F2S 74
The narrow, rutted trace through the densely wooded swamp opened out into a wide expanse of saw-grass marsh and bog. Mumbling to himself incoherently, Bo Bodine, still drunk from a three day binge, stumbled out from under the cypress canopy into the intense glare of the low-slung sun.
One too many adjectives for me. Not hooked. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteUse your hedge trimmer to lose the unnecessary description. There is a great opening waiting to be revealed.
ReplyDeleteTake out the first sentence. What's really interesting is that a drunk is stumbling out of the woods, and you have all that in the second sentence.
ReplyDeleteAlso, unless someone else is there watching, I'd take out "incoherently" since if he's talking to himself he probably knows what he's saying, i.e., it would only be incoherent to an observer.
What is a trace?
ReplyDeleteI do like the description besides that.
Not every noun needs a descriptor, and some of these are self-explanatory. In all of this description, the action gets lost and that's the hook: a drunk stumbling out of a swamp.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the POV comes across as an observer, someone who is watching this, not experiencing it. This sure isn't Bo's viewpoint, because in a drunken state, I doubt he'd see so much of the detail. So I'm left wondering who the narrator is.
Start with sentence two. Cyprus swamp paints the image just fine, I don't need the rest.
ReplyDeleteA little heavy on description, could be fun with some trimming.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree about there being too much description here. The second sentence is good (but still in need of a bit of trimming), and I think that's really your hook. As it stands, this snippet was a bit too dense for me to stumble through it successfully. I think there's a gem waiting to be unearthed in there, though. :-)
ReplyDeleteA bit wordy (adjectives) for me. I think it would read better if you switched the two lines. Start with action then show us what he sees once he's stumbled out.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't read on as is.
I'm with the majority here in terms of wanting the second sentence to be first. And I'd make it two:
ReplyDeleteBo Bodine mumbled to himself incoherently. Still drunk from a three day binge, he stumbled out ...
Nice world/setting building, but it sounds like it's written in 3rd person omniscient, rather than really being in Bo's POV.
ReplyDeleteGood scene setting. But I'm not sure how intrigued I am to read on. Hopefully the next part will get me hooked.
ReplyDeleteThe second sentence got my attention easily. I could do without the first entirely. It doesn’t paint a picture for me because I’m all caught up trying to sort out adjectives.
ReplyDelete