Using alternate words to Love, Announce, Beautiful, Delicious, and Move.
…
There was something about Felicity that had struck me from the first time I saw her, across a hall, through a crowded dance floor. Had it been the dress, or the way she stood, cigarette in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other, casually watching those on the dance floor trying to execute a fluid and in-sync waltz.
Or was it the expression of disdain?
All I knew in that moment she was the one, and it was love at first sight, for me.
A half hour later, after my sister, the reason for the gathering, announced her engagement to Mr Phillip Alexander William Thorogood, she left him to explain himself to her friends and came over to where I had been watching the proceedings.
Her engagement was entirely unexpected by me and our parents.
“So, what do you think?”
“He has too many names, and therefore must be a criminal.”
“He’s English. They all have too many names. It’s their idea of keeping the relatives of the past unforgotten, or something like that. I confess I switched off when he started on the history of the Thorogoods.”
“I hope you will be happy.”
“But you want to know about Felicity. I’ve seen you giving her that look.”
“What look?”
“She interests you. But as beautiful as she appears, I can assure you she is not. With her, beauty is only skin deep.”
“That’s hardly the way you should speak of your friends.”
“She is not my friend, she’s a relative or some such of Phillips, who came with her parents. But enough about her, have you tried the Apple cake? It’s absolutely delicious, if not divine. It’s going to be my wedding cake.”
I shook my head. She had an obsession with apples. “And what did Phillip think of that?”
“He doesn’t know yet, but he won’t care?”
I saw Felicity look in my direction, though I suspect it was directed more towards my sister. I got the impression she was here at Phillip’s parents’ behest, checking her out.
Then, a glance at me, Felicity started walking towards us.
“Oh, dear. I just don’t want to talk to her, so I will move around and mingle. Head her off at the pass, will you, Peter? There’s a good little brother.”
She went sideways, and I headed towards Felicity to head her off at the pass, happy to take one for the team.
….
Now to replace the above key words…
….
There was something about Felicity that had struck me from the first time I saw her, across a hall, through a crowded dance floor. Had it been the dress, or the way she stood, cigarette in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other, casually watching those on the dance floor trying to execute a fluid and in-sync waltz.
Or was it the expression of disdain?
All I knew in that moment she was the one, and it was love at first sight, for me.
A half hour later, my sister, Annabel, was called up, after a brief speech thanking everyone for coming, to tell the gathering in her usual coy manner that she had accepted Mr Phillip Alexander William Thorogood’s hand in marriage. Afterwards, like a deer caught in headlights, she left him to explain himself to her friends and came over to where I had been watching the proceedings.
Her engagement was entirely unexpected by me and our parents.
“So, what do you think?”
“He has too many names, and therefore must be a criminal.”
“He’s English. They all have too many names. It’s their idea of keeping the relatives of the past unforgotten, or something like that. I confess I switched off when he started on the history of the Thorogoods.”
“I hope you will be happy.”
“As much as I can see you’re dying to hear all about him, I can see you want to know about Felicity. I’ve seen you giving her that look.”
“What look?”
“The one you reserve for interesting people that won’t have anything to do with you. She may appear to have that certain thing about her, I can assure you, she can be and has been trouble for Phillip and his parents. If you want an opinion, her beauty is only skin deep.”
“That’s hardly the way you should speak of your friends.”
“She is not my friend, she’s a relative or some such of Phillips, who came with her parents. But enough about her, have you tried the Apple cake? It’s one of several cakes the bakers of my wedding cake tendered as a sample, and it’s divine. We’ve practically decided it’s going to be the wedding cake.”
I shook my head. She had an obsession with apples. “And what did Phillip think of that?”
“He doesn’t know yet, but he won’t care?”
I saw Felicity look in my direction, though I suspect it was directed more towards my sister. I got the impression she was here at the behest of Phillip’s parents and checking her out.
Then, a glance at me, Felicity started walking towards us.
“Oh, dear. I just don’t want to talk to her. You use your charm on her while I mingle. Head her off at the pass, will you, Peter? There’s a good little brother.”
She went sideways, and I headed towards Felicity to head her off at the pass, happy to take one for the team. The fact that Annabel didn’t like her made Felicity far more interesting.
Well, it’s almost over, and it’s only the first week of the King’s reign.
There’s more, but I think the tale of the wedding might consume another book, with the plots and twists it can bring
And then there’s the coronation and the missing brother. Yes, there’s every chance he’ll be thawed out and brought back to life.
