* * * * *
Will Payne ushered his boys into their flat, got them settled in their room with a board game, then joined his wife in the kitchen.

“We have to leave,” he hissed in a tense whisper.

Her face blanched at his words. “What’s happened?”

“Jake started a police car and turned its sirens on, because he wanted to see the lights.”

“With magic?”

“Yes. He even got it in gear. It nearly hit the gates of Buckingham Palace before I was able to reverse the spell and get the boys away from there. Jake thought it was funny.”
* * *

I have a couple of nits.

hissed in a tense whisper: to me, hissing is about hostility.

"With magic?" She doesn't need to ask. She already knows. If you want to tell *us* it's magic, you can let this be a little exposition, or a thought by Will. (Great name, by the way.) As in

After that I took time to contemplate whether or not the boy was in the car. If that's explained later, nevermind.

I'd read on.

~Saint

The only thing I really don't like is the first sentence/paragraph, but my solution would be the opposite of Woodie's--cut it, and start with the "we have to leave." More dramatic. Then just spread out the opening info throughout the rest of the scene ("Will hissed in a tense whisper to his wife"; she can ask where the boys are and they're in the bedroom.)

(yay, two opposite pieces of advice for the same section! Don't you love getting people to critique your work?)

And I would be for keeping the "with magic" bit. Perhaps change the question mark to a period: "With magic." And do make it clear whether Jake's in or out of the car.

I like the idea of starting after that first paragraph - thanks a lot for suggesting it! Dang, I wish I could see your posts as I'm trying to reply here. I'm new to these boards and don't know all the in's and out's of using it yet.

The person who mentioned not double-spacing between paragraphs - a lot of what you said is Greek to me - could you please explain that again? For HERE, you don't need spaces between paragraphs, just indents, is that it? Okay, I can remove the first paragraph and the spaces between them and include a couple more lines so you can get a better idea where it's going.

I have another question. I orignally called this novel "Star Sons: Children of Destiny" (it's the first of a series, the Star Sons Saga). Then I changed the title to just "Star Sons," thinking "Children of Destiny" sounded a bit, um, something or other that I didn't like. But I can't think of anything better. So should it be "Children of Destiny, Book One of the Star Sons Saga" or "Star Sons: Children of Destiny" or "Star Sons" or just "Children of Destiny"??? They aren't going into space, so "Star Sons" alone COULD be misleading. Ideas are welcome! Thanks!

Anyway - thanks a lot, guys! I really appreciate the help!

“We have to leave,” Will Payne’s voice was a tense whisper.
All the color left his wife’s face. “What’s happened? Where are the boys?”
“In their room playing a board game. They’re safe for now, don’t worry. But Jake started a police car and turned its sirens on, because he wanted to see the lights.”
Meg swallowed hard. “With magic." Will nodded. "How far was he from the car?”
“We were on the sidewalk coming out of the park across from the Palace, and the car was at least fifty feet away. He even got it in gear. It nearly hit the gates of Buckingham Palace before I was able to reverse the spell and get the boys away from there. Jake thought it was funny.”

I posted what counted as 13 lines in this box, and it was only about 7 lines in the other form, so I added lines - hope this is right! This is my second edit of this post - all my "indents" went away, so should I double-space so you can see the paragraphs?? They show as indented here in the text box, but now when on the forum. How do I fix that? And how's this revision?

Lynda

[This message has been edited by Lynda (edited August 25, 2006).]

I have a little advice about the mechanics of the forum. I'm new to it myself. When you edit a second or third time, you can delete the [this item has been edited] thingy so you don't have a bunch of them. You'll always have the one, so you can't secretly edit??

I didn't know it, but I read in a post the other day that a convention in the forum is to put [HR] at the beginning of a paragraph. There doesn't seem to be any way to use indents. I haven't seen anyone do that yet, but it seems like a good idea - if everyone knows what it means.

I'm not sure it would work with Explorer, but with Netscape, I can use the browser's back button to re-read anything I've forgotten, then use the forward button to return to my post. Using Netscape, the post is right where I left it.

It is also my understanding that if you have 13 lines, you should be able to see them all in the little input box. I don't know what the rule is about things like a one-word line before a new paragraph, etc.

Oh, yeah, if you want to use things like bold, italics, ordered lists, offset quotations, etc. you can find out how by clicking on the UBB code is on line to the left of the input box.

I have covertly edited this message four times.

(Edited for mysterious reasons)

What's [HR] Do you mean an actual "hard return" or that I'm supposed to type [HR] at the beginnings of paragraphs? Thanks for the tips!

I'm glad you like the revisions, Wayne!

Scribbler, I LOVE Calvin and Hobbes!!! I have an old one of their strips taped to the shelf over my desk - it's at least 17 years old, but I still love it. Your point is well taken. How about "Star Sons - The Beginning" which was suggested by one of my betas? I still like the "Children of Destiny, Book One of the Star Sons Saga" but if I could find another way to express the "destiny" part (grabbing my thesaurus now) Nope, nothing there that makes sense to me. These boys are fated to face this guy Broga because they're the Star Sons (they're born with a mark, in a bloodline of mages who face such situations). That's why they're the "children of Destiny." "Children of Fate" just doesn't sound right. Thanks for the comments! Any title suggestions will be welcome!

Lynda

Wayne, thanks for the congrats on finishing it! This isn't the first novel I've written, but it's the first one I've tried to get published "for real." And the second book is well-underway now, yay!

