Blimey.<\/p>\n
Somewhere in the world today, there\u2019s a bloke who woke up with a bit of a cough \u2026 and later figured out that he (or she) was the person who introduced a new coronavirus to the world. A little thing leading to a big one.<\/p>\n
Well, last week, I muttered something about a change of subject: \u201cBlah, blah. Let\u2019s turn to your work. Blah, blah. Hey, why not upload something to Townhouse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yeah. Good idea, Harry. I was expecting a trickle, perhaps even a decent flow. Instead \u2013 a deluge. More than 400 of you commented on that Ocean of Jewels post (here<\/a>), and there are more comments still coming in. And that\u2019s great. Really fantastic.<\/p>\n So.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve picked out five of your pieces and given proper comments.\u00a0<\/p>\n Oh yes, and this post is all aboiut editing, right? If you want to read our thoughts on how to edit your book, you will find them here<\/a>. If you want a proper manuscript assessment from one of our superpowered editors, you can get it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Right then.<\/p>\n Five writers. Five pieces. Five sets of comments from me. Here goes:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Evolution’s Leap, by Ross Corrigan<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n Scene: \u00a0A failed attempt to track down a gifted individual:<\/em><\/p>\n A bitter Swiss morning brought with it an overcast sky and the threat of further flurries. Earlier, snowflakes had tumbled and drifted in the headlights of passing cars, like fluttering white moths of frozen rain, and the accumulation had managed to drape a first winter jacket on the sloping shoulders of the town\u2019s picturesque Alpine buildings.\u00a0<\/p>\n Well-heeled and suitably wrapped-up locals hurried by, though not before glancing and shaking their heads in dismay. The town of Zug was used to many things: Maserati drivers, Swiss and foreign directors of businesses domiciled in the local Canton, or state, and well-off tourists attracted to its pretty lakeside old town. What it wasn\u2019t used to was a drive-by shooting of a foreign national\u2014a young Chinese woman\u2014right in front of the exclusive Park Hotel.<\/p>\n Though the clothed body was obscured by the flapping, hastily erected cover, the corpse\u2019s exposed head wasn\u2019t. Disturbed by an ill-timed gust, the dead woman\u2019s eyes stared lifelessly out towards the Metalli Shopping Mall. There was no doubting the cause of death. With the black humour typical of their secretive trade, the agents referred to it as lead poisoning\u2014two shots: one to the chest, one to the centre of the forehead.\u00a0<\/p>\n My comments<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n This is already good, and isn\u2019t that far from really good.<\/p>\n That final paragraph reads pretty much like a class piece of crime fiction. Good description of the corpse. Strong sense of place. Excellent bit of macabre police-humour at the end. (The one niggle in this paragraph has to do with a grammatical issue. The issue is that an adjective \/ adjectival phrase \u2013 \u201cdisturbed by an ill-timed gust\u201d \u2013 is modifying the wrong thing. What the author wants us to think is that the cover over the corpse has been disturbed by an ill-timed gust. But grammatically, the sentence is saying that the dead woman\u2019s eyes have been disturbed. I\u2019m not normally one to fuss over grammar much, but the niggle in this case does create a tiny problem of comprehension, and those things are always bad.)<\/p>\n But mostly, give or take a copy-editor\u2019s slicing pen, that last para feels like crime fiction wonderfully well done.<\/p>\n The first two paras \u2013 well, they\u2019re almost there too. I\u2019ve got one definite niggle there and one probable one.<\/p>\n The definite one is that the first paragraph reverses on itself. So it describes the morning weather, then jumps back into the prior night (\u201cEarlier, snowflakes had \u2026\u201d), then catches up again with well-heeled locals. And all this is by way of preamble to the actual corpse. I don\u2019t mind time-reversals too much in principle, but when you put them into a preamble, it all ends up feeling a bit confusing and congested.<\/p>\n So I\u2019d definitely want to keep my timeline straightforward here: snow in the night, overcast morning, well-heeled locals, corpse. (And notice, by the way, that the author is slowly zooming in on the corpse. Going from large observations to increasingly specific ones, right on until you reach the dead woman\u2019s eyes. That\u2019s nice.)<\/p>\n But I\u2019d probably also want to take a sentence or two out of this. Without the broader context, it\u2019s hard to say, but it felt maybe a little longer than necessary.<\/p>\n Overall though: this feels like a book I\u2019d like to read.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Benjamin Tate Lives Among Us, by \u201cAlan\u201d<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n The main character is a runner. Here, he is 18. His parents used to drive him to races, he now drives himself.<\/em><\/p>\n It was different now that he had learned to drive. For the last few years he\u2019d grown increasingly embarrassed to arrive at the track with his parents in tow. He was taller than his mother and stronger than his father. He\u2019d walk in front or behind them, pretending to be alone, and then remain in the changing rooms a long time after his shower so there were fewer people to see them leave together. Eventually his parents began to withdraw. They no longer cheered loudly from the stands when he led down the straight, they kept their distance before races and waited for him in the car afterwards.