27 Comments

Dane, very compelling scene! I’m starting on part 2 now.

I agree that jumping straight into the action is the way to go (especially with a scene like this!) It’d immediately pull the reader in and consequently make the context more satisfying since they’d feel like they knew the narrator better by feeling like they went through this traumatic experience with them.

Thanks for sharing!

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Aug 2, 2022Liked by Chuck Palahniuk

Chuck, thanks so much. I just willy nilly sent this excerpt in thinking it’d never get seen. One of my literary heroes editing anything I’ve written is unreal.

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To help root out “using too many forms of IS” would somebody literally search ‘is’ in their manuscript and try to restructure the sentences where ‘is’ appears? Should we look to nuke ‘is’ wherever possible?

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founding

Hi Dane! Thanks for sharing "Saint Vrain Street Rapture!" Really nice job. I'm in agreement that the scene is the way to start. Once I reached that part of your story, I couldn't put it down. At the end, I was left curious, and wanting to know what happens next. Keep it up!

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thanks for sharing, Dane. this was a lot of fun to read!

Chuck — i'm grateful to hear you speak on how to world-build and introduce objects. it makes a lot of sense to avoid setting things up and to instead just let your character interact with the constructed world.

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founding

Great stuff, Dane! I look forward to reading more. And thanks again, Chuck! Wednesday is my midweek writing day, and you have a wonderful tendency of hitting us with some wisdom early in the week. It really helps launch my Wednesday. I’m excited to visit Portland again! I’ll try to bring some cool weather with me.

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