The VERB - January '08

CLEANING UP PROSE

Even in storytelling, there's such a thing as too much information. When a sentence tries to carry every little thing in the picture, it quickly dies from preposition overload.

Remember, writers aren't under oath. You don't have to tell the whole fictional truth. Just give a few tidbits and let your readers imagine the rest.

EXAMPLE:
Ellen glanced up from her laptop when the judge walked through the door into the reception area beside the bank of elevators.

CLEANED UP:
Ellen glanced up from her laptop when the judge walked through the door.

EXAMPLE:
Marcus B. led her into the attic and pulled out the cash from behind the tall shelf that stood in the corner beside the cracked window and old dusty furniture on the other side.

CLEANED UP:
Marcus B. led her into the dusty attic and pulled out the cash from behind the corner shelf.

EXAMPLE:
She didn't know what to do but stand there in the door beneath the awning to the left of the fire hydrant and watch him catch the bus.

CLEANED UP:
She didn't know what to do but stand in the door and watch him catch the bus.

OUR CURRENT CONTEST

When storytellers give us good guys, bad guys and at least one conflict, we’re happy. But when storytellers also give us a surprise—when they twist suspenseful plots like salt-water taffy—we hit our foreheads in awe. “Holy cow! I didn’t see that coming!”

It’s a thrill readers never outgrow.

So tilt your perspective, shake your plot and stretch your imagination. Give us a thriller that highlights your skill with the element of surprise.

Entry Fee: Zip

Prize: $100, publication in The VERB and a signed copy of Lee Child's thriller, Persuader

Complete details.

SAMPLE OF EXCELLENCE

Bond knew exactly where the switch was and it was with one flow of motion that he stood on the threshold with the door full open, the light on and a gun in his hand. The safe, empty room sneered at him. He ignored the half-open door of the bathroom and, locking himself in, he turned up the bed-light and the mirror-light and threw his gun on the settee beside the window. Then he bent down and inspected one of his own black hairs which still lay undisturbed where he had left it before dinner, wedged into the drawer of the writing desk.

Next he examined a faint trace of talcum powder on the inner rim of the porcelain handle of the clothes cupboard. It appeared immaculate. He went into the bathroom, lifted the cover of the lavatory cistern and verified the level of the water against a small scratch on the copper ball-cock.

Doing all this, inspecting these minute burglar alarms, did not make him feel foolish or self-conscious. He was a secret agent, and still alive thanks to his exact attention to the detail of his profession. Routine precautions were to him no more unreasonable than they would be to a deep-sea diver or a test pilot, or to any man earning danger-money.

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