Today we see that, with enough echoes piled together, even the walls of Jericho can be brought down.
What I gleaned about the story: A furry forest creature of some kind has the power of telepathy, but fears being discovered by the Prince.
Find this book on Amazon.
Note: The artwork on the cover is very good. It conveys a specific mood and genre, and reminds me of fantasy covers from the 80s and 90s.
Note: The story opens with Arara the forest creature mentally reviewing her fears. This is not quite the “reviewing how I got here” cliché, but it’s close. Fortunately, it’s also brief, so I didn’t charge it a WTF. But as a general rule, I think it’s problematic to start inside the protagonist’s head, subjecting us to the protagonist’s inner thoughts before we even know them. Moreover, inner dialogue is almost always written in tell mode, which is a very non-immersive way to spend those precious first few minutes of a reader’s time.
Analysis: Usually when I talk about echoing headwords, I’m talking about sequential sentences that begin with the same word. But echoes don’t just form at the sentence level. They can form at the paragraph, scene, or even chapter level as well. In this case three of the first four paragraphs begin with the protagonist’s name: Arara. The repetition got rather distracting, and coming on the first page, that’s a bad sign.
Analysis: The noun verbed. The other noun verbed. Those nouns all verbed together. There were a few non-conformant sentences, but several places seemed to bog down with a heavy trudge of declarations. The solution is not necessarily to insert a bunch of questions, or imperative demands – it’s about rhythm and variety. Authors need to be sensitive to the length, complexity, and structural shape of their prose.
Analysis: I was able to skip past a few cases where the same headword was used twice in a row, but when I reached a five-sentence paragraph that was headed with “The,” “She,” “She,” “The,” and “The,” I could no longer ignore the echo chamber effect.
So – twenty books in a row have failed to make the time. And, of those twenty, only one got to thirty minutes, and one to twenty. Coincidence, do you think, or have you become less patient? Having said that, I have checked out some of the books on Amazon and you seem very fair in your appraisals. But, for those of us waiting in line, it’s getting pretty scary….
I’ve been worried for almost two weeks now, Belinda, but I’ve looked back over the reports and I’m not seeing a change in sensitivity. If I were getting less patient, I would expect to see new, pickier types of issues arising that I wasn’t reacting to before, or more subtle instances causing me to stop, or even completely fictitious issues that simply aren’t there in the text. But from what I can see, none of these are the case. So for that reason, I believe it is just a run of scarcity. I am still confident that all it takes to reach 40 minutes is an editorially clean manuscript, relatively free of logic and consistency problems. But like you, I’m pretty much jonesing for another survivor. :-)
I could believe it is a matter of a properly edited manuscript (9 fricking minutes) and you did have a backlog before you did the data analysis. I did notice that there were a lot less survivors after you did the first analysis; maybe clarifying your thoughts by doing that made it easier to see the problems? I know when I’m working on something, writing a list of things to look for makes it easier for my mind to find them.
(Side note, I ended up getting a copy editor because of those lost 9 minutes, so hopefully those who didn’t make will do the same thing. I’m all in favor of being picky.)
Silvana – The Greening looks interesting, and your website is lovely. :)
hopefully you’ll help break the IoD losing streak. :)
Thank you. I was very fortunate with my website design (and my book cover design too). It’s an often overlooked aspect of writing that as ‘artists’ we’re part of a wider creative community and just as we can be inspired by other artists’ work, they can be inspired by ours.
I’ll have to second it, it is a lovely website.
I went an entirely different direction because of my programming, but I tried to make a prettier landing page for my book just to get that 30 second appeal.
You got a much nicer site though. :)
I’d like to see another survivor, as well. But – I have to admit that the shorter the time to WTF 3, the funnier the report is for me to read.
So, this was my book. Question for you: I got the book edited professionally PLUS did a convention workshop put on by 6 professional authors, where they looked at the first three chapters. None of them mentioned the echoing sentence and paragraph headings or the declarative sentences problems. Is this something that is commonly overlooked?
Also, the almost first WTF, that part about her being worried was originally much farther into the chapter, but during the workshop with the authors, they said I needed to tell the reader she was telepathic on the first page, well before the first time she reads someones mind. So I moved that section forward at their suggestion. Is there a better way to handle that?
I do know that when I do my first pass at editing the sequel I will keep my eye out for the problems you mentioned here. I’m not happy with my score, but I’m glad I know about my problem now.
Every editor has a different set of filters they apply, and not everyone is sensitive to the echoing problem. As with all feedback (mine included) you have to decide what issues matter to you and which ones don’t. And once you’ve made that decision, if the editor you work with doesn’t/can’t help you deal with your concerns, you should ensure you back them up with other reviewers, or else find a different editor who suits your style better.
Yes, informing the reader about the telepathy is important to do before you start using it to drive story points, so moving that information forward was good. But instead of telling me about it by having her worry about the Prince finding out, show me. Maybe have little throw-away scene with her using her telepathy to do something simple, like calm a frightened baby rabbit or something. And then have her say, “But don’t you tell the Prince or he’ll be sure to throw me in a dungeon.” And with that, you’ve taken us out of her head, into the world, shown us something of her character, AND told us about the telepathy, and the Prince, all without our noticing it.
Anyway, that was just an example. You’ll probably find something that fits with your story better than that.
Cool, thanks for the feedback.