Hi TSW Sharman,

Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it and see where you're coming from. 

By the way, I've been corresponding with Lucy for a couple days now about getting my MS up, and I think we're almost there. I'm having trouble getting the browser to accept a cover image, but ideally the tech hurdles will be over soon and then I'll let you guys know when the story is up. For now I'm just trying to post the first two chapters.

Thanks,

Allison

Hi D'Estaing, TSW, and anyone else reading this,

Through the help of Lucy the site admin, I have finally posted the first two chapters of my manuscript, which you two generously reviewed recently ("The Unstoppable Reality of Daybreak"). I'd appreciate it if you'd check it out, if you have any more time. Similarly, if anyone reading these threads saw my first 600 words and is down to check out the MS itself, I'd appreciate it. Thanks very much. 

http://www.bookcountry.com/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=8450

Have a great Friday,

Allison

 Hi Kawasaki,

Normal caveat….etc.

I like the new title – I think it will grab the attention of readers looking for what you’re writing.  I’m not sure I like the way the SP starts with ‘Tim’ – it doesn’t tell us enough about this character, and why we should care about him.  How about something more like “A young American academic…”

I’m not a fan of the first sentence ‘My story begins on the day Rash was late.’  This brings to mind the narrator sitting at a desk writing a story, after everything has happened – so you’ve taken us out of the interesting present.  It’s also a touch dull.  Of course it’s a story, we know that. Why not just ‘Rash was late.’ Same comment applies to ‘as I recall.’

‘Skimpery.’  I don’t like it, it’s distracting.  Might just be me, but you write better than this without made-up words.  If you must use it, don’t use the inverted commas.

‘Latecomers.’  Doesn’t seem like the right word choice.  Implies that the people arriving are known to be late, but what are they late for?

‘Beyond the usual tensions an interview stirs up, there was reason to be.’  This is a little clumsy.  ‘Something he’d said on the phone yesterday had been worrying me.’

“Something you said on the phone has been bothering me. About how Kaifu can sometimes operate on the edge. You never really explained what that meant.”  I think this dialogue is a little wooden.  ‘You know when you said he sometimes operates on the edge.  What did that mean?”

‘if you have doubts, ask him yourself. You won’t be stealing rice from my bowl by saying no’ – these two sentences are a bit of a non-sequitur.  Ask him yourself – doesn’t seem like a good idea.  I’m inclined to suggest you kill ‘if you have doubts, ask him yourself.’

Overall I really quite like it, it bounces along now that we have clear dramatic stakes for Tim, and has some peppy dialogue.  You might have lost a little of the depth of Rash, from dropping the: ‘His family name is Nakayama, Nakajima or possibly Nakamura or Nakamatsu. Whatever, he’s long stopped answering to it, saying it was a pain to keep correcting foreigners as to which Naka he was. Now he’s just Rash: a quasi-affectionate moniker bestowed on him by a French acquaintance after the Akira Kurosawa movie Rashomon.’  Maybe bring that back.

Best of luck with this.

TSWS

Bad Napkin

Dear D'Estaing,

I cannot thank you enough.
Sorry if I flubbed the directions. It was not intentional. I tried really hard to do the exact word count and in order, but in truth, I stink at learning new technology and sites. I'll get better.

The title is a reference that is explained within the first many pages. In Alaska, there was once a legend that the ratio of men to women were 5 to 1, which should make it a single woman's paradise, until you actually met them. . Thus, a phrase came eventually, The odds are good, but the goods are odd.

I will make some revisions and look back at directions. Thank you again.  Having unvarnished feedback is wonderful, and what a gift you're providing on the forum.

Sincerely,

Lizbeth

Dear TSWS,

Thank you so much for the feedback. I really appreciate it and am so glad I stumbled on this forum.

I like the handle Dirty Napkin.

Lizbeth

Keep up the good work, D'Estaing, I'm sure that many on this site appreciate your time and excellent advice! Now, if only Lucy would reply to my 2-week old message to her...

Ryan

Danielsford again. This is a prologue I've been working on. When done, I hope it explains the rest of the story - if I can figure a way to get from 1693 to the present.

Mary Bradbury, 25 years old, single and pretty stood in front of a table at the back of her shop mixing a potion when the front door opened. Three men entered. She recognized them. Danielsford wasn't a large town and everyone knew everyone else.

She knew the men well enough to know they weren't in her shop for a purchase, or even a friendly visit. One of them had examined her for an entire day a year ago, in 1692, when she was arrested for practicing witchcraft.

She successfully answered all their questions and was released. Her answers to their barrage of questions were perfect, but it was her recitation of the Lord's Prayer that won her freedom. A witch was incapable of saying the prayer without errors. One of the men didn't accept the prayer.

He argued that she used a spell, or other kind of sorcery, to delude them into thinking the recitation was correct. When she was turned loose anyway, he refused to speak to or acknowledge her. For the next year he avoided her, even at church each Sunday.

“Good sirs,” she greeted them innocently.

“Mary Bradbury,” one began.

“You well know it is my name.”

The man held a paper in his right hand. He lifted it and showed it to her.

“You are charged with sorcery and consorting with the devil.”

She glanced at the paper, puzzled. “The trials be ended. Even the jail in Salem Town is empty. The Royal Governor has -.”

“Thou art a witch,” said the second man, speaking to her for the first time since the questioning. “Look about. All that is here be of Satan.”

He waved his arm around the shop.

“I did correctly answer your questions, Thomas Walcott,” she said as firmly as she could manage. “I spake the Lord's Prayer to the satisfaction of constable Butler. I did speak it better, I should say, than you yourself can.”

“Mary Bradbury,” said the first man. “You are charged and be convicted of sorcery.”

She stared at the man, William Dunwoody.

“There were no trial,” she finally said. “How do I be convicted? I were not present to offer defense of myself.”

Walcott glared at her. “It be done. You are found to be a witch.”

Dunwoody agreed. “The sentence be death by hanging.”

Mary's knees went weak. She stumbled back a step and braced herself against the table. “I am a Bible woman. Each of you knowest this. I am a member in good standing of the church.”

Dunwoody motioned to the third man, John Chapin.

“Take her,” said Walcott.

“You will come peaceably?” Chapin asked gently.

Mary seemed frozen in place, unable to make her legs move. “Hang?”

William Dunwoody nodded. “Hanged until dead. Take the witch, John.”

“Such is not legal,” Mary whispered.

“God will be our judge,” Walcott snapped. “Reverend Churchill did approve. Thou be a witch. The Bible, not the governor, does direct our actions.”

He motioned her away. John Chapin touched her on the arm. She jerked away and they walked to the door.

Chapin guided her the short distance to a modest building near the edge of town. Mary knew what it was. She was there a year ago when questioned.

Chapin put her in a small room. High on one wall, a window let in a little light. The room was bare except for a bed, chair, and in a corner a chamber pot. He stood for a moment, appearing uncomfortable, before stepping out of the room.

“This is not of my doing,” he said as he began to close the door. “I approve not.”

Mary nodded. “Thou art a good man, John. I know well your wife.”

The door closed and she heard a bar slide, locking the door tightly. She turned slowly, glancing around the small room. Then, she slid into the chair, buried her face in her hands and began to weep.

--edited by Charles J. Barone on 9/12/2015, 4:45 PM--

Hi Charles,

Welcome, come in.  Pour yourself a drink, draw up a chair and let’s throw another Faux Editor on the fire.  Let’s get a blaze going, to keep the winter out, and have a good ol’ chat.

I thought your original version was interesting, though it needed more focus and some tweaks.  A man, tired on a long drive, gets lost.  He arrives in a village that he doesn’t recognize, a village that seems out of both time and place.  If you amp it up a little, sort the wheat from the chaff, it could be quite gripping.

Your new prologue is technically decent, but for me it lacks suspense and drama.  And, I think there’s a reason for that: it’s one giant cliché. The falsely accused woman/witch is a trope found in countless books and TV shows.  There’s nothing new, no surprises.  I digress, but one of the things I love about writing is the opportunity to make bold creative choices.  This isn’t that.

