Tri, I’ve been a lurker/drive by for along time and your advice smacks of experience. So I will follow it. Thank you.
You’ve got some nice turns of phrase, but there are also some awkward bits like the labored metaphor of his neurons stabbing his face or the repeat of the word “face” in the following sentence.
More importantly, it lacks momentum. You’re writer-ing really hard and putting a lot of care into your words, but the detail often doesn’t carry the narrative forward. For example, the “swift puff of skirt” phrase is well done, but what work is it doing here? Why is it important for us to have our attention called to that? In fact, should she be sitting at all? Wouldn’t having her standing communicate her anger more clearly?
Storytelling is not just describing things beautifully. It’s carefully choosing *what *you describe to keep the reader wondering where things might be going or why they’re significant.
Yeah, the ones you made. (You didn’t do them all. ;))
Hilarity N. Suze, I like that he’s sharing this with us. There’s nothing more invigorating than sharing what you know, and learning more yourself.
The Hamster King, I really like “the neurons stabbing his face.” He’s go a distinctive voice going on there already.
Darth_Hamsandwich sorry I seem to have killed your thread. Maybe if you type something, somebody else will come along and contribute.
Bah! He jumped right into the scene. No introductions, no fluff. The reader needs to sink or swim. Like many good writers, he seems to have written all that crap, then thrown it out because it slowed the action.
A thread of mine from 2001 was just revived and, after fourteen years and at least a million words, I could have written it yesterday. As bad as ever; I haven’t progressed an inch. Take THAT, Bradbury!
An important manual for new writers: How to Write Good by Michael O'Donoghue
Nah: a basic scene needs to be set. The reader needs some elementary context.
I certainly agree that a great many stories would benefit from having a few paragraphs at the beginning trimmed. I’m suspicious of “prologues.” But a minimum amount of setting really is a good idea.
“John pulled the knife out of his chest…”
“Professor John Robertson, Dean of Languages at Rice University, was having a bad day. It didn’t get any better when he pulled the knife out of his chest…”
(Okay, it isn’t good, but the point remains: paint at least a little of the picture for us. Don’t leave us groping in the dark.)
Well, the other sad thing about the Bradbury quote is that there’s no guarantee that anything written after the first million words won’t be garbage.
I’ve done my million…and… Um… 'Nuff said.
My suggestion is you should put less effort into the writing. I’m of the opinion that good writing should be as invisible as possible. Good writing should transfer the setting, the events, and the characters from the author’s mind to the reader’s without the reader noticing the act of reading.
Your writing is noticeable. Metaphors like “a swift puff of skirt” or “all of my spare neurons from the night before were slowly stabbing my face” call attention to themselves. Sometimes the attention is worth it if the metaphor is good enough. But it’s something you should use sparingly.
You have some lines that aren’t needed: “She dropped her bag by her side.” and “A splash of hair covered her face.” These lines don’t add anything that hasn’t already been established in the paragraph: she’s being abrupt and he’s aware of her appearance.
I’d use a couple of different verbs in the first paragraph. Acknowledged is passive. And sludging isn’t a real word.
I’d reverse the order of a sentence in the second paragraph. You’ve got the conclusion ahead of the evidence.
There’s a few other words and phrases that are unnecessary and should be cut.
I knew what the student lineup was. My brain informed me I was a professor of something… something… UNIVERSITY… profound… something important. My stomach and bowels felt like sludge. I stared at nothing.
“You failed me, you fuck!” She stormed into my office and sat down. She didn’t even ask where she could sit; this one was serious.
“You’re talented, no one can argue that. You’ve shown great enthusiasm in my class and are capable of original thought. Your thesis, outside of class, is fantastic, but tough to get by the committee. I can’t forward you on this. You didn’t put in the work.”
I couldn’t see her eyes as she leaned forward. It didn’t matter as my temples throbbed and my skin felt too tight on my face.
She was silent for a moment. She lifted her head, blue eyes blazing, “Your final project was impossible!”
