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Nancy's last day
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01-10-2009 10:52am#1
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Right, I'm beginning to get what you mean. It didn't occur to me that readers would actively try and retain information on the 'scenery' characters but of course now that you mention it the reader would have no way of knowing who might show up again.
I gave them all names to illustrate the small-town suffocation of the place, but I could easily just dispose of half of them and as you say, even though Nancy might know them well, the reader doesn't need to, so cull the background and - this is the bit I really don't know how to do - make her react to them... this stuff is way harder than actually writing a book
Is this any better, for example?
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Nancy Quinn pulled back the sleeve of work coat and glanced at her watch for the second-last time that day, before scanning the old man's groceries through her till. Tin of baked beans, small cauliflower, packet of hickory-smoked rashers.
"Afternoon, Mr. Gogarty, and how are you?" she beamed.
He smiled up weakly from under his hunched back and flat cap. As always, he'd forgotten to weigh the vegetable, or refused to do it on principle. Nancy rarely had the heart to make him trundle back and put it on the scales, preferring to nip off and print the label herself. It was stupid, when you thought about it, weighing a caulie. Anywhere else they were a unit price, but LoValu always had to be different.0 -
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So I've killed off the child and thinned out Dermot's description. Aoife and Pinkie reappear later in the book, but none of the others do. I'm still having a hard time with Sean and the sergeant though.
Cold, judgmental, intelligent - it's really interesting that you read that from the passage as I have a completely different image of her. 'Cold' I find especially strange, but it has been said to me before that are no likable characters in the whole book. I think I'm a closet misanthropist 0 -
pickarooney wrote: »Right, I'm beginning to get what you mean. It didn't occur to me that readers would actively try and retain information on the 'scenery' characters but of course now that you mention it the reader would have no way of knowing who might show up again.
I gave them all names to illustrate the small-town suffocation of the place, but I could easily just dispose of half of them and as you say, even though Nancy might know them well, the reader doesn't need to, so cull the background and - this is the bit I really don't know how to do - make her react to them... this stuff is way harder than actually writing a book
Is this any better, for example?
----
Nancy Quinn pulled back the sleeve of work coat and glanced at her watch for the second-last time that day, before scanning the old man's groceries through her till. Tin of baked beans, small cauliflower, packet of hickory-smoked rashers.
"Afternoon, Mr. Gogarty, and how are you?" she beamed.
He smiled up weakly from under his hunched back and flat cap. As always, he'd forgotten to weigh the vegetable, or refused to do it on principle. Nancy rarely had the heart to make him trundle back and put it on the scales, preferring to nip off and print the label herself. It was stupid, when you thought about it, weighing a caulie. Anywhere else they were a unit price, but LoValu always had to be different.
I liked this much better. It put the spotlight on Nancy, while giving a slice of small town life where everyone knows everyone else. And I knew from the beginning that the old man wasn't going to be the arch-villain.0 -
pickarooney wrote: »So I've killed off the child and thinned out Dermot's description. Aoife and Pinkie reappear later in the book, but none of the others do. I'm still having a hard time with Sean and the sergeant though.
Cold, judgmental, intelligent - it's really interesting that you read that from the passage as I have a completely different image of her. 'Cold' I find especially strange, but it has been said to me before that are no likable characters in the whole book. I think I'm a closet misanthropist
I wouldn't worry about it. You want a fully rounded character, which means the odd nasty thought as well. She's obviously a really nice girl, who does all sorts of good things for her customers, she's allowed to have sarky thoughts about the unpleasant ones. Too much sweetness and lights makes me want to puke.0 -
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pickarooney wrote: »I'm going to have to print this out and mark them with a highlighter pen. I can no longer even see them reading through it
Personally I would lose the auld bitch and teh policeman. The others are characters but those two feel a little more contrived, not caricatures but just an assembly of character traits rather than characters, if you know what I mean. The humour in the policemans embarrassment also doesn't have the same tone as the rest of it.
A bit of advice I heard years ago about creative writing was to re-read a piece and to draw a big black line through anything you were particularly proud of. The logic behind it (I think) is teh piece of writing you as a writer are most proud of is probably also the piece where you are being the most self indulgent! You're clearly a talented writer and as an audience the readers here will all see the quality of what you've written, the clarity of the descriptions and sharpness of teh characterisation. It's probably a question of styles and what individuals prefer to read but as a casual reader I often find myself scanning over a lot of the descriptive writing in a novel; reading to critique is different to reading for pleasure and will people be engaged enough to pay attention to all of teh background colour? By trimming some of the descriptive text you could maybe tighten up the entire passage and focus more sharply on the objectives of this section?0 -
--amadeus-- wrote: »A bit of advice I heard years ago about creative writing was to re-read a piece and to draw a big black line through anything you were particularly proud of. The logic behind it (I think) is teh piece of writing you as a writer are most proud of is probably also the piece where you are being the most self indulgent!