So, now you’ve finished your drink, let me pour you another – this one’s a touch of a bigger pour – and send you back to be boldly creative.  How about, just for the sake of spitballing, this:

“Danielsford’s village green had been set around a giant oak tree that stooped like an old man, branches trailing along the ground like withered arms, ending in dead yet still-grasping hands.  When the village had been formed in 1653 it was said even then that the tree was a thousand years old.  The children called it Old Man Lucifer and hysterically dared each other to touch it after dark.

If Old Man Lucifer could talk, he might recount hundreds of years of tales. The quotidian hopes, joy and pain of the hundreds of years that have passed. Lovers’ secret meetings, bloody fights between desperate men, sobbing widows, marriages, and fires. Then, Old Man Lucifer might whisper the secrets of nearby buried papers, buried gold, buried bastard babies. 

But of Mary Bradbury he’d never speak.  Accused of witchcraft twice, she’d been tried and absolved once, but lynched the second time without a trial. With no gallows, they had hung her from a low limb – a diseased limb of Old Man Lucifer that had broken under even her little weight.  Fallen, she’d rolled on the ground screaming and screaming, her shift above her head, exposing her entirely. They had hung her once more, naked, this time from a stronger branch.  Her neck hadn’t broken with the fall, she’d been strangled by the rope and had shitted and pissed herself as she slowly died. 

Her executioners praised Christ as her body spasmed; they cursed the devil, cursed her and her piss and shit on their boots.  And as cowards hiding in their houses cursed the executioners for killing an innocent woman.

They burned Mary Bradbury's stark white corpse on the village green, hoping to see the devil rise from her charring body.

Three hundred and fifty years later, Old Man Lucifer is still said to be a thousand years old.  Above all else, he still remembers Mary Bradbury and every detail of her desecration. Even if he’ll never talk of it.”

That’s enough, sorry if you feel I’m trying to muscle in on your writing – I’m just trying to push your creative choices.  Make a list, a long list, of ever more creative choices.  If you like the Old Man Lucifer approach, go for it (I hereby waive copyright.) Another drink old boy?

TSWS

Bad Napkin

--edited by T.S.W. Sharman on 9/12/2015, 7:53 PM--

Hi Lizbeth - Bad Napkin isn't my handle, it's my brilliantly funny YA/New Adult comedy of errors posted on BC.  It made the Editor's Desk on Authonomy in July 2015 (just in time) and I'm supposed to be looking for a publisher/agent, but I'm wasting my time having fun on BC.  Please do check it out and either (i) leave gushing praise, or (ii) walk away, backwards, gently shaking your head.

--edited by T.S.W. Sharman on 9/12/2015, 7:39 PM--

@Kawasaki

A couple of things I meant to mention when I commented on the book page, but forgot. About how to replicate Japanese speech patterns.

One is simply to use more Japanese. Ideally without a translation (meaning obvious from context). This was something someone suggested to me over on Authonomy that I found helped a lot.

The other way is to write the dialogue in Japanese, then put it through Google Translate to get back to English. Only tried this once, but the results weren't too bad.

T.S.W. Sharman and MauriceR--Thank you for the feedback. Back to the writing board. I'll need to build a bridge to it soon, as I've worn away the ground so much.

So off the computer and back to the old Royal typewriter, where ideas seem to come more easily.

Dark Side of the Rising Sun, by John Boyd

Hi again.

I'm afraid I prefer the previous version.

I don't like the authorial intrusion of "My story begins" and "You see" five paras later, or the clumsy foreshadowing "he was merely serving me up - in more than one way, now I come to think of it". That just makes me conscious of the fact that I'm being told a story, not that I am in the story.

In editing your original without due care you've lost the motivation for Rash to be late (the girl) but you've kept in the line "You won't believe what held me up" which is now deadweight.

The sixth paragraph tells us what he's doing there, but in awkward exposition rather than dialogue or action.

"A little" - is this speech, or thought? It has no dialogue punctuation, but looks like a reply to Rash asking "Nervous?" You then tell us why he's nervous instead of relying on the rest of the dialogue to show us his concerns.

If Rash is a good friend of his, why does he only "realise later" that Rash has this tic of looking away and then fixing his eyes back on his interlocutor to convince people of sincerity? Why doesn't he already know this about Rash?

And you've lost most of the voice of your previous version that I found so interesting and unusual. I suggested toning down the alliteration and assonance slightly, not eliminating it.

Disappointed.

I think it's fairly obvious that you spent a lot longer working on the previous version than you did on this one, and I'm a bit mystified as to why you revised it so comprehensively?

Sorry to be so negative, but thanks for posting.

D'Estaing - "Evenrood"

Danielsford - Charles J. Barone

Yes, I can see that you might have a problem going from 1693 to the present. I think your idea to go from the present back is really the only way that this time-slip thing is going to work. To go from "thou art" and all the rest of it to mobile phones is just going to feel very strange indeed. I'd be intrigued to see if you could pull it off as a writing exercise, but I imagine you've got better things to do.

I'm afraid I'm not sure about this beginning either.

"Mary Bradbury, 25 years old, single and pretty" isn't the opening of a novel, it's a stage direction in a play. And I don't get why you're telling us she's pretty anyway. The subtext seems to be that if she was an ugly old cow they could chuck her on the fire and no-one would care.

She seems to have a particular beef with one of the men, who didn't believe her at her original trial and has been ignoring her every week in church since. Perhaps she would focus on this man and from the fact that he was here, know that she was in trouble. From her POV there doesn't seem to be any anticipation of threat or danger. She knows they were not customers or here for a chat, but she doesn't seem to feel any great trepidation.

She greets them "innocently". Well, she would do, wouldn't she?

You introduce one of the men neatly in dialogue, but append the other names awkwardly: "She stared at the man, William Dunwoody" and "Dunwoody motioned to the third man, John Chapin". These names are dropped into the narrative purely for our benefit - the men know their own names, and Mary knows all of them, so both of these instances constitute an authorial intrusion into the narrative that has no place there.

We are all familiar with the stupid religious bigotry that caused the Witch Trials in the first place. Even in that context, this arresting of Mary out of the blue is hard to take in. It's timing seems completely arbitrary, its justification non-existent. Without any context at all, it really isn't very believable. And neither do we really care much about Mary at this point. Maybe Thomas Walcott is right - perhaps she is a witch. She's introduced as standing at the back of the shop (what shop? - a potion shop? After she's already been hauled in for witchcraft? Is she nuts?) mixing a "potion." For what? Warts? True love? If Mary is innocent, then you're squandering this very dramatic moment of her arrest and unjustified incarceration without trial before we've made any emotional investment in her survival at all. Why would you waste such a scene?

I don't think this is the place at which to start your book. I think a much better place was where you originally began, the travelling salesman or whatever he was, getting lost in what should be familiar territory. Either that or, perhaps, do a real creative leap and go down the route that TSW outlined, if, as you say, that was close to what you originally had.

Thanks for posting though.

D'Estaing - "Evenrood"

Thank you D'Estaing. I think the wise thing to do is put Danielsford aside for awhile, create some distance while my subconscious mulls it over, and take a look at a couple of other things I put aside some while ago. I've been fighting with the opening for nearly 2000 words now and am not sure I wouldn't end up with a novella before being finished, and still not have the way to jump from then to the present.

The mention of a screenplay was interesting. That's what Danielsford began as. Time hops, forward or back, work easily in screenplays. Not so much in books.

With over 4000 views in just over a month, this must be one of the most popular threads on BookCountry by a country mile... yet it will die a death if no-one steps up to the plate. Is there really not one of the 20,000 odd members here who have an opening they think is ready for an agent, or a publisher, and would like a second opinion?

Don't be shy now.

So far we've had several pieces pretty much ready for an agent to have a look at, and quite a few more that needed work. But even those that needed work got some free advice, which they may or may not agree with and are certainly under no obligation to use.

There's nothing to lose but a little pride, perhaps. It's a tough test to take, but it's a good exercise. It's been said before, many times, that an agent or a commissioning editor starts reading a manuscript looking for excuses to put it down and move on to the next one. They're on their lunch-break, they're eating a donut, they have half an hour before that meeting with the accounts department, and they have three hundred manuscripts in a tottering pile beside their desk that have come in in the last two weeks. How are you going to grab their attention and ensure that their donut goes uneaten, their coffee goes cold, and they're late for their meeting with the accountants?

So submit it here, and we'll tell you, bluntly but always kindly, what we think. You know you want to.

