The Great Write Way, Chapter Two: Twice upon a time...
A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.
#9
1963.
My mom spent the first semester of her sophomore year at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis diligently preparing for exams by sleeping eighteen hours a night. She slept through her art history slideshows and tried to sleep through her roommate playing that damned Dylan album over and over. She still flinches at Dylan decades later.
December 15, she bought a new winter coat. January 2, she took her spring tuition money and bought a one way ticket to Los Angeles. After she climbed aboard that train, she never wore that coat again.
(Fudged the dates a little and ignored the title. Mom is a redhead, had cats eye glasses and a very similar nose. )
I'm working on polishing my opening chapter to enter a couple of writing contests. And this sentence, on page 2, is driving me crazy.
The woman’s scream, coming from less than ten yards away, startled Anna back to Spain and the marching army.
Something about the "coming from" bugs me. It's not actually wrong, but I don't think it sounds as polished and professional as I want my writing to be. But if I take out the "coming from," it feels wrong, because it's not the scream that's within ten yards, it's the woman doing the screaming. I'm considering:
The screaming woman, less than ten yards away, startled Anna....
or
The screaming woman, who couldn't have been more than ten yards away....
Thoughts? Bear in mind that the screamer is hidden from view.
I'm probably overanalyzing this, but it's on page 2, and I'm getting sick of entering these contests without finaling.
I'd go with "couldn't have been" if she can't see her, Susan.
"Screaming woman", when the woman will turn out to be not visible, feels wrong to me -- needlessly confusing. You invoke the woman, I assume I can see her.
What is it about "coming from" that you don't like? Does it disrupt the flow of the sentence, or do you just think it's too mundane?
Are you totally committed to its being a woman's scream? I.e., would a high-pitched scream or a shriek do? Maybe varying that phrase will help you rearrange the sentence to your liking.
What is it about "coming from" that you don't like?
It just feels amateurish in some way I can't quite put my finger on. Like it's out of synch with what precedes and follows it. Here are the first four paragraphs in their entirety:
On as hot a summer’s day as she could remember since coming to the Peninsula, Anna Arrington dreamed of Scotland as she rode her little donkey alongside the baggage wagons and breathed the dust of thousands of tramping hooves and marching feet.
Deep in the Highlands at Dunmalcolm Castle the June days were so long that it would still be twilight at midnight. But there the sun would be a friend rather than a tormenter, just warm enough that she needn’t wear a pelisse if she went for an afternoon walk around the loch. Often Jamie and Will used to take her with them in the boat when they went out to fish, and she would dangle her hand down into the bracing cold of the water. When evening came, Cook would always fry the succulent fresh trout to serve with bannocks. Beautiful, beloved Dunmalcolm. By next summer she meant to be back there whether Sebastian allowed it or not.
“Aiee! Madre de Dios!”
The woman’s scream, coming from less than ten yards away, startled Anna back to Spain and the marching army. She reined her donkey to a halt and looked all around, but saw no woman other than her young maid Beatriz, who stood beside her.
Which reminds me--one of my critique partners wants me to move the phrase "Anna Arrington dreamed of Scotland" to the very end of the opening paragraph, and I think it's a great idea, but I can't for the life of me think of a way to do it that's not awkward.
On as hot a summer’s day as she could remember since coming to the Peninsula, Anna Arrington rode her little donkey alongside the baggage wagons, breathing the dust of thousands of tramping hooves and marching feet and dreamed of Scotland.
“Aiee! Madre de Dios!”
The scream startled Anna back to Spain and the marching army. She reined her donkey to a halt and looked all around, but saw no woman other than her young maid Beatriz, who stood beside her.
We know it's a woman's scream--she looks for a woman. We know it's nearby because she looks nearby. I think that's enough.
I can rearrange the sentence like so:
On the hottest summer’s day she'd ever experienced on the Peninsula, as she rode her little donkey alongside the baggage wagons, breathing the dust of thousands of tramping hooves and marching feet, Anna Arrington dreamed of Scotland.
That's more than a couple of liberties with your prose, but ballpark.
“Aiee! Madre de Dios!”
The woman’s scream, coming from less than ten yards away,
This strikes me as -- I don't know, typical. One of the standard crimes of spy novels and other works that involve foreign languages is the tendency to use foreign words unnecessarily or in ways that feel stereotypical. (Like, every time a Frenchman says, "Sacre bleu!" Even if Frenchmen actually say that, it sounds like a stereotype.)
I'd like that bit better if you cut the Spanish words and went straight to "A woman's scream..." or whatever you end up choosing.
Photo #8.
Prohibited
The gardener bought the champagne for us with our pin money. He left it in Estelle’s room through the open window this morning while all the teachers were at breakfast. Marnie paid for the cigarettes. One of the kitchen maids picked us up a box of Chesterfield’s. Dorothy pretended to still be feeling poorly so she could have breakfast in her room; they came hidden under the tea cosy.
See, Mama, it doesn’t matter if you send me here “for my own good.” You’re the only one who even cares what’s good for me. Let me come home, Mama, please?
Nutty, I see what you're saying WRT "Madre de Dios" being a little too stereotypical, but how about if I left in the "Aiee!"? I just want something there on the first page that says, "Yes, editor/agent/contest judge, I'm opening with some action. I know the rules. I'm not going to put you through ten pages of backstory or anything similarly amateurish. Bear with me as I do a little scene-setting so we know where we are and what kind of head we're in. Trust me, I know what I'm doing--I've got a scream right there on Page 1."
Which reminds me--one of my critique partners wants me to move the phrase "Anna Arrington dreamed of Scotland" to the very end of the opening paragraph, and I think it's a great idea, but I can't for the life of me think of a way to do it that's not awkward.
If you can find a way, I think maybe you should consider it. I found the first paragraph more of a problem than one with the screaming. I'm not sure why.
On as hot a summer’s day as she could remember since coming to the Peninsula, Anna Arrington dreamed of Scotland as she rode her little donkey alongside the baggage wagons and breathed the dust of thousands of tramping hooves and marching feet.
You could be intentionally repetitive, to sort of make the reader feel the oppression of the weather and conditions, maybe like this:
She rode her little donkey alongside the baggage wagons. She breathed the dust of thousands of tramping hooves and marching feet. She suffered the hottest summer's day* she could remember, since coming to the Peninsula. Anna Arrington dreamed of Scotland.
In the way I've suggested above, I think it might need one more sentence before the "Anna Arrington dreamed..." one, but I don't know what.
* Do you need "summer's" in there, to orient the reader to the setting, or as a cue for something later?