I know exactly what this is about and I've found myself doing that a number of times - reading back and realising that a particular 'clever' line is forced where it doesn't belong out of vanity. I have a text file with a load of such lines which I might recycle some day
It's too much of a sweeping statement though - there's no harm being proud of a bit that you just feel works well.
So far I think only Aoife, Seán and Nancy herself haven't been recommended for execution and I don't particularly like Seán mysefl and Aoife is a bit caricaturish.0 -
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Having read the edited version...
Overall very enjoyable and the below is what I would change if this were my writing.
I think the first sentence is over complicated by the ‘and checked her watch for the second-last time that day,’ and I would leave it out.
I think the "Afternoon, Mr. Gogarty, and how are you?" is perfectly fine and I can see her smile from this alone, no need to add, “She beamed”. Readers don’t really read these anyway and mentally usually skip over them.
I didn’t like the start of the opening sentence, but enjoyed the rest of the paragraph introducing the old man, although unless LoValu is a personal derogatory term your protagonist uses for the business then it doesn’t work, as no business would call themselves LoValu.
‘and smiling into’ these are the kind of words that you’d cut if someone said to you that you needed to tighten your writing. We need to feel people are smiling and the other emotions they feel without being told. Our writing should be descriptive enough without spelling it out. As an example if I heard someone say, “Grand Girl” I’d instinctively expect them to Shuffle off, and don’t need to be told. Besides, you’ve the old man shuffling off, to be followed by another younger man shuffle up, are we to take it it’s a town of Zombies?
By now I can see you’ve good abilities when it comes to describing your characters and their dialogue.
‘His jaw hung ajar, his incisors protruding and twisted like Chaplin-feet.’ Nice one – Don’t think I’ll be introducing this man to my single female friends.
‘Unless she was counting the poor unfortunate cow that she'd bought in kit form –‘ This is a great line, and makes the continuance of the joke redundant.
‘touches of a class absent in her character.’ Nice line, and although this paragraph is used to show your protagonist’s dark side, it also says more about her, but I’ll leave that.
‘as is keeping the place going.’ ‘as if’?
The introduction of the guard would indicate to me your protagonist is either very reckless by over charging the bitch or a bit dim.
‘and buying her groceries down in the Aldi along with the immigrants."’ I think this line is out of date, as after the public sector pay cuts the sergeant or his wife would not be above shopping in Aldi, as do many the wiser white collar workers.
‘The lawman's flustered apology was a silent comedy to the young man, whose earphones blocked out everything the portly cop was saying.’ Excellent! Although I’ve a hard time thinking a Guard would be seen admitting such a mistake.
‘he'd taken to poking the tip of his little finger up his anus’ – Anus is the technical term, and doesn’t sit well with the type of dialogue. I know the prose doesn’t have to but if Nancy is the main character and is going to talk like this, then maybe using the word, ‘bum’ might be better. Not putting myself across well here, but hopefully you get what I mean.
There's a lot to like here and there's clearly a natural talent, but do believe a better writing technique needs to be developed.
Good luck0 -
I think the first sentence is over complicated by the ‘and checked her watch for the second-last time that day,’ and I would leave it out.
I agree. I've since shortened this so it scans better.
I think the "Afternoon, Mr. Gogarty, and how are you?" is perfectly fine and I can see her smile from this alone, no need to add, “She beamed”. Readers don’t really read these anyway and mentally usually skip over them.
Again, good point.I didn’t like the start of the opening sentence, but enjoyed the rest of the paragraph introducing the old man, although unless LoValu is a personal derogatory term your protagonist uses for the business then it doesn’t work, as no business would call themselves LoValu.
I initially had a passage explaining the name, which is what the employees call it after the merger of LoKost and MegaValu. I took it out on the assumption that it would be obvious enough that the shop wasn't called this.‘and smiling into’ these are the kind of words that you’d cut if someone said to you that you needed to tighten your writing. We need to feel people are smiling and the other emotions they feel without being told. Our writing should be descriptive enough without spelling it out. As an example if I heard someone say, “Grand Girl” I’d instinctively expect them to Shuffle off, and don’t need to be told. Besides, you’ve the old man shuffling off, to be followed by another younger man shuffle up, are we to take it it’s a town of Zombies?
I'd never even noticed all the shuffling! Partly because I shuffled the paragrphs themselves but also because it just didn't strike me when reading it. Less shuffling!
‘Unless she was counting the poor unfortunate cow that she'd bought in kit form –‘ This is a great line, and makes the continuance of the joke redundant.
