I was happy. Life was good. I had a beautiful twenty-two year old daughter, a successful practice, numerous friends, and a nice home. Now I have nothing to speak of, all because of those evil boys.

My daughter is dead though she died months before her death.

My practice is dwindling because I’m rarely there to treat patients.

My friends I’ve alienated.

My home is empty.

I’ll never be happy again. Life is over for me. And, is or will be, over for a few others.

I stand corrected. I do have something to live for—my quest for justice.

This society will not provide justice for my daughter. No. She has no proof. No witness. Nothing but her word. Not enough evidence to arrest, much less convict. I know how the system works, and she did too. Yes. It’s up to me to make things right again.
—Lanetta J. Sprott

Developmental Edit

This sets us up like a rubber ball on a high dive.

Tense? check
Clear? check
Raises a question? check What happened to the daughter?
Drop-kicks us off the end? check The dead daughter has something to say? So cool!

What does this paragraph tell us about the book we’re starting? Some adult old enough to have a twenty-two-year-old daughter has lost almost everything they value over something that happened to kill their daughter. This character knows whom they blame, and they have made the decision to “make things right again,” whatever that means to them. There’s a reference to “evil” boys, which could be either hyperbole or an indicator of the paranormal. There’s also a reference to “this society” not providing “justice,” terms that aren’t defined in this context.

Do I want to follow this character through a whole novel? I don’t know yet. If this character is just self-righteous and prone to hyperbole, probably not. However, if this is a character with their back against the wall fighting paranormal murderers with the aid of a daughter who continues to speak and bear witness after she’s dead, then, yeah, I’m interested!

Genre? Revenge thriller, possibly paranormal.

Do we need to know who the character is, how they got here, where they were before? I wouldn’t mind more specific details. I’d like to know how this character is different from everyone else who ever had beautiful grown kids, a successful practice, friends, and a nice home (whatever that means to them) and lost it all.

Do we need to know what the character’s going to do next? I’d like to meet them, see them in action in a scene. So far, I really don’t have a grasp on their personality at all.

Does this paragraph drop us right smack in a specific moment in this character’s story? No. This is mood-setting.

So let’s talk about the structure of it. It’s a series of emphatic simple statements, building to a longer paragraph that fills out some of the subject matter. That’s nice use of sentence structure to create tension! However, there is some real question about whether or not this is an interesting protagonist, someone with clear judgment, an intriguing conflict to deal with, and real backbone to fulfill that promise about justice. I’m going to assume that it’s an interesting protagonist and the use of the abstractions “evil” and “justice” are there not to be taken at face value as abstractions, but to create a noir effect. Can this be made shorter and snappier, focused on the protagonist’s need, while maintaining reader interest and sympathy?

Copy & Line Edit

I was happy. Life was good. I had a beautiful twenty-two-year-old daughter, a successful practice, friends, a nice home.

Now my daughter is dead—she died months before her death.

My practice is dwindling.

My friends I’ve alienated.

My home is empty.

This society will not make things right. My daughter has no proof, no witness, nothing but her word. Not enough evidence to arrest, much less convict. I know how the system works, and she did, too. But I do have something to live for—

—justice.