chiroptera, I think I fixed your link so it goes to the right website. Let me know if I also blew it.
I have received several rejection letters and after keeping them in a drawer and thinking about the works submitted, they were justified. I didn’t work hard enough, I didn’t edit enough, I didn’t have the passion I should have.
I have a novel coming out next fall and although I have no expectations of it being a commercial success, I KNOW it is worthy of being purchased and published.
Don’t give up but don’t keep resubmitting the same body of work. Sometimes going back to the drawing board is the way to go. Good luck.
Apropos of nothing, then, I’d like to offer one of my favorite poems:
Actually, what am I saying? I can’t believe there aren’t any writing groups here on SDMB.
It counts toward your million even if it’s dreck.
One of the best books I’ve seen (keeping in mind that I’ve only ever skimmed these How To Write books) is something called The Weekend Novelist. It gives you a plan and lots of tips. There’s also The Weekend Mystery Novelist. Here’s a link to one of them. There are several.
A live or online critique group can be great, but tons of people get published without that kind of feedback. It does help to join a community of writers, though, because you can learn nonwriting things like: Do not pay your agent, your agent pays you.
Sorry, but that is just hackneyed, trite and boring writing.
You need a different profession.
This is the aforementioned with a single editing pass. I cut off some of the later portions for the moment. I suppose they’re necessary just to set the stage, but not all that interesting right now. Comment as you wish.
The closing days of summer in Atlanta’s southern-western rim saw a brief battle of wills down an otherwise-empty rural lane in front of John Keinman’s unpretentious home.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you,” John said to his visitor. “Sometimes you’re simply too late.” Messy brown hair and a thin mouth made him look a decade older than he was, so that only a keen observer would have guessed he was still only in his mid-twenties. John looked as though he’d stayed here in the small, decrepit house a few years too many, until he began to matched it all too well. He kept well back, nervously eyeing the intruder while furtively hammering loose wooden siding back into place. Tall but thin, John wore a sweaty tee and jeans for his amateur carpentry, and kept his sunglasses on in the afternoon glare.
The pale woman carrying on this unpleasant conversation nodded tensely before replying in a smooth voice, “I appreciate it, Mr. Keinman. Really, I do. But I’m sure you would know where he’s buried.” Her suspicious eyes bored straight through him, as if trying to pierce the wall of ignorance he held firmly in place.
To John Keinman, she spelled trouble. He didn’t need anyone, including a creature like her, coming around his little corner of the world. He needed her to go away, and if the only way was to convince her that she had to reason to be here, then a few white lies wouldn’t hurt either of them.
They were discussing Conner Sabot, who John knew – knew – died a long time ago. John grimaced but kept his eyes on his work, saying he believed Conner drank himself to death, but either way he just vanished one day. He had lived here only briefly, John had already admitted, sleeping on the floor for a few months. That was a lie she could pierce, but also one which wouldn’t lead her back here. He knew in his mind the truth was a far different story: that Conner Sabot had vanished when John came to live here.
Keinman stayed hunched over, only half visible from the street, nestled behind overgrown bushes, nailing a new board to the wall. His visitor, elegantly dressed and quite unconcerned with how out of place she looked in a neighborhood such as this, kept asking small questions about Conner’s habits and friends. John ‘s reply turned into a curse as a board unexpectedly cracked, the jagged edge of half dropping to the dirt, and he tore open a jagged cut on the back of his hand.
She froze, suddenly tensing as she saw the crimson drops rain down. John merely grunted in response and wrapped his hand tightly with a spare scrap of cloth, watching her carefully out of the corner of his eye. On second look, he began to wonder what she really wanted after all. Conner Sabot was long gone, after all, and she definitely wasn’t here in any official government capacity – no tax official or investigator would drive a rented Mercedes. But that just made the mysterious “us” much more ominous. He was beginning to get angry at the intrusion, fed also by his fear of the mystery.
Maria – that’s what she introduced herself as – came out of her brief trance. She inhaled deeply before advancing cautiously towards John, saying, “Mr. Keinman, we certainly thank you for all your help. I’m sure you are busy, but I really need to find Conner Sabot. It’s very important to us. In fact, for your cooperation, I’m sure I could cover any… medical expenses you may have.” That wheedling sound penetrated John’s skull, invading his thoughts and cutting through his willpower. She gently waved a thick envelope, its contents obvious.
But though John Keinman may have been many things, he wasn’t about to sell out anyone close to him, not for money and not for anything. He narrowed his eyes and turned completely away. “Get out,” was all he said in return.
“Mr. Keinman, this is an important investigation. You have to help us.” Maria’s smooth voice was more commanding now, annoyed that he hadn’t broken. Slight and pallid she might be, but her voice held real authority. She expected to be obeyed, and John knew that most men would have bent.
John was not most men. He unleashed the anger he held in check letting it boil over in an instant. “No, I don’t, and I don’t have to help you,” John muttered, just loud enough to be heard. With a sharp crack in his own voice, Keinman cried out, “Get your ass off my property!”
The woman stood absolutely still, shocked for the moment. Then she turned and slowly walked away, looking a little unsteady as she did. A further, “And don’t come back!” followed her off the driveway. She clearly hadn’t expected real resistance, he guessed, and being balked was obviously not an event she encountered often. He heard her thinly whisper something about a business card, followed by the metal whine of his mailbox being opened and shut.
