Re: Moving the story forward

On Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:35:27 +0100, Catja Pafort
<green_knight@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:1hzzw88.1qfdbw1uqnitpN%green_knight@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
in rec.arts.sf.composition:

[...]

Context. Presumably - is American architecture the same as
British, with the sink facing the window? In Germany,
sinks tend to face walls.

It's common but far from universal. I have a window over
the kitchen sink, and it faces a window over a kitchen sink
in the next house up the street, but my mother's kitchen
sink in Ripon faces a wall, and so did the one in our house
in Amherst years ago. I'm not sure about the two houses in
which we lived between those two -- it was long ago and only
two years in each -- but I think both had windows over the
kitchen sink.

[...]

I am dealing, at the moment, with one character's development in
particular. The development consists of a lot of passages like the
following:

Is it possible that you're working too hard at it, sending
the same message too often? I realize that it's important
for us to see Farilin seeing the change in Alyk, but not all
the time; once we have the idea, just showing Alyk being
competent or resolute can do a lot of the work. Eventually
you could perhaps also have her notice moments of
backsliding, when the 'old' Alyk surfaces briefly.

"I'm worried we meet the Crowd," she had confessed, but Alyk had
only shrugged.
"Not in this part of the city, not at this time of day. And if
so... I am ready."
Farilin regarded the straightness of his back, the set of his
jaw, and felt a shudder run across his back.

Something doesn't seem quite right here. Are they riding
double with Farilin behind Alyk, or should this have been
'her back'? In context she seems likelier to be the
shudderer.

He had not spoken from
bravado alone. There was something of Harulik in him in that moment, a
strength, a determination that did not go with the clerk she had first
met.
Alyk knew exactly which inn would accept the horses and return
all their hire fee, knew without hesitation which of the many
similar-looking alleys would bring them out at the harbourmaster's
office, how much to offer to the owner of a small boat to row them
across to a landing place near the Rope and ***.

Is this her thoughts, or a compressed description of what's
now taking place? I'm assuming the former, but there's a
hiccup in the flow between strength and determination on the
one hand and worldly knowledge on the other, and I don't
think that you need to pile up so many examples or give them
in so much detail. Doubtless the style is all wrong, but I
have in mind something more like this:

Farilin blinked. That might almost have been Harulik
speaking; it certainly wasn't the ineffectual clerk she
had first met. But then Alyk clearly wasn't that clerk
any more. She couldn't imagine the old Alyk even
venturing into the dockside maze of look-alike alleys,
let alone navigating it without hesitation. Or engaging
a boatman at less than twice the going rate.

[...]

Brian
.