The VERB - November '07

CLEANING UP PROSE

First Person narrative is the most intimate point-of-view a writer can choose. As soon as that first I appears, readers know they've met the storyteller. What follows, hopefully, is a captivating read with the narrator unobtrusively divulging his or her thoughts, feelings and experiences.

But overuse the I, and a narrator soon becomes a narcissist.

EXAMPLE:
So I waited. I sipped my tea, I turned my attention to the cattycornered box with the moving pictures and the screaming sounds and the glowing light. And that's all I did until she came back.

CLEANED UP:
So I sipped tea and watched TV until she came back.

EXAMPLE:
The bus stops. I get up. I take one step to the left. I look both ways. I'm the only one getting off. I walk out into the aisle. I turn toward the bus driver and put one foot in front of the other. I glance to my right. I see her standing out by the Coke machine. I hop off, and smile. "Here I am!"

CLEANED UP:
The bus stops near the Coke machine. She stands beside it. I hop off, smiling. "Here I am!"

EXAMPLE:
I reached out for the knob, turned it, opened the door and stepped inside. No one there. I scanned the dark wallpaper, the stained carpet and the worn desk. I put my hand in my pocket, latched on to my handkerchief and took it out, holding it up to my nose as the smell of decay whiffed into my nostrils. God, it was strong! I knew the source had to be close.

CLEANED UP:
His office was dark, filthy and quiet. The strong smell of decay whiffed through the air. With handkerchief to nose, I eased toward the worn desk.

OUR CURRENT CONTEST

The first chapter is the beginning of the story, but it doesn't necessarily have to begin at the beginning. Its purpose is to grab the attention of the readers. By the time they reach the end of it, they should be tripping over their fingers to get to the second one. Have you begun in the right place?

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SAMPLE OF EXCELLENCE

Sometimes the brambles formed chains and tried to hold him back. Trees, confronting him, stretched out their arms and forbade him to pass. After its previous hostility, this new resistance of the forest filled him with a fine bitterness. It seemed that Nature could not be quite ready to kill him.

But he obstinately took roundabout ways, and presently he was where he could see long gray walls of vapor where lay battle lines. The voices of cannon shook him. The musketry sounded in long irregular surges that played havoc with his ears. He stood regardant for a moment. His eyes had an awestruck expression. He gawked in the direction of the fight.

Presently he proceeded again on his forward way. The battle was like the grinding of an immense and terrible machine to him. Its complexities and powers, its grim processes, fascinated him. He must go close and see it produce corpses.

He came to a fence and clambered over it. On the far side, the ground was littered with clothes and guns. A newspaper, folded up, lay in the dirt. A dead soldier was stretched with his face hidden in his arm. Farther off, there was a group of four or five corpses keeping mournful company. A hot sun had blazed upon the spot.

In this place the youth felt that he was an invader. This forgotten part of the battle ground was owned by the dead men, and he hurried, in the vague apprehension that one of the swollen forms would rise and tell him to begone.

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