Ronald Albury was kind enough to
send along the first 464 words—a somewhat truncated prologue—of his novel ENEMY
COMBATANT, based on the script of the same name that won 1st place
at the 2008 Terror Film Festival. You can find it here: https://www.goodreads.com/
The Original:
The beat-up van struggles up the
steep gravel driveway, forcing the driver to downshift into “L”. The roar
of the straining engine scatters the birds roosting above the driveway and
flushes a young deer across the van’s path. When she parks next to the
log cabin Jennifer, a pretty young woman in her late-20’s, picks up a stack of
glossy promotional brochures from the passenger seat, then removes a loaded 9mm
pistol from the glove compartment.
After fumbling with the deadbolt she
bursts into the cabin. “Hey! I got those vacation brochures like I
promised. You wanted to go to the Gulf Coast side of Florida, right?”
“Fuck you!” a woman’s voice barks
from the back of the cabin.
She continues into the kitchen,
collapses into a chair next to the table, puts down the gun, and begins to flip
through the brochures. “I don’t like this one because it is three blocks
from the beach. It’s cheaper, but I think it is worth the money to be
right on the water, don’t you?”
“You asshole”, the unseen woman’s
voice calls out again.
Undeterred, Jennifer continues with
her sales pitch. “This one has an Olympic-sized swimming pool. I
don’t understand why they would build a swimming pool at a beach-front motel,
but what do I know?”
“Why are you torturing me like
this?” The other voice is nine parts anger and one part fear.
Jennifer eases up from the kitchen
chair and walks toward the back of the cabin. Jennifer is not her real
name, but it is the one she is currently using. She rotates between the five
most popular girl’s names for her age group: Jennifer, Amanda, Jessica,
Melissa, and Sarah.
“Aww, you know I’m not really
torturing you. I’ve told you before, Americans don’t torture.”
Walking into the back room, Jennifer
studies the woman who has been cursing her. She has on a blue denim skirt
and slightly soiled white knit top. About the same size and coloring as
Jennifer, she could probably pass as her sister. Her hair is unkempt and
her tears have mixed with mascara to give her zebra cheeks. But that is
not what would catch your attention if you were to walk into the room.
She is sitting in a child’s chair,
her ankles bound to the front legs with plastic cable straps, forcing her knees
up in an awkward and uncomfortable position. Her eyes are blindfolded.
Her arms are tied behind her back at the wrists and elbows and the rope
goes through a pulley screwed into a ceiling support beam, forcing her to lean
forward to take the pressure off of her shoulders. There is a large tarp
on the floor under her.
“So”, Jennifer says, “did you miss
me while I was out?”
The Condensation:
On first blush, this reads more like
a screenplay than a novel. Third person omniscient, present tense; it's an
interesting choice for a novel, and one that gives rise to some interesting
challenges—like avoiding POV glitches, and introducing character attributes
such as height, age, and appearance. The latter are "told" in a
matter-of-fact manner in screenplays, but that violates the "show don't
tell adage".
It's also reflected in the lack of
detail; at the end of the scene we have no notion of Jennifer's height, weight (save
that she's "pretty", which might or might not imply thin, or
muscular, or what-have-you), hair color, eye color, etc. Not one whit of this
would come up in a screenplay (where the visuals would take care of
themselves—with the help of a large number of industry professionals), and while
too much description would bog down a novel, I feel that this needs at least
some.
The beat-up van struggles
up the steep gravel driveway, forcing the driver to downshift into “L”.
The roar of the straining engine scatters the birds roosting above the
driveway and flushes a young deer across the van’s path. When she parks
next to the log cabin Jennifer, a pretty young woman in her late-20’s, picks up
a stack of glossy promotional brochures from the passenger seat, then removes a
loaded 9mm pistol from the glove compartment.
If we call "the driver"
Jennifer we can boil out "the driver".
"The A of the B" can
almost always be rephrased as "The B's A", so "The roar of the
straining engine" is "The straining engine's roar"....and as
we've made Jennifer the subject instead of the van, "the van's path"
becomes "her path".
We don't need to say "when she
does A, then she does B"—the sequentiality is implied.
I'm going to move the "pretty
young woman in her late-twenties" to much later, where we can fold it in
as a "show" rather than a "tell".
"Picks up" can be boiled
down and made a bit more vibrant through the choice of a different verb.
"Loaded" is implied, as is
"pistol" (given that a 9mm rifle wouldn't fit in a glove box!)
The
beat-up van struggles up the steep gravel driveway, forcing Jennifer to
downshift into “L”. The straining engine's roar scatters the birds
roosting above the driveway and flushes a young deer across her path. She
parks next to the log cabin, swipes a stack of glossy promotional brochures
from the passenger seat, and removes a 9mm from the glove compartment.