Title: Dark Side of the Rising Sun

Genre: Suspense Thriller 

Pitch: Anglo-American Tim Harrington gets duped into teaching English to a Japanese crook in with the yakuza. This leads to sexual blackmail, torture and worse. Much worse.

CHAPTER 1

Rash is late. Damn late. Waiting for him here in Shibuya with its riot of advertising and cluster of giant video screens to mug eye and ear, the floods of people flowing past, and the girls parading in minis, micros and hot pants, I let time turn thief and sneak past me.

I yank my phone out to ding him when he emerges from the crowds pouring across the Shibuya Scramble, ponytail swinging.

He reaches the sidewalk, glances around briefly, then makes his way between the groups and singles thronging the area waiting for friends to arrive.

I throw him a wave, wishing it were a rock, and cop a swerve of direction in return.

“Tim-san! So sorry! You won’t believe what held me up.”

In no mood for one of his tangled tales and unimpressed with his mile-wide grin, I snap, “On the contrary, knowing you I likely would. Forget it. We don’t have the time.”

He’s lined up an interview for me with Ryuu Kaifu—a hot shot businessman who wants to hire an English teacher who can come running at short notice whenever an empty slot appears in his otherwise crammed schedule. According to Rash, he’ll pay yen galore for the convenience, an appealing proposition for someone out of work, so I don’t want to be late.

Rash, though, is not to be hurried. He steps back to eye me up and down. “You’re turned out to make a good impression,” he says, grinning broadly again, finding my buttoned-down appearance amusing when he’s come casually dressed. But then I’m the one in for a fiery grilling, he’s just serving me up. This Kaifu dude is apparently one super tough hombre of a negotiator.

 “Nervous?” he asks, studying my face.

 “Er … a bit, maybe. But now you mention it, something you said on the phone has been bothering me. About how this guy can sometimes operate on the edge. You never really spelled out what that meant.”

He looks away before answering and then fixes his eyes back on me. “You could say he’s something of a cross between a corporate raider in America and an activist shareholder who keeps management on its toes. Made enemies, got some bad press along the way—not always fairly in my view. Anyhow,” he flashes me an annoyed look, “ask him yourself. If the job doesn’t feel right, walk away.”

It’s what I’d hoped to hear. “Shouldn’t be a problem, then. Especially for ten thousand yen an hour.”

“Hey! Wasn’t I clear? You didn’t get that figure from me. Right? It’s something you have to ask for and negotiate to get.”

“Hmm.”

“Ah … ”

The bugger reads my mind, something he’s good at. But then he was my boss for a time and knows I’m not the greatest bargainer in the world.

Amused again, he says, “My dear Tim-san, can we get real here? If you’re not prepared to fight for the fattest fish, you’re going to end up with the sardine. A simple truth of life you still haven’t grasped.”

This is pretty rich coming from a guy nicknamed Rash: a moniker bestowed on him by a western friend after the Akira Kurosawa movie Rashomon, an ambiguous story that tests one’s sense of reality. Rash too can spin a plausible tale, only to head-fake you into believing he meant something else if things turn out different.

“Didn’t know your middle name was Confucius,” I retort, letting his patronizing get to me. “One more thing you never explained. Why did Kaifu insist on a large, color photo with the résumé? Odd, don’t you think? Is he looking to hire a teacher or a trophy escort?”

--edited by Kawasaki on 9/24/2015, 12:21 AM--

Hey John,

You're keeping us going single-handedly, for which our thanks, but, as a general rule, it's unwise to keep resubmitting. In the OP (I've amended it to stress this point) the guidelines on Authonomy were that people didn't submit the same opening within a month of having had a critique. This was both to give other people a chance at the thread (not a problem here, as I complained two posts ago!), but also, crucially and more importantly, to let suggestions that might have been made by the editors to percolate and simmer for a while before the author made any rash changes to their work. Otherwise the temptation is to keep rewriting until you have an opening that you think all the editors will agree is brilliant. Unfortunately, as in real life, that will hardly ever happen. Editors are people too, with their own disparate opinions. What really appeals to one real life agent, twenty others will turn their noses up at. So the process becomes one of diminishing returns and frustration for the author. The point of this thread is to make your opening the best it can be.

However, things are quiet in the Faux Editors' office, so let's have another look.

I really liked your first version, as I said before. There was a very vivid tone, a distinctive voice, very Japanese somehow, although I don't know quite how you did it. There were a few tweaks I thought you should make, but otherwise it was good. The second version I didn't like. You'd edited out all of the voice I liked and substituted quite a bit of telling and exposition and inserted an authorial voice which I thought was totally out of place. This third version is much better. You've got rid of most of the problems although you still haven't regained the voice that you had in the first version. There's still a bit of telling, and the scene, after Rash arrives, is very static. They're just standing there, in the midst of the throng of people in Shibuya, talking. I wonder if you couldn't combine the two versions, make the scene more active, and pass as much information as you can through dialogue, rather than recollection? I'm going to break a self-imposed rule and instead of telling, try and show what I'm talking about:

Rash is late. Damn late. And waiting for him here in Shibuya, Japan's glamorous, clamorous capital for the teens and twenties, I've fallen victim to daylight robbery. Distracted by the girls parading by in their spring skimpery and entertained by the comings and goings, greetings and groanings of the crowds milling about, I invited time to turn thief and steal past me like a pickpocket unseen.

I yank my phone out to ding him when synchronicity obliges and he emerges from among the charging hordes pouring across the Shibuya scramble, ponytail swinging in time to his stride.

I throw him a wave, wishing it were a rock, and cop a swerve of direction in return.

"Tim-san! So sorry! You won't believe what held me up."

In no mood for one of his tangled tales and unimpressed by his mile-wide grin, I snap, "On the contrary, knowing you, I likely would. Forget it."

His family name is Nakayama, Nakajima or possibly Nakamura or Nakamatsu. Whatever, he's long stopped answering to it, saying it was a pain to keep correcting foreigners as to which Naka he was. Now he's just Rash: a quasi-affectionate moniker bestowed on him by a French acquaintance after the Kurosawa movie Rashomon-a story that presents different viewpoints of the same incident and leaves it up to the audience to decide what is the truth. Rash too spins a convincing tale, only to head-fake you into believing he meant something else if the outcome turns out different. He ought to be a politician.

I check my watch, hold it up to him and tap the face.

Rash, though, is not to be hurried. He steps back to eye me up and down. "You're turned out to make a good impression. Nervous?" he asks, studying my face.

"I could do with ten thousand yen an hour."

His eyes narrow, his face hardens. "Hey! Wasn't I clear? You didn't get that figure from me. Right? You have to negotiate. And he's tough."

"Okay..."

"You never were much good at negotiating,' he says, clapping me on the back. Amused again, he says, "My dear Tim-san, can we get real here? If you're not prepared to fight for the fattest fish, you're going to end up with the sardine. A simple truth of life you still haven't grasped."

We start walking towards….<you'd need to put something in here, are they walking, or hailing a cab?>

"Tell me a bit more about him, anyway. I googled, came up blank."

"You won't find guys like Kaifu on Google, my friend," he says, shaking his head. "He operates… How to put it? He's on the edge, you know."

"Whoa," I say, stopping. "I don't. What do you mean?"

Rash looks back at me. "You could say he's something of a cross between a corporate raider in America and an activist shareholder who keeps management on its toes. Made enemies, got some bad press along the way-not always fairly in my view. Anyhow," he flashes me an annoyed look, "ask him yourself. If the job doesn't feel right, walk away." He shrugs, then gives me that grin again.

This is only 500-odd words, so you have another 100 to play with, driving them further along the narrative path, speeding the pace of the scene up quite a bit. I'm not saying this is the version you should write, clearly. The above is pretty crap, a quick cut and paste job in dire need of an edit itself, but I'm trying to illuminate the following points:

This version starts with the first few paras of your original version, unedited. I think they're great, as they stand, and they have that voice.

Then we've cut out Onishi, who was arm-candy distraction, retain the para about Rash's name, and then we get straight to the conversation about the job.

I don't spell out the fact that Tim's unemployed, just that he needs the money. The circumstances of his being fired could easily be brought in later - perhaps in the interview.

I don't spell out the fact that Rash was Tim's boss. Does he even need to be? That puts their relationship on a slightly different keel I think, one more master/servant than Japanese wheeler-dealer and gauche gaijin.

