[The Curious Orange]

Originally Posted by The Pelagic Argosy

is your prose as good as you say it is?

I'm not saying my prose is good. There are some bits I'm very proud of, but they tend to be plot twists / character development moments, rather than actual wordsmithery (in fact, a lot of the wordsmithery that I was fond of was among the first stuff to be edited out).

Is the excerpt you posted recently in the critiques section a good example of your writing style?

The excerpts that I've posted to date have been from the very beginning - the first time we meet the main characters. They are a fair representation of writing style, but once the plot gets going, the writing does shift up a gear (I hope) and there's far less description and character-meandering.

Consider that your sentences tend to be long, intricate, and modifier heavy. You yourself used the term "purple prose." Local color is fine, but I think you need to present it in a more straightforward manner. You're making your readers work too hard.
I think you need to ask yourself, on a chapter by chapter basis...and on a sentence by sentence basis...what am I trying to do right now? Then do it in the simplest way possible.

Thank you for your comments - I was already aware of this. I'm trying to fix this thing on a sentence-by-sentence basis, but I've been working on this for so long, and have re-written bits of it so many times that I've gone "wordblind", and frankly, running out of steam and enthusiasm. Part of me is thinking I should write off the time I've already invested, cut my losses and find another hobby - perhaps one that involves fresh air and exercise and meeting people.

Originally Posted by Hawke

I think that the early chapters should introduce the core characters of your story but they also need to involve some form of action to hook the reader...

In my opinion, you should open with a quick introduction and introduce some form of conflict, theres always time to add more depth to the characters along the way.

Oh, I'm not re-writing that again. I'm off to become a triathlete...