After fumbling with the
deadbolt she bursts into the cabin. “Hey! I got those vacation
brochures like I promised. You wanted to go to the Gulf Coast side of
Florida, right?”
There's something here that's
unclear. If the deadbolt is on the inside (as it would be in a normal
situation), she wouldn't fumble with it here, she'd use a key. If it's on the
outside, that should be made more apparent. Given the situation, I'm going with
"on the outside". (This is, as usual, one of those cases where I'd
consult with the author instead of just changing things were this a true edit
rather than a boiling.)
I tend to leave dialogue by and
large alone, but there's some level of Maid-and-Butler dialogue (also known as,
"As you know, Bob") here that can boil away.
She
unlatches the external deadbolt and bursts into the cabin. “Hey! I
got those vacation brochures. Gulf Coast of Florida, right?”
“Fuck you!” a woman’s
voice barks from the back of the cabin.
People speak with their voices, so
we don't need to say so, and we already know it's a cabin.
“Fuck
you!” a woman barks from the back.
She continues into the
kitchen, collapses into a chair next to the table, puts down the gun, and
begins to flip through the brochures. “I don’t like this one because it
is three blocks from the beach. It’s cheaper, but I think it is worth the
money to be right on the water, don’t you?”
A kitchen with a table and chairs
can be a dinette, at which point we don't need to say that the chair is next to
the table.
"Continues into" =
"enters".
"Begins to", "started
to", and all such verbiage can be cut wherever it isn't important to the
plot that the action is interrupted.
In the dialogue, that she doesn't
like it is redundant with the latter sentence.
Also, judicious use of contractions
helps keep prose—and especially dialogue—from being stilted.
She
enters the dinette, collapses into a chair, puts down the gun, and flips
through the brochures. “This one's three blocks from the beach.
It’s cheaper, but I think it's worth the money to be right on the water,
don’t you?”
“You asshole”, the unseen
woman’s voice calls out again.
I don't think any of this attribution
is necessary.
“You
asshole.”
Undeterred, Jennifer
continues with her sales pitch. “This one has an Olympic-sized swimming
pool. I don’t understand why they would build a swimming pool at a
beach-front motel, but what do I know?”
The dialogue makes it clear both
that Jennifer is undeterred, and that she continues. Otherwise, you can confer
the same dialogue and tone with a few fewer words.
“This
one has an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Why would they build a swimming
pool on a beach?”
“Why are you torturing me
like this?” The other voice is nine parts anger and one part fear.
There are only two characters
present, so "the other" = "her".
Then there's "is". Like
all conjugations of the verb "to be", it merits further scrutiny. At
best, it's a tell instead of a show. It's a good indication that the same
content can be conveyed through more vivid words. 1/10th = tinged,
and an angry voice = a snarl.
“Why
are you torturing me like this?” Fear tinged her snarl.
Jennifer eases up from the
kitchen chair and walks toward the back of the cabin. Jennifer is not her
real name, but it is the one she is currently using. She rotates between
the five most popular girl’s names for her age group: Jennifer, Amanda,
Jessica, Melissa, and Sarah.
To ease up from a chair is to stand.
Because she walks into the back room
in the next paragraph, we don't need to say that she walks toward it in this
one.
The fact that Jennifer isn't (not
"is not") her real name, combined with the last sentence, renders
"but it is the one she is currently using" redundant. So let's boil
it out.
We can replace "for her age
group" with the "late 20s" from above.
Jennifer
stands. It isn't her real name. She rotates between the five most popular
names for women approaching thirty: Jennifer, Amanda, Jessica, Melissa, and
Sarah.
“Aww, you know I’m not
really torturing you. I’ve told you before, Americans don’t torture.”
More Maid-and-Butler dialogue, here,
compounded by telling her that she knows with a "you know".... I think
the "Aww" conveys the sarcastic disdain well enough without the
"Really".
“Aww,
I’m not torturing you. Americans don’t torture.”
Walking into the back
room, Jennifer studies the woman who has been cursing her. She has on a
blue denim skirt and slightly soiled white knit top. About the same size
and coloring as Jennifer, she could probably pass as her sister. Her hair
is unkempt and her tears have mixed with mascara to give her zebra cheeks.
But that is not what would catch your attention if you were to walk into
the room.
She is sitting in a
child’s chair, her ankles bound to the front legs with plastic cable straps,
forcing her knees up in an awkward and uncomfortable position. Her eyes
are blindfolded. Her arms are tied behind her back at the wrists and
elbows and the rope goes through a pulley screwed into a ceiling support beam,
forcing her to lean forward to take the pressure off of her shoulders.
There is a large tarp on the floor under her.
Common in a screenplay, it's rare in
fiction to find an author addressing the reader directly. I'd avoid it here.
Because we're in Jennifer's POV, we
don't have to say that Jennifer studies the woman—and that she walks into the
back room can go with the paragraph above.
