For now, I'll post the first paragraph of a short story I recently wrote to whet your appetite:
"The road wasn’t on the map but Gale Kringlebot, of the wealthy Manhattan Kringlebots, walked along its dusty, bumpy spine. His brown cowboy boots jangled loudly - a result of the gleaming silver spurs on their heels - and bit into his pinky toes. His normal New York stride slowed to a wincing teeter as he tried to walk on the inside arches of his feet to take the pressure off his last little toes. The nostalgia that constantly ricocheted around in his chest hit especially hard as he thought about the black alligator-skin shoes he would be slipping on right now if he were back in the city, instead of here, in the middle-of-nowhere Nevada. As he stumbled over a rock camouflaged by the dusty red dirt swirling up around him, Gale nearly cursed – “Son-of-a-!” - and vowed to talk to his father about the ill-fitting boots; his father would see to it that the shoemaker’s reputation plummeted like the stocks he was currently advising investors to hoard up fast, before they took to the rebound."
2 comments:
Too much fat on the bone, cut this by about half and see how it reads then.
Hi Chris! Walking man is right, but first I'll tell you that writers who stick with a thought as long as you do never give up and get better every year.
Here's one example of how to do what Mark's talking about:
"His normal New York stride slowed to a wincing teeter as he tried to walk on the inside arches of his feet to take the pressure off his last little toes."
That's a lot of words to say his feet hurt and he was trying not to make it worse. I understand that you wanted to convey the character was from Manhatten and he was uncomfortable out West, but readers can fill in a lot for themselves if you give them the chance.
For example, in the second sentenece, when you added "- a result of the gleaming silver spurs on their heels -" the reader already knows that.
Also, watch out for passive lead-ins like "As he stumbled over a rock camouflaged by the dusty red dirt swirling up around him..." First, "as he stumbled" is pretty passive. Look for a more active verb to use.
And the clause itself prefaces a sentence that could effectively be broken into three separate sentences. I think the problem is that passive lead in clause is so long that it fogged your perspective, encouraging you to write a sentence that skewed your sense of pacing.
Also, on the ver front, "nearly cursed" says almost, but not quite. Nearly isn't enough. Either give it to the reader or don't. And if he's going to curse, don't bury what he says in a long sentence. Make it an important enough event to get its own sentence.
Wait, I've gone on too long, haven't I?
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