Well, I doubt that can happen, but there is the spectre of his brother hanging over everything, and it’s going to play a part in the coronation.
The summer palace is going to become an international equestrian school.
Ruth is going to challenge all comers to many duels in the sword room.
And prove she’s going to be a force to be reckoned with.
Elizabeth is going to make a bid for the top job, Queen, and our new king is going to have to learn more about the country and its archaic laws, yes, we’re going back 800 years to the original charter when the land was granted to the first King.
Using alternate words to Love, Announce, Beautiful, Delicious, and Move.
…
There was something about Felicity that had struck me from the first time I saw her, across a hall, through a crowded dance floor. Had it been the dress, or the way she stood, cigarette in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other, casually watching those on the dance floor trying to execute a fluid and in-sync waltz.
Or was it the expression of disdain?
All I knew in that moment she was the one, and it was love at first sight, for me.
A half hour later, after my sister, the reason for the gathering, announced her engagement to Mr Phillip Alexander William Thorogood, she left him to explain himself to her friends and came over to where I had been watching the proceedings.
Her engagement was entirely unexpected by me and our parents.
“So, what do you think?”
“He has too many names, and therefore must be a criminal.”
“He’s English. They all have too many names. It’s their idea of keeping the relatives of the past unforgotten, or something like that. I confess I switched off when he started on the history of the Thorogoods.”
“I hope you will be happy.”
“But you want to know about Felicity. I’ve seen you giving her that look.”
“What look?”
“She interests you. But as beautiful as she appears, I can assure you she is not. With her, beauty is only skin deep.”
“That’s hardly the way you should speak of your friends.”
“She is not my friend, she’s a relative or some such of Phillips, who came with her parents. But enough about her, have you tried the Apple cake? It’s absolutely delicious, if not divine. It’s going to be my wedding cake.”
I shook my head. She had an obsession with apples. “And what did Phillip think of that?”
“He doesn’t know yet, but he won’t care?”
I saw Felicity look in my direction, though I suspect it was directed more towards my sister. I got the impression she was here at Phillip’s parents’ behest, checking her out.
Then, a glance at me, Felicity started walking towards us.
“Oh, dear. I just don’t want to talk to her, so I will move around and mingle. Head her off at the pass, will you, Peter? There’s a good little brother.”
She went sideways, and I headed towards Felicity to head her off at the pass, happy to take one for the team.
….
Now to replace the above key words…
….
There was something about Felicity that had struck me from the first time I saw her, across a hall, through a crowded dance floor. Had it been the dress, or the way she stood, cigarette in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other, casually watching those on the dance floor trying to execute a fluid and in-sync waltz.
Or was it the expression of disdain?
All I knew in that moment she was the one, and it was love at first sight, for me.
A half hour later, my sister, Annabel, was called up, after a brief speech thanking everyone for coming, to tell the gathering in her usual coy manner that she had accepted Mr Phillip Alexander William Thorogood’s hand in marriage. Afterwards, like a deer caught in headlights, she left him to explain himself to her friends and came over to where I had been watching the proceedings.
Her engagement was entirely unexpected by me and our parents.
“So, what do you think?”
“He has too many names, and therefore must be a criminal.”
“He’s English. They all have too many names. It’s their idea of keeping the relatives of the past unforgotten, or something like that. I confess I switched off when he started on the history of the Thorogoods.”
“I hope you will be happy.”
“As much as I can see you’re dying to hear all about him, I can see you want to know about Felicity. I’ve seen you giving her that look.”
“What look?”
“The one you reserve for interesting people that won’t have anything to do with you. She may appear to have that certain thing about her, I can assure you, she can be and has been trouble for Phillip and his parents. If you want an opinion, her beauty is only skin deep.”
“That’s hardly the way you should speak of your friends.”
“She is not my friend, she’s a relative or some such of Phillips, who came with her parents. But enough about her, have you tried the Apple cake? It’s one of several cakes the bakers of my wedding cake tendered as a sample, and it’s divine. We’ve practically decided it’s going to be the wedding cake.”
I shook my head. She had an obsession with apples. “And what did Phillip think of that?”
“He doesn’t know yet, but he won’t care?”
I saw Felicity look in my direction, though I suspect it was directed more towards my sister. I got the impression she was here at the behest of Phillip’s parents and checking her out.
Then, a glance at me, Felicity started walking towards us.
