I haven’t written or edited my novel in a while. Currently, I have five people reading, editing, and providing feedback for me. I hope to have all their feedback to me by the end of May / start of June, and then I can start the process of a detailed fourth revision, and hopefully move toward publication by the end of this year or the start of next.
The following excerpt is a descriptive scene of the protaganist and a group traveling to the city of Chermon.
They rode on in silence. The terrain flattened as they moved down the ridge, and then the trees cleared, and they were standing in a glade. There, the yellowed grass rustled in a brisk wind, swishing against the horses’ legs as they moved through the meadow. Two birds flitted black against the evening sky, chattering as they flew, and beyond the glade and surrounding it were the mountains, brown and gray, stretching into the distance. They crossed the glade and reentered the woods, and among the trees, night seemed to approach more quickly. They descended again, and the priest led them across a creek, churning and bubbling with foam, and they came to a waterfall, its waters cascading away beyond a rock shelf slick with moss, and below, the waters crashed along boulders and formed pools rippling with flecks of golden light.
The priest cut back along the ridge, away from the fall, and the horses had to move carefully to avoid tripping over rotting tree trunks. The ground was slippery with pine needles, and so they circled around the waterfall and descended slowly down the slope into the wooded valley. They followed the line of the creek, its waters partially frosted with ice, and some of the men stopped to drink. Caelen put some water in his flask, and they moved on, crossing the creek where it narrowed, and on the other side, the land curved gently upwards. They climbed the ridge, and behind them, the water tumbled over rocks, echoing off the valley walls, and somewhere an owl called after them, and Caelen swore he heard the tune of wind chimes breathing in the wind. The sweet scent of spruce firs lingered with the rustic aroma of fallen leaves, and when the ridge flattened out again, the priest stopped them. Here, the trees thinned and the ground fell gently away to the east, and above, Caelen could see the clouds rimmed in pink and gold as the last light of day burned its memory into the earth.
The description reads very well. Good luck with the novel, I hope it goes well. Is it finished?
I thought perhaps breaking up the two paragraphs of description with some more action or dialogue might work well.
Thanks, Mark. Some good thoughts.
The novel is finished, but I’ve still got to revise it a few more times before I feel it’s ready for publication. A lot will depend on the feedback from those who are reading it for me right now. I’m sure there will be a good bit I’ll have to revisit based on their suggestions.
I like this part a lot – sights, sounds, and then smells fleshing it out. Almost like a prose poem, driven home by the last line.
Some great sentences there, but for a fourth revision, it is rather worrying that such huge chunks of description still exist. From what I understand, detail such as that is only needed if an important scene will occur there later on, saving you from writing the descriptions into that important scene, and allowing it to flow faster.
The last 2 sentences in particular are superb, but a third to a half could be trimmed…unless, again, there is some special purpose to this passage. If the whole novel is like a descriptive writing exercise….
I don’t know if you’re using omniscient, third person singular or third person multiple, but in this passage there isn’t much of an impression of voice. It’s beautiful, but strange to me. e.g. a crude character might start off this description with “It had the beauty of a thousand pairs of tits.” It depends on your character of course….but Bernard Cornwell does thing like this, e.g. “The place was a shit-hole. “.
Also “decended”, “glade” and “wind” are repeated a teensy bit too closely together. This is very nit-picking, but is exactly the kind of thing an editor does!
Thanks, Judy. I’ve left a few of these descriptive prose passages in the novel simply b/c I enjoy good lyrical prose. Tolkien does this a lot in his novels, though I don’t use this style nearly as much as he does. Robert Frost has always been my favorite poet, and I had a great professor in college (2 degrees from Robert Frost actually, my professor was coached by the poet Stephen Dunn and Stephen Dunn was taught by Robert Frost), so at times I feel compelled and drawn to include poetic type prose in my descriptive scenes of nature.
JSE, you’re right. This passage is probably a bit too long and could definitely be trimmed. Honestly, I’ll have to go back and read the context around this scene b/c I don’t completely remember everything I wrote and how it flows together. It is a third person perspective, which I believe is more evident in context. Here, as a stand-alone, it is not so evident. Many thanks for your feedback!
Cool. I love Tolkien (and poetry, for that matter) but they should stay seperate from prose. I’ve been told before that while Tolkien may be an exquisite story-teller, he is not neccsarily the best writer, and by today’s standards we can’t hope to write like that and have people willingly embrace it. Sadly…
Tolkien’s Silmarillion is probably my favourite book by him. 🙂
Steven – I am also two degrees from Robert Frost – my mother met him at the University of Vermont where she went to school. I love his poetry, he is the flowering of New England to me.
I may be one of the few who have never read Tolkien, probably I should.
Hope your novel does well breathing in the world
JSE, it is a shame. Personally, I really enjoy Tolkien’s lyrical prose. It’s unfortunate people can’t enjoy it as much today.
Judy, that’s really interesting. Did your mother say much about him? What was he like?
Thanks for the best wishes on my novel.
On Frost – She thought he was kind of harsh and curmodgeonly, almost soured on life which made her sad. This was a few years before his death. She is a practical Yankee, and didn’t understand his poetry, so she wasn’t as impressed as her classmates were!!
That’s disappointing. I always pictured Frost as a grandfatherly type of man, who would sit down with a group of children and read them his poetry. Maybe he was nicer in his earlier years.
Steven, that’s a beautifully written description, though I agree that descriptive prose ain’t what it used to be, alas. Nothing I love more in a novel than long lyrical descriptions.
Good luck with it! Hope you have lots of clever dialogue elsewhere.
Thanks, Tom. I appreciate that. Hopefully, readers will find the dialogue in my novel clever. I’ve worked hard to improve on it.
I’m a dialogue lover. Scenes and chapters come to me in the form of dialogue above all else. I don’t quite know what to make of this, but it works for me!
I find that all the best lines in books tend to be spoken, something funny, or witty or a great retort in an argument. It really gives characters ‘punch’ when they something memorable and utterly typical of their charisma.
JSE, which authors do you feel write the best dialogue? Who do you like best? I always liked the way Hemingway used dialogue.
I like the excerpt-
I can see the image clearly in my head! Great job!
Thanks, Sapphire! Glad you made it over to my site.