"She has on" = "In"
if we combine it with the next sentence.
We can boil out "slightly"
with no loss of content—"soiled" isn't "filthy", after all.
We can combine the comment about
size and coloring with the line about sisterhood, and boil out the
"probably" on our way.
"have given" =
"give"
We can imply the messy hair by
making her Jennifer's "unkempt sister", as long as we reword the last
sentence of this paragraph just a little.
And because it's now so short, let's
combine this paragraph with the next one, after eliminating the direct-address
to the reader.
That she's sitting is plain from the
rest of the description. Awkward positions tend to be uncomfortable, and saying
so is a POV glitch—Jennifer could infer the discomfort, but can see the
awkwardness.
The blindfold can move up with the
zebra cheeks.
The "are" in "her
arms are tied" is another "to be". We can eliminate this one by
making the rope the subject of the sentence.
"The pressure" can lose
"the".
The tarp can go with the child's
chair.
And though it isn't a boil-out per
se, "goes" should be something more vibrant. I'm going with
"snakes".
She
walks into the back room.
In
a blue denim skirt and soiled white knit top, with her size and coloring the
woman could pass as Jennifer's unkempt sister. Tears mixed with mascara give
her zebra cheeks under her blindfold. Plastic cable straps bind her ankles to a
child’s chair on a tarp, forcing her knees up in an awkward position. The rope
tying her arms behind her back at the wrists and elbows snakes through a pulley
screwed into a ceiling support beam, forcing her to lean forward to take pressure
off of her shoulders.
“So”, Jennifer says, “did
you miss me while I was out?”
Here we need the speech tag—though
you might consider changing it to an action instead. We'll boil out the
"while I was out" to make room for it.
Jennifer
leans against the doorframe. “So, did you miss me?”
The Result:
The
beat-up van struggles up the steep gravel driveway, forcing Jennifer to
downshift into “L”. The straining engine's roar scatters the birds
roosting above the driveway and flushes a young deer across her path. She
parks next to the log cabin, swipes a stack of glossy promotional brochures
from the passenger seat, and removes a 9mm from the glove compartment.
She
unlatches the external deadbolt and bursts into the cabin. “Hey! I
got those vacation brochures. Gulf Coast of Florida, right?”
“Fuck
you!” a woman barks from the back.
She
enters the dinette, collapses into a chair, puts down the gun, and flips
through the brochures. “This one's three blocks from the beach.
It’s cheaper, but I think it's worth the money to be right on the water,
don’t you?”
“You
asshole.”
“This
one has an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Why would they build a swimming
pool on a beach?”
“Why
are you torturing me like this?” Fear tinged her snarl.
Jennifer
stands. It isn't her real name. She rotates between the five most popular
names for women approaching thirty: Jennifer, Amanda, Jessica, Melissa, and
Sarah.
“Aww,
I’m not torturing you. Americans don’t torture.” She walks into the back room.
In
a blue denim skirt and soiled white knit top, with her size and coloring the
woman could pass as Jennifer's unkempt sister. Tears mixed with mascara give
her zebra cheeks under her blindfold. Plastic cable straps bind her ankles to a
child’s chair on a tarp, forcing her knees up in an awkward position. The rope
tying her arms behind her back at the wrists and elbows snakes through a pulley
screwed into a ceiling support beam, forcing her to lean forward to take pressure
off of her shoulders.
Jennifer
leans against the doorframe. “So, did you miss me?”
299
words, down from the original 464, a reduction of 35.5%.
I
always give authors a chance to respond before I post, and Ronald took me up on
it. This is what he said:
Thank you for taking the time go to through
the excerpt and proposing edits. While I do agree with some of your
changes, there are others I can't embrace. In the end, your version is
certainly more concise, but to me it feels less pleasurable to read. It
now seems like a TV dinner rather than a home cooked meal. It may be that
saying the gun was loaded is unnecessary, but it may also be that the word
"loaded" is a necessary dash of salt to let the reader know that the
situation is serious.
I do tend to have exposition and an occasional
info dump in my writing, but to me having a "rule" against exposition
and info dumps is too rigid. I use them for "stage setting",
and to provide necessary information to the reader while keeping them focused
on what I feel is important. If one were to edit "Old Man and the
Sea" and eliminate the exposition you'd end up with "Some Guy in a
Boat". Tom Clancy is another author who not only has exposition and
info dumps in his works, but relies on them to tell his story.
Two other rules I violated (that you couldn't
see because I could only send an excerpt) were writing in first person and
changing POV half way through the book (to third person omni present).
But these sins are committed with intent and for a purpose.
Perhaps I am just being protective of my baby.
Perhaps I am one of those authors who is so inward facing that they are
deaf to good advice. Or perhaps it is just a question of style and
voice.
Thanks again for the effort you obviously put
into this.
What do
you think?
