*sings* Hi, I'm your editor for this week! Your text is italicized or in double quotation marks; my suggestions are in single quotation marks. (A bit confusing around apostrophes, though; just ask if there's weirdness going on there.)
General comments *Consider centring your scene breaks for purely aesthetic reasons (i.e. I'm picky): just use <*center> and (remove the asterisks).
*I like how you begin this piece: the protagonist is so direct, utterly sure of himself and cussing at the reader and it pulled me in right away.
*I'm looking at your piece in both light style and in the regular style, and it looks like you have both indents and triple line spaces between paragraphs. Did you copy this from Word, by the way? If you want to avoid the Times New Roman/weird Word formatting, you can copy and paste first to a program like Notepad (if you're on PC; I'm not sure what the equivalent for Mac is--you want a plain text program) and then copy the text from there. There is a disadvantage as you would have to go in and manually enter in carriage returns (although if you already wrote the piece by adding a line of space, it's fine). Detailed comments I also don't fight in a group, you might as well just tattoo -Be careful, this is a comma splice. It's basically using a comma instead of a semicolon: when your sentence can actually be split into two stand-alone ("I went to the story, I bought milk") that are not joined together with a conjunction (and/but/or, etc), it needs either a period, a semicolon, or a coordinating conjunction.
I work as a guy who finds things, not a PI, that implies I'm legit -Consider using a colon instead of a comma after "PI" to give it more impact, like below. (I've changed tenses a little). I work as a guy who finds things, but not as a PI: that would imply I'm legit.
when you want something no matter the cost -The part: "no matter the cost" is kind of awkward. Try 'when you want something and you don't care how much it'll cost you' or similar.
gone at dawn of Wednesday morning -Choice of preposition: better to have "at" or 'by'?
Miles and I have gone back a long time -This confused me because I first thought of time-travelling and how the two of them hopped back into the past. :D Consider revising your sentence to say: 'Miles and I go back a long way' or similar.
Miles had asked me to find said boyfriend and bring him a specific body part....See, I told you I wasn't a good guy. -Ahahaha. Yes. :)
his new old lady -I think I get what you're trying to do here ("old lady" is slang for girlfriend? *is totally out of the loop*) but the "new old" part is clashing. Substituting another phrase for "old lady" is probably best.
It nagged at me -The word "it" doesn't have an antecedent. The sentence before it says "Since Miles owed me not only for the delivery but for the cooler, I was a little peeved." The word "it" doesn't apply to any noun there; consider revising to clarify. Using a word ('The unpaid money', etc) in place of "it" will work.
She's got that natural beauty that goes underappreciated in this world, -Wondering if 'this' would work better than "that" (the first "that"); it would emphasize the fact that the beauty is Rachael's in particular. The online spellchecker tells me it wants "underappreciated" as two words or hyphenated. I suggest using a hyphenated version so that it's easier to understand. That's a big word smush.
Bitch Wife asked, she was sitting in Miles' favorite armchair, I wasn't even allowed to sit there, I doubted he would allow her in it. -Uh oh, big run-on sentence. (And that there in my comment was a fragment. *facepalm*) Use a period after "asked" -- this will also separate the dialogue tag from the action -- and you are left with two comma splices. aaah!
This comment is too long (Oh God I feel a Hamlet quote coming on); I'll put the rest of the edit into the next one.
Re: Editor!, part 2silverflight8October 17 2010, 21:34:48 UTC
*clears throat*
More detailed nitpicky comments
the two men returned to trying to do just that. -Consider revising "to trying to do just that". The double "to...to..." just sounds strange, especially when coupled with the "just".
"Mr. Collin, the shot doesn't start until the sun is up!" Rachael cried -How can she tell if she's in the safe-room? Is there something that allows sound to travel back in, like the reverse-PA system or something?
I asked as I began to leave, dawn was coming and I wasn't going to be anyone's slave. -?
Gently arms wrapped around my waist and a cheek pressed against my back. -Consider replacing "gently" with 'gentle' so that it's like the second part of the sentence (ADJ NOUN VERB...NOUN VERB).
AHHHH he's still stuck! He should've pulled the trigger earlier! AAAHH!
to hit my back. -This brings to mind images of someone pounding their fists on someone's back, not of sunshine...
That's a wonderfully horrifying ending. I liked it a lot. I think your piece would be much much stronger with better punctuation, though, like thorarosebird mentioned; in particular, the comma/comma splice and run on sentences are a problem. Nice entry, though! Good luck in the polls.