Nice legs, great tits, get out.
“Okay, you have some of the major legwork done, but your calculations were incorrect-”
She cut me off in mid-sentence, “We had two fucking engineer majors on our team and they couldn’t figure out the math!”
I shifted nervously, crossing my legs. “Talk to the TA. I can squeeze you by based on some of the initial work you’ve done.”
Fie on you prescriptivists and your vendetta against the passive voice!
Darth_Hamsandwich, what are you trying to convey with that excerpt? Are you pushing Hard-Boiled Detective into a school setting for a reason? Note that “fun” and “parody” are good reasons; are you taking “write about what you know,” in this case a school, and hard-boiling it to create an over-the-top satire? Working within a genre, like HBD, is a great way to get practice because the structure already exists.
Mistakes were made.
…her tourmaline eyes set in spiky marquise.
Okay, a little wordy, but finally the mundane “blue eyes blazing” is gone.
Please, somebody else Reply before I kill it again.
Tourmaline comes in a number of colors, some of which are never seen in human eyes. I don’t know what “spiky marquise” means. That’s my ignorance, but I figure writers shouldn’t employ language readers are too unlikely to understand.
Agreed that “blue eyes blazing” is a cliché.
Kill it! Kill it! I don’t care how many times you have to do it, but kill it! 
Exactly! Here’s the opening paragraph to John Sandford’s latest Prey novel, which I think does a pretty good job of setting the scene minimally and then guiding the reader into wondering what happens next.
Notice how the imagery changes subtly but swiftly from pleasant and innocuous (late afternoon in June, popcorn, busking) to dark and alarming, while at the same time conveying the idea that whatever danger awaits isn’t immediate. The reader is curious about ‘the devil’. Why is he called that? What’s up with his girlfriend and her sharp pointy teeth? Why is Skye afraid of the him and what might he eventually do to her? There’s a lot going on there in very few words, and you never get the sense that the writer is trying to entertain, grab or impress you with clever word play. Rather he lets all of that flow naturally as a result of the action.
On the other hand there’s James Ellroy, who beats you over the head with wordplay so cleverly and relentlessly that it not only colors and propels the story but is entertaining all on its own.
This from the beginning of L.A. Confidential:
Notice how you not only become interested in what going to happen next but you’re entertained by the dialog itself. However, the clever wordplay has to be continuous to have its intended effect. The dialog in the OP though seems to vacillate between bits of clever wordplay (puff of skirt) and an on-again, off-again hardboiled style intermingled with a more traditional and less interesting style. My take is that there is some talent there but it has quite a way to go in terms of finding, developing and refining its own voice…which of course is what the OP is trying to get started on by asking us here.
I don’t know enough about writing to comment on your words except to say that some of them remind me of a poster that hung in my high school (back in '73) that read: “Profanity is the product of a feeble mind that attempts to express itself in a forceful manner.” (Not saying you’re feeble minded, but, I’m not one to think profane words add “spice” to anything either.)
The beauty of writing in the old days, both in print and on TV, was how the good ones made you forget there was no swearing. Think of it as a pointless interjection or an “um” or an “er,” something that can be left out while making the story tighter. I doubt an editor ever said, “Could you add more swearing?”
If not that, imagine your grandmother reading it over your shoulder, giving a tsk of disapproval when you swear for the sake of swearing or sounding “modern.”
(Die, damn ye. Die!)
I Googled “blue” and tourmaline was one of the words that came up (which I know from squat). But I wanted a…potentially lethal-looking setting? for the blue eyes, like marquise, which looks pretty scary to me, and the two seemed to go together. lol But you’ve screwed that up Trinopus, thankyouverymuch. *George Lopez voice: “I can never do nothing!”
(Hangs head in shame) I’m a poet and I know it, and searching for “that one perfect word” is my bliss. But perhaps here, my bad. 
Keep writing Darth_Hamsandwich! It’s fun.
Oh, and for anyone not aware of the site…wordhippo.com.
