There is a hidden road that winds through eighty miles of redwood forest along the rain-drenched edge of northern California. Pungent evergreens catch the mist rising off the sea in their branches, casting all below into perpetual half-light. The land there is not tame; at every turn it bucks and plunges into sudden valleys as if to shake off the road that clings to its shoulders. It has a secret to protect, after all. The pillars that hold the sky stand there, quiet as sleeping giants, their roots buried three thousand years into the history of the world.
The road swerved, hard right. Ashly bounced off the passenger door and out of her daydreams. She peeled her cheek from the window and checked the speedometer. Fifty, pushing fifty-five,

As it reads, I don't know what to expect because there is this Omni narration, then the story begins and shifts to MC's POV. In a novel there will be plenty of time to have the story develop from the POV character. It will ensure gaining your readers trust to do so.

quote:

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[There is a hidden road that]->A hidden road winds through eighty miles of redwood forest along the rain-drenched edge of northern California. Pungent evergreens catch the mist rising off the sea in their branches, casting all below including the sea? into perpetual half-light. The land there<-omit is not tame; at every turn it bucks and plunges into sudden valleys as if to shake off the road that clings to its shoulders. It has a secret to protect, after all. The pillars that hold the sky stand there, quiet as sleeping giants, their roots buried three thousand years into the history of the world.
# <or> * * * (You need a break between the first and second paragraphs)
The road swerved, hard right. Ashly bounced off the passenger door and out of her daydreams. On first read I got the fleeting impression (before finishing the sentence) that she was bouncing out of the car. I think "bounced against" instead of "off" might fix that, for some reason. But I'm not sure. She peeled her cheek from the window and checked the speedometer. Fifty, pushing fifty-five,

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The writing here is excellent: poetic without being overwritten. That alone would get me to read on. The mention of a secret is icing at this point; I'm curious what it is, but suspect it may take a while to show up. But the writing tells me that it shouldn't be a difficult wait.

But you really need that break.

I am using Firefox, but I counted the lines and it still only takes twelve, with two blank lines at the bottom. Apparently Firefox is a tiny bit wider as well (even AFTER the scrollbar appears). What a pain. (The first line in the Firefox box gets the word "redwood" on it which allows the rest of the paragraph to shift over enough that it fits in one fewer lines.) The difference must be small, however; of all the other times I've checked, after taking into account the scrollbar and extra line problems the count has always matched.

[This message has been edited by rickfisher (edited March 17, 2008).]

PS: Just another bit of nonsense here. The Firefox 12-line version exactly matches what you'll see in WordPerfect with standard MS format; the IE version comes close to, but is a bit longer (I mean more words pushed to the last line of that first paragraph) than MSWord. I suspect the IE box counts the space between words as one of the characters on the line, and the Firefox box doesn't when it's between lines.