“Oh, dear. I just don’t want to talk to her. You use your charm on her while I mingle. Head her off at the pass, will you, Peter? There’s a good little brother.”
She went sideways, and I headed towards Felicity to head her off at the pass, happy to take one for the team. The fact that Annabel didn’t like her made Felicity far more interesting.
X is for — Xanthic. It’s the password, and to guess it, you have to know it’s yellow. The one person who knew the code was murdered
…
I stood in front of the vault door, recently installed, that, when opened, led to what we called ‘Aladdin’s cave’.
It was, in reality, just that; the gateway to a new technology that was going to change the world, the brainchild of Augustus Beatony.
We were not exactly sure what that brainchild was, except that it was going to be the next evolution in artificial intelligence, and the company, or more to the point, the consortium of public and private enterprise entities, investment of nearly a trillion dollars had diligently paid for.
The launch would be in three days, where everyone would learn what it was.
My guess, after spending the last five years handling the accounts, with almost as much secrecy surrounding them as the project itself, was that it was a computer, but not just any computer.
Many had speculated, some said they knew but wouldn’t tell, but the truth was, no one was sure. And Augustus Beatony was nowhere to be found to ask.
This development, discovered last evening when a delegation of reporters had arrived at the hall where Augustus was going to tantalise them, and us, with some non-specific details of what to expect, and found he had failed to arrive.
A search was instituted, people going to his residence, this university office, his work office, even his mistress’s residence, but no one had seen him.
The last anyone had was me. Two days ago, outside this very door, he had a special password that he was not going to share with anyone.
Including me, his most trusted friend.
Apparently, I like everyone else, could not be trusted.
And rather alarmingly, he stated that he was the only one who knew the password.
No one else. No one.
Aloysius Magreve, the man the government had appointed to oversee their interests in the project, and probably the only other person in the universe capable of understanding the technology, was standing next to me.
He had just expended a lot of energy and anger at the situation. I was not the prime target this time. It was Major General Fitzwilliam, head of the security detail, who was on the end of this tirade.
“How hard can it be to keep an eye on one man, given the resources at your disposal?”
It was a common misconception that the Major General had a whole army to throw at the problem. The truth was he did not. He was limited to six men and two women in rotation.
Augustus, on the other hand, was the Houdini of subjects being guarded, was as slippery as an eel, and was known to shake his bodyguards as easily as a bartender made cocktails
It’s not my analogy.
Major General Fitzwilliam was out looking for him. Well, not the Major General himself, but his men and women. They all thought the other was watching him. Yes, Augustus was very good at pitting them against each other.
“What does it matter,” I said. ” He will be back to open the door, and then the games will commence.”
“Games?”
“Figure of speech. He will tell us how it works.”
“You know what it is?”
“No. But we will find out soon enough.”
“You seem quite blasé about a one trillion dollar funded and unseen project that could turn out to be a glorified Atari console.”
The fact that Augustus had likened his project to just such an item was worrying in the extreme. And having heard Augustus refer to it as the world’s most expensive Atari console? I was more than a little worried that I’d given him too much attitude.
“He will turn up, don’t you worry. The man had one other fault: he loves the limelight.”
I barely made it back to my office before my cell phone rang. Major General Fitzwilliam.
“We’ve found him. I’m texting you the address.”
When I received it a minute later, I typed the address into the maps app and zoomed in on the location. An industrial estate on the edge of town.
Another quick search found that it had once been a thriving place with all manner of business, as well as a shopping mall, but a fire some years back turned the whole area into a ghost town.
Some said it was haunted, and others said it was where the drug addicts and homeless ended up, with a drug-related death at least once a week.
Our offices, the warehouse used to be there, but we moved five years ago when this new project started.
It was a twenty-minute drive, and I was the last one there. Fitzwilliam had brought a platoon of troops, and they were being deployed. What for, I was not sure, but it seemed to me they were prepping for action.
Magreve was standing beside the command truck.
“What on earth is going on?” I asked.
“Betoney’s cell came back on, and is in that building.”
He pointed to the one that had a faded sign on the wall above the door, our company name. What was he doing in our old building?
Two soldiers stood cautiously on either side of an open door, weapons ready. Five more were finishing kitting up.
“What are they doing?”
“Infra-red scan says there are three people inside. They’re going in armed and ready.
“Has someone told them they’re not to shoot him?”
“Don’t panic. The Major General has got this.”
