Below I have put a snippet of writing for you to read and then judge. What do you think is wrong with it and how would you write it better. If I wrote like this day in day out do you think I would have a chance of selling my MS.. Please rewrite it and we can see what everyone thinks. This is for a bit of fun.
They had not gone far before they came to a place where the ground became rough and there were rocks all about and little hills up and little hills down. At the bottom of one small valley Mrs Pickwick turned suddenly aside as if she were going to walk straight into an unusually large rock, but at the last moment Barry found she was leading her into the entrance of a cave. As soon as they were inside she found herself blinking in the light of a wood fire. Then Mrs Pickwick stooped and took a flaming piece of wood out of the fire with a neat little pair of tongs, and lit a lamp. "Now we shan't be long," she said, and immediately put a kettl
Hi Sonya and Susan,
It is a part from chapter two. I changed the name Mr Tumnus to Mrs Pickwick so it wasn't that obvious.
Regards
How interesting - thank's for thinking of that little exercise! As you say, writing is a very individual thing. One of my favourite books too but didn't recognise that snippet.
Interesting, I love that book and can't remember that bit or anyone called Mrs Pickwick. we were discussing this at a meeting-how we can critique many piece of published work and find flaws. That is not true for some pieces of prose-but certainly the sentence you picked has many flaws.
Perhaps as it was a story first intended for children, he used language like that.
You've put me on the spot- and reinforced my views about critiquing....pretty hopeless exercise ; )