\u00a0<\/p>\n Then one day his father handed him the keys and stood in the road with his mother watching him drive away. Ben had seen them in the rear-view mirror getting smaller and smaller.<\/p>\n My comments<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n This is really simple, and really strong. The best line here is the closing one about the parents getting smaller in the rear-view mirror. Because of the set-up in the first para, we know this isn\u2019t just a comment about them receding into the distance. It\u2019s also about them becoming a smaller factor in his racing life, and in his life generally.<\/p>\n Another bit of skill here is the way the piece divides into three. First, some specific comments about the race track: walking in front, staying in the shower. That\u2019s quite specific in focus. Quite close up.\u00a0<\/p>\n Then you have the bit that begins \u2018His parents began to withdraw\u2019. That withdrawal starts the process of exit. The parents are still at the track but physically distant. They are still in view of the camera, but this is a long shot, not a close up.<\/p>\n And then, with the rear view mirror, the parents come to disappear completely \u2013 but the withdrawal (physical and metaphorical) has been going on all through this passage.<\/p>\n No one sentence here reads like great writing, but this has the quiet skill of an Anne Tyler or an Elizabeth Strout. It\u2019s class.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ascetic of the Sword, by Chimpledus<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n Fantasy short story about martial arts, mastery and obsession. The main character aspires to achieve ‘the Perfect Cut’ in his swordsmanship but has severely injured himself in his narrow path to perfection.<\/em><\/p>\n We continue in silence as the day brightens and golden rays gleam on the dewy rice stalks. I look at the age spots on the back of the monk\u2019s head, waiting for him to ask a question.<\/p>\n It does not come.<\/p>\n \u201cVenerable Father, I am sick,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n \u201cIndeed? You look hale as a tiger. How are you sick?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2026my body is sick. My hand shakes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo does mine.\u201d The monk laughs gently. \u201cI don\u2019t see anything wrong with that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI cannot train. I am in pursuit of the Perfect Cut. I have attained it once, by accident, and I am unable to find it again. And now I am afraid I never will.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPerhaps you are never meant to.\u201d<\/p>\n I pause. \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is the Perfect Cut to you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe cut where the target is severed with such perfection that everything rings in harmony.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy do you seek it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy train, if not to reach the epitome of skill?\u201d<\/p>\n My comments<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I just like this! It has the feel of poetry. Very spare. Lots of clarity. The dialogue has just enough twistiness in it \u2013 an obliqueness to the turns of thought \u2013 to keep us interested, but never confused. If I was editing this, I\u2019d just do one thing: I\u2019d kill one of the adjectives in that first sentence. I\u2019d probably take out \u2018golden\u2019 \u2013 my Perfect Cut.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Untitled, by Liz<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n This is the beginning of my ghost story set in the late 1950s on the border of England and Wales. The story starts 1st December 1956.<\/em><\/p>\n And here I was, after a day of travelling and too many sleepless nights, back at the house where I had arrived as a newborn twenty-six years before. There was a neat symmetry to it, given the circumstances. Even in my exhaustion and misery I could appreciate the irony of a writer straying from her intended path in such a perfectly plotted, circular way. The thought was a useful distraction, if nothing else, as I climbed the last few yards towards the house, half-blinded by the stinging wind.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Black Hill was not a kind place on a December afternoon at the best of times, but winter had arrived early and resolute this year, storming down like an invasion from the north and blasting all traces of autumn away overnight. In London, fog had blunted the outlines of buildings and blurred the faces of passers-by, and I had moved from our rooms to the warmth of the library, on the tube, on buses, cushioned from the worst of the weather. Here, everything was sharp and cold. Gorse spiked above the rusty bracken. Hawthorns twisted spare, hoary branches towards the east. The bare mud of the track was frozen into jags. It was hard ground, even in the summer, with a meagre skin of soil over the old sandstone rock.