The leader raised a hand, and when it stopped, the two men at the door went in. The other five followed. I just hoped they didn’t shoot first and ask questions later.
Seven minutes.
For seven minutes, there was nothing, and then the sound of Magreve’s communicator made a noise.
“Magreve, you there?” The commander of the team wasn’t the best at communication with civilians.
“I am.”
“You need to see this.”
“Is it bad?”
Silence then, “Get in here.”
I followed Magreve inside, where we were met by one of the soldiers, who had obviously come back to take us.
We went down several passageways towards the back of the building, the smell of waterlogged carpet, and something else. Death.
We came out into a large room, which had been a breakout area where tables and chairs had been stacked against the wall, and then in the middle of the open space, a single chair.
In it was Aloysius.
Dead.
He had died a very painful and horrific death, one that was very recent.
“We think the perpetrators are still here,” the officer whispered, “and the body is still warm.”
My God. Aloysius was dead. Just the true notion sent a chill down my spine. And the obvious question was on the tip of my tongue. “Why?”
“Because whoever kidnapped him wanted the secret technology. This is the result when a person refuses to give away his secret.”
I hadn’t realised I’d spoken the question out loud.
“Has he been…?”
“Tortured. Yes. And my guess is that he didn’t tell them anything.”
“It’s a bit late to be asking any questions or finding out what happened from him. If they got what they wanted…”
“He was kidnapped, brought here, a bit poetic, by some people who wanted to get their hands on the tech. Heart attack, by the look of it, and unexpected by the interrogators.”
“You can tell that how?”
“I recognise the work.”
I didn’t ask him to elaborate. I was a numbers man, not versed in the machinations of espionage.
A shot rang out very near to us, and then, shouting, followed by a volley of shots, one of the bullets clanged into a metal wall not far from us.
Both Magreve and I ducked. The officer headed towards the shooting.
This went on for several minutes until silence returned. Not long after that, major General Fitzwilliam returned.
“We have two suspects. It is time to clear the scene and bring in the investigators. This is a bad business, very bad indeed.”
That’s when Magreve and I were escorted out of the building, just as the first police and ambulance personnel arrived.
He was right. It was indeed a bad business. Questions were going to be asked, including the one trillion dollar question. How were we going to find out what Augustus Beatony did with the money?
If, in fact, he had not given up the password, and he was the only one with it, and the vault was set to self-destruction if it was opened any other way than with the password, we may never know.
And I knew who was going to get the blame.
Back at the office, a meeting was convened to discuss the situation. The situation was clear to me: Beatony was dead, no one had come near the vault, so he hadn’t given it up.
That meant that there was no one alive who could open the vault, so we would have to break in and hope the self-destruct didn’t work
But, knowing Beatony as I did, it would have been the first thing he made sure to work.
So…
We were up the proverbial Creek. My overtures to various people he had worked with brought up nothing new and verified that everyone hated him equally.
It was the shortest meeting for the project we had. Mangreve was given the job of approaching the vault builders to see if they had kept a back door. It was a possibility but unlikely.
My suggestion was, failing everything, I was going to wait and see if the door opened itself. It was the mother of all Hail Marys, but knowing Beatony as I did, nothing could be ignored.
For the man who thought of everything, he must have devised a day to make his work visible, even in the event of his death.
An hour before the appointed time of the reveal, Beatoney had set up nearly three months before, I sat outside the vault.
In my imagination, the night before, I’d worked through any number of possible scenarios, all of which seemed impossible because he was dead. A dead man can not get up and do stuff.
Then I went through all of the possibilities of what it might be, trying to discard the expensive Atari console type computer and then factor in all of the materials that I’d purchased.
I’d done that once before, trying to work out what it might be, but it wasn’t until the very end that I discovered he had two suppliers, both unknown to each other.
It was just another method of keeping his project results secret.
A half hour later, I was joined by Magreave and the Major General. They had been told I was hanging around the vault door, so they thought they should be there too. All the while, several technicians were studying the blueprints, the manual, the alarm schematics, looking for a way in.
At the appointed time, nothing happened.
Perhaps I’d been wrong about him. Or maybe…
From within, there were a few weird sounds that, if I were to hazard a guess, the door going through an unlocking process.
Five minutes later, the sound of the warning almost drowned out all other responses, an action designed to make people aware of the vault door opening. Getting hit by a hundred tons of metal door was going to hurt.
We stood back beyond the arc and watched the door slowly open. When it had, and the smoke had cleared, another door opened, and then…
…Beatony walked out and stopped, several paces from us.
