimed at trimming off all the fat to leave just the meat of the story for the reader's enjoyment. Care to read? I can send it to you too. Probably sometime tomorrow.
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