Hi everyone, I just wanted to share a portion of one of the chapters from the as of yet untitled novel I am working on. Norma is one of my favorite characters and this portion introduces you to her and her boss Mr. Thornton. I would just like an opinion on the writing style, good/bad/ugly/start over again kind of thing. I appreciate all the input I get from my Tweeter friends, you are the best. Now, please meet Norma and Mr. Thornton.
“Norma, Norma, where the hell are you Norma?” was the piercing sharp command of Mr. Thornton through the intercom.
Jumping quickly to her feet from her desk at the outer office, smoothing her gray knock-off designer suit down and quickly pushing the wrinkles from the fabric turning to do a quick check in the mirror before moving towards Thornton’s office. Nobody ever kept Mr. Thornton waiting, it just wasn’t allowed Norma thought as she pushed open the double leather covered doors of his office. She walked quickly into his office her steno pad and pencil in hand.
The office was to say the least, opulent, probably some would say to the point of being gaudy. A large bookcase along one wall contained a few random books but also housed some rare pieces of china from the obscure Tang Dynasty that Thornton loved to collect although it was expensive to buy even from the questionable dealers Thornton dealt with.
The bookcase also held an endless array of artifacts and native art from Trinidad and Tobago and she couldn’t help but think that mix of China and Native Art made for an odd-looking office.
“Yes Mr. Thornton” she looked at the figure behind the large rich wood desk; he had just turned 60, his hair long ago turned gray but was always neatly coiffed. He was obviously a fit man, his shoulders broad and square and Norma guessed he was at almost six feet tall because on those rare occasions when they would stand near each other he towered over her by almost a foot. Thornton’s Gucci Italian suit was impeccable with the silk tie neatly hung around his neck. Yes Thornton had aged well she thought to herself and he dressed himself to look as successful as he was.
She had worked for him just a couple of years now and she still didn’t know anything about this man. He wasn’t married and there were no pictures on his desk, or anywhere in his office, that would indicate an ex-wife children a hobby anything. Norma had replaced a woman who retired but didn’t get any time to overlap with the woman. As Norma walked in that first day Sue walked out tossing her keys to some cabinets and the building and wishing her well. As there was no other secretaries on the floor that occupiedThornton’s office she could not get any information about her mysterious boss. Initially she admitted that this bothered her since she liked to know things about men, good and bad, secrets, passions, kinks and that was especially true for powerful men like Mr. Thornton.
Thornton was a pain in the ass to work for though he was always yelling for her through the intercom and on several occasions he was mean and rude to her, questioning her abilities as a Personal Assistant either in private or in front of Clients. The job with Health Care One paid very well and she didn’t mind having to put up with his terse demeanor, the money was worth it. Inwardly smiling to herself as she thought that the “perks” weren’t bad either.
Thornton looked up from his desk and barked “the Braddock file, where the hell is it, I had it out here 30 minutes ago, what have you done with it?”
Moving to the side of the big desk she looked at the huge piles of files. After shuffling a few folders she found the missing file and handed it to Mr. Thornton without comment.
“Very good, thank you Norma, sit down I have a letter I need you to take”. Thornton was the kind of man you didn’t argue with and she fully understood that. She wasn’t sure if she liked that confident cocky attitude that bordered on arrogance that he possessed either but she reasoned that some women would probably think it was sexy. Not Norma, her tastes in men ran a little different from that.
Ramblings,Reviews and Interviews 
Dear Peter, Personally you described Mr Thornton to a T, however as a reader If you told me he looked like he stepped out of a “Soprano”s episode I would have a picture of him immediately. Too many words for me. I like one simile or metaphor that describes perfectly and then delve into the story. Describing the desk etc. is unnecessary info for me the reader. Only my personal preferences. Maybe I have A D D , however I get frustrated when there are 500 words to read when it could have been done in 50. I, as a reader love to get to the heart of things ASAP. Hope this helps~no disrespect intended!!! #cyberhug
Kathleen Hagburg
Oh no Kathleen, no disrespect taken, thank you very much for the comments, I have heard it from one other tonight already too. Thanks so much for the input I am going to rework some of the passages now with exactly your point in mind. ~hugs~ thanks
Hi Peter. I read through what you wrote and have a few comments. Of course what I say is just my opinion. And you should never change anything just because of one person’s opinion.