I think, to a man, we were all just simply gobsmacked, and definitely speechless.
“Great to meet the three of you, finally. I am Augustus Beatony version two. A fully functional, lifelike Android that is faster, stronger, smarter, and able to live, work, and function indefinitely in any circumstances.”
“You do realise Augustus Beatony version one is dead.” I finally found my voice after getting over the initial shock of seeing a perfect replica of Augustus.
He had made a lifelike robot of himself. I’m not sure it was worth the trillion dollars.
“Yes. Unfortunately, but he knew his time was limited and had prepared for it. It’s why I’m here, now, to complete his work.”
“Are you not his work?”
“A small part of it. I have all the knowledge that went into building me so that we can make more and finally start exploring space. Humans can’t survive. We can.”
“So the project…” The Major General found his voice, too.
“Was to build the people and the spaceships to travel into the outer reaches of the galaxy. I have it all in my head.” The robot tapped his head. “Now take me to the briefing, and I will tell everybody how this is going to work.”
“Isn’t there a convention where robots are not supposed to be human-like?” Magreave had finally got over his astonishment.
“And you know the backers didn’t agree with that stipulation. We don’t have time for semantics. The briefing.”
I looked at Magreave and the Major General.
Both shrugged, Magreave saying, “Lifelike Robotics and artificial intelligence. Why am I not surprised?”
“Because this was what they wanted all along,” the Mahor General added. “Super soldiers.”
He turned to Augustus Beatony version two. “We can’t switch you off, can we?”
“Nor destroy me. Not without very serious consequences. Shall we go?”
He warned me, and I realised the truth in that moment. Three days before his disappearance, he said that if anything happened to him, there would be consequences. “You’re in charge now, Magreave. My involvement ended when he stepped out of the vault. May God have mercy on all our souls.”
The devil takes many forms, and our protagonist has met quite a few. In his line of work, there are few opportunities to snatch a little rest and recreation between life-and-death missions.
Coming back from a mandatory rest period, to recover from the worst of disasters that nearly cost him his life, there is time for the mortality aspect to start doing a number in his head.
It is inevitable.
And as inevitable is the slow breaking down of those beliefs in his invincibility.
But worse than that, his handler started to think he was losing his edge, enough to send a backup just in case.
And why does it have to be an enigma wrapped up in a mystery? It’s not as if to say she is there for any other reason than help in the mission, but after getting shot, and taking a cocktail of drugs and alcohol, his mind wanders.
The woman in white, that apparition that appears to be too good to be true, is dancing on the edge of his memory. Who is she? Well, in a moment of finally doing his job, keeping a watchful eye over the conference delegate, a woman from his past, he sees them together, and their chemistry together tells him it is a daughter or a special relative.
It doesn’t explain why the woman in white is there.
I have to say that just writing about Queen Isobel sent shivers down my spine.
At tome my hands were shaking over the keyboard, and I had to try very hard to find the words that might express some of that feeling and felt the despair of never being able to act on it.
In my mind, they were sharing a dance, a waltz, one where they could br together and apart when they could gaze into each other’s eyes.
I could feel that depth of feelings because it’s the same o have with the love of my life who’s been there for nearly 50 years. All it takes is a look, a nuance, a simple touch that sends an electric shock through you.
And how hard it is not to show it when out in public.
It’s why Ruth is perceptive enough to see what there is and clever enough to realise that it was not a threat. Their pact of telling the truth, no matter what, had given her his perspective, what had happened, and what it meant in a world that she could never imagine.
I’m still trying to reconcile those feelings because I’ve never quite experienced anything like it, so I could never say for sure what I would have done in similar circumstances.
Men are usually weak. Perhaps I want this king to be sometimes more than his father, who certainly would have acted on what he would have assumed was an implied offer.
And just to be clear, I never expected there would be weighty moral issues arising in this simple tale of a fourth son rising to be king.
The devil takes many forms, and our protagonist has met quite a few. In his line of work, there are few opportunities to snatch a little rest and recreation between life-and-death missions.
Coming back from a mandatory rest period, to recover from the worst of disasters that nearly cost him his life, there is time for the mortality aspect to start doing a number in his head.
It is inevitable.
And as inevitable is the slow breaking down of those beliefs in his invincibility.
But worse than that, his handler started to think he was losing his edge, enough to send a backup just in case.