I don't tell any details about Kaifu. Rash tells him here that he "operates on the edge", not in some previous conversation. That means that you can have Tim's reaction live - stops walking, wants clarification - you get an insight into Tim's character which you don't get otherwise.

If people are going for an important interview these days, it's almost a given that they've done a bit of research about their potential new employer. This Google item is the only bit that I've inserted - the rest is all your text mashed up a bit.

I've also put in that they start walking towards somewhere, to get around that static element of the two of them just standing there talking about conversations they had the other day, which is rather static. You'd need to fill in the blanks a bit at this point, get them moving.

Now, you'll have to forgive my impertinence in rewriting your beginning. Please don't be offended. I just felt (rather than write out longhand, "Why don't you include paragraphs 1 to 3 of your first version, cut out reference to the girl, reinstate the para about Rash..." and so on) it was the easiest way to try and convey what I felt about getting the scene more active, including the good parts of the revisions you've made, but also trying to include some of the voice which I felt you'd let slip. I'm not for a minute suggesting that this is the opening to your book. It isn't. It's my bastardised cut-and-paste mongrel version of what you've submitted. Have a think on it. I'd be interested to know what you feel (about the suggestions I'm making, not about the piece itself).

Thanks for submitting.

D'Estaing - "Evenrood"

--edited by D'Estaing on 9/24/2015, 9:01 AM--

D'Estaing--Thank you for this. Rather than offended, I'm grateful you would go to the trouble and time to write out your feedback to this degree. Actually, I feel honoured.

I'm happier with this latest version because it raises the element of suspense early, which my first version delayed for too long--not good for readers who come to the story expecting a suspense thriller. But this doesn't mean I won't modify it slightly after I consider your feedback.

Much obliged.

Hello! I've literally not had this workshopped by anyone yet, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Title: Perennials

Pitch:Three lives and thirty years weave together as a silent war wages over Longevity, a black market biomedical treatment with a sordid past.

Genre: Soft Science Fiction

http://www.bookcountry.com/Bookdetail.aspx?BookId=8533

 CHAPTER 1 

30 Years Ago

            "Wouldn't it be funny, if I died on the same day the world gets its first immortal man? I just think that'd be hilarious. Very ironic. Is that what irony means?"

            "You're not gonna die, kiddo, we'll make sure of that."

            Alex didn't quite believe him, the doctor standing over him in scrubs, bifocals miraculously stuck to the front of his bulbous nose. But he still thought it was funny, mostly because he was slowly being knocked unconscious and his thoughts were doing strange things. He could feel his heart hammering against his ribcage, its sinus rhythm echoed by the heart monitor. But there was no pain. That was nice.

            "Irony is expecting one outcome and getting another," said one of the nurses. 

            "Oh we got an English major in here," said Alex, in a voice that didn't sound like his own. They looked at him funny and he assumed that was actually his brain that had told him that, not a nurse. They were probably pretty busy learning nurse things in nurse school, or at least he hoped so, because knowing the definition of irony probably wouldn't help them very much in keeping him alive. Or maybe it would.

            Alexander was scheduled for open heart surgery. It would be the second of his life and likely not the last. This one should extend his years well enough. Maybe even into his early twenties. If it went well. It wasn't a new heart, but it was something. Still, his thoughts were elsewhere, mainly because it was easier. More specifically, they rested on a man named Howard Highland. His social media profile called him a 'committed eccentric, CEO, world traveler and bio-tech start up guru turned human guinea pig'. A New York native in London, much like Alex. They'd come to this city for different reasons, yet Howard was likely also lying down with elaborate machinery hooked up to him, in a different wing of this very hospital in the bowels of the West End. He'd come here to see Les Mis and liked it so much that he'd stayed to fund an entirely new hospital wing. That's what he'd liked saying, whenever he was interviewed. Alex had spent weeks watching him on the flat screen above his bed.

            Even though he'd personally never met the man, Alex was sure, that if he wasn't so currently predisposed, he could have gotten a seat at the bleachers. He and his family had been sniffing around here like vultures, though granted their agendas were both stubbornly separate and painfully obvious. And they hadn't been the only ones.

            He knew they were making a spectacle of it, for private investors. At least if Alex died, he could do it in the relative privacy of a closed operating room. He would be blissfully unaware, his pathetic heart clutched in the hands of a harrowed surgeon, blood spurting his face like a Tarantino film. But at least there wouldn't be any disappointed spectators.

            These were the thoughts that first ran, then floated, then lazily danced through his head, taking on strange and unrelated shapes, tangents and forks into the bizarre and absurd.

            "Count backwards from ten", he was told, but he ignored this request. You never reached one anyway. His lids grew heavy, and finally, drooped closed.

Hi Emerson.

Pitch: There's something not quite right with the pitch. You're vague about the "who" in "three lives", but specific about the drug "Longevity". That makes one think the book is a sci-fi story about the drug, yet it's given secondary importance in your pitch because you've put it after "Three lives, thirty years". In the blurb for "The Time Traveller's Wife", the only similar example of a sci-fi story on a personal scale set over a long time period that comes to mind, Niffenegger named her protagonists and gave the time-travel element slightly less emphasis. She saw it as a love story primarily. Not quite sure if this is a sci-fi story or a family drama epic. If you helped clarify this it would be better, I think.

Text: The problem with starting a book with "Thirty years ago", especially in sci-fi, is that we're not sure if the thirty years ago refers to thirty years ago from today, when the reader is reading it in October 2015, or thirty years ago from a point in time itself (relevant to the reader) in the past, or in the future. So I initially thought the story starts in 1985, but then quickly realised, with the references to bio-tech start ups and flat screens, that it's very much in the "now". "Thirty years ago" is expressing time relative to a present that you haven't yet described, so the reader lacks any context. It might be better to use this scene as a flashback, after you've already established your "future" world thirty years hence. If the structure of the book dictates that this must be the opening scene, then it might be better to specify an actual date, in order to anchor this point of time in the reader's perception. You could set the scene in the recent past "October 11th 2010". Then when you come to start in the book's present, you state the date as being 2040, and let us gather the passage of time in that way. Alternatively, present this scene itself in the near future "October 11th 2019". Our perceptions are then primed that this is a story whose narrative will largely take place in the future. Unfortunately with this approach, of course, there's a built in obsolescence. October 2019 is only four years away, and the speed with which the publishing world moves means that this could almost be the publication date if you started submitting this to agents now.

There's a similar problem with portraying the passage of time with this whole piece. It's really all a fairly lengthy passage of introspection, Alex (is it Alex, or Alexander? You use both) ruminating on the doctor's appearance, nurse training, open heart surgery, Howard Highland, the possibility of death, Tarantino movies. At the very end, you tell us he is told to count backwards from ten, he chooses not to, and then his eyes close. But at what point was he actually anaesthetised? It isn't in the course of this passage, otherwise I'm sure you would have mentioned it. But if it happened before, he has an awful lot of time to think before eventually going under. Alex himself says that being put under is almost instantaneous, so how has he had the time to ponder all these things? Thoughts, especially only disjointed ones, are not instantaneous, so either we are Alex, in his head thinking these thoughts out in real time, in which case then he's not going to just fall unconscious without the very real physical intrusion of the needle or the mask in the narrative, or we are outside Alex's head, almost a narrator pondering these thoughts while looking down on Alex. You could avoid all this if you just added, before the "count backwards" dialogue, a line about the anaesthetist fiddling at his bedside, or the feeling of the needle, or the rush of drugs through the catheter or whatever method they use.

These two specific things I suspect would be enough for an agent to reject the piece. Leaving aside those issues, there are a number of other stylistic things that could probably be improved upon, most of which revolves around the necessity for certain phrases or passages to be in the piece at all, especially considering that this is the first two pages.

Alex is knowingly ironic, then asks what irony means. It seems a bit pointless. If you're demonstrating the rambling nature of his semi-conscious thought, I don't think you need to actually spell out his ramblings. You could cut those two sentences.

I don't think you can "slowly" be knocked unconscious.

I've never seen "sinus" used adjectivally. Not saying it's wrong, but it threw me a moment. Is it a typo for "sinuous", or are you really using it in some semi-biological definition with which I'm not familiar?

