Anja Boersma
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Hi Rich,
Debi mentioned that one week will be dedicated to the subject of the perfect title … Something with ‘fire’ in the title might be too obvious! Or not?
Ray Bradbury solved it by calling it Fahrenheit 451 …
“Men, don’t forget to pack tampons when you go camping” comes to mind!
Anja
Debi,
Sorry, I forgot to say: the story starts on the train ride; Wendall shuffles along the crowded corridor, until the people in front of him find their spot. Then he sees the pup before he notices Alexandra, and he asks another passenger to move his backpack so he can meet the pup and its owner.
It’s on 1/3 of page 1.
Hi Debi,
Thank you for dissecting Wendall so expertly …
Yes, English is my second language. I count on Word’s synonyms list *a lot* to give me stronger verbs.
Somehow, despite choosing for English/English instead of American/English, the American English is domineering in my Word document. It’s awkward; Control A and choosing English/English doesn’t work *at all*. I’ll have to rewrite the whole document and ignore spellcheck and adjust things like color/colour manually; in the grand scheme of things not my biggest issue, I gather.
(And spellcheck doesn’t work in this post either!)
But otherwise, I’m okay with English, yes 🙂
When I started wanting to learn how to write, the only online classes offered were from Writers’ Digest in the US. Later, we moved to the US on account of my partner’s chances to work in California and Florida. I may have Americanised somewhat (though not in regards to guns, though attending the Writers’ Police Acadamy in Greenbay, Wisconsin with gun training was fun).
I mentioned before that I was starting to edit my story into fitting the romantic adventure genre but on the other side I still feel strongly that Wendall needs to be separated from Alexandra to become a stronger and independent man, and that he needs a male figure in his life to set an example (even if that is a former KGB-agent-turned-pharmaceutical-businessman). A few years ago, an agent said I was trying to write *two* stories and that I should chose; either the romance part or the psychological development part …
But Debi, can’t I have both by putting it in an adventure?!
Anja
Hi Steven,
That IS very funny, to give him hayfever*! Much better than making a sportsman a hypochondriac! Debi says Lester’s the furthest from being a ‘macho’ as he can get, but as the captain of the team I would want him to be a little ‘macho’, to be honest.
*Clint Eastwood is allergic to horses!
Hi Rich,
“Transition” makes me think of transgenders …
My pleasure, Julie!
Hi Chithru,
Ha, the unedited Xander next week! Honestly, I don’t think I would be able to keep him unedited now that you found the REAL him … I bet your fingers will be scratching for more of the new him – unless it’s part of his character development … Hmmm … I’ll have to wait and read to find out 🙂
And I haven’t watched Trump/Alec Baldwin in action for a while to be honest! (Maybe “rail me up” sounds a bit like “lock her up”?)
It’s a fun voice, that’s all that matters …
Make Xander Alive Again, okay? 🙂
Anja
Okay!
🙂
Aha!
Hi Katie,
I had posted a reply earlier but it vanished afterwards … It was only a short reply so I hadn’t thought to copy-paste it; live and learn …
Anyway: I now get your idea of the online information and later the application letter in the mail, and it makes sense.
So: I suddenly thought of Steven King’s “Misery”, what a horrific story of isolation that was …
And I know officially a comp can’t be about books older than two years but you have to start somewhere, right?
“Misery meets The Handmaid’s Tale”, that’s your story for me.
Anja
Hi Richard,
I did NOT know that but I love useful info like that!!
I so want to use it in my story now, ha. 🙂
Hi Chithrupa,
What a change in your writing/edit, and this is only Week Two!
Was it you who said her protagonist was slightly based on Trump?
Anyway, you nailed Xander’s voice, and it’s HIGHLY entertaining.
Anja
Hi Alison,
Thank you!
Well, that’s the hard part about only reading two hundred words … You can’t tell the whole story in two hundred words but we can come up with tons of questions about all the things we don’t know yet.
Your reply did satisfy me! I’m content, for now …
Hi Kate,
This is a spectacular start of Annie’s journey.
You say so much without spelling things out, it’s quite impressive …
“My oncles left for the Great War and never came back, and my grandparents, who were old even then, and who died of grief and old age.” FANTASTIC line.
And:
“There was no other side, no father with his own brothers and sisters, grandparents or aunts, to balance me out, and there was enough drama in my mother’s strange history without wanting to dig out any of my father’s skeletons, so I didn’t ask.
I was never sure if I could remember my mother. Perhaps those hazy images I counted as memories were stories made up over the years, just so I could have something of her. Either way, when I made an inventory, they didn’t amount to much.” are also SUPERB.
Kate, I’m wrecking my brains trying to come up with something and of course it would have to be: if this is Chapter TWO what’s in Chapter ONE?!
I think I need to read me some Charles Dickens; which one do you recommend?!
Anja
Hi Julie,
Your language and style are beautiful, your description of the stormy weather obviously reflection of her own emotions … You could never achieve this effect on a sunny day!
So yes, the weather and the ledge, and the mentioning of someone’s suicide did make me jump to the conclusion that Rachel may to kill herself but also that she’s not sure if she really does want to, which is something I like, to be unsure about the outcome.
You mention ‘a grey town’ but that’s rather anonymous. Does she not know where she is?
Maybe you could also make the parking garage a bit spooky? Maybe a car alarm goes off? A woman all alone in a parking garage … I’d spent as little time there if I could! Is Rachel’s car parked in said garage or did she just go there to ‘enjoy’ the view?
In the beginning of the chapter you have a lot of sentences without verbs … It goes against the rules but if you’re confident about breaking the rules, alright. But it’s not just one or two sentences, it’s many.
And: “Someone, a girl, had jumped off here last month, hadn’t they?” You move from singular to multiple person here.
I think this is a highly intriguing story, Julie. I wonder what Ryan wants!
Anja
