Post #389,182
5/5/14 1:36:08 AM
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genre fiction
So I've been working on a novel for about a year. For the first three months I did something close to the recommended thousand words a day, In early August 2013, it fell off badly. Still, it's continued. I've probably passed the 100K word mark. Many, many structural and logical issues remain to be addressed. Although I'm personally pleased with my prose style, I suspect that any competent editor employed by the genre publisher would rent a house with a fireplace just in order to dispose of my manuscript with the respect it deserves. I submit the following brief passage, perhaps unwisely: ÂWhat can we know, Professor Tarr, about the early Albionese settlers? Someday these will be AlbionÂs Founding Fathers under the Commonwealth. She has Tarr posed against a stretch of monorail line, a thousand circuits old, with Avalon Island visible just a few tens of kilometers offshore.
He preens for the camera. ÂIn some respects, they were as advanced as we are today. Albion was the last major human colony established before the Crash, and the men who settled here had the benefit of almost two centuries additional progress at a time when our own ancestors at home were still taming a world.Â
At this Tatiana starts to roll her eyes; catches herself. Neither a biologist nor a historian, she paid enough attention in school to recognize that Âtame as a bit rich. TerranovaÂs anaemic native ecosystem, consisting for the most part of damp microbial mats at sea and, inland, clusters of unassuming bryophytes eking out a meagre living from the planetÂs thin volcanic soil, has always required more coaxing than taming. ItÂs as though after scaling the eons-long gradient from inert replicating chemistry to photosynthesis, and once past the supreme effort of lurching out of the water, TerranovaÂs exhausted lifeforms have settled into, as a lecturer once quipped, Âa persistent vegetative state. Certainly the Commonwealth armed forces have had less trouble from that planetary biome in a thousand years than theyÂve recently endured over a couple of tendays at Salisbury Station. Tamed, my arse. Tarr, who is delivering this spiel not for the first time, she suspects, does not register her brief disdain. cordially,
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Post #389,186
5/5/14 3:09:30 AM
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Are you part of any writing communities?
In any shape or form? I suspect we might be a poor sounding board.
I am friends with quite a few people on Twitter (@staticsan) that either write or edit or are in some way involved in the publishing industry. Some of them make a living off it. I'm also part of a writers' group, although we tend to socialise as much as write.
Wade.
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Post #389,193
5/5/14 11:16:10 AM
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beats some of the crap I havve been reading lately
smooth enough, has a recognizable style.
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 58 years. meep
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Post #389,197
5/5/14 4:46:43 PM
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Promises intrigue, of the sort which (one always hopes..)
will prove rewarding to unravel. For me, the capsule evokes an interesting rubric (more advanced than some 'device'..) Just how might we expand our imaginations,
taking our local-Darwinian schema to a (this) world, believably?
Can we apply and also modify that local-insight, slyly enough? Hah!
(Mightn't that or similar query be one Buy This Book! honey-pot?)
I'm biased, of course--but it seems to me that demanding an attention-span capable of assimilating a few conditional clauses is not too high a price to pay
(saving short/didactic phrases for ordinary Action potboilers) though one can always insert a few at critical moments--isn't that where these belong?
Lay On McRand (don't need no steenkin robot-Dragons to purposefully upset certain presumptions of our current oft-retarded species, I wot.)
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Post #389,203
5/5/14 5:41:15 PM
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Happy to read more and comment
My only qualification as a genre-fiction (specifically, Science Fiction and Fantasy) sounding board is the vast quantity of such material that I consume. Quantity, however, has a quality all its own.
Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
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Post #389,207
5/5/14 6:40:07 PM
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Re: Happy to read more and comment
Disinclined to post lengthy passages, but prepared to send samples via email, subject to reconsideration. IWT_username auf mac splash com.
cordially,
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Post #389,218
5/6/14 6:13:06 AM
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While not a professional editor
I did quite a bit of tutoring in college and you seem not to have fallen into any of the more obvious writing traps. I would like to see more. Especially in regards to how you handle dialogue and internal monologues. Also, from the snippet provided, this seems like an intriguing story and I would like to read more just to satisfy my own curiosity as to what the story is about.
I think the single most compelling piece of evidence for global warming is that Fox News viewers think it's a hoax.
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Post #389,231
5/6/14 5:19:16 PM
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a shortish (>2500 words) additional passage
I'm rather pleased with, and which sneaks in a lot of the backstory in the form of a commencement address, can be found here:
https://dl.dropboxus...79/the_speech.pdf
(Its five pages display in a two-page spread format I don't have time to defeat, so must be read left-right-down; rinse and repeat)
cordially,
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Post #389,232
5/6/14 5:41:23 PM
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holds together well
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 58 years. meep
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Post #389,233
5/6/14 8:54:15 PM
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Well done. Thanks for sharing.
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Post #389,271
5/8/14 2:08:41 PM
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Re: genre fiction
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Post #389,349
5/10/14 10:01:03 PM
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time's up
I've moved the previously-targeted link content offline.
cordially,
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