"They looked at him funny" - aaargggh - my British English chokes on adjectives used as adverbs, but I know it's not "wrong" in US vernacular. But couldn't it be "looked at him curiously", or "oddly"? Pretty please?

By the fifth para, and we're still rambling on about irony, I'm afraid my attention is beginning to wander a little. You have a dramatic moment, Alex going under the knife for dangerous surgery from which he might not even awake, and you have him ruminating on syntax. Apart from the fact that he likes grammar, this isn't really telling us much about Alex. Is there anyone he loves and is sad/upset to be potentially leaving behind? Did he fulfil his life's ambitions, or is he full of regret? He's only young. Has he not got a pet, or a football team or a favourite video game or a hated younger sister or something to think about? You could really ground us in Alex's thoughts at this moment. What's really going through his teenage mind? If I was in a similar situation, I'm not sure I'd be pondering syntax. Well, you know, actually, being me, I just might be, but then I'm weird. I'm sure Alex isn't as weird.

The diversion about Highland is interesting, but a little confusing. Is Highland dying? He arrived in London to see a musical and then went to hospital where he's holding a kind of public lying-in? Has he some chronic fatal condition? I'm only guessing at the link to the "first immortal man" but presume there is a link. None of this is very clear from the brief snippet you have here, and again, I'm not sure Alex would be thinking about this. I can appreciate he sees a parallel between himself and Highland, but he's in a very precarious life-threatening situation, and it's a bit much to imagine a teenager would be thinking of anyone but themselves at this particular moment.

"if he wasn't so currently predisposed" - I'm pretty sure you don't mean "predisposed". "Indisposed" perhaps?

In summary: agent ready? No, I don't think so. Not sure you should start the book with this scene. If you do need to, then you need to clarify when it's happening (relative to the reader). And then within the scene, you could use the set-up a lot more dramatically than you do, cutting out a lot of the introspection and concentrating on what really matters to Alex (and, therefore, by association, what should matter to us) in your story. Irony isn't it.

But thanks for posting.

D'Estaing

Book - "Evenrood"

Web - editorial.ie

Hi Emerson,

Thanks for submitting, and please just remember that this is just one reader’s opinion – take what works for you from my notes.  I haven’t yet read D’Estaing’s notes to preserve my independence, and I’ll be interested to see where we agree and disagree.

I think the premise is very interesting (I tried it in an abandoned SF book a few years ago, having been inspired by the notion – I believe from the Methuselah project – that the first person to live to 700 had already been born.)  I’m not sure about the title (too much like flowers) but I mostly like the pitch.  However, I’m not sure about ‘silent’ in the pitch, and the naming of the drug ‘Longevity’ is perhaps giving away a little too much.  The structure isn’t quite clear, it would be clearer with ‘as a war wages over a black market biomedical treatment – Longevity – with a sordid past.’

I like the opening dialogue, but I wanted to know more about the person speaking (how old, especially, as ‘kiddo’ made me think this might be a child) but we’re too soon off and focused on the doctor.  Also, I didn’t immediately connect the “You’re not going to die” to the doctor, because of the start of the new paragraph and the insertion of ‘Alex didn't quite believe him.’ 

Net, I found the opening a little confusing, even though it’s a strong opening with compelling dramatic stakes. I reacted a little to ‘miraculously stuck to the front of his bulbous nose’ which I found unnecessary (miraculous), incorrect (stuck, front) and a bit of a cliché (bulbous.)  I’m not sure that’s the correct use of sinus, even in the ‘hollow’ form.  And I continued to like it through to ‘his brain that had told him that, not a nurse.’

I also like the ending, from ‘these were the thoughts…’ which was well-written.

In-between the strong opening and ending there is a digression on nurses which isn’t of much consequence, and a quantity of exposition that feels jammed in by the doubtful merit of Howard having an operation the same day – which only serves to lessen the drama of Alex’s situation.  You try to pass this off with ‘Still, his thoughts were elsewhere, mainly because it was easier’ which would be much stronger if it conveyed Alex being desperate to think about anything except his own operation.  From ‘because it was easier’ to ‘at least if Alex died’ could and should be compressed into one or two sentences that tell us that something major is going on at the same time – and maybe the doctor or a nurse mentions it, to avoid dumping it all in the prose.  While this section is well-enough written it’s still largely unwelcome exposition which, for me, killed the drama stone dead.

As a final point, I’m not altogether sure about ending this section with ‘His lids grew heavy, and finally, drooped closed.’ I’m unsure it properly maintains the drama, and there’s little sense of suspense.  Again, maybe the doc could say something that sets us on edge.  I presume Alex survives – so where’s the drama?  Could you have Alex’s operation more on a knife edge in terms of possible outcomes, and what those outcomes mean for Alex?

Small stuff:

funny, if – I think the comma doesn’t help.

thought it was funny, mostly because he was slowly being knocked unconscious and his thoughts – vary word choice for thought and thoughts.

heart monitor – doesn’t need to repeat heart, or give it its proper name.

Why Alex and then Alexander?

open-heart – should this be hyphenated?

bowels – not a great choice for me.

Whenever he was interviewed – implies Alex has seen every interview (unlikely), and that Howard says it in every interview (more likely.)

from ten", - comma inside quote marks.

I hope these notes help somewhat, just remember it’s a personal opinion.  Best of luck with this.

TSWS

BAD NAPKIN – now on BookCountry

I gather that I'm not supposed to comment here, but I will, briefly. T.S.W. Sharman, I adore your Bad Napkin. Love the voice, the style, everything. I will read the whole. And: are you the Tim I'm reading about, who has offended with comments I am unable to track down? I am so confused. 

Hello.

Having read several of the reviews here, I wish to suggest an addition to this list:

The first 600 words of your manuscript 

Genre: 

Optional link to your book page 

My addition would be "Language" (Eg. British-English, American-English, Australian-English, etc.)

The reason I am suggesting this is that you religiously correct author's spellings yet it is clear to me (as a former professional editor) that in the author's country of origin - which is obvious from spelling and word usage - that all the spellings are correct. As a British-English writer, I am well aware of American-English writers' tendency to drop the second 'l' in words such as travelled. They're not wrong though as far as their target audience is concerned and so to list these cultural spelling differences is unnecessary in my opinion.

GED
(Grace)

That's a good point, Grace. However, rather than say it's all correct, depending on the author's country of origin, I would change it to depending on the setting of the book. Unfortunately, some American readers will make comments about bad spelling, and especially if the book is set in the states. By the same token, an American writer needs to be cognizant of Brit spelling and terms. 

I read a review just today by a Brit editor on a book set in England, and the author is American. It talked about the MC going to boarding school in England, playing football, soccer, and baseball. The editor said the writing was almost excellent, but then banged on about differentiating between football and soccer, and insisting that no one over there plays baseball, but rounders.

Sorry, I see we're not supposed to chat on this thread, but I'm not afraid. D'Estaing is all the way over in the UK.

Fun thread, though.

@ Grace,

Thanks for your suggestion. I don't have a problem with it, but the Faux Editors should be flexible (and competent) enough to deal with US/British English spelling and grammar differences. I skimmed the entire thread, and could only find two instances of "corrected" US spellings (have to hold my hand up - 'twas me, twice in the same review), so to say we 'religiously' correct spellings seems a little harsh. But your point is well taken. I've amended the OP, but made it an optional criterion. If a language version is specified, and the Faux Editor trips over an idiomatic difference, may he/she be ritually disembowelled with a blunt potato/potatoe peeler.

@ Digs

No, chat about the thread is welcomed. By all means let's keep it lively and involving and inclusive. There have been a few tangential discussions going on elsewhere that I'd like to keep separate, that's all.

(However, critiquing is by invite only. BC doesn't like work-shopping books on threads; they prefer it to take place on the relevant author/book pages. So if anyone other than a Faux Editor has a suggestion or comment on one of the pieces submitted, they should make it direct to that author on their book page. In this way, the thread acts as a natural conduit to people's books. A "first 600 word" submission here is, after all, great publicity for your book on BookCountry, as well as an editorial exercise. 5000 views [potential readers of your book] in a month is not to be sniffed at. The "appointed" Faux Editors at present are myself, Tim Sharman, Marina Freedman and Richard Maitland. Should anyone else fancy throwing their shoulder to the wheel, please PM me - applications invited. Be warned though, it's hard work, and you may not be thanked )

--edited by D'Estaing on 10/5/2015, 10:27 AM--

Glancing through the holes in the ivory and gold design on the window I looked into Death’s chambers. She was leaning back in her chair tossing a small blue ball up in the air and catching it. She looked like she was in deep thought. Her jagged dark hair was in her violet eyes and I wondered how she could see.

