#1

Hello, all you wonderful people;

Today I am editing one of my brother’s older works, mostly due to lack of material, but also because I believe there is merit to dissecting one’s own work. This is a novella cautiously titled “The Questionable Wisdom of Sages” and is intended as a comedy with light adventure elements. I shall be restricting my comments to a few paragraphs.

Our hero stared up the long, winding—no wait, circuitous road and…um…um…—ah, hell. I’m no good at this. The roads not even winding, at worst it’s a big squiggly.

Charles kicked at the earth, startling a spray of dust and scuffing the seamless rock underneath. Rudolf-most-certainly-not-Rudy turned and looked back from a short distance further on. “Why dawdle, Charles Dillinger Mc’clain? Tonight’s encampment lies just ahead?” As he spoke, Rudolf’s two hedge-like eyebrows crept up toward his otherwise bald scalp.

“For your information, I was taking a moment to admire the view.” Charles made a show of turning in a circle, acting as if the ocean of sapphire wheat hadn’t dominated their vision for the past three days.

First sentence, first paragraph—

Our hero stared up the long, winding—no wait, circuitous road and…um…um…—ah, hell. I’m no good at this. The roads not even winding, at worst it’s a big squiggly.

The main flaw with this sentence is that it starts the story with an immediate, jarring correction. That first hyphen slams the reader to a stop when they want to just flow along the sentence gauging the story and the author’s style. The correction, however, is necessary for the joke, so we can’t just delete it and move on. I would suggest using a softer punctuation, like a comma, in this instance to ease the transition.

A second note is the superfluous “long” which is both unnecessary (due to the fact that ‘winding’ largely conveys it) and clutters the sentence. “The long, winding road…” is just slower than the “The winding road” and carries an inevitable pause between ‘long’ and ‘winding.’

The third note is to delete “I’m no good at this.” This is unnecessary telling, the point of which is already conveyed naturally in the sentence by him correcting his initial narration and then stumbling to progress with his narration. It also delays the joke without adding to it. In my opinion, the sentence is funnier written as. “Ah, hell. The road’s not even winding, At worst it’s a bit squiggly,” then in its current iteration. It might also benefit from a period instead of a comma in the punch line.

Our hero stared up the winding, no wait, circuitous and…um…um –Ah, hell. The roads not even winding. At worst, it’s a bit squiggly.

Now the first sentence, second paragraph—

Charles kicked at the earth, startling a spray of dust and scuffing the seamless rock underneath.

Not much here, mostly just verbiage. “Startling” and “earth” are questionable since he is standing on seamless rock, and it’s hard to ‘startle’ dust, but probably fine. The ‘at’ can be deleted without sacrificing comprehension, and the ‘startling a spray of dust’ can be reduced to “spraying dust.” The problem with that reduction, is that it disrupts the rhythm of the sentence. It results in the two ING’s echoing harder, which could read unpleasantly. I believe the reduction ultimately improves the sentence though. Finally, I would delete the ‘underneath’ as unnecessary for rhythm or orientation.

Charles kicked the earth, spraying dust and scuffing the seamless rock.

Second sentence, second paragraph.

Rudolf-most-certainly-not-Rudy turned and looked back from a short distance further on.

Mostly efficiency here. “turned and looked back” is basically a reiteration of itself; ‘looking back’ necessitates a half-turn, thus rendering the comment on it unnecessary. The difference would result in the subject doing a full revolution, which would naturally include him ‘looking back’ rendering the comment on that part unnecessary. So you only want one half of that phrase. The rest of this sentence is also unnecessary from a comprehension stand point (largely due to ensuing dialogue,) we don’t need to orient Rudolf to Charles because Rudolf is turning to address Charles, thus locating him ahead but close enough to speak without shouting. The inclusion of an action or description here could have merit from a rhythm standpoint, but I suggest adding something else.

Rudolf-most-certainly-not-Rudy looked back.

Third sentence, second paragraph.

“Why dawdle, Charles Dillinger Mc’clain? Tonight’s encampment lies just ahead?”

(Yes, I know that’s two sentences, call it creative liberties or a meek rebellion streak) Only comment is that the second part of this dialogue feels a little stilted, but I believe that the dialogue is part of this character to some extent, which makes it harder to edit. It may also be a little too generic and boring for the fourth sentence in a story, or just a little too generic and boring. Even if there are no solutions to that in this current situation (barring nuclear overhaul) these are still points to consider in your own writing. It is important to excise as much generic as possible from a story, but vital in its first chapter.

Fourth sentence, second paragraph. 

As he spoke, Rudolf’s two hedge-like eyebrows crept up toward his otherwise bald scalp.

Here, I would delete “As he spoke” since we know who’s speaking and it is unnecessary to specify that his eyebrows ascending and speech are simultaneous. You can also delete ‘toward’ and ‘otherwise,’ though I would consider keeping ‘otherwise’ as its inclusion improves the rhythm and sound of the sentence more than its removal does. (In my opinion.)

Rudolf’s two hedge-like eyebrows crept up his otherwise bald scalp

Fifth and sixth sentence, third paragraph. (Final)

“For your information, I was taking a moment to admire the view.” Charles made a show of turning in a circle, acting as if the ocean of sapphire wheat hadn’t dominated their vision for the past three days.

I would begin here with deleting “taking a moment to” as a needless specification. There is little to no difference between “I was admiring the view” and “I was taking a moment to admire the view” and that is mostly character expression, except Charles isn’t expressing any particular character trait here. So delete.

The second sentence is a little wordy, leading to it feeling awkward in the mind, thus diluting the humor as much as disrupting the rhythm. Some of it is the walk through of his actions and some unnecessary words. The phrase ‘turning in a circle’ is a slight reiteration on its self (as ‘turning’ and ‘circle’ convey the same result) but also just a wordier version of ‘admire’ which has synonyms and sibling words such as ‘examine,’ ‘inspect’ and etc. (Some restructuring will be required, obviously, and shall be handled in due course.)

The phrase ‘acting as if’ is complicated, being simultaneously unnecessary and potentially an asset to the humor elements. Its spirit is conveyed by the situation passively, but it does amplify the discrepancy.

The phrases ‘ocean of’ and ‘the past’ are unnecessary. This leaves us at…

“For your information, I was admiring the view.” Charles made a show of examining the sapphire wheat that had dominated their vision for three days.

(My combined edits. 118 to 82 words, that’s 36 words more concentrated awesome [debatably].)

Our hero stared up the winding, no wait, circuitous and…um…um –Ah, hell. The roads not even winding. At worst, it’s a bit squiggly.

Charles kicked the earth, spraying dust and scuffing the seamless rock.Rudolf-most-certainly-not-Rudy looked back. “Why dawdle, Charles Dillinger Mc’clain? Tonight’s encampment lies just ahead?” Rudolf’s two hedge-like eyebrows crept up his otherwise bald scalp

“For your information, I was admiring the view.” Charles made a show of examining the sapphire wheat that had dominated their vision for three days.

That’s all for today, I wish you all the best of luck.

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