posted
Tension Game: YA/NA Psychodrama/Romance, I'm 32,650 words into this one. It's been dusty for a while, I still chew on it from time to time, but I haven't tightened it up, so PLEASE FEEL FREE to be HONEST!
“Can I get you something else lass, a pint maybe?” The Bar Tender asked, eyeing the pretty brunette’s empty water glass with thinly veiled contempt.
“Why, yes, thank you. Another Panna Water, Please”, Cora replied with a cheeky smile, her dark cinnamon eyes twinkling up at the middle aged man. He smiled back in spite of himself, rolling his eyes heavenward and mumbling something about “this wayward generation”. As he placed another chilled bottle beside her glass, she aimed another winning smile at him and thanked him.
Absently flipping her long glossy chestnut hair over her shoulder as she turned to her best friend and flatmate, she took in the dimly lit pub with its noisy crowd and eye-smacking green crepe paper decorations.
I'm having that adjective issue again in the following passages:
"pretty brunette's empty water glass with thinly veiled contempt."
pretty, empty, water, and thinly veiled being the culprits.
"long glossy chestnut"
"dimly lit pub with its noisy crowd and eye-smacking green crepe paper decorations" The culprits here being dimly lit, noisy, eye-smacking, green, cre paper.
Way too much info for my reader's brain that wants to glide smoothly along. I'm not saying cut them all, but I do think the passage would be stronger if you cut most of them.
Posts: 118 | Registered: Jan 2012
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posted
Why is "Bar Tender" capitalized? Nit -- you could drop the "asked" because it is obvious from the working. Just go on to say he "eyed" her empty glass. Maybe go on to show his contempt in a second snippet or sentence.
Cut this down, perhaps "Cora replied with a cheeky smile, her dark cinnamon eyes twinkling up at the middle aged man. He smiled back in spite of himself, rolling his eyes heavenward and mumbling something about “this wayward generation”
Cora's cinnamon dark eyes smiled up at the middle aged man. He rolled his own eyes heavenward and mumbled something about “this wayward generation”
Just a thought. Cutting out some of the clutter obscuring the start of the story IMO
posted
I agree with the above: too many descriptors packed into too short of a space. You don't have to tell me everything about all the characters immediately. It makes your prose feel a bit purple to me.
I do think the interaction between the two characters is fun, though. My gut reaction to Cora is to like her.
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
I have to agree. There was way to much character descriptions up front that I lost track of the true just of the story going on.
I got that she is at a bar, but why? What message are you trying to get across about Cora, that she is a flirt and likes to entice men?
I think cutting out some of the descriptions could draw the reader more into the story, focus on the narrative between the characters.
Posts: 37 | Registered: May 2013
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posted
I get from the excerpt that Cora is self-involved to the point of being annoying, and verging on the deadly vice of vanity. "Mirror, mirror, on the wall . . ." As a reader, I'm empathetic for wanting her to have a profound personal growth and curious to see her brought down because of those traits. Hooked? That does it for me. I could be way off the mark though.
Adjectives and adverbs' function in prose is to express emotional texture: the whats, hows, and whys that show a viewpoint character's attitude toward a subject. In this case, the narrator expresses an attitude toward Cora. The ample modifying words imply an understated degree of irony, in my interpretation, that Cora is a bit much self-involved, again, if I'm on the mark about what the story is about in terms of Cora's personal growth.
A few pointers for minor formating glitches: Online forum mechanical style generally follows the Wikipedia Style Manual for "logical quotes". Small punctuation--commas and periods--are placed after a terminal quote mark in logical quotes, if the punctuation is not a part of the cite, as I did for the previous sentence's quotation (cite) from Wikipedia's style manual.
Quote marks used to signal emphasis, though, follow, in U.S. prose dialect, known as typesetters' quotes, the addage small punctuation goes inside quote marks regardless. This is also the principle for dialogue.
For example, “Why, yes, thank you. Another Panna Water, Please”, The proscriptive principle requires the terminal comma be inside the terminal quote mark. As such: “Why, yes, thank you. Another Panna Water, Please,” Also lower case "Please." And “this wayward generation”. as such: “this wayward generation.”
Also, "middle aged man" conventionally takes a hyphen" middle-aged man. And "thinly[-]veiled contempt" and "dimly[-]lit pub."
Names or common nouns for persons given in direct address also are bracketed with punctuation: “Can I get you something else lass, a pint maybe?” As such: “Can I get you something else[,] lass, a pint maybe?”
I am curious to see Cora get her due comeuppance for her self-involvement. But if I'm off, then the degree of writer surrogacy, also known as Mary Sue in fan fiction vernacular, I'd be less curious and probably not inclined to read on more than a couple hundred words if a strong and clear signal my suspicions are accurate didn't arise.
Posts: 6037 | Registered: Jun 2008
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posted
At first--and this is probably because I haven't read much new fiction written from an omniscient viewpoint--I thought the bartender was the main character and wondered why you weren't using his name. When I realized my mistake, I found the prose a little purple and meandering. T
Second: Why would the bartender look at her glass in contempt? And why would he consider bottled water "wayward"?
Third: I don't have a clear idea of what time period this is set in, nor if there is a speculative element. But, as giggly as Cora is, it almost feels like Anime.
Fourth: I see no sign (in the language or prose) of conflict, other than a disgusted bartender.
The often disputed hook isn't there for me. Now, it may be because of the story genre, and thus the conflict would be of an entirely different type. Should a romance start with the main character either loosing someone or being interested in someone? I don't know how psychodrama could be used to hook, unless you maybe indicate that the players are not what they seem to be? Is the bartender a real bartender, or a participant?
I hope this helps.
Posts: 3687 | Registered: Jan 2007
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