I have written a number of short stories and at least three attempts at novels and I can tell you that when I look back, it’s all garbage! You learn so much in just writing and reading that I don’t think anyone can do a good job until they treat it like it’s a job.
If you are serious, go pick up Stephen King’s On Writing. I know professional writers that read it at least once a year.
You have a great voice in what you’ve done, and honestly, I wouldn’t listen to anyone here. You need to develop yourself in order to maintain that which would make you original. Write a lot and read even more.
Not computing.
I agree…somewhat. There are times that a “poetic” turn of phrase can slip right in amidst the prose. It shouldn’t happen too often, as it can be distracting, but, just as prose permits the occasional digression, or reflection, so it is enriched by the rare bit of poetry.
I’m not talking about actual verse, I hasten to add. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings employed occasional verse, and it was fun, but that sort of thing would just be dumb in a James Bond or Star Wars novel. But, take Star Wars: “. . . as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.” That’s a poetic bit of language, and made the scene more memorable.
Whoo! Never heard of it! Fun! I just spent a few minutes playing with some of my favorite words, and got some delightful examples! I don’t know if it’s better than Thesaurus.com, but it’s certainly a Hippo’s weight of good clean fun! Thank you!
Okay, here’s my 2 cents for what little it’s worth.
First of all, Darth_Hamsandwich, everyone’s first attempt at writing is embarrassing. I recently came across the first short story I ever got published back when I was 17. I don’t really count it as a “proper” publication because I didn’t get paid for it, and it’s a good thing too! If I had, I’d have tracked down the editor and given him his money back. It was awful. Your first attempt at writing is a hell of a lot better than mine was. Anyway, moving on:
I don’t like this as an opening. Your narrator knows what the lineup is, but I don’t. Is it a football lineup? A concert lineup? It becomes a little bit clearer later, but it should either be clear immediately or it shouldn’t be mentioned in the first line. Also, who are the heads? What are the narrator’s ideas? What is the crash? These are all questions which, even by the end of the excerpt, I’m not really clear on.
Your revised opening “I knew what the student lineup was. My brain acknowleged I was a professor of something…something… UNIVERSITY… profound… something important. My stomach and bowels were sludging. I stared at nothing.” is a lot better. It asks fewer questions, explains slightly ‘jargony’ terms like “lineup”, and doesn’t leave the reader asking who or what the heads and the crash are.
However, I think it could still be improved. The idea that the professor was so hungover that he can’t even remember what he’s a professor of, is a nice comic exaggeration, but goes a little too far. After all, if he can’t remember what he’s a professor of, how did he manage to find his way into his office? Perhaps, instead, you could have him staring blankly at something on his desk struggling to remember what he used to do with it? Just a thought.
I’d also take out “profound”. It comes across as tell-y and makes the narrator seem a little self-satisfied. Instead, wait for an opportunity to show us that the narrator’s work is profound. If it genuinely is (and if time travel is involved it must be) then the reader will work that out on their own. I also don’t really like ‘sludging’ as an adjective here. As a general guideline, when it comes to comic descriptions I find that vagueness and understatement is generally more effective than explicitness. Something like, perhaps, “My stomach felt…unpredictable.” We know that ‘unpredictable’ is a euphemism for all manner of unpleasant things and the vagueness of the description allows us to imagine all sorts of catastrophes, and it allows us to more easily identify with the narrator. Personally, I don’t know what sludging bowels feel like. Unpredictable bowels on the other hand…well, we all know what that’s like.
Terry Pratchett is a master of comic understatement. If you’ve never read any of his Disc-world books I strongly recommend them.
I really liked the last sentence of this bit “I stared at nothing.” Everyone knows what that feels like. I’m identifying a little more with the narrator now.
Woah! Am I supposed to hate this character? Because I totally do. If I am supposed to, good job! If not, you might want to consider softening her opening gambit somewhat. Unless she and the professor have had some kind of prior intimate relationship, her barging into his office and calling him a fuck is massively inappropriate in any setting. Again, that’s fine if I’m supposed to dislike her, but if I’m not then you’ve painted the character into a corner where she’s got to start winning me over asap.