I turned back to the work that was on my desk. I was tasked with filling out the book of life. It really was a very fulfilling job. I got to re-tell the love stories between creator and creation of those who have moved from Earth to Eternity in one giant book.

I looked out the window of the window of the building and admired the rainbow sky. It was a cozy, ten story building carved out of ruby. On the inside there were high ceilings with a different design on each floor. On my floor (which was the tenth floor) the ceiling was chiseled to look like ocean waves. Our desks were ivory with gold accents. We all had red velvet chairs on wheels that rolled effortlessly on the solid gold floor.

 Tempest, Deaths assistant, approached me. “You have an assignment. Her name is Julie. She’s an older Malech about 1,200.”

 I looked up from my desk and grinned. Field work! “Alright,” I said standing up. I straightened out my grey-fur lined black vest, smoothed my black cotton shirt and fluffed my feathers. After all I had to look presentable for Julie. “How do I look?” I asked Tempest.

 She gave me a thumbs up and walked back in her desk outside of Death’s Chambers. I confidently strode over to the door and opened it.  There was nothing but a ten story drop below. I inched forward so that my toes were right at the edge and launched myself into the air. I unfurled my wings catching the wind. I was lifted high above the buildings. I mapped out my course in my head. If I wanted to make it to the Ladder I would have to fly north so I was already on the right path.

I flew as fast as my wings would take me. I hadn’t been to Earth in a while so this was a real treat for me.

Once the ladder was in sight I leaned forward, tucking my wings in ever so slightly and began my descent. I landed perfectly on the soft, emerald grass.

The golden ladder protruded from a large hole cut in the ground. This was how I was to get to Earth.

            I climbed down the ladder and found myself in the middle of the Malech village.

            The Malech were happily lounging about, tending to the forest or playing games. Some were gathered around the Great Creator, who frequently visited Earth. I rose out of the shadows and walked through the array of brightly colored tents.

            No one was aware of my presence.                           

            Of course I was going to make myself known to Julie so that she wouldn’t be startled by the transition from life to Eternity.

            I opened the flap to Julie’s green and yellow tent and poked my head in. She was lying in her grass bed, feathered wings folded, smiling at the ceiling. “Hey Julie,” I said softly.

            She smiled confused at first and then took notice to the side of my face: a spiral with two dots inside. It was used to distinguish me from the other Malech. I am what’s known as a Morose or “death bringer”.

            “Time already?” she asked softly.                                  

Oh sure! It's from book 1 of The Shadow series. 

Also Death was the first morose to ever have been created.

--edited by JFSurvivor on 10/5/2015, 9:18 PM--

Hi JFS,

Thanks for submitting, and (the normal caveat) it’s just my opinion, just one person.  And just on the first 600.  I’ll leave some longer comments later, as promised, on your book page.

There are a number of things I really like about this. 

1) I like that you’re tackling something original – YA biblical.  Don’t be shy about this (I once reviewed a Bible Erotica work, where Eve got it on with the Serpent in a way that would make even Salome blush.)

2) There’s this strangely dissonant, but fun, juxtaposition of YA modern language with the ancient.  ‘I flew as fast as my wings would take me.’  ‘poked my head in.’ ‘The Malech were happily lounging about.’ I think there are a number of situations where these modernisms, near clichés, would make me totally upchuck.  But in this case I rather like them.  It’s all rather Buffy (the Josh Weedon TV version.)

3) Very connected to #2, there’s an emerging attractive YA voice you have with your Main Character (again, ref Buffy.)  ‘I straightened out my grey-fur lined black vest, smoothed my black cotton shirt and fluffed my feathers. After all I had to look presentable for Julie. “How do I look?” I asked Tempest.”  I really like that you’re presenting her as a kinda modern girl.  If you can keep this up, I think you have something pretty interesting on your hands.

4) I like the way you describe Death, and the environment, without laying it on too thick.  They’re interesting descriptions.  Might just be some adjectival overuse, but not distractingly so (just go easy on all the colors.)

What I’d ask you to think about are word choices that can further #3 and #4.  Here are some as examples…

very fulfilling job – super-brilliant job

one giant book – one humongous book

the rainbow sky – the epic rainbow sky

a real treat for me – a real jaunt for me

You could do the same with the dialogue:

 “Time already?” she asked softly.  “Er, yes, well, I guess so.” Awkward pause. I hate these awkward pauses.“Yeah.”

The other significant note I’d ask you to think about would be the overall tone.  It’s on the light side, which is fine of course, but I’d suggest you throw in some foreshadowing with Tempest, so we can feel some dramatic tension ahead.  Right now Tempest is too nice, and yet (reading ahead) she becomes volatile, and I’d bring the sense of that forward.  Make your Main Character (what’s her name???) worried about what might be happening in the background at “work” and whether that connects to being sent on a field trip.

Other more minor notes:

I’d like you to do a little more with Death at the beginning.  She’s intriguing.  Just a touch more.

Tempest, Death[‘]s assistant.

Field work! – maybe should be in italics.  BTW, I do very much like this line.

Vary the “I” sentence constructs: I confidently strode…I inched forward…I unfurled my wings …I mapped out my …If I wanted to make it to the Ladder I would…I was already …I flew.

No one was aware of my presence – I don’t see the purpose of this sentence.

I could maybe bear a little more (a tiny bit more) about what Malech’s are/were.

Could you have a little more fun with [t]The Great Creator, maybe make him a little more hippy – call him TGC maybe.  Don’t over-do it though, and go too far into mockery.

So, I guess what I’m saying is that I like it.  And if you carefully amp it up with the modern voice/attitude (but keep it moderate, that’ll be the challenge), keep on describing this strange world well, add a little more dramatic tension – well then I could truly see this finding an enthusiastic YA audience, and even making its way to TV.

Best of luck

TSWS

--edited by T.S.W. Sharman on 10/5/2015, 10:21 PM--

Editorially I struggle with High Fantasy, which is what I'm taking this to be. I once reviewed a piece back on Authonomy that was full of the most iridescent purple prose, absolutely unintelligible plot, ridiculous dialogue and incoherent characterisation. I didn't quite say that, but I was fairly critical. I'd defend my comments anytime anyplace, but I was roundly told off by someone who told me that they thought it was "pure Shakespeare" and why couldn't I see… etc etc.

So, it's with some trepidation that I start here:

Pitch: You didn't give us one.

Text: Why is the ball blue? I'm presuming there's some significance to the colour, because it's a very vivid image.

"Her jagged dark hair was in her violet eyes and I wondered how she could see" - I'm wondering how the protagonist could see the colour of her eyes, or does she just know Death very well? I guess it's not something you'd forget. You have four colours described in the first paragraph - you're obviously a very "visual" writer.

"I was tasked with" - passive sentence construction generally frowned upon. "My job, to fill out the book of life" - and shouldn't "Book of Life" be capitalised?

They haven't "moved from Earth to Eternity in one giant book". They probably walked, or flew. What you mean is that "In one giant book I got to re-tell the love stories…" etc. so just change the word order.

"I looked out the window of the window of the building" - Looks like you were torn between US vernacular and "proper" English, couldn't decide, so put both versions in!

"rainbow sky", "carved out of ruby", "ivory and gold accents", "red velvet chairs", solid gold floor" all in the next couple of lines. I think you're overdoing it a bit with the colours at this stage.

"On the inside there were high ceilings with a different design on each floor" - was the design on the floor, or on the ceiling? Judging from what follows you mean the ceiling, so ditch the word "floor" in this sentence, it's just confusing.

Instead of saying "my floor (which was the tenth floor)" why not mention that it's the top floor (you've already told us it's a ten storey building, except you said "ten story" - oops, one of those errors that's not going to be picked up by a spellchecker)? She works in the executive suite. I take it that she has some serious status? She has the office next to Death, after all.

"Deaths assistant" should have a possessive apostrophe.