\u00a0<\/p>\n My comments<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n This feels like it wants a quick edit, but I know this part of the world well, and its physical details are beautifully nailed \u2013 right down to the hawthorns that have twisted, east-pointing branches. (The prevailing wind is from the west, and the mountain trees are all lop-sided.) Rather than make specific comments, though, I thought I\u2019d just show you how I\u2019d edit this piece, if it were mine. It\u2019s already good though. What follows is just a wash-and-brush-up.:<\/p>\n And here I was, after a day of travelling and too many sleepless nights, back at the house where I had arrived as a newborn twenty-six years before. There was a neat symmetry to it, given the circumstances. Even in my exhaustion, I could appreciate the irony of a writer straying from her intended path in such a perfectly plotted, circular way. The thought was a useful distraction, if nothing else.<\/em><\/p>\n I climbed the last few yards towards the house. The Black Hill was not a kind place on a December afternoon at the best of times, but winter had arrived early and resolute this year, with a wind to tear away the last traces of autumn. My eyes streamed in the blast.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n In London, fog had blunted the outlines of buildings and blurred the faces of passers-by, and I had moved from our rooms to the warmth of the library, on the tube, on buses, cushioned from the worst of the weather. Here, everything was sharp and cold. Gorse spiked above the rusty bracken. Hawthorns twisted spare, hoary branches towards the east. The bare mud of the track was frozen into jags. It was hard ground, even in the summer, a meagre skin of soil over sandstone.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Wishing on a Dream, by Patricia Thomson<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n No intro \u2013 just \u201csomething I\u2019ve been messing with for a while\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n But we\u2019re here in the States, playing some dates to make up for ones we had to cancel when visas got screwed up. \u00a0Tonight was our first show in Hartford, Connecticut, and now we\u2019re on our way to Sayreville, New Jersey. \u00a0My hometown is about forty minutes south of there. We\u2019ve played around New Jersey but never in it so this is being looked at as a homecoming show for me. \u00a0I look out the bus window into the streetlight-lit darkness, knowing familiar sights are out there and wanting to see them, to be in territory I know for a change.<\/p>\n Then I see it, and just like when I was a kid I perk up.<\/p>\n The red and white and gold revolving neon sign above the Anheuser Busch bottling plant in Newark glows against the orange-tinged night sky. \u00a0Seeing the stylized A with a bald eagle in flight behind it meant that we were exactly halfway between our house in Oceanville and Aunt Marie\u2019s house in North Arlington. \u00a0Not that there\u2019s no reason to go to either anymore. \u00a0Aunt Marie retired to Florida two years ago and I have better things to do than listen to my father go on about September eleventh being fake and why I\u2019m running around Europe with a bunch of hippies. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhere I\u2019m from, not where I live,\u201d I say into the night.<\/p>\n And no matter where I go, I never feel welcome.<\/p>\n My comments<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Really easy, simple, terrific writing. The scatter of placenames already anchor the narrative in place. The Anheuser Busch bottling plant seems like a brilliant marker of location too. \u00a0That fine sense of place is matched by a nice sense of something like nostalgia \u2013 but more complex, because of the protagonist\u2019s cautious self-distancing.<\/p>\n That complex relationship to the past is threaded all the way through this snippet. (hometown \u2026 homecoming show \u2026 familiar sights \u2026 wanting to see them \u2026 no reason to go to either \u2026 better things to do than listen to my father.) That collection of thoughts and feelings prepares the ground for the character\u2019s own two-sentence, two-para summary at the end. And even the summary feels unsettled: she\u2019s not settled in the past, she\u2019s got no new place to settle now.<\/p>\n This is really strong stuff. My one real niggle? I think that compound word \u201cstreetlight-lit\u201d should be run over by a steamroller and then pounded into dust. And then put on a rocket and fired at the sun.<\/p>\n But this book has class written all over it. If I were an agent, I\u2019d be salivating.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That\u2019s it from me. I\u2019ll go back to these themes again next week. There\u2019s a lot of meat here. I\u2019ll also do my best to make these comment-athons a bit more regular. They\u2019re clearly really working.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll shut up now. I am going to build a rocket, destination Sun. If you want to read more of these pieces, or to upload your own, then the Monster Upload thread is right here: https:\/\/community.jerichowriters.com\/page\/view-post?id=73<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n Till soon<\/p>\n Harry<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n PS:<\/strong> Oh heck. You don\u2019t want a monster massive set of PSes. So I\u2019m going to recycle this one from last week:<\/p>\n 1. \u00a0 \u00a0Come to The Getting Published Day<\/strong>. Don\u2019t fail to get published because you\u2019re doing the basics wrong. We\u2019ll tell you what to do and how to do it. Learn more<\/a>.<\/p>\n