Katie had just taken the first bite of cake when the world stopped. Focused on the chocolate icing melting on her tongue, it took a moment to assimilate the absence of sound in the room. She looked up from her plate and stared at the party guests frozen in time. The streamers and balloons, printed with a cheery ‘happy 18th birthday’ message, hung motionless in the still air. The plate slipped from her fingers, spilling the gooey mess onto the light beige carpet.

Gary stood before her, halted in mid-sentence. Katie could see all the way back to his tonsils. Eww…

“Gary?” He didn’t move. She tapped him on the shoulder, lightly at first but then harder when he didn’t respond. He toppled over as she pushed, falling face-first into the cake she’d dropped.
—Laura Eno

Developmental Edit

I love him going face-first into the gooey mess. That’s a great moment of slapstick! Which is hard to do in words.

Tense? check
Specific?check
Raises a question? check What do you mean, the world stopped?
Drop-kicks us off the end? check Face-first into GOO?

What does this paragraph tell us about the book we’re starting? A female character named Katie is at an 18th birthday party when, apparently, time freezes. She is the only person who can move. She accidentally knocks a male character named Gary onto his face when she tries to get his attention.

Do I want to follow this character through a whole novel? I don’t really know Katie, but I like that she’s not hysterical and that her first reaction to the end of the world is to accidentally knock someone on their face in cake.

Genre? Sci fi.

Do we need to know who the character is, how they got here, where they were before? I think we have enough clues. We should find out pretty quick whether this is Katie’s birthday party or someone else’s, which might be important to whatever triggered this.

Does this paragraph drop us right smack in a specific moment in this character’s story? And how! Where were YOU the day the world stopped?

So let’s talk about the structure of it. It’s got a nice voice to it—I don’t usually include words like “uh” or “ew,” but in this case it succinctly captures the character’s response, giving us a clue not only to her lack of hysteria but also her age, in just one word. Nice! I’m just going to streamline this a bit to keep it focused on the point, which is that the world has stopped and Gary is consequently going down in a funny way.

Copy & Line Edit

Katie had just taken the first bite, chocolate icing melted on her tongue, when the world stopped. It took a moment to notice the silence in the room. She stared around. Streamers and balloons, ‘Happy 18th Birthday,’ hung motionless in the still air. Her plate slipped, a gooey mess spilling onto the carpet.

Gary stood in front of her, frozen in mid-sentence. Katie could see all the way to his tonsils. Ew. . .

“Gary?”

He didn’t move.

She tapped him on the shoulder, lightly at first, then harder. He toppled over, face-first, into the cake she’d dropped.