"Alright" - is two words, all right?

"walked back in her desk" - to her desk, unless her desk is ENORMOUS.

"confidently" - dreaded adverb. You don't need it. You don't, after all, "stride" timidly.

"I inched forward" - but this contradicts the confidence. Why would she inch forward? That implies trepidation, fear.

"unfurled my wings catching the wind" - comma after wings.

"I was lifted" - Passive again. Instead, why not "…the wind, which lifted me high…"

If she's got wings why does she need a ladder? Having a ladder also raises other questions in my rather-too-literal brain. How is it that the end of the ladder is right in the middle of the Malech village? Coincidence, or is there only one village? How come the Malech can't see it?

Do you "tend to" a forest? I thought you tended to crops, but rather left a forest to itself.

"No-one was aware of my presence" - but later Julie sees her poking her head into her tent. Is she invisible, or only visible to those for whom she has "come"?

The Malech have wings too? Is this some kind of angel allegory? I thought angels were immortal?

I like the name "Morose".

Okay, I'll stop there. I've just read Tim's comments. We overlap in some places (what is with all the colours?!) but he has taken a different more holistic approach whereas I've really gone down the proof reading line-edit path. I think there's advice you can glean from both reviews. I don't think it's agent ready yet by some margin, but I think you knew that.

Thanks for posting.

D'Estaing - "Evenrood"  - www.editorial.ie

--edited by JFSurvivor on 10/8/2015, 11:04 AM--

--edited by T.S.W. Sharman on 10/8/2015, 7:27 PM--

Your enthusiasm is infectious, JFS! However, this thread is really for work that is polished and finalised and edited and proof read and ready to submit to an agent or publisher for consideration for publishing as is. As you freely admitted, The Fall opening you posted is some way short of being agent-ready.

Rather than submit the other three openings here and get very similar feedback on each, what would probably be a better use of your (and by extension our) time would be to concentrate on one book and work on honing that to as close to perfection as you think you can achieve, and then either resubmitting here for our verdict, or sending out to real-world agents to get a feel for the marketability of your concept. Unless one is into vanity publishing, we all want to sell our work and see it published. There's not much point in pouring your heart and soul into working on a tetralogy if no-one is going to read it.

Take the notes you've had here, and any from other beta readers, and really look at The Fall and how you can make it better. Maybe join a few other workshopping groups, or a local writers club if there is one. There are side benefits. I think what you will learn in the months ahead about the craft of writing, in the course of getting one book to a publishable standard, will make the other three books so much easier to work on.

But make no mistake, there's a long road ahead of you. I normally tell people that it takes between four and five times as long to edit a work, as it does to write it in the first place. This statement is normally greeted with howls of derision, but it comes from bitter experience. Novice authors think their work is largely done when they type "The End". Unfortunately, "The End" is actually only "the beginning". Real writers rise to the challenge.

D'Estaing - "Evenrood" - www.editorial.ie

--edited by D'Estaing on 10/8/2015, 8:57 PM--

No, that's cool. Whatever way of progressing works for you is good. But how about looking at your other books in the light of what we said about The Fall first? I'm sure there are things now that stand out that you would probably look at changing. And don't just take our word for it. Get help from other BookCountry members. Post your material up and invite people writing in the same genre to look at it. Review other people's work and see how they put their stories together. They'll be (or should be) happy to look at your work in return, and they might have completely different and possibly better opinions (being perhaps closer to the demographic that you're looking for).

And take some time over it! A good book is worth spending time to get exactly right. Once it's published, it's gone forever. Come back to us in a month with what you've made of The Fall revisions, and we'll tell you what we think.

--edited by D'Estaing on 10/9/2015, 7:02 AM--

And I am in the process of changing those things...I DID change a lot. I just need to set it aside for a while while I work on other stuff. I also hope you know that I do not plan on publishing it any time soon....

I guess I just want you to understand that I'm not new to this...

--edited by JFSurvivor on 10/9/2015, 7:45 AM--

Hi D'Estaing et al, If you're touting for work on this thread, can I persuade you to run your eyes across 600 words of my new story?

It's not posted up anywhere yet so I can't provide links.

Title: An Emu War

Genre: Hist Fic

Short pitch: It is 1932 and the Depression years have taken their toll on Lily and Ernie. Ernie's financial losses have strained the marriage, but it's when Lily's itinerant brother Tommy arrives in their new town, that they turn on each other. The only person who understands Tommy's frequent nightmares is Lily and Ernie's adopted daughter Girlie. As each of them sets out to protect those they love, they nearly destroy them.

The wheat field looked to her like a golden cloth flung out across the horizon, rippling in the late afternoon breeze. Ernie was still out there, late. The weather had come good, just as he said it would, and the wheat ears were ripening well in time for harvesting come November.

            Lily flexed her fist in small circles against her side. Why couldn’t they have waited for just one more harvest? Surely the buyers would offer a better price than last year. Though she thought these things, she’d held her tongue, and kept him from her bed to show her disapproval. But he’d taken the risk anyway.

            The dark spot of Ernie’s head and shoulders flitted in the top field, moving further away from her. She dropped her fist. Sighed. She heard a door slam inside the house, followed by the pounding flurry of footsteps along the verandah.

            “Girlie,” Lily said, calling to her daughter skipping down the steps towards her. She took stock of her: barefoot, the cuffs of her cardigan dirtied brown. “Don’t run. Walk,” she said, hardening her voice.

              Girlie slowed her steps for three paces before breaking into a skip again to reach Lily. “Mummy,” she said. “It’s not fair. Jenny says—”

              Lily held up her palm. “Without whining, please. Now, start again.”           

           Girlie wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Jenny’s telling lies, Mummy. She says Ah Lee isn’t coming with us to Dongara.”             Lily crouched down, tugging at the end of a ribbon which had slipped out of its bow on the end of Girlie’s dark pigtail. She retied it, smoothing the curls behind Girlie’s ears. “He’s gone to another family, Girlie. We can’t afford him anymore.”  

           “But who’ll cook our tea?”

            Lily straightened, putting an arm around her daughter’s shoulder. Girlie’s forehead came to the top of Lily’s ribs now. They walked together slowly towards the house. “I suppose it’ll be me. Or Jenny. Though she’ll have more than enough on her plate with the new house.”

            Girlie tilted her head up as though to consider this alternative and shrugged. She pulled away from Lily’s grasp, tripping against the raised edge of the garden path in her haste to rush inside. No doubt to share her views on this arrangement with Jenny. Lily knew somehow they shared other things, secrets she wasn’t a part of.

         “Walk,” she called. But Girlie kept running until she disappeared inside the shadow of the verandah.     

            Lily stopped to look at the house. Really look at it. Imprint in on her memory. Weatherboard, an iron roof rusted along the guttering, and a large water tank tucked in behind the giant gum which shaded the front room, providing the only relief in the sweltering heat each summer. A deep verandah wrapped around three sides. The frame of the flywire door—the wire missing—creaked on its hinges as the dry wind blew down the hill across the fields of wheat, through the garden and along the verandah. The house was as bleached and dust-coated as the fields beyond, a washed out ochre palette.

            That morning there had been a short, hard rain. It had driven holes in the paths through the garden turning it into a quagmire. Just before lunch the rainclouds had vanished and the muddied dust dried in streaks on leaves.

            Lily rubbed the leaf of a XXX between her fingers before wiping them on her apron. The sheer waste of it—the countless hours digging, tilling, planting and pruning—to walk away…

           “Missus!”

             Lily pressed her fingertips to her temple. “Yes, Jenny.” 

Hi Kali,

Thanks for dropping by. Fingers crossed for next week, is it? Hope you get everything out of it that you want. "Songs" still resonating around my head occasionally - mark of a good book. (Or perhaps it's just because I spent so much time on it ).

On to your latest:

Title:

An Emu War - really? Odd choice. Since an emu is a such a distinctive bird it gives me a very specific image (of long-necked birds). How are they relevant? Rival emu farmers? Is this intended? Without further context I'm wondering how wise a title choice it is. I'll trust you, for now.

Pitch:

Perhaps needs a nod to geographic setting - is this US dustbowl, Oz, or Europe?

