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13

Even though you notice the problem in the first words (in the subjects of the sentences), I think the problem is elsewhere: Each of the first five sentences has a verb that reminds that we're in Adele's head. But we already know we're in Adele's head, so these reminders are unnecessary, and they weaken the sentences. Consider this edit, which removes all ...


7

I would find it annoying, or annoyingly convenient, to be switching POVs repeatedly, particularly just for one sentence. I think even when you have an omniscient narrator, you need to stick with one person per scene, or per beat. When you read a story, you are kind of sitting on the shoulder of whoever is the focus of a scene, and if the POV jumps from A ...


6

You have a few things going on here: 1) If the story is first-person, your problem is solved. We rarely address ourselves by our given names in internal monologues. 2) If your story is in third person, then you have a cultural issue. The children may not get official Names (Starfall, Willow, Runs With Scissors) until they do something to earn it. But you ...


2

Depending on what happens in your opening scenes, you may be able to refer to him as "the boy" or "the unnamed person" or some such. But: How do you suppose that the people in this culture refer to those who don't yet have names? If you're in the person's presence, you could point and say "him", but what if you're not? The fact that you are struggling with ...


2

It's a good question. It is something I have seen done - for instance, I have recently been re-reading some of David Weber's Honor Harrington series. He uses this occasionally to show the reaction of a character to events. Sometimes it's quite satisfying - but if not used very carefully, it can make the reader confused. A lot of what your omniscient narrator ...


2

Normally I'd say "none", 3rd person is fairly easy, easier than 1st, so you should be fine but... You're rewriting into a 3rd person partially omniscent with access to two minds. Ouch. Ouch again. That's what I tried to do just recently, thinking "It will be fine". It backfired. It's neither a proper omniscent, nor a proper partially omniscent. I was ...


2

Check out the book The Art of Styling Sentences. It's a bit formulaic way of forming dynamic sentences where they show you twenty sentence patterns and where and how to use them. To quote from the book description: The authors review the fundamentals of good sentence structure and then go on to describe twenty basic sentence patterns that encompass ...


2

I love Dale's revision. What I also find useful and can help move the scene along is to start the sentence with the verb - it lends a feel of action: ... Sitting down, looking back at the moon, she now knew that she’d been left alone in the world, waiting for the moon to fall from the sky.



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