Sherman Hated This Town—

From Jeannette Bennett-Farley:

Sherman hated this town, he hated his life, but most of all, he hated this job. He looked over the counter at the customer. “Would you like fries with that?”

“Ha! That’s priceless!” The woman grinned at him. “They actually made you say that back then—I mean, back now? Well, you know what I mean.” She looked up at the menu board again. “Ooh, wait! Can I change that order? Instead of a Filet-O-Fish can I have a Big Mac? What is a Big Mac anyway?”

Most customers seemed to melt into a blur to Sherman, but this one stood out. She wasn’t young, but she wasn’t real old either. Her looks were pretty average. She was dressed in overalls, but Sherman had seen that before with all the farms around here. Perhaps it was her attitude. She acted like she had never seen a McDonalds before.

Developmental Edit

I love the tension between cranky Sherman and the ebullient woman in overalls!

Tense? check
Mysterious? check
Raises a question? check: What does she mean: “back then”?
Drop-kicks us off the end? check: How could anyone who speaks English not have seen a MacDonald’s before?

What does this paragraph tell us about the book we’re starting? A male character named Sherman who hates basically everything meets a female character of indeterminate age wearing overalls at his job at McDonald’s. The female character seems quite chipper, especially compared to Sherman.

Do I want to follow this character through a whole novel? I’m not sure about a character who hates everything, but I like the character in overalls who thinks scripted junk food service is pricelessly funny! And the tension between the two is great.

Genre? I’m going to guess time travel sci fi.

Do we need to know who the character is, how they got here, where they were before? Oh, I think I know enough about Sherman. This focuses pretty nicely on the character in overalls who may never have seen a McDonald’s, which I find quite interesting.

Do we need to know what he’s going to do next? Please tell me he’s going to get more information out of Overalls Woman!

Does this paragraph drop us right smack in a specific moment in this character’s story? Without a doubt. We’re at McDonald’s, and we’re offering a side of fries.

So let’s talk about the structure of it. I like the voice: “real old.” That’s good! And I think we’ve got a nice solid character conflict here between Mr. Grumpy and The Priceless Grinner. Don’t put a dialog tag before dialog unless it’s absolutely necessary. There’s also an extraneous “oh” and “well,” we’ve got three “but” constructs in three sentences in a row, and two “before’s.” Those two “befores” are going to be difficult to sort out. But other than that this is pretty clean!

Copy & Line Edit

Sherman hated this town, he hated his life, but most of all, he hated this job. He looked over the counter.

“Would you like fries with that?”

“Ha! That’s priceless!” The woman grinned at him. “They actually made you say that, back then—I mean, back now? You know what I mean.” She looked up at the menu board again. “Wait! Can I change that order? Instead of a Filet-O-Fish can I have a Big Mac? What is a Big Mac, anyway?”

Most customers melted into a blur to Sherman, but not this one. She wasn’t young, and she wasn’t real old either. Her looks were pretty average. She was dressed in overalls—Sherman had seen plenty of that, with all the farms around here. Perhaps it was that she acted like she had never seen a McDonalds before.