"James nodded his thanks, opened the wax paper and looked a bit suspiciously at the offering, it looked to be a day or two old and suddenly he had a real longing for the faculty dining room on campus, always a good selection of Western and Asian food to choose from, darn good conversations to be found, and here he now sat with a disheveled captain who, with the added realization, due to the direction of the wind, was in serious need of a good shower." --New York Times
A good shower? No, you're in serious need of some periods--I'd say at least two more than you have, and maybe a semi-colon for good luck.
Yeesh.
4 comments:
I think ", with the added realization," is my favorite part.
Only a real lover of freedom could write like that.
Is this the same guy who used to say he wanted to save western civilization? He's got his work cut out for him.
Oh, yas. Read that review, and (when working in a book mega-store, that's my excuse, anyway) I read the pair's (it takes two to screw up the language like that!) alternate history exercise w/ Nazi commandos assaulting the Manhattan Project's Oak Ridge reactors (the Nazis are defeated, of course, in no small part due to the efforts of good ol' Tennessee boys with their squirrel guns popping up & picking off the Kraut Kommandos). Same deal with that one (can't even remember the title) had to stop every so often at a run on sentence to figure out who's doing what to whom.
The not-Newt one is an actual, shelf-clogging sci-fi author, you'd think between the two of them they could write somethi...
I now have the added realization that this is why not everyone can or should write a novel.
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