Since I'm just launching this blog, I welcome comments on what you find here. And on what you'd like to find here. And what you hope you never, ever see.
I might on occasion post on something relevant, like world peace. Or my really funny dog.
For those of you feeling that gnawing urge to write, I'll post about that too.
Humor is one weapon I find helpful in the war against taking ourselves too seriously. But there are serious issues that absolutely must be taken seriously. Together, we will decide exactly what those are and address them with a delicate balance of wit and profound wisdom.
Thanks for stopping by!
5 comments:
Welcome to blog-land!
OOPS...My blog is ~christa~
www.cballan.wordpress.com and I saw your post on the ACFW loop!
Camille, I saw your link in the TWV2 discussion. I like your blog: love the background, enjoy your forthright style, and look forward to future entries. Check mine out as well!
Camille,
I saw your question at Randy's blog and took a read of your chapter. Here are some comments:
1. On the whole, the arc of the chapter works for me. There's a push-pull dynamic of conflict between brother and sister, with a nice inversion.
2. By comparison to the first chapter of Randy and John's "Oxygen", note that Oxygen has the heroine dealing with the initial problem of her own in real time. Your chapter shows Ian's wisdom being applied to a problem of someone else (the sister's husband), and it's told by referring to past events. The chapter says that speaking to his brother-in-law had stung Ian. What if Ian's action started with that scene on the boat?
3. The chapter sets out Ian's problem, but leaves him going back to that problem, his ordinary world. We know the sister will be around to push him toward change. And Ian himself sees the need for change but is still refusing to do what he needs to do. So I can see the next few chapters leading toward some crisis that will push him out of his ordinary world.
4. More specific comments:
a. The opening line works for me as a grabber.
b. The next para not so much. I dropped out of the "fictive dream". I couldn't immediately see what "edge of lamp-lit street" meant, and the "strides" and "bridge" feels overwritten in the sense of too many words. It might be that the "he made" verb tense is confusing because it follows "he had almost escaped": had escaped is further back in the past than "he made". (The English majors in the room will put proper terms to the difference.) So, either "Ian MacLean almost escaped. He made..." or "Ian MacLean had almost escaped. He had made..." The time sense of the passage is: Ian had almost escaped. He had made it to the street, when his sister's voice called out....
Or, after the first line as is, consider cutting to around "four good strides": Ian MacLean had almost escaped. Four good strides would take him to the freedom offered by his grannie's farm truck....
c. Similarly, I would take a blue pencil to the phrase about "hard on his heels like a bullet... small... swift... deadly." Too many metaphors, and then you explain them, too, instead of just letting them work.
d. "feisty little" feels cliche. The character is great; it's just those words.
e. "head barely reached...probing stare": my blue pencil is quivering here. I'd focus on the stare; a person's height as a tempering effect on their gaze doesn't work for me (all 5'5'' of me).
f. The last para feels a little of out of the POV of Ian; it's much closer to a narrator's voice. This is arguable, but I mention it anyway.
I look forward to see what other troubles you're cooking up for Ian.
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