#34 One foot forward

Blog 34

Hello everybody, today we have a piece titled One foot Forward by Keaton Cooper.

A remote corner on the private Arcadia Island, north of the San Juans, is host to a most peculiar facility–a place whose true purpose remains largely unknown to locals on surrounding islands and authorities alike. It is here our sordid tale of severed feet unfolds. You see, the Van den Meier Center for Anatomical Research is responsible for a great number of scientific advancements of which the broader scientific community are mostly unaware. You could say they operate largely outside of peer-review, and for that matter, outside of the law.

As a paragraph, this reads pretty well. The author uses a variety of words, and those words are often energetic, like ‘sordid’ which oozes personality. This makes the process of reading more enjoyable in of itself and more interesting, disinclining the readers to skim.

The author also uses a particular style choice here, and I am conflicted about it. This style is the implementation of unnecessary modifiers to make the prose sound more like speech but also to cultivate particular style. You can see it in phrases like ‘most peculiar’, where the ‘most’ tells the reader nothing as it doesn’t really alter ‘peculiar’. It serves as a soft exaggeration, saying this facility is a little stranger than most strange things one might encounter, but that doesn’t really distinguish it in any way that simply saying ‘perculiar’ didn’t. And this introduces my conflict, the word serves limited technical purpose but is implemented for tone and style. Ultimately, this will come down to every individual writer’s preference, and for the ambitious, individual works.

The author uses this style with mixed effect. The ‘most peculiar’ is inoffensive and pleasant to read but ‘largely unknown’ is less pleasant, subtly contradictory. What the author wishes to convey with this is that the facility’s purpose is unknown, adding the ‘largely’ contradicts that goal. Other instances of this style choice and ‘you see’ and ‘you could say’.

All that being ‘largely’ discussed, let’s begin with the technical nonsense.

For the first sentence, we can convert ‘is host to’ to ‘hosts’, which is active and fewer words. I would also like to delete ‘a place’ as unnecessary, slightly repetitive (We know it’s a ‘place’.) but mostly because that structure requires a hard break in the middle of the sentence, disrupting rhythm. I would delete ‘true’ as unnecessary (for a facility, ‘true purpose’ and ‘purpose’ are the same) I would delete the ‘largely’ (for the reasons above stated) and ‘on surrounding islands’. This last one is debatable as ‘locals’ by itself could mean this island exclusively, but it doesn’t explicitly say that and for its purpose in the story the distinction does not matter.

This leaves us with—A remote corner on the private Arcadia Island, north of the San Juans, hosts a most peculiar facility, whose purpose remains unknown to locals and authorities alike.—

This reads pretty good and flows excellently into its successor sentence, wherein I would only consider changing the ‘unfolds’ to something different. The reason for this is that it reads less well than it could because of the two hard F’s in close proximity. I like ‘unfolds’ because it’s immediately recognizable but also uncommon; it just messes with the phonetics of the sentence. The easiest solution is ‘begins’, which reads fairly well but is bog standard and slightly cliché. I considered ‘unfurls’ but it suffers the same issue as ‘unfolds’ (the heinous F). I also considered ‘transpired’ but that disagrees with the tone of the prose, being far to heavy and pompous for a prose that is ever so slightly tongue-in-cheek. The same applies to ‘commence’ and ‘initiates’. As a result, even though I am certain there is a better word, I will rely on ‘begins’. I will also start a new paragraph here since the narrative is changing tracks from setting the scene to progressing the story/in-story exposition. This also removes the need for ‘you see’ as a continuation.

(You see, the Van den Meier Center for Anatomical Research is responsible for a great number of scientific advancements of which the broader scientific community are mostly unaware.)

I would begin by converting ‘a great number of’ to ‘numerous’ as they mean the same thing but ‘numerous’ removes the need for the glue words and the adjective without compromising rhythm. I would also delete the first ‘scientific’ since that is conveyed in ‘broader scientific community.’ Then, I would replace ‘of which’ with an ‘of’ at the end of the sentence and delete ‘mostly’ (for the same reasons as ‘largely’ above) leaving us with—The Van den Meier Center for Anatomical Research is responsible for numerous advancements that the broader scientific community is unaware of. (Switched ‘are’ to ‘is’ since ‘community’ is singular.)

