Quote:
Originally Posted by Katsunami
Can you give some examples?
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I'll give an example. It's certainly not the worst, but it happened to be on the page I was up to:
Quote:
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He walked further in and was nearly bowled over by the stench. The smell hit him out of nowhere, like an invisible curtain that slapped him in the face. A scent of rot and decay filled the place. It was so strong that he felt his stomach buckling and was aware of a slight gorge rising in his throat.
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This is the kind of thing I'm talking about when I mention poor word choice and klutzy descriptions. It feels like the author is really trying to put "oomph" into his writing at crucial moments, but he hasn't learned how. It ends up sapping the strength from the scenes, which is pretty disappointing.
It's not like this all the time. I will often click through a few pages without the invisible curtain of his efforts slapping me in the face, but it's usually because he is just getting on with the story without focusing too much on mood and imagery.
But in the end, I wouldn't bin this effort. I just think it needs to go to a pedantic editor to challenge the author on his choices. It's a manuscript that feels like a first draft to me and as a draft it's quite good, but now it needs to go through a few more stages to bring it up to a publishable standard.