And why does it have to be an enigma wrapped up in a mystery? It’s not as if to say she is there for any other reason than help in the mission, but after getting shot, and taking a cocktail of drugs and alcohol, his mind wanders.
The woman in white, that apparition that appears to be too good to be true, is dancing on the edge of his memory. Who is she? Well, in a moment of finally doing his job, keeping a watchful eye over the conference delegate, a woman from his past, he sees them together, and their chemistry together tells him it is a daughter or a special relative.
It doesn’t explain why the woman in white is there.
So here’s the deal – you’re not as good as you think you are.
…
I can attest to that. I’ve been through a story a dozen times, and still there is something to be changed, or a detail or nuance missed. Our eyes play tricks on us, they seem to see what you eant them to see rather than what is there.
It’s why we have other people look at our work.
Everyone can get hold of a style manual, a thesaurus and a dictionary.
My biggest bugbear is continuity and names, plot timing, and making sure events happen when they’re supposed to, not just when you write about it and hope it fits the timeline.
I have a problem with that right now with a story I’m writing, where people are living the events in two different time zones, and I need to get it right.
This is where a spreadsheet comes in handy, because you can use a formula to work out the time in a different time zone and run the event timeline in both zones.
It’s always great when the pilot tells you just before you land what time it is at the destination. Scary too sometimes when you’re flying from Brisbane backwards through time to London and find you’re landing 13 or so hours before. I left at 10 pm, and I’m landing at 5:30 in the morning on the same day.
And a surefire way of discovering what your text sounds like, run it through an AI text-to-speech converter and listen. When it sounds really weird, and it will at least once, then you know where to fix it.
Contrary to the myth that all witches were hags or drones, the wicked witch of nnnn swooped into their principality on her broomstick, in the guise of a Cessna citation, the private royal plane, to be greeted by the new king’s sister.
It was a calculated manoeuvre to get her to take the front line, her old partner in crime, when meting out punishment to her younger siblings.
His older sister, for that matter, had been more of a mother to him than his real mother. But with that came the bad as well as the good.
It was always clear who the dominant one was, his sister, because he knew that she was more like her father than her mother, and she had inherited her father’s sadistic streak
When the Queen arrives at the castle for the proper greeting, she appears to be anything but what he remembered of her, and it scares him.
What had his sister and her conjured up in the car from the airport to the castle?
Formalities over and confusion settling in, it’s time for the brief private discussion in the green room.
Seeing her by the drinks cabinet pouring a drink takes him back to the days of hide and seek they played together in the castle, and that very room.
A look passes between them, and they remember.
Don’t forget that as a teen, he had a crush on this woman standing before him. Now a queen, not just a crazy girl, that look between them transcended everything.
The kiss, well, not planned, not avoided, but an expression of feelings that still burned, but every so lightly they could be embers and extinguished.
So this was the reason why he never tried to hide from her. Didn’t she know, or did she guess, but not want to think about?
Her sister had expressed feelings for the new king, her sister the one one shared his first kiss, the sister he wanted more than Eleanor, and the sister who told their father, and he nearly killed her for it.
Never, never, never will another princess from his domain marry a prince from the new king’s kingdom. Ever.
The deal made over the dowry between the new king’s mother and his father had been contentious and nearly started another war.
Old rivalries never died. They simply festered.
As for their feelings for each other, back in the box and stored away, never to see the light of day.
So here’s the deal – you’re not as good as you think you are.
…
I can attest to that. I’ve been through a story a dozen times, and still there is something to be changed, or a detail or nuance missed. Our eyes play tricks on us, they seem to see what you eant them to see rather than what is there.
It’s why we have other people look at our work.
Everyone can get hold of a style manual, a thesaurus and a dictionary.
My biggest bugbear is continuity and names, plot timing, and making sure events happen when they’re supposed to, not just when you write about it and hope it fits the timeline.
I have a problem with that right now with a story I’m writing, where people are living the events in two different time zones, and I need to get it right.
This is where a spreadsheet comes in handy, because you can use a formula to work out the time in a different time zone and run the event timeline in both zones.
It’s always great when the pilot tells you just before you land what time it is at the destination. Scary too sometimes when you’re flying from Brisbane backwards through time to London and find you’re landing 13 or so hours before. I left at 10 pm, and I’m landing at 5:30 in the morning on the same day.
And a surefire way of discovering what your text sounds like, run it through an AI text-to-speech converter and listen. When it sounds really weird, and it will at least once, then you know where to fix it.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 