I like this for the most part, but the concluding phrase ‘is unaware of’ feels weak and the sentence as a whole lacks follow through. It’s a flat statement without a point. That second point might be resolved once this is combined with its subsequent sentence, but I don’t have a good answer to the first qualm. We can ameliorate the situation by exchanging ‘unaware’ for ‘ignorant’, which a more aggressive synonym and a harder sound. I think that combined with the next sentence might suffice.

— The Van den Meier Center for Anatomical Research is responsible for numerous advancements the broader scientific community is ignorant of. They operate outside of peer-review and, for that matter, the law.—

The original subsequent sentence was “You could say they operate largely outside of peer-review, and for that matter, outside of the law.”

Nothing egregious to mention here, I deleted ‘largely’ (for the same reasons as above’ and ‘you could say’ as unnecessary for rhythm or transition, and because it doesn’t provide value in of itself. I also deleted ‘outside of’ as unnecessary since the first iteration suffices for the entire sentence. But this still doesn’t feel quite right; it still feels like it ends without resolution. It conveys information, but that information doesn’t culminate to anything. Here’s all the edits combined so you all can better grasp their flow and rhythm.

—A remote corner on the private Arcadia Island, north of the San Juans, hosts a most peculiar facility, whose purpose remains unknown to locals and authorities alike. It is here our sordid tale of severed feet begins.

The Van den Meier Center for Anatomical Research is responsible for numerous advancements the broader scientific community is ignorant of. They operate outside of peer-review, and for that matter, the law.—

The first paragraph still reads good, but the second just has no destination, no clear end. I considered combining the sentences of the second via ‘…ignorant of, operating…’ but that doesn’t resolve the core conflict, though it does bandage it. I also toyed with marrying it to the subsequent paragraph (which is similarly a paragraph of exposition) but I disliked how it read structurally. The structure of the combined paragraph didn’t change in the first sentence, so they all read the same, at the same pacing without variation or visible progression toward a point. However, an idea does begin to form. It’s simple, change the ‘they’ from ‘they operate’ to a ‘but’, yet provides what the sentence has been lacking, a conclusion to the thought/comment. (This would necessitate combining the sentences.)

—The Van den Meier Center for Anatomical Research has produced numerous advancements the broader scientific community is ignorant of, but operates outside of peer-review, and for that matter, the law.— (converted ‘is responsible for’ to ‘has produced’ because it’s more active and cuts a word.)

This iteration flows better and closes the sentence/paragraph as desired. It also introduces a new qualm for me, albeit minor. The ‘but’ softly breaks the author’s chosen style; it’s hard and cultivates a serious mien for the subsequent phrase, whereas the style until now has been open, with just a touch of penny dreadful. The ‘but’ also paints the Meier Center in slightly more benign light, which is opposed to the author’s original intent. I have a solution for it, I’m just begging to balk at further changes, fearing I stray too far from the author’s original design. What tickles my brain is: — The Van den Meier Center for Anatomical Research has produced numerous advancements the broader scientific community is ignorant of, but rather disdains the concept of peer-review, and for that matter, the law.—

 This resolves my two issues in this way; ‘disdain’ is a negative emotion and thus colors the sentence it inhabits negatively, which then affects the Meier Center. The ‘rather’ is meant to reinforce the author’s mannerism and softens the prose by being inefficient/slightly more personable. I further softened the prose by implementing ‘concept of’, which also has a similar affect to ‘rather’, softening ‘peer-review’ and making the prose more personable.

The reason that ‘rather’ ‘concept of’ and ‘most perculiar’ makes the prose sound more personable is because they resemble an open speech pattern. Whether or not their inclusion improves the story, or if my edits irrevocably betray it, is for you all to decide.

 That all’s all for today. Here’s the final edit.

—A remote corner on the private Arcadia Island, north of the San Juans, hosts a most peculiar facility whose purpose remains unknown to locals and authorities alike. It is here our sordid tale of severed feet begins.

The Van den Meier Center for Anatomical Research has produced numerous advancements the broader scientific community is ignorant of, but rather disdains the concept of peer-review and, for that matter, the law.—

If you like what you’ve read, check out some of the author’s other content.https://www.writing.com/main/portfolio/view/keatoncooper

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