The Wander Inn Dude Ranch had faired well after the End of Days and if you didn’t believe it spoken all you would have to do is walked along the property and see the herd kept well fed within the fences.
This may be part of your deceptive tone, but I feel that using the second person here is a lot more inviting and folksy than you may have initially intended for it to be. When we make the tonal switch to "ZOMBIES!" it doesn't strike me as ironic or cute, it's just kinda weird. Additionally, the intransitive verb you seek is 'fare'; the ranch had 'fared' well.
There was one sentence in particular that rubbed me the wrong way:
Four bullets, she had only ever seen twelve of the creatures so the clip of fifteen should cover her, as long as she didn’t miss.
I really don't know what this sentence is trying to say! I mean, I do, but I tried to diagram it and it's really kind of fragmentary. The way it works now is that it reads "Four bullets, as long as she didn't miss," which doesn't make that much sense. What you've nested in between those commas is a complex sentence in its own right, but right now it functions as sort of a broken dependent clause modified by "Four bullets", which is just not correct. The use of 'should' in the sentence is improper, too; because it's too conditional. Modal verbs are weird, but I replaced it with 'would'. "Should" gives it too much present-tense wiggle. 'Would' is more past-tense than 'should', more third-person narrator than 'should'. Both imply futurity, but 'would' has more narrative confidence.
Am I being too theoretical? Sorry. Let's move on.
I take the previous sentence in that paragraph "Three more came over the hill and took a shot" to mean "Nichole shot them" not "they shot at Nichole", so I would reformat the sentence to read as follows:
Four bullets. She had only ever seen twelve of the creatures, so the clip of fifteen would cover her, provided she didn’t miss.
Mind you, that's not terribly good logic on Nichole's part; there certainly could be other zombies she hadn't seen. But that's not my department.
I hope this was helpful; please, let's continue this conversation.
Mind you, that's not terribly good logic on Nichole's part; there certainly could be other zombies she hadn't seen. But that's not my department. *laughs* I agree completely. (Skimmed your edit before starting on my own.)
Thanks, part of me wanted you to confuse Nichole and the zombies, make it seem like two different groups. I kind of hoped that the reader would get it, but I'll work with the changes you gave me.
I think most of my confusion stemmed from the fact that you used the word 'cattle' in there somewhere, to vary the herd description. So I assumed that they were, y'know, actual cows.
The Wander Inn Dude Ranch had faired well after the End of Days and if you didn’t believe it spoken all you would have to do is walked along the property and see the herd kept well fed within the fences.
This may be part of your deceptive tone, but I feel that using the second person here is a lot more inviting and folksy than you may have initially intended for it to be. When we make the tonal switch to "ZOMBIES!" it doesn't strike me as ironic or cute, it's just kinda weird. Additionally, the intransitive verb you seek is 'fare'; the ranch had 'fared' well.
There was one sentence in particular that rubbed me the wrong way:
Four bullets, she had only ever seen twelve of the creatures so the clip of fifteen should cover her, as long as she didn’t miss.
I really don't know what this sentence is trying to say! I mean, I do, but I tried to diagram it and it's really kind of fragmentary. The way it works now is that it reads "Four bullets, as long as she didn't miss," which doesn't make that much sense. What you've nested in between those commas is a complex sentence in its own right, but right now it functions as sort of a broken dependent clause modified by "Four bullets", which is just not correct.
The use of 'should' in the sentence is improper, too; because it's too conditional. Modal verbs are weird, but I replaced it with 'would'. "Should" gives it too much present-tense wiggle. 'Would' is more past-tense than 'should', more third-person narrator than 'should'. Both imply futurity, but 'would' has more narrative confidence.
Am I being too theoretical? Sorry. Let's move on.
I take the previous sentence in that paragraph "Three more came over the hill and took a shot" to mean "Nichole shot them" not "they shot at Nichole", so I would reformat the sentence to read as follows:
Four bullets. She had only ever seen twelve of the creatures, so the clip of fifteen would cover her, provided she didn’t miss.
Mind you, that's not terribly good logic on Nichole's part; there certainly could be other zombies she hadn't seen. But that's not my department.
I hope this was helpful; please, let's continue this conversation.
-D
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*laughs* I agree completely. (Skimmed your edit before starting on my own.)
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I think most of my confusion stemmed from the fact that you used the word 'cattle' in there somewhere, to vary the herd description. So I assumed that they were, y'know, actual cows.
But yes! Do whatever you feel is necessary.
-D
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