Welcome to my world and beyond...

A collection of snippets of the books I write and, occasionally, my life and the things that inspire my writing...

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Weekend Writing Warriors July 20, 2014

 Weekend Writing Warriors

      Welcome Warriors, and Snipsuns.On the downhill side of July already! So glad you can stop by for a visit. :-)

 
     Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly bloghop. Each week, participants sign up HERE at wewriwa.com, then post 8 sentences of their work, published or unpublished, to go live between noon, Saturday and 9:00 AM Sunday EST. Then we visit each other and read, comment, critique, encourage--all those things that do a solitary writer's heart good.

     Snippet Sunday group from facebook--not us, but many of our participants do both, can be found HERE

 
    The travelers are now on the boat that will take them upriver into the Firce Mountains. Kad is making small talk with Wiley about boat motor and fuel. 

   


Wiley nodded toward the roof of the shallow cuddy. “The tiles up there are collectors; they feed a lightweight battery pack that powers the prop. Them lightweight ones are tougher to come by than an honest Dominion council member. Imagine how dear old Diamante would feel about a man of no account, such as myself, managing to acquire that high'a level of his coveted technology. I suspect he'd be a wee bit pissed off, dontcha think?” His smirk made his eyes vanish into deep  wrinkles behind loose strands of gray hair. 

That's it. What jumps out at you, good or bad? I'd love to hear it. Thank you so, so much for reading this.
 

66 comments:

  1. Everyone seems to be using creative punctuation. I'd rather see the real writing with an extra sentence or two. That's what I did.

    I love the last line, about his smirk, the best. The dialect is cute, too.

    http://joycelansky.blogspot.com/2014/07/weekend-writing-warriors-blog-hop-72014.html

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    1. Thanks, Joyce. Yep--it's okay to stretch it a couple of lines to complete a thought. We can't have people writing 14 or 15 sentences--then it wouldn't be fair for everyone else. :-)

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  2. This Wiley seems to have a bit of the Han Solo about him. I like it :)

    Punctuation seems to be a bit off in the middle. "Old-Diamante" looked odd to me with a hyphen, and the phrase "such as myself" I think should be set off by a pair of dashes or a pair of commas, not one of each.

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    1. Hi Ian. He does, perhaps... :-)

      The hyphen was there trying to make the reading flow throw them together so it sounded like an adjective meant to insult Diamante, rather than have the reader begin the sentence like thinking it's a question about time. Fail. lol I tried again. Maybe I'll have to rewrite the entire sentence. ;-) Thanks for visiting!

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    2. I see what you mean. I don't think you can achieve it through hyphenation though. Maybe you could expand the phrase a bit, as in "dear old Diamante" or something appropriately tongue-in-cheek.

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    3. Dang! That will work! Thanks bunches, Ian! :-)

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  3. I actually enjoy it when I learn new words while reading :D I didn't know what a cuddy was, but now I do. I thought the dialect was a neat touch, another layer of characterization :) I liked this line, "Them lightweight ones are tougher to come by than an honest Dominion council member." I really love it when writers relate a comparison or anything else to an existing story element. I'm having a hard time explaining it, but I think you know what I mean ;) Again, I think it adds another layer of complexity to the character and to their world. Also, kudos for writing a scene like this and making it interesting ^^ It's difficult to make technical details interesting. McCarthy writes so much detail about horses, but I have no idea what he's talking about and just kind of skim those parts. But at the same time, you have to include some of it to make the story realistic.

    I really liked this line, "His smirk made his eyes vanish into deep wrinkles behind loose strands of gray hair." But at the same time I feel like it's almost perfect, but not quite. I might rephrase it like this, "As he smirked, his eyes vanished into the wrinkles of his face. . . " I wasn't sure what do do with the hair. If he's human I know where the hair is, but the way it's written makes it sound as if his eyes are behind his gray hair? Maybe I'm the only one that's confused by this :$

    Looking forward to next week :D

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    1. Good catch on the cuddy, PB. I get very nervous about getting too wordy. God forbid I slip into purple prose. ;-)

      Thanks for visiting. :-)

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  4. Your dialogue and description paints such a vivid picture of Wiley's character. I'm intrigued. :)

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    1. Thanks, Heather, I hope you join us sometime. :-)

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  5. I agree. The dialogue gives a nice glimpse of Willy's characterization. :)

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  6. Humor is full on, punctuation is a bit off but the reference to old Diamante gave me the shivers. How well I remember him. A bit of tweaking and you're right on target.

