Wednesday, December 3, 2008

F2S 47

The man in front of me in line kept fidgeting nervously, shifting from foot to foot, looking around, checking the time on his cell phone -- suspicious. Or, like me, he could just have a need to fidget, to move; the long bank line certainly wasn’t.

14 comments:

  1. Sorry. There isn't enough here beyond why they are standing on line to interest me in reading further.

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  2. Ditch "nervously"--the reader will infer the man is nervous from what follows. I'd also take out the second "fidget"--just leave it as "...he could just have a need to move;". A little tightening could make this really great!

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  3. You have a good idea here, but I agree the second sentence needs reworking. Interesting.

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  4. I'm wondering how the MC knows the man is checking the time. Maybe he's checking for messages. The suggestion to drop the 'fidgeting nervously' is a good one. The rest of this is a good show of the fidgeting so we don't need the tell. Sorry, this one didn't grab me.

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  5. There is a good element here of what I THINK is going on, but the sentences didn't reach out and grab me. Why is the man interesting?

    I'd switch this up, start with the fact that she's in a bank line. THEN a fidgety, nervous type guy in line seems much more interesting, because we instantly think "bank robber - is he or isn't he?"

    One thought, though, if this guy isn't important to the story at all, drop him. Focus on the narrator instead.

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  6. I'm in complete agreement with the other posts so far. Take out "nervously" from the first sentence and the first person narrator doesn't necessarily know what he's doing on his cell phone; he could be reading a text from the sniper poised in the window...

    You could start with MC being nervous that the man in front of her was a bank robber, unless that would ruin the surprise later on.

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  7. Imo, you should plagiarize AC's comments and have him imagine the person reading a text from the sniper in the window :)

    That's terribly clever and exactly the sort of quirky things I wish my MCs did more of.

    And, I think it pinpoints what's missing from your hook: that sort of innate cleverness and quirkiness to make the MC someone we instantly want to know about.

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  8. *reverses wording*

    The man in line in front of me <- works better that way.

    I didn't really see his behavior as suspicious. Most people who I wait in line (anywhere) with shift around and act twitchy, especially when the line isn't moving.

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  9. Everything leads up the the reveal that the MC is standing in line at the bank. Unless the MC or the man in front of him is a bank robber, I'm not really hooked.

    I'd give it a few more sentences.

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  10. I vote for a bank robbery. If there isn't some serious tension in the next page I'll skip.

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  11. Good writing. but little to intrigue or make me read on. I wish you could give just a little more. maybe the next sentence would keep my attention on the story.

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  12. Eh. This is either a usual day or the bank is about to get robbed and the main character either held hostage or framed. The word suspicious implies foreshadowing, but no, I’m not really hooked.

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  13. I'm not getting anything suspicious from the man's actions, nor is any action happening here. Start off with some action, rather than building up slowly to it.

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  14. The feeling I get is that the narrator is admitting to an active imagination bordering on paranoia. It's hard to judge these sentences without seeing what follows. I don't necessarily agree that nervously is inappropriate to describe fidgeting, even though fidgeting is a nervous habit. I'm willing to believe there is casual fidgeting and nervous fidgeting.

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