John said nothing, but waited with bated breath until he heard her tires squeal a bit in the empty road. He stood up and stared down the street. As she vanished from view, John dropped the board he’d deliberately broken to fashion a crude stake. He ran his fingers over the thin scar running just over his left eye to the middle of his nose, scratched at the beard which hid his chin, and wondered how the vampire had found him, and perhaps more importantly, why.
Conner Sabot did die a long time ago. These days he called himself John Keinman – John No Man. And John No Man didn’t need any old “friends” to come looking for him. He had better things to do with his life.
He also knew he was half lucky she hadn’t been able to see the scar, a dead giveaway at the best of times. One wrong move and he would have had to make some very quick guesses as to why she had come – to kill him, or maybe to beg for help. If the latter, he would refuse, and then vanish again. Monsters always needed a helping hand, but they bit it more often than not. If the former… well, that’s what the business end of the stake was for.
In any case, John was certain she hadn’t broken the wall of thoughts – John’s thoughts, never Conner’s – he’d put up. Granted, he didn’t know what she might be capable of, and mind reading wasn’t trick he expected from a vampire. But John always considered things better safe than sorry. In any case, he but hadn’t been certain she was a vampire until her reaction to the sight of blood.
John’s other problem was his fear that she’d be back. On the one hand, there was no reason for vampire to come looking for him now at all – they should believe him dead. And even tracking Conner to John’s address was a feat he’d have to investigate further. The thought that he’d slipped up and made a mistake in his new identity hurt John much more than the burning sensation in his injured hand. He wondered briefly, too, as to just how many vampires named Maria there could possibly be in the world.
…
To me, it flows better now and the scene is much clearer. On the other hand, I keep going back and forth as to whether it should be longer (but lose its punch?) or trimmed down again. Bleh. Hopefully, it sucks less than Maria now.
Reminds me of another project where I rewrote the intro about size times before scrapping it entirely and starting the whole story at a later point in the overall narrative, to be filled in with flashbacks. And that was a story which started when a man got up out of his own grave - you’d think I could write that respectably. I mean, it’s not exactly a dull scene.
I do, sunshine.
Your POV is still all fucked up. You should probably try rewriting the whole scene in first person.
The lack of apostrophes on your possessive nouns is distracting.
Here’s a quick, one-cup-of-coffee rewrite of the first couple of paragraphs. I removed a lot of the adverbs and adverbial phrases that tell things rather than showing them.
[QUOTE=rewrite]
“I’m sorry,” John said. “You’re too late.” Messy brown hair and a thin mouth made him look old and weathered as his house. He watched the intruder while hammering loose wooden siding back into place. He wore a sweaty tee and jeans for his amateur carpentry, and kept his sunglasses on in the afternoon glare.
The pale woman nodded and replied, “I appreciate it, Mr. Keinman. Really, I do. But I’m sure you know where he’s buried.” She stared at him as if trying to bore a hole through his defenses.
To John Keinman, she spelled trouble. He didn’t need anyone coming to his little corner of the world. He needed her to go away, and he hoped a few white lies would be enough.
[/QUOTE]
Some of it just reads a bit awkwardly to me. For example:
What about:
“Messy brown hair and a thin mouth made him look much older than his twenty-six years.”
Or however old he is. Those attributes, the messy hair and the mouth, don’t strike me as the kind of thing that would make a person look older. I would think wrinkles and weathered skin would have a stronger effect than messy hair.
In this:
I would change “including” to “especially.”
This one is also awkward. I’d put her name earlier in the story, like here:
“The pale woman - she had called herself Maria - nodded tensely throughout the unpleasant conversation before replying in a smooth voice…”
You’ll probably need to go through it all several times and just ask yourself if it reads naturally to you. I think it was Faulkner who said if you want to write you have to read, read, read. Reading authors you like will help you determine how things should sound.
Tips:
- Go to Writersmarket.com. Subscribe. Read. Learn.
- Read “On Writing” by Stephen King.
- Read “Writing Down the Bbones” by Natalie Goldberg.
- Learn a trade.
Um, you do realize that your use of the word “tee” here is completely inappropriate, right? Unless you’re talking about a golf tee, that is the wrong usage.
Granted the “to a tee” might slide, but it’s still jarring and amateurish.
I have NEVER seen “tee” instead of t-shirt in formal writing. Ever. Again, it just sounds awkward and , I dunno, sixth-grader-ish somehow.
This is a great book. Except the part where he says you aren’t trying if you aren’t writing four hours a day, AND you need to read a lot. Which is crazy.
…according to whom?
Yeah, I usually associate messy hair with either youth, homeless people and/or Einstein… 
But not old age.
A novel isn’t formal writing–or, at least, it needn’t follow the rules of formal writing. You might find it jarring and awkward, but calling it “wrong usage” was incorrect.
Fair point. I was trying to leave much of the prose intact, focusing on eliminating (mostly eliminating adverbs and adverbial clauses) rather than on changing ideas. I suspect that the messy hair and thin mouth are meant to show that the dude is stressed as fuck–am I right, SB?