Your text is italicized or in double quotation marks; my suggestions are in single quotation marks. (A bit confusing around apostrophes, though; just ask if there's weirdness going on there.)
General comments
*Consider centring your scene breaks for purely aesthetic reasons (i.e. I'm picky): just use <*center> and (remove the asterisks).
*I like how you begin this piece: the protagonist is so direct, utterly sure of himself and cussing at the reader and it pulled me in right away.
*I'm looking at your piece in both light style and in the regular style, and it looks like you have both indents and triple line spaces between paragraphs. Did you copy this from Word, by the way? If you want to avoid the Times New Roman/weird Word formatting, you can copy and paste first to a program like Notepad (if you're on PC; I'm not sure what the equivalent for Mac is--you want a plain text program) and then copy the text from there. There is a disadvantage as you would have to go in and manually enter in carriage returns (although if you already wrote the piece by adding a line of space, it's fine).
Detailed comments
I also don't fight in a group, you might as well just tattoo
-Be careful, this is a comma splice. It's basically using a comma instead of a semicolon: when your sentence can actually be split into two stand-alone ("I went to the story, I bought milk") that are not joined together with a conjunction (and/but/or, etc), it needs either a period, a semicolon, or a coordinating conjunction.
I work as a guy who finds things, not a PI, that implies I'm legit
-Consider using a colon instead of a comma after "PI" to give it more impact, like below. (I've changed tenses a little).
I work as a guy who finds things, but not as a PI: that would imply I'm legit.
when you want something no matter the cost
-The part: "no matter the cost" is kind of awkward. Try 'when you want something and you don't care how much it'll cost you' or similar.
gone at dawn of Wednesday morning
-Choice of preposition: better to have "at" or 'by'?
Miles and I have gone back a long time
-This confused me because I first thought of time-travelling and how the two of them hopped back into the past. :D Consider revising your sentence to say: 'Miles and I go back a long way' or similar.
Miles had asked me to find said boyfriend and bring him a specific body part....See, I told you I wasn't a good guy.
-Ahahaha. Yes. :)
his new old lady
-I think I get what you're trying to do here ("old lady" is slang for girlfriend? *is totally out of the loop*) but the "new old" part is clashing. Substituting another phrase for "old lady" is probably best.
It nagged at me
-The word "it" doesn't have an antecedent. The sentence before it says "Since Miles owed me not only for the delivery but for the cooler, I was a little peeved." The word "it" doesn't apply to any noun there; consider revising to clarify. Using a word ('The unpaid money', etc) in place of "it" will work.
She's got that natural beauty that goes underappreciated in this world,
-Wondering if 'this' would work better than "that" (the first "that"); it would emphasize the fact that the beauty is Rachael's in particular. The online spellchecker tells me it wants "underappreciated" as two words or hyphenated. I suggest using a hyphenated version so that it's easier to understand. That's a big word smush.
Bitch Wife asked, she was sitting in Miles' favorite armchair, I wasn't even allowed to sit there, I doubted he would allow her in it.
-Uh oh, big run-on sentence. (And that there in my comment was a fragment. *facepalm*) Use a period after "asked" -- this will also separate the dialogue tag from the action -- and you are left with two comma splices. aaah!
This comment is too long (Oh God I feel a Hamlet quote coming on); I'll put the rest of the edit into the next one.
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More detailed nitpicky comments
the two men returned to trying to do just that.
-Consider revising "to trying to do just that". The double "to...to..." just sounds strange, especially when coupled with the "just".
"Mr. Collin, the shot doesn't start until the sun is up!" Rachael cried
-How can she tell if she's in the safe-room? Is there something that allows sound to travel back in, like the reverse-PA system or something?
I asked as I began to leave, dawn was coming and I wasn't going to be anyone's slave.
-?
Gently arms wrapped around my waist and a cheek pressed against my back.
-Consider replacing "gently" with 'gentle' so that it's like the second part of the sentence (ADJ NOUN VERB...NOUN VERB).
AHHHH he's still stuck! He should've pulled the trigger earlier! AAAHH!
to hit my back.
-This brings to mind images of someone pounding their fists on someone's back, not of sunshine...
That's a wonderfully horrifying ending. I liked it a lot. I think your piece would be much much stronger with better punctuation, though, like thorarosebird mentioned; in particular, the comma/comma splice and run on sentences are a problem. Nice entry, though! Good luck in the polls.
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