Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
What killed me?
No matter how many times I look at Samhain’s list for the final round, my entry doesn’t appear. Oh, well. I made it one round more than I thought I would.
Assuming the editor(s) in my corner didn’t have second thoughts about a doctor who lusts after his patient, I can only assume something in my last line killed me. Here’s the opening, including that deadly last line:
Twelve inches separated Dr. Brad Berkowitz from heaven. Twelve inches, and a little thing called medical ethics.
Brad’s hand hovered twelve inches above the loveliest vulva he had ever seen — not that he had seen many, but still: creamy brown like caramel flan, or maybe like his cafeteria coffee after he had added enough milk to make it drinkable. Flan, coffee, either way he figured he had never seen such a miracle of perfect symmetry.
It has been a fascinating exercise, parsing my opening line by line, wondering what might be a poison pill. With the second sentence, I worried the editors might gag over a sentence fragment. No! (And among the various entries, they let a few other fragments pass, too.) I figured the third line would be certain suicide, given not only the high squick factor but also the overall weirdness of the sentence. Flan? Coffee? WTF?
When line 3 passed muster, I figured I was home free, and I was so excited to get to sentence 5 (God himself would weep to see such a beautiful vulva — which cracks me up, every time I read it) that I didn’t apply full scrutiny to sentence 4.
I see two potential problems, but perhaps you folks can find others. First, there’s a bothersome echo centered on the word “seen” (“he had ever seen,” “he had never seen”). Second, the sentence is somewhat agrammatical. Might a dash have worked better than a comma after “coffee”?
And now I see a third problem, one which was present in sentence 3 but became more obvious in sentence 4: the distance changes between the first and second paragraphs. Para 1 is remote, but with para 2, we’re fully inside Brad’s fevered brain.
Yeah, yeah — I know a guy can go nuts over-analyzing such things. But if you can trust Noah Lukeman’s book, editors look for reasons to reject long before they look for reasons to accept. If I can edit out those surefire rejection problems, so much the better for the fate of my book.
Of course, if I never write the ending, I’ll never get to submit it.
Last things first.
D.
Maybe it has the problem of not moving fast enough. For a real book, we read paragraphs–no problem. But for this contest, it seems like every sentece is another paragraph. Each one introduces a new clue or idea. #3 is a doozy, full of really lush descriptions. Great. But then maybe #4 needed to tell more about what he was going to do about it/why he was there. #4 is just a less eloquent repetition of his admiration in #3. Just my thinky things…
Interesting thought — and now that you mention it, I noticed that some of these entries seemed to be squeezing as much as possible into the tiny space allotted.
I wonder whether the editors approached these entries the same way they approach unsolicited manuscripts? Or does the form of the contest influence their decision-making?
Yanno what stuck out for me? The “he figured”. It breaks up the cadenced flow of the previous sentences, and weakens the thought. “Figured” means there’s the possibility of doubt, and if, as your next sentence states, it was a perfect vulva, there should be no room for doubt.
That’s my 2 cents’ worth.
Another interesting (and easily implemented) suggestion. Thanks, sxK.
Hi Doug!
I’ve never commented here but I’ve lurked for years 😉 I wouldn’t angst too much over this. It’s been a huge learning curve for me and I’ve published five books!
This contest was wonderful in teaching how to make every sentence a “hook”. How important that is. Because there’s no net at all. Kinda scary and I also spent waaaay too much time constructing and reconstructing. A good exercise for tight writing, though.
Since you seem to want advice I figured I’d tell you what I would’ve done with sentence number four:
God himself would weep to see such a miracle of perfect symmetry.
I would’ve combined four and five and then let five be an action, like, he snatched his hand away (pun intended). Or even a risky POV switch into her head, wondering why the Dr. was taking so freakin’ long, drumming her fingers on her stomach. LOL. But that’s just ME.
At any rate, like I said, don’t angst too much. Each editor had to choose two. Doesn’t in any way mean that yours didn’t intrigue and won’t someday get a request. They just had to stick to the MOST intriguing and marketable for THIS contest.
Rock on!
yeah, they said they dropped some because of punctuation. Could that be an issue with that “he figured” ??
hmm, probably not.
I’m always up for commas where there shouldn’t be commas.
I dunno. It’s a tough race.
yeah, they said they dropped some because of punctuation. Could that be an issue with that “he figured” ??
hmm, probably not.
I’m always up for commas where there shouldn’t be commas.
I dunno. It’s a tough race.
HEY how’d that happen??
Sorry– sorry — sorry
Sorry your entry isn’t there today
Sorry about the double posting
Sorry that GWB is commuting Scooter Libby’s senetence.
Ann: COOL! Another author de-lurks. I’ll have to add your blog to my roll. Another blog-on-kaiser, and hold the pickle, please! Pun intended 🙂
I’m not too angst-afflicted right now, but I really was curious why that one sentence tripped me up. As I’ve said, I thought #3 would have been the killer — all the editors shrieking “EEEEWWWW!” in unison, that sort of thing.
There’s action in the following paragraph, however, so it may be a simple matter of cutting that “either way” sentence entirely in order to keep things moving along.
Kate, you’re right. The more I look at that sentence, the more agrammatical and poorly punctuated it seems. Zots.
As for Cooter Libby, there’s a silver lining: Olbermann’s gonna call for Bush and Cheney’s resignation tomorrow night, WOOOOOT!
Hey Doug — thanks for the blogroll add. I’ll do the same!
As for Powwower, believe me, I did consider bowwower. Just call me the pun queen. What? I like puns!
AWH is one of the Sammy finalists. And her writing rocks. Look, see? I’m not the only one who thinks so. She’s a Mrs. Giggles keeper:
http://www.mrsgiggles.com/books/hardin_world.html
Also Doug. Why is my damn double posting still here?
Ann: don’t mention it 🙂
Kate: because if I deleted the double post, your subsequent posts wouldn’t make any sense, now, would they?
Kate, check’s in the mail 😉