I really like the line “…sat down with a swift puff of skirt.” It’s a clear visual image, elegantly expressed. It’s the kind of thing which, to my mind, is integral to good writing. Philip Larkin used to say that one of the main aims of his poetry was to present his readers with images that made them say of the things he described “I’ve never thought about it like that before, but that’s how it really is”. For me, this image meets that standard.
Now, it’s important not to overuse such descriptions, and I’m pleased to say you don’t. For one thing, they won’t always work. For another, even if they do all work, eventually the effect can get a little numbing for the reader. However, when used in moderation, such “writerly” descriptions can really elevate a story. Some people may disagree, and have told me so about my own work, but you can’t please everyone. Personally, I find books without the occasional pithy and evocative description to be flat-out artless.
Also, unless there’s something important in her bag, you don’t need to tell us that she dropped it by her side.
There are a couple of issues I have with this bit of dialogue. The first is that the professor doesn’t seem to react at all to the fact that one of his students just barged into his office, sat down without invitation, and called him a fuck right to his face, which somewhat lessens him as a believable character in my view. There are two ways to fix this. The first is to have him address her outburst verbally in some way. The second, and more effective in my view, is to put us in the professor’s head for a moment and tell us what he’s thinking. It needn’t be a long passage. Just something short and simple like, perhaps, 'I sighed inwardly. This was not entirely unexpected." might work. It gives us a reaction (the inward sigh) and explains why the professor actually has this reaction (the outburst was unexpected). With that knowledge, his verbal response seems a little more believable.
The second is that the dialogue is slightly tautological. “You’re talented, no-one can argue that” and “[you] are capable of original thought” are similar enough in meaning that you only really need one or the other.
Also, this might be a good moment to tell us this woman’s name.
I don’t like the bolded description. It doesn’t work for me. It may just be my limited experience, but hangovers don’t feel like that. They’re more like crushing, sick-making headaches. It just seems like a very wordy way to say he has a bad headache. It doesn’t have the fluidity or elegance of the “puff of skirt” description you used earlier.
This description, on the other hand is much better! That’s exactly what a hangover feels like. If I were you, I’d get rid of the ‘neurons’ description completely and just keep this one. It does exactly the same job, only more succinctly and much more relatably.
I would get rid of the bolded line here. I don’t really care at this point whether this rather unpleasant student will get her thesis accepted. I only really care about finding out what the thesis is. The bolded line slows down the pace of the story. Not by a lot, but enough to be noticeable. Of course, if you take out the bit about the TA she has no reason to relax. You might want to take that out as well and just go straight from “…they couldn’t figure out the math!” to “She studied me. ‘It smells like booze in here’”
Now, there’s a few caveats I want to mention at this point:
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All of this is only my opinion. You have to bear in mind that this is your story and only you know what the finished product will look like. If you disagree with any of my suggestions (and that is all they are), ignore me.
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I may have made a lot of criticisms, but they’re all minor things which are easily fixed. There’s absolutely nothing majorly wrong with this excerpt.
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This is like fucking Hemingway compared to the first thing I ever wrote. Don’t be disheartened!
Also, the Ray Bradbury line about everyone’s first million words being garbage isn’t something I can agree with. For reasons which don’t really belong here, I actually have a fairly low opinion of Bradbury as a writer, and he doled out quite a lot of lousy writing advice in his time (he famously said modern poetry was “crap”, for instance). Writing well is a difficult skill to learn and it takes a long time, but there are plenty of authors (some of whom I know personally) who didn’t even need to write a hundred thousand words before being paid for their work. My advice, for what little it’s worth, is to focus on quality rather than quantity, and to always bear in mind that if you, the author, really truly believe that something works, keep it unless someone whose opinion you trust gives you a really good reason not to.
Best of luck!