Thanks again for all the great comments and crits!

BTW, I read Calvin & Hobbes every morning at http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/.

(Edited to add the Calvinists' link)

If I had a finished novel that I was ready to submit for publishing, I would really like to have read that chapter before I submitted it. If you could get your hands on a copy, I believe you would find it helpful. It's all about presentation of your manuscript to an agent or editor.

I have that book ("The First Five Pages") but it's been a while since I read it. Thanks for the nudge, I'll look at it again today.

Oh, and I'm not sure if this can help you at all, but I found a website that has a dictionary/thesaurus/reference section.

http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=Destiny&x=0&y=0

It's pretty cool and has a nice range of words you can use instead of "destiny." I'm partial to the word "fate," but I think it's because the first book in my series is called _Defenders of Fate_

I must admit, though, I would chuckle to see a book titled: _Star Sons: Children of Kismet_ or the like.

quote:

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“We have to leave,” Will Payne’s voice was a tense whisper.

---

There's no dialogue tag in this (he said, he whispered, etc). This sentence doesn't say he whispered, it says his voice was a whisper, therefore these are two separate sentences. "We have to leave." Will Payne's voice was a tense whisper.

Also, Will is exasperated, not his fist, so you might consider rewriting it as:

Will pounded a fist in exasperation on the kitchen table.

Or leave out the exasperated bit entirely and maybe say:

Will slammed a hand onto the kitchen table.

This is well written, and if I saw this in a bookstore, I'd spend the last of my food-money for the week on it.

About the title: I'd definitely leave off any reference to Destiny. It reeks of Chosen Ones and other cliche cookie-cutter story lines. I like Star Sons, even if it has nothing to do with outer space. Just wait a while on it and see if any other ideas come your way.

Forum Technical Stuff: Forget the back arrow entirely, and scroll down. There's a box below the post box where the original thread is. See the second scroll bar? Yay! Now we're all on the same page. Literally.

And what you posted in the revision was way more than 13 lines. I counted 21. Those 13 lines are 13 lines in Microsoft Word, Courier New, size 12 font, 1 inch margins. Without the Hard Returns (AKA double-spaces) between paragraphs, 13 lines will be all that will fit in the reply box. It's a good idea to double space between paragraphs to make them easier to read here.

While I agree with Deepdreamer about the exasperated fist, I think I like the two sentences: "We have to leave." Will's voice was... I don't see any reason to merge the two just to provide a dialogue tag. (Guys, try not to be cruel when you jump on me for this.)

quote:

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"We have to leave." Will Payne's voice was a tense whisper.

---

And I didn't discover the second set of scroll bars until a year after I signed up here, just so you know. I got so tired of opening up new webpages with the original topics whenever posted replies, (which is what I did, since going back and forth wiped out whatever I'd been typing.)

Survivor said:

quote:

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It was already a pretty solid opening.

---

And Lynda: I read a lot of YA, and it's not so much a rating as it is a market. Neither romance nor violence automatically rates something as adult fiction. It's more the extent to which the romance and violence carry the story, and how graphically those two things are written about.

WOW! The second scroll bar is FABULOUS! SO much better than having to go back and forth! Thanks BUNCHES for pointing it out!

As for the dialog tag itself - I've been reading a bunch of books on writing, as well as "Writer's Digest," and that "Self-editing" book, and one of the things that I've come across that really makes a difference is to not use dialog tags all the time, but to show an action instead. I have a note taped to my monitor: "Never use 'said' and an action in the same line -- ONE or the OTHER, not both." I don't always follw the rule, but when I do use that style, the writing tightens up a lot. I think doing the tags in a variety of styles keeps things more interesting, and I do what to see what my characters are doing, or how they're reacting to what's going on.

Wayne - thanks for the Calvin & Hobbes link!

MollieBryn - Thanks for all the kind words and for the link to the dictionary stuff. Yeah, "Kismet" wouldn't be my choice either! I'll let the title just simmer in the back of my mind (while searching madly for a better one) and will gladly consider any suggestions y'all may have!

DeepDreamer - I wrote that "exasperated" line at least five different ways trying to get it to sound extremely active and yet sound like "natural" language (not stilted narrative). Some lines just give me trouble that way, and this was one of them. Thanks for the suggestions. The "slammed a hand" one is closest to what I was going for - I may just change that hand to a fist - the man is TERRIBLY frustrated, after all, and they're about to do some things they really don't want to, because they must to protect their sons. You'd spend the last of your food-money on my book?!???? WOW! I'm honored! Thanks a lot! If you do buy it, let me know if it was with the last of your food money and I'll send you some gift certs to Wendy's! Ah, YOU'RE the one I have to thank for showing me the second scroll bar! THANK YOU! Thanks, too, for explaining the 13 lines - I'm writing in Times New Roman 12 point - maybe that was part of the problem. And someone else had told me not to double-space between paragraphs, so that's why I did it the way I did. I'll get this stuff figured out yet, with lots of help from you guys! And you say later that praise from Survivor is high praise indeed? COOL! Thanks for letting me know that! And thanks to Survivor, as well! And DD, I'll check out that link about YA books.

Can any of you tell me if it would be more beneficial for my books to be YA than adult?? My kids have been grown and gone for ages. The only "young folks" books that hit our house these days are Harry Potter books (MINE!! LOL!), so I know nothing about that market. Thanks for any info you can share! And again, thanks for all the lovely comments on my accidentally more than 13 lines!