Saturday, October 27, 2012

More opportunity to voice your opinion.

A couple days ago I asked about covers. Today, it's about the description for Freedom Does Matter.

A year and a half after Mercenaries: A Love Story, Beckie Sverdupe has been working with her fiancĂ© Ian Jamse while attending college. While enjoying her summer vacation, she gets a message: while negotiating an Egyptian land dispute, Ian’s been shot!
Beckie conquers her fear for Ian by stepping into his position at the negotiations. The first day, she successfully fights off the same assassin, and captures her. Beckie discovers that small victory will swirl her into a maelstrom of revenge, intolerance and hate—chaos which she must calm before she can react to the threads unveiled. Fraught with natural disasters and horror in Egypt, beatings and acts of war in London and heartache and intolerance at home, Beckie’s quest to complete the negotiations and expose the assassin reveals, not only personal demons which she must subdue, but a credible threat to the fragile Middle Eastern peace which must be defused. Freedom takes on a new meaning for Beckie, who’s never faced the loss of it so starkly.

Freedom Does Matter is an older YA or NA action adventure, and is recommended for readers 15+ due to language and adult situations.


As always, comments are welcome, especially if they give me an idea about improving the description.

Thanks!

3 comments:

  1. GURK. There is waaaay too much info in this small piece of writing.

    First, from a technical point of view, consider this:

    A year and a half after Mercenaries: A Love Story, Beckie Sverdupe has been working with her fiancĂ© Ian Jamse WHILE attending college. WHILE enjoying her summer vacation, she gets a message: WHILE negotiating an Egyptian land dispute, Ian’s been shot!

    That... is a lot of redundancy. Not to mention you have two extra long sentences mashed together from 4-6 other sentences by using ":"... TWICE!

    Aside from telling us the first hook - Ian's been shot! - you go onto tell what I feel is the entire rest of the book. I came away trying to figure out exactly what I should focus on - the love story? the weather patterns? is there a conspiracy? wait, no it's about a land deal... or an assassin? or revenge? maybe about the vague "intolerance" mentioned? Err..?

    If I were to rewrite this blurb, it would look like something like this:

    ***
    Beckie Sverdupe has enjoyed life with her fiance Ian while balancing work and education. During a much needed rest she's shocked when she receives a (note? phone call? memo? e-mail?): Ian's been shot!
    Now, she finds herself in a race against assassination, heartache and even the fury of nature. For Beckie, freedom has never mattered so much.
    ***

    But, I'm just one person. Use my suggestions or don't :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, JE. Sorry to be away for a couple days.

      Thanks for this analysis. I guess we don't always see words other than 'said.' Like 'while.' I can't believe almost 3% of the words are 'while!'

      I won't use it verbatim, but I'll certainly take the advice and example to heart.

      Thanks again!

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    2. Glad to hopefully help, hope I don't sound like a total jerk/ponce!!

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