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  1. sozme

    Swordfight Scene (1460+ words)

    She dropped into a light crouch and stood motionless, just waiting. Remove "just." Better yet, you could say: "She dropped into a motionless crouch, waiting." Where her target was going be in the next instant of battle. Remove was going, replace with "would." Those are just two examples...
  2. sozme

    Swordfight Scene (1460+ words)

    You have a lot of useless filler words that could easily be removed to make it flow better.
  3. sozme

    Editors

    Can anyone recommend independent copy editors who are high quality and affordable? (as in $1.5k or less for a ~150,000 word novel that I intend to self-publish). The genre is LitRPG Lite (so a mix of SciFi and fantasy elements). I recently paid a gentleman with a legit-looking company and...
  4. sozme

    Working Stiffs (Opening of a near-future corporate noir tale)

    Not a bad hook but overly wordy. You should employ something like ProWritingAid to see if you can pare sentences down. Simple Example: “Escorting some newly sh*t-canned suit” could easily be: “Escorting a sh*t-canned suit” without changing the meaning at all.
  5. sozme

    The Winds of Winter publishing date guesses?

    Say you are writer whose story encompasses multiple installments with the same number of PoVs at GOT. What do you do to keep it all together?
  6. sozme

    B.V. Larson - star force?

    Welcome to every one of his books (that I've ever read). All of the stories in the main Star Force line are exactly like that.
  7. sozme

    First time posting for critique

    Halfway through the first paragraph I was asking myself why I should care about this spider. Also I don't know if it's written from the spider's POV. Seems to be initially, but then goes off the rails. Because of this POV confusion and using "she" a lot in the mix with "Gary" and "Marty" I'm not...
  8. sozme

    Eyeballs Needed Part 1 - Prologue

    I agree with the honorable Mr. Turner and everything he said above.
  9. sozme

    Opening paragraph (93 words)

    Meh the more I read it, the more I hate it. These openings are just a huge pain to write, and I always spend 20 times more on them vs. every other part of the story.
  10. sozme

    Opening paragraph (93 words)

    Rando opening to some urban fantasy. Would you keep reading? ########################## Until the kidnappings started, I never worked a job for free. My charity work began one morning in the Undercroft, my cozy apartment-office beneath an establishment called the Coliseum. The Coliseum is a...
  11. sozme

    Joe Abercrombie books reading order

    Of the standalones in the First Law universe, Best Served Cold is the best one. But the other two are also very good. Want to highly recommend the audiobook version of all of the First Law books, as the narration is by far the best I've ever heard.
  12. sozme

    Make reader hate your main character

    Love this character
  13. sozme

    Tying in multiple POVs

    If you are writing multiple installments in a series with many POVs, how do you know what the big story is? Or is it permissible to have several individual stories in each installment, and then eventually tie everything in later. Stupid question, but something I've been thinking about.
  14. sozme

    Unreliable Narrator

    I think it's difficult to pull off, and I wouldn't even try it myself.
  15. sozme

    NaNoWriMo 2017

    38,400
  16. sozme

    How to render air travel obsolete?

    Forever
  17. sozme

    How to render air travel obsolete?

    In my story, there is a "virus"/EMP-like thing/magical doomsday device that among other things suddenly makes air travel (e.g. via airplanes) impossible. I am trying to think of a plausible way to make this happen, including with techno-science-magic, e.g. altering the laws of physics. Sadly I...
  18. sozme

    How important is finishing a first draft?

    I've been using the Pomodoro method for a while now. Not just for writing, but also for studying in med school. I do recommend it, but you have to force yourself to take the alloted breaks, even if you are on a roll. Otherwise it defeats the purpose. Thanks for the replies. How do you all...
  19. sozme

    Book Cover - The 3Rs- Rethink, Re-badge, Redo From Start

    I dont like any of these covers. The illustration looks amateur, and the font looks like a cheap generic one from MSPaint. I would hire a professional to design your cover, because right now it very much appears amateur. Here is a service that seems to make self-published books look...
  20. sozme

    How important is finishing a first draft?

    Lately, when I have trouble writing/don't feel like writing or just doesn't feel well in general, I've been just plowing forward and writing the next scene in extemporaneous form, regardless of how bad it turns out. The idea for me is to just keep forward momentum and try to finish a first...
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