On the first read through I read it as "The only person who understands Tommy's nightmares is Lily", and I thought the conjunction led to a new phrase. Only on the second read through did I realise you meant that it's "Lily and Ernie's adopted daughter" who's the "only person". I think you could just say "their adopted daughter".

Not sure about the last sentence. "As each of them" refers to who exactly? Ernie and Lily? Tommy, Ernie and Lily? All of them? And with "they nearly destroy them", you've effectively written a spoiler - "Don't worry, they don't actually destroy them. It all ends well."

But a nice premise. A bit "The Postman Only Rings Twice".

Text:

"The wheat field looked to her" - Delete "to her". We're either in her POV or we're not. You choose.

"harvesting come November" - What I meant about geography. If someone's reading this thinking it's set in the US, they're going to be thrown by this line. (I know you're based in Oz, but not everyone picking this book up in Waterstones in Sheffield, or Barnes and Noble on Union Square is going to). I think it would be enough to say something on the jacket, in the blurb or something, not here in the text.  Change the pitch to "It is 1932 and the Depression has hit hard in Western Australia…" or something. (Think global - you're going to be a bestseller, remember?)

"Lily flexed her fist in small circles" - not a clear image to me. I can visualise flexing fingers, but maybe it's a personal thing? Because it's not clear, I didn't get her mood correct when I read the next line.

"Why couldn't they have waited for just one more harvest?" - I think you need to lead into this line, otherwise it's not clear that "they" is an (essentially hostile) third party and not "they" the family. "What good would it do?" or something. I think the problem is that you painted a lovely bucolic scene with the first few lines, in which everything seems to be good news. But this is not a smiling farmer's wife, one hand on hip, other hand shielding her eyes from the late-afternoon sun, gazing benignly over her hardworking husband and his lovingly tended crops. Inside she's actually seething with frustration and bitterness. Our understanding of these lines is dependent on our comprehension of her mood as she's looking out over the crop that will do them no good.

I understand the euphemism of her keeping him from her bed, but (practical note) do they have separate rooms?

What risk had Ernie taken? He would have seeded this crop back in March, April. Was their fate already decided then? Was it that he spent their little money on seed for a crop that she thought they were unlikely to be around to harvest? I had to think this through. You probably want to hand it to your readers a little more clearly. Don't imagine they're stupid, but don't imagine they're at all au fait with farming and the yearlong agricultural cycle of investment and return, either. You might want to put this more closely in her head too, as a thought "But he'd taken the risk anyway, damn him", otherwise it comes across as a tiny bit authorial.

"She dropped her fist. Sighed" - comma after fist. People who don't know what they're talking about will start frothing about comma splices. Don't listen to them.

"…to rush inside. No doubt…" - comma after inside. You could probably cut the "no doubt".

"Lily stopped to look at the house. Really look at it. Imprint in on her memory." - imprint "it", typo. I think better, grammatically and with regard to flow of the sentence, is "…house, to really look at it, imprint it…". And then really it should be a colon after memory, although that's going to make for a lo-o-ong sentence.

No comma after "guttering".

"Quagmire" seems a little strong for the effect of a "short hard rain" (I'm an expert on rain, living in south west Ireland).

Okay. Nice beginning. A few punctuation quibbles aside it stands up pretty well. Once you get into the dialogue it flows beautifully, but it's like an old Landrover starting on a frosty morning - needs a few minutes to warm up before it gets really purring. You have the one image, or her flexing her fist against her side (which I didn't get), warning us that all is not good in the house of Lily and Ernie before spelling out obliquely what is wrong - the farm is going to be repossessed, or whatever. But it needs hardly anything. Even just a flat "What a waste." inserted after "November", something to break us out of the comfortable rural picture you've painted before we're confronted with her inner turmoil.

In terms of the start of a book - character detail, situation, setting, voice, early portrayal of conflict - it's otherwise an object lesson in what to do right.

Only what I'd expect, young Napier.

Thanks for posting.

D'Estaing - "Evenrood" - ww.editorial.ie

Hi Kali.

Thanks for submitting.  Normal caveat, just my opinion as one reader, use what you like and discard the rest.  I haven’t looked at D’Estaing’s notes.

Three sections: what I like. Edits. What I’d suggest you work on.

What I like.  I find the title interesting.  But much more importantly, you introduce interesting stakes right at the beginning – the family in straits having to leave their livelihood and home.  The exposition that’s in here is well “piped”, it’s not narrative intrusion, and feels pretty natural.  I also like how you articulate the distance between husband and wife: “The dark spot of Ernie’s head and shoulders flitted in the top field, moving further away from her.” 

There are other nicely written moments: “Lily stopped to look at the house. Really look at it. Imprint in [it] on her memory” “the countless hours digging, tilling, planting and pruning” “Lily pressed her fingertips to her temple.”

Edits:

Short pitch: It is = it’s

financial losses = sounds too modern

town, that = no comma

daughter[,]Girlie – needs comma

each of them sets out to protect = set out?

come good…come November = vary the use of come

Lily flexed her fist in small circles against her side = didn’t work for me

The buyers = more specificity might add flavor

kept him from her bed = hmmm, not sure about this, over the top

verandah = not completely sure this is the right term for the US - this is US, right?  And you use verandah three more times

Girlie = not an attractive name, didn’t strike me as real.  Plus Girlie comes across as about 5 years old,and I think you mean her to be older, so a touch of dissonance there.

Lily said, calling to her daughter…she said, hardening her voice = repeats said.

Mummy = surely Mommy in US?

We can’t afford him anymore = seems too direct, especially if Girlie is young.  Even if she isn’t young, I don’t buy that directness

tea = is tea American?

Lily straightened [up] = or stood up

Girlie’s forehead came to the top of Lily’s ribs now = I found this more confusing than helpful

secrets she wasn’t a part of = ends with preposition

the shadow of the verandah…gum which shaded the front room, providing the only relief in the sweltering heat…A deep verandah = doesn’t the shadow provide relief?  Do you get gum trees in that part of the US?

washed out = hyphenate.

a short, hard rain…quagmire = really, enough for a  quagmire?

What I feel needs more development.

Overall the piece left me a little cold, and I spent some time wondering about that.  It’s not the edits, and you introduce dramatic stakes early on.  My suspicion is you’re skating, going too fast – which is not an uncommon problem in pieces I’ve read.  But, given you’ve developed the “secular” or financial dramatic stakes, I think you’re lacking in developing the characters, and digging into the emotional drama.

We meet Lily, and you develop her thoughts and her soft-hard personality – although with (for me) what felt quite confusing as a central point.  “Why couldn’t they have waited for just one more harvest? Surely the buyers would offer a better price than last year. Though she thought these things, she’d held her tongue.”  The timeline for this doesn’t work for me – they sell the farm (and why don’t they leave then?) and then the harvest turns out to be good.  Sorry, too late.  Unless they could have held on, and she’s just regretting the early sale.  But would they really have had enough to hang on until the next harvest.  This sounds finicky, but isn’t this a central premise in her anger?  It just comes out all confusing for me.

In any case, Lily’s thoughts feel so internalized, self-focused, there’s a missed opportunity about what she really feels about Ernie, what she feels for her daughter.  I’d rather you spent the time there, inside her head, instead of roving off into so much about the mother-daughter interaction, and quite a lot of relatively unimportant activity and dialogue.

Then we get Ah Lee and Jenny, and they feel somewhat tossed in.  How does Lily feel about their situation?  Plus I have no clear idea what their relation is to the household, especially Jenny. So we have 5 characters in the first 600, and only one is developed to any degree.  I think you’d be better developing Lily, let her observe Ernie, let her feel sorrow for herself, let her love and feel frustration at her daughter, let her anguish the moment she told Ah Lee that he was going to be homeless, cast back into the world etc. Without this – as I said – it just left me a little cold. 

I contrast this against, for instance, Angle of Repose and The Luminaries (although both set in earlier periods), which put us so deep into the character’s heads, and wonderfully paints the surroundings – which is as important for me in historical fiction, as it is in any writing.  Those books are both very slow, but there’s much more latitude for that, I believe, in historical fiction.

I hope these notes help a little.  It’s about you going from good to great, it’s not that I think what you have here is bad.  Best of luck with this.

TSWS

Check out BAD NAPKIN – now on BookCountry – at least for a little while longer

--edited by T.S.W. Sharman on 10/14/2015, 10:09 PM--