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

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Weekend Writing Warriors: October 18, 2015

Hello all.  Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, a weekly bloghop. 
Each week, participants sign up HERE at wewriwa.com, then post 8 to 10 sentences of their work, published or unpublished, to go live between noon, Saturday, and 9:00 AM Sunday EST.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
              This is Chapter 4 from my SFR WIP, Across The Night Sky .  Marissa doesn't know where she is, or how she wound up with this stranger --who's dressed in archaic battle clothing. He's injured. They've spent an unknown amount of time fending off attacking animals. She's hungry, thristy, and exhausted. She's just spent a few minuted thinking about where he might be from.   This is the end of a chapter. My last snippet ended with this: "He must be German--the way he'd spoken his name, Kuylerh Mae Medoch, the last syllable pronounced like he was clearing his throat."       

Creative punctuation alert. 

 

We continue from there :

Definitely German, with the most striking gold eyes she could ever have imagined.  
            Then again, why on God’s green Earth would she ever have imagined a cinnamon-skinned giant of a man with gold eyes?  Oh yeah,  add that he spoke some French dialect of German. 

A voice murmured just behind her right ear. Little more than a whisper, there was still no mistaking it was a voice of the aged.  And it was as English as anything she spoke. Rissa turned to look, expecting to see an old woman,  but there was no one there. Still, the words hung in the air. “The really funny thing is,  you’d never have imagined you weren’t even on God’s green Earth.          


 

That's it. What works? What doesn't? I'm so very grateful for any comment or criticism you leave. :-)


It snowed today! I still can't believe it. My daughter's yard is white--she lives an hour north of me. I admit, I'll be really sick of the white stuff by February, but tonight, I feel kind of like a kid when the first flakes fly. How about you? :-)

54 comments:

  1. Oh that that sentence! Awesome. Now I think she has tons of things to wonder about. Where can she be?

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    1. Thanks, Linda! I'm so happy it has intrigued you. :-)

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  2. Poor Marissa! Voices in her head?... and no longer on Earth. Oh my!
    I do enjoy how you dropped all that info, so casual and so unexpected a vehicle.

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    1. Thanks, Kim. I'm glad it seems to have worked ok. :-)

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  3. Great snippet! I really liked the mystery and the description of the voices. :D

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  4. Interesting snippet. I like it.
    Having thought about it a little more, the French/German thing might just work. There's a small corner in Germany where they have a lot of old French words in their German lingo. I look forward to finding out how this story continues.

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  5. I liked "...cinnamon skinned giants with golden eyes." Who is he, and how does he know English?

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    1. :-) He's a prince. He doesn't know English, yet. He will. :-)

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  6. Beautiful details and an evocative mood, Teresa! Well done!

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  7. An intriguing, rather haunting clip, and great writing! I enjoyed your excerpt and look forward to reading more.

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  8. The disembodied voice seems to have a handle on things. Poor Marissa! How stressful for her.

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  9. That's a great excerpt! Does the chapter end on that last line? Because that really seems to be THE thing to end on, to make readers turn the page in a hurry. Will she dismiss the voice as the product of her own over-tired and over-stressed mind, or does she think somebody else was there? We won't know unless we keep reading.

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    1. Ha! I did it! I so appreciate your crits and comments, Marcia!

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  10. How wonderful is this? Pretty darn wonderful I say. I see her so exhausted her imagination's gone wild and yet. . .Descriptions are as if she's on a high.

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  11. Wonderful sensory and detail. That last line hooked my attention with so many questions. Well done! :)

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    1. Woohoo! I feel like I'm on the right track. :-) Thanks, Lorien!

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  12. As Sam Beckett in Quantum Leap says, "Oh, boy." Great snippet, Teresa. :)

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  13. Well the disembodied voice is an interesting twist! Can't wait for more, great excerpt.

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  14. He's a hard guy to pin down, isn't he? Love how she's trying to decipher the dialect. I'm sure the disembodied voice isn't helping. :-)

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    1. Nope. It's adding to her rapidly deteriorating sense of reality. Thanks, Christina!

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  15. That last sentence is awesome, ties the whole snippet together beautifully, and adds a terrific twist.

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  16. Voices out of nowhere? Very mysterious! :)

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    1. For now, and for quite a while, out of nowhere. It makes sense, though. Thanks, Caitlin.

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  17. I suspect she might be edging closer to the realization that he isn't German, and she isn't in Kansas anymore.

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    1. :-) I'm actually am considering whether to leave that in, or take out--the not in Kansas anymore line. It comes up here rather quickly in the book. Thanks, Ed!

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  18. Are voices of the aged to be trusted, or doubted?

    While unsettling for sure, I could see the advantages, right off, of knowing she's not on Earth anymore. Her reality won't apply, and she'll need to be aware of that...

    I just hope she decides to listen, because it looks like her cinnamon skinned, golden eyed giant might really need her - and there's STILL that little matter of the blue scarf and his smirk...

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    1. Oh wow, you are the reader I've been looking for, Shan! ALl points I hoped readers caught. All will come into play. Thank you!

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  19. Ahh, where did that voice come from??? Mmm, the gold eyes. I'm loving it. Such an intriguing story, can't wait to read more next week.

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  20. Is the voice going to be good or bad for her? This ups the ante quite a bit.

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  21. Wow, this really ups the mystery. I wonder if the voice is really there or if it just part of her imagination. Either way the words are just so curious. Great snippet.

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    1. Thanks, Chelle. So glad this seems to be well received. :-)

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  22. "God's green earth", is one of my favorite phrases, so you get bonus points for that. I love how you repeat that line for maximum effect. Very nice.

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    1. I'm glad you like it, Jeff! Thanks for the encouraging words. :-)

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  23. Excellent, as always! I agree with everyone else's comments. :) The only eentsy, teensy suggestion I have is to shorten the last line for more impact. Maybe, "What makes you think you're on God's green Earth?" or something like that--assuming I'm understanding the intent of the sentence. "The funny thing is", even though it's only 4 short words, threw me out of the scene.

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    1. Mulling over your suggestion, Karysa. :-) Thanks so much for the input! :-)

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  24. Interesting last line, makes me wonder if she can trust those voices she is hearing now. Love the description of the man. Nice snippet.

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  25. Hey Teresa: hope you are well. I love the way your lines spill into each other perfectly like a series of tiny water falls...

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  26. Hey Teresa: hope you are well. I love the way your lines spill into each other perfectly like a series of tiny water falls...

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