I need a few quick reads for the third draft of my Custer story.
The catch is that I'm on a deadline and need it back by Tuesday.
I'd like at least a couple to be fresh eyes. rickfisher, Rocklover, and silkenlightning are on my list of next-draft readers. If you guys are still interested and have the time, you'll get first priority.
Crits can be as deep or shallow as you have time for. Length just under 5000 words. Genre, historical fiction with a twist of Laocoon.
And the first thirteen lines:
quote:
It could never be said of Reverend Asael Quincy Clayton that he was a perfect man.
He had a thirst for strong drink and a penchant for cursing--but only in the privacy of his own lodging. He had, however, slipped on one too many occasions in the presence of one too many influential parishioners. Which is how he found himself at Fort Abraham Lincoln, Dakota Territory, early in the spring of the year 1876.
There, on the edge of the Sioux Nation, Clayton had determined to mend his ways and to attract a new congregation by selling Bibles to newly Christianized Indians who couldn't read, and to soldiers more interested in spending their money on liquor and whores.
[This message has been edited by djvdakota (edited March 05, 2005).]
My quibbles are style rather than content. Looking at the sample I would want to lead the second sentence with 'His thirst' and find some way of losing 'however' in the third. Maybe something like 'No great sin, but he had let it happened once too..'
[This message has been edited by keldon02 (edited March 05, 2005).]
[This message has been edited by keldon02 (edited March 05, 2005).]
My initial reaction was to be a little disappointed that it seems to start as a discussion of the character rather than action, but the character's interesting enough I'm still interested.
Silver, it's on the way.
[This message has been edited by djvdakota (edited March 06, 2005).]