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    1. Diamante...he's a mean one. Thanks for visiting, Charmaine. :-)

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  7. I think I like Wiley. ;D Good stuff, Teresa!

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  8. i could hear his voice very clearly. Great snippet.

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    1. Thanks, Victoria! :-) I'm glad his voice came through.

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  9. Great last line and the whole dialect, in general. Not easy to make a technical scene so interesting. Thumbs up!

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  10. Cool bit here! Your excerpts seem to stand pretty well on their own, most of the time, and that's not easy to do. I love how well defined your characters are. There's never any confusion over who spoke, and their personalities are just engaging!

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  11. It's kind of hard to evaluate this snippet in isolation. The dialogue is good, and it sounds like it might lead to something interesting.

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    1. It does get difficult when limited to so few sente4nces. Thanks for visiting, Anna. :-)

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  12. Nice descriptions, Teresa. I think he'd be more than a wee pissed off, but that's just me. Good snippet!

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  13. I like the character! Enjoy his pride in his accomplishments (had to look up what a cuddy was). He seems very real - great excerpt!

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    1. Hmm, Veronica. I'm starting to wonder about a word I've used for years. We spent summers on the water on the Allegheny River for about a decade. But now I wonder if cuddy should be replaced with another word?

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  14. Love the way you introduce details about the world and its politics/technology via dialogue, along with great character description. Great eight!

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    1. Thanks, Alexis. THAT comment means SO much to me. :-)

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  15. Great line: "Them lightweight ones are tougher to come by than an honest Dominion council member." I love when a story has inside jokes that the reader can clearly understand, now that's world building!
    History Sleuth's Milk Carton Murders

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    1. Thanks, Cindy. Seems like when I bomb with a snippet, I really bomb, and when I get it right, I really get it right... :-)

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  16. Wiley is quite a character. Good dialogue and dialect to help with that characterization. Nice 8!

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  17. Oh Wiley is a character, isn't he? lol I like him. Enjoyed the snippet. You drew me right into the scene.

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    1. Yep, he's someone flying just below the radar. :-)

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  18. I love Wiley's voice! He is adorable. And, I could see those eyes disappearing into the wrinkles. Smiles wrinkles are the best : )

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    1. Ha! Yes, smile wrinkles trump all others. ;-) Thanks, Millie :-)

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  19. Your dialogue just flows so effortlessly, Teresa! I very much enjoyed this excerpt and getting to know your character! :)

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    1. You can't imagine how good it is to read that my dialogue is flowing. Thank you so much, Evelyn. :-)

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  20. Heh, I love how Wiley (an accurate name if I've ever heard one) knows the game and how it can be played. Great snippet, Teresa. :)

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  21. I love the dialect, Teresa! Great snippet.

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  22. Oh, I DO like Wiley! :D

    This is terrific, Teresa---character development andworld-building, too.

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  23. Wiley's great, and I like the dialogue. Nice excerpt.

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  24. I can see him perfectly by your description!

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  25. Seems, like so many others here, that I am a Wiley-fan. I enjoy listening to his speech, and your writing makes it easy to "hear". Love the line "tougher to come by than an honest Dominion council member", it really made me chuckle. And I particularly like his bragging/enjoyment of upsetting Old-Diamante. Great snippet.

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    1. :-) Thank you so much Chelle! I'm glad you like him. :-)

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  26. Glad to hear Diamante is not universally loved.

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    1. One event in his life turned him cold. And now he's despised for what he's inflicting on the people he rules. Thanks for visiting, Sue Ann. :-)

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  27. Great dialogue, Teresa! And I love the last line " His smirk made his eyes vanish into deep wrinkles behind loose strands of gray hair. " :)

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  28. Great 8. Can't wait to see what happens when they get up the river.

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    1. Me either, lol. I thought the story was written, but it seems to be evolving. Thanks for the comment, Beth--and for visiting.

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  29. Love the voice here! I like him already :) Great snippet

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    1. Glad to read that, Victoria. :-) Thank you... :-)

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  30. Fantastic dialogue that sucked me right into the story.

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  31. Wonderful description as always. I love the touch of humour.

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  32. And I also think, he would love to piss off Diamante in many many ways.

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    1. He's definitely not a fan of Diamante. That's for certain. This world is bracing for a crackdown from DomCen aka, Dominion Central. Thanks for visiting, Linda!.

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