Sleepy Grove excerpt - 1350 words

[J. L. Holtz]

Ratsy, so much better, it's coming along. Rose is becoming more likable and has more personality, I actually chuckled a bit at her antics now. I do agree with Barrett on his points, and look forward to the next 'polished' passage.

Great work!

 

[Avid Scifi Fan]

I thought it was a good read.

I only had issue with larry saying "he’s a low level criminal -robs gas stations and bingo halls. You don’t want anything to do with a guy like that."

That seemed too specific, like a job description. It also seemed unlikely he would "rat out" someone like that so quickly. I recommend it be toned down a bit (after all, if shes supposed to be this guys friend, he probably wouldn't talk too badly about him). Maybe something a little more vague, but still imply he's a bad guy. "he hangs with a ruff bunch and is into some shadey work." or something like that.

 

[Cat's Cradle]

Hi ratsy! There's a lot to like here. I think the second version of this is definitely a step in the right direction. There's been a lot of good advice...I'll mention just a few things (I'm not sure if these things have been mentioned--I didn't see them in a quick scan of the posts).

I think there is some repetition of patterns in descriptive phrasing here that could be eliminated to make the piece seem a bit more distinctive. For example we have men described thusly:
--a large bouncer
--a large man
--a big brute
--rough looking men (also, should that be hyphenated... rough-looking men?)
--a bald man (removed, in the revision)
--mystery man
Perhaps you could do something like this, to eliminate this sort of repetition:
instead of 'A large bouncer', maybe: A bouncer who was a foot taller, and twice as wide as her... Maybe a few of the other descriptions could be more detailed to make these men seem a bit more real, and individualistic.

I think it would be Harleys, rather than Harley's.

Another thing I noticed is also about repetition...some form of the word 'look' is used 11 times in the revised version of this excerpt (it's used three times just in the paragraph beginning A large bouncer...). Could this be changed-up up a bit? If we review the paragraph where look is used three times:

A large bouncer wearing a leather vest and a sleeveless shirt grunted at her and looked her up and down. It wasn't the leering glance of a creep, just the experience of a bouncer looking for something out of place at a tough bar. He nodded her past and Rose wished for an instant that he'd asked her for ID. She knew she didn't look under twenty-one but as a woman in her mid-thirties she still wanted to feel young.

And then here's the same paragraph with look swapped out twice:

A large bouncer wearing a leather vest and a sleeveless shirt grunted at her and looked her up and down. It wasn't the leering glance of a creep, just the experience of a bouncer searching for something out of place at a tough bar. He nodded her past and Rose wished for an instant that he'd asked her for ID. She knew she didn't have the appearance of a girl younger than twenty-one, but as a woman in her mid-thirties she still wanted to feel young.

I'm no pro though, ratsy, so I'm not sure how helpful these thoughts are. But again I think you're headed in the right direction, and the piece shows promise. Best of luck! CC

ps--another way around using look so much....seem/seemed is a handy alternative--in some cases--for look. Examples:

--made an effort to not look so displeased...
made an effort to not seem so displeased...

--he looked angry.
he seemed angry.