You mean it'll be obvious without actually detailing the items she's purchased?
‘as is keeping the place going.’ ‘as if’?
'as is' is a colloquialism, although I'm not sure it's common in Mayo. I'll double-check.The introduction of the guard would indicate to me your protagonist is either very reckless by over charging the bitch or a bit dim.
It honestly never occured to me that the guard would notice or care. She's balancing her till Robin-Hood style.‘and buying her groceries down in the Aldi along with the immigrants."’ I think this line is out of date, as after the public sector pay cuts the sergeant or his wife would not be above shopping in Aldi, as do many the wiser white collar workers.
I wrote this over three years ago and the rest of the book is set in the same time period. I did update some things (e.g. references to high-spec cameras which were since obsolete) but I've decided not to do it any more as I'd just be chasing my tail - Ireland could be in a new boom by the time I've finished this thing‘The lawman's flustered apology was a silent comedy to the young man, whose earphones blocked out everything the portly cop was saying.’ Excellent! Although I’ve a hard time thinking a Guard would be seen admitting such a mistake.
Well I can't take everyone's advice (--amadeus-- particularly didn't like this bit) but am grateful to hear all opinions.‘he'd taken to poking the tip of his little finger up his anus’ – Anus is the technical term, and doesn’t sit well with the type of dialogue. I know the prose doesn’t have to but if Nancy is the main character and is going to talk like this, then maybe using the word, ‘bum’ might be better. Not putting myself across well here, but hopefully you get what I mean.
I know what you mean but I don't think 'anus' falls into obscure-medical-jargon territory. It's commonly used even in jokes.
ouch
There's a lot to like here and there's clearly a natural talent, but do believe a better writing technique needs to be developed.
Good luck
Thanks 0 -
pickarooney wrote: »
You mean it'll be obvious without actually detailing the items she's purchased?
I got it and laughed because you already set it up by mentioning it was a 10 items or less isle. However, it is more obscure by not detailing as you did with the rest of the sentence so your call.pickarooney wrote: »
Well I can't take everyone's advice (--amadeus-- particularly didn't like this bit) but am grateful to hear all opinions.
That's key - it's your writing and vision, and you need to decide what advice fits with the story you are trying to tell.pickarooney wrote: »
ouch
Didn't mean for it to come across like that but was used to being in writing groups that gave detailed critiques that could appear like that, but usually it was the case that you wouldn't bother reviewing something unless it was liked and had promise. 0 -
Didn't mean for it to come across like that but was used to being in writing groups that gave detailed critiques that could appear like that, but usually it was the case that you wouldn't bother reviewing something unless it was liked and had promise.
It kind of sounded like "maybe you could paint better with your left hand?"
When you say 'develop a better technique', could you expand on it a bit?0 -
pickarooney wrote: »It kind of sounded like "maybe you could paint better with your left hand?"
I know only too well what it’s like putting writing up for critique, it can make mums that put their children forward for baby judging competitions practically placid when it comes to reacting to perceived flaws in their creation. I've been there.pickarooney wrote: »It kind of sounded like "maybe you could paint better with your left hand?"
When you say 'develop a better technique', could you expand on it a bit?
I would see your main strengths as your humour and your ability to describe your situation observations. I could see you writing a Fiona Looney type piece or the Last Word type article on the back page of the Irish Examiner.
For a fictional novel I think you need to work on your narrative. For example, in your story the narrative goes from being detached from all characters, but then takes Nancy’s thoughts and even Sean’s. This is perfectly valid, but from my own reading is best done only by the most accomplished writers. You might want to study the different types of narrative styles and which might be best to write your story. It may be that what your doing is the best but give the others a try out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative#Literary_theory
I’ve briefly read the above and seems to leave out some other styles, but might be worth giving a quick read.
We’ve already discussed the likes of modifiers to dialogue, and the basic 'He said, She said' really seems to be the best. Another example of where this jarred for me was the following…’said Nancy, a touch acerbically’ – the word acerbically stopped me in my tracks as it jarred me out of the story. It seemed out of place with the main writing style.
Again, what I’m saying here is very much my opinion and likely not to enjoy universal agreement. Clearly it’s up to you to think whether or not I’m talking out of my… Anus!
There’s one other thing I noticed on re-reading. While I think your dialogue is good in this excerpt – I think an entire novel written in colloquialism would be too much FOR ME. Others I’m sure may love it. I think most writers (though certainly not all) take a licence when writing and don’t write completely as we speak. For this reason, most writers drop pause words such as ‘am’ which are not needed to progress a story. You don’t either and I may be labouring the point somewhat.
Are you nearly finished this book?0 -
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