The rules: find out how many times the word "look" appears in your manuscript or work-in-progress. Then, post your favorite three paragraphs with the word "look" in it. Tag 5 other writers and let them know they were tagged.
I'm going to do a search on my work-in-progress, Kiss from the Grave, to see how often I use the word "look." I have a feeling the number will be staggering and every character will be looking somewhere. Yikes! This should be interesting, so here it goes.
My WIP is currently 30,000 words, and in those words some form of "look" is used 100 times. Ok, not as bad as I thought it would be for a first draft. But if you figure an average young adult story is 60,000 words, my "look" count could be as high as 200. Yikes!
Here are some passages (and keep in mind this is a really rough WIP--meaning not edited)
1. Ivar snapped his head around, looking at her. Bee’s black hair was held in a low ponytail and her hood was draped over her head. She clasped onto our scythe as it was her lifeline, staring back at Ivar.
2. “I looked forward to destroying Ivar, but first I would tear him with my scythe and make sure he had a bigger gash than me, and then I would slam him on his face.” Anger boiled within me. Darkness swirled and Bee was slamming her soul into my mind trying to suppress it down. The ice that pierced into my chest spread through my veins. It spread as waves covered a beach taking the sand with it. Ivar controlled me and I wanted it to end. End it I would.
3. Above ground the first nor’easter of the season was barreling down over the state. Wind whipped the snow around into white out conditions. The only cars on the road were that of Grim Reapers. Even the cemetery looked to be a white wasteland except for Bee who stuck out like a black dot on a white paper.
Hmm, after assessing my "looks" I had a talk with my characters. I told them to stop looking around, and just get rid of the bad ancient grim reapers who is bothering everyone, and get on with the happy ever after! Yeah, I told them. *grins*
Now, I'm tagging some of you to "look"
4 comments:
Great little excerpts.
Yay! I've been busily annihilating all the "look" from a critique partner's work, so this is a great opportunity to pause and figure out how much of a hypocrite I am. Probably a big one. =P Thanks for the tag, Kerri.
Thank you for participating, Kerri! It was an eye opener for me. I really like these excerpts, especially the second one.
Oh my goodness...I have a feeling that this is going to turn out to be a scary number of "looks" for me :)
Phew. I'm glad you didn't tag me. Really : ) Thank goodness for wordsearch though. Indispensible tool
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