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@Daeus I like it! As Kate says… you were born to sell things. Writing about my book is one of my least favorite things. Can’t just writing the thing be enough? As for bittersweet, I looked it up int a thesaurus and it gave me poignant, nostalgic, affecting, touching, and sentimental. Not sure if any of those fit, but…
INTJ - Inhumane. No-feelings. Terrible. Judgment and doom on everyone.
Ok, I’m back.
@kate-flournoy @emma-flournoy @northerner @hope @winter-rose @graciegirl.So what do you think of lingering bittersweetness?
Also, instead of saying, “forced to confront everything he fights for shattered,” do you think it would be better to say, “forced to confront everything he fights for ruined”?
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@Daeus I think lingering works. Better than anything I could come up with.
Aaand… honestly I’m not sure. It’s a toss-up. Both of those work in different ways… So helpful, I know. 😛
@Daeus, I’m agnostic about the first question, as far as how well it represents the story.
I’d caution you about using words that end in -ness, though. Usually they’re made by taking an adjective and adding ness to turn the word into a noun. The problem is, often that original adjective is an adjective because it’s a noun with an ending added. So usually the best way to get a noun out of the word is to remove the ending, not tack on a second one. Not that you did that here, it’s just a caution in general for anyone who might see it.
The grammatical structure of “forced to confront everything he fights for ruined” is still wrong somehow, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
You will draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation. (Isaiah 12:3)
@Daeus What Kate said about ruined and shattered. 😉
For lingering bittersweetness, that works in itself (though somehow it doesn’t seem strong enough for how strong it actually is, in the book…), but doesn’t that make the rest of the sentence kind of redundant? To say ‘a lingering bittersweetness that won’t be easily forgotten’? You judge if it’s over-pickiness on my part. 😛 But it sounds too repetitive.
@emma-flournoy Hmm. Do you think I should make it just bittersweetness?
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How about “and a bittersweet taste that won’t easily be forgotten”?
@daeus Okay, please don’t…er, dislike me for this, but I have a suggestion for fixing the ‘everything he fights for shattered’ dilemma. It may be kinda drastic but….at the very least it might get you unstuck.
(Starting from: ‘a deep uncertainty surrounding his destiny.’)
Under* the mysterious guise of Edwin Brook, Matthew returns years later with wealth and power, ready to begin his struggle for justice and see his vengeance fulfilled. However, he soon finds everything he cherishes put up to the test** as an uncanny twist of events thwarts his every move and forces him to confront a long-hidden truth that will threaten his life.
As you can see, I’ve simply rearranged all the clauses. The only one I really changed was, ‘fulfill his vengeance,’ to ‘his vengeance fulfilled,’ which was necessary because of the new arrangement. Also, I merged ‘uncanny events’ and ‘a twist of fate’ into an ‘uncanny twist of events’.
*I switched ‘assuming’ to ‘under’ for the simple reason that the preceding sentence begins with ‘setting’. This would be two sentences in a row that begin with a verb ending in -ing, and that’s not a very attractive option in my opinion.
**This is probably the riskiest choice I made. I omitted the whole thing about what he fights for because it seemed a teensy bit unnecessary. One could argue that the reason he’s fighting is something he cherishes, and thus, has already been touched on. However, I totally understand if no one else sees it this way and thinks it’s worth mentioning.Oh, boy. I don’t know if you’ve read Josiah’s article yet, but I am the perfect picture of the female description of stress, ‘which causes an unpleasant, nauseated feeling,’.
This is simply meant to be an example of what might happen if you played around with the arrangement of the clauses, and I am very concerned I may be coming across as overly-critical. I sincerely hope that this helps!*is probably geeking out about something*
@graciegirl Oh, boy. That’s a terrible feeling. Yeah, don’t worry a bit. I like getting your critique. It takes a lot to offend me.
As for the corrections, I’ll have to give them some more thought. At the moment, I’m considering replacing the current last sentence with, “In a twist of fate, he is forced to confront the shattering of everything he fights for, the testing of everything he has ever cherished, and a long-hidden truth that will threaten his life.”
Thoughts everybody?
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@Daeus I like that replacing of the last sentence. I went through and tried to find everything it was talking about based on having read the book now and I don’t catch exactly what the long-hidden truth that will (will, not just might) threaten his life is…but I’m assuming I’m just looking at it the wrong way, so go do. I know you wouldn’t have written that if it wasn’t something. 😛
The sentence works quite nicely.
@R-J-Wordsmith What you said about the bittersweet taste sounds good, except it’s on the end of a sentence that begins ‘Edwin Brook is a tale of…’ so I’m not sure that works. To say ‘a tale of etc., etc., …and a bittersweet taste that won’t be easily forgotten.’ A tale of a bittersweet taste? I don’t know, does that work @Daeus? If it does I like it…otherwise, just ‘a bittersweetness’ sounds a little lacking, so I think it’d still sound better to find an adjective for going with it.
Extremely helpful, I know. Um…I will still let you know if I think of a good one.@daeus I like the sentence change. I do like @graciegirl’s version too… So, yes. Not much help. Just general agreement…
INTJ - Inhumane. No-feelings. Terrible. Judgment and doom on everyone.
Stirring…moving…
Wow, that’s a lot of words. 😐
I’d like stirring, or moving, or poignant bittersweetness fine…
@Daeus, I have to agree that “a tale of a bittersweet taste” isn’t really in keeping with the rest of the blurb. It’s more like a fanciful way of describing a recipe for extra-dark chocolate cookies, or bestia nera, or something. I do like @graciegirl’s suggestions, since they seem to make things a lot more concise and finally get rid of that bewildering clause.
You will draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation. (Isaiah 12:3)
@kate-flournoy *gasp* God bless you, madam! I am forever indebted. 😭
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