Editing part 1kayden_eidyakNovember 14 2009, 14:56:29 UTC
Hi! Editor checking in. This was a really fascinating piece! The possibility of such an occurrence is quite frightening! I liked the narrator. I really felt like I was looking into his head at a passing thought. Very well done!
The story does drag in the middle, though. I think there is far too much information spread out over too much space. It could be much better relayed to the reader if some of the unnecessary parts were cut out. Also, there's a lot of statistical numbers that slow the reader down. We're reading a person's thoughts, not a research paper. I don't think your numbers need to be quite so accurate. For example, saying three-quarters of the babies born were males is easier to read and understand than saying 75% were males and 25% were female. And it looks better. Anyway, portions I'm referring to are in red, and my comments on them in green(hopefully) :)
“Thank you, Rauwph,” he said, his English was horrible, but it was okay, I had begun learning Japanese as soon as the Relocation project had begun. The placement of the word okay implies his english was horrible but it was okay. Change "it" to "that" or take out everything except "but" and add something like "so the language barrier wasn't much of an issue."
Mr. Nishimura had (omit) decided to come to the United States when there had been a rise in the reports of attempted kidnappings in the Japanese country (Japan?). With three daughters, he couldn’t deal with the fear of (didn't want to risk) losing them to the Red Scourge.
When Chinese law ordered only one child per couple(comma)there was an undesired effect of newborn daughters being killed or given up in orphanages. As time passed(comma) the population began to divide unevenly from fifty-fifty male female to fifty-three to forty-seven male female.
Men who were more likely to produce sons were out hyphen breeding the males who were equal chances(This sentence is confusing. By "equal chances" I think you mean equal chances of producing a boy or a girl. If you changed were to was and made it "who had equal chances of producing male or female offspring" or something like that, it would help clarify)
It took almost two centuries beyond the turn of the millennium for the Chinese to come to a stark realization.(colon) They had too many men and not enough women. At first it wasn’t so bad with World War III,(semi colon) many men died on the Russian Front as well as (in) the universal take over of the Middle East.
The story does drag in the middle, though. I think there is far too much information spread out over too much space. It could be much better relayed to the reader if some of the unnecessary parts were cut out. Also, there's a lot of statistical numbers that slow the reader down. We're reading a person's thoughts, not a research paper. I don't think your numbers need to be quite so accurate. For example, saying three-quarters of the babies born were males is easier to read and understand than saying 75% were males and 25% were female. And it looks better. Anyway, portions I'm referring to are in red, and my comments on them in green(hopefully) :)
“Thank you, Rauwph,” he said, his English was horrible, but it was okay, I had begun learning Japanese as soon as the Relocation project had begun. The placement of the word okay implies his english was horrible but it was okay. Change "it" to "that" or take out everything except "but" and add something like "so the language barrier wasn't much of an issue."
Mr. Nishimura had (omit) decided to come to the United States when there had been a rise in the reports of attempted kidnappings in the Japanese country (Japan?). With three daughters, he couldn’t deal with the fear of (didn't want to risk) losing them to the Red Scourge.
When Chinese law ordered only one child per couple(comma)there was an undesired effect of newborn daughters being killed or given up in orphanages. As time passed(comma) the population began to divide unevenly from fifty-fifty male female to fifty-three to forty-seven male female.
Men who were more likely to produce sons were out hyphen breeding the males who were equal chances(This sentence is confusing. By "equal chances" I think you mean equal chances of producing a boy or a girl. If you changed were to was and made it "who had equal chances of producing male or female offspring" or something like that, it would help clarify)
It took almost two centuries beyond the turn of the millennium for the Chinese to come to a stark realization.(colon) They had too many men and not enough women. At first it wasn’t so bad with World War III,(semi colon) many men died on the Russian Front as well as (in) the universal take over of the Middle East.
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