My first thought was the second paragraph starting with “Jumping”–that first sentence was off to me. It felt like a run on sentence with too much stuff happening, that could be broken into two sentences. Okay, now to the meat–I felt like you could have a good beginning here, but the action was lost in all the description. The description slows the pacing. In my opinion it would be better to sketch in a few details of the office, a sentence or two, then let the readers mind fill in the rest. And be careful your… Norma’s gone into the office many times during her employment with Mr. Thornton so she’s not even going to notice the decorations at this point. So it feels a bit inauthentic for her to be describing everything in such detail and how tall he is. Does that make sense? It’d be different if Mr. Thornton was standing at the book case admiring one of his fancy Tang Dynasty pieces, then she could notice that because that would be odd for him to be standing which would lead to her thinking about how tall he is. Does any of that make sense?
Again, everything I’ve said is just an opinion. And you know what they say about opinions. This is your story. Always do what feels right to you.
Good Luck with Norma and Mr. Thornton.
I forgot to say–very clever idea asking for comments through twitter. I’d love to know how it works out for you. I might try it too.
I will let you know, and I will show ALL comments here. Thanks again for stopping by.
Thanks Abbie, very, very good comments, I am beginning to understand a lot clearer now where I have to work on my style. The comments I have received are extremely valuable to me and I appreciate them all. I feel I should give credit to all of you when I get my book out on the market. Thanks again for the comments and I hope you poked around the blog a bit.
High Pete. I like the description and the building up of the personalities. A little more physical description of Norma may enhance the work. One thing I am guilty of is repetition and it occurs with two or three words above eg. office, woman, Thornton. It may help the work flow if you insert the occasional alternative. I do like it and I’m interested in where this is heading. Well done!
Hi David, and thanks for stopping by and giving me your opinion, I value all of the opinions I get from my friends. In another chapter I do get into Norma a bit more, her uhmmm tendencies if you will. I will take your advice on the switching up of words, I had never looked at it from that perspective, I think we all get a bit too involved in our work sometimes and just assume the reader understands, or heck, maybe we aren’t even writing it with the reader in mind, only our own self gratification. Thanks again for the visit and the great comment.
Finally made it over here. Whew! Sorry I’m late.
I love it! I think with a healthy dose of commas here and there, and some breaking up of some long sentences in two, it’ll be nice!
I don’t mind description, I think it helps paint the picture, but others find it disingenuous sometimes. I like the verbose as well as the sparse. I think it’s all in the author’s style and yours is very good.
I think it rocks. I see her, I see him, I see the room, and I know the characters. Very good. 😀
Thanks Marueen, I guess that is what I was trying to do all along, give a description of the setting, the characters. I could compare them to others as suggested in another comment and I suppose that would work too, but interestingly enough I have never seen an episode of the Sopranos 🙂 but I know what the characters are meant to protray. I think my edit will be something between the verbose and sparse if that makes sense. Thanks for your valued opinion and as always thanks for stopping by.
Well you just keep doing what you’re doing, it’s lovely! 😉
Aww thanks, as usual you are a big supporter, thanks.
Peter, I think you are off to an awesome start. I can picture Mr. Thorton, but would like a clearer picture of Norma. You’ve gotten some great feedback in the above comments. I’m looking forward to reading more.
Wow, thanks for the compliment. In fact I kind of accidently mis-named my post, I had introduced Norma in a previous part of the novel, this was the first time you run into Thornton though. I have had some great feedback and I appreciate your comments as well as all the others. And anyone reading this that hasn’t been to your blog is missing a wonderful experience. Thanks again.
Peter,
Great start! Mr. Thornton is a dynamic character, and we see him pretty clearly here. My question about Norma was answered above, so I won’t get into that as long as you have painted a clear picture of her at some earlier point. I agree and disagree that there is too much description. By that I mean, with a little wordsmithing, you can come up with a more concise narrative while still giving us Thornton. I do agree that the office description slows down the pace a bit, though.
Fine tuning those two elements and doing a sweep for more commas will polish this into a fine work. Can’t wait to read more! Oh, by the way, I’d also be interested in how this works out for you, as far as asking for ciritque on your blog.
Best of luck!
Melissa
Hi Melissa, some really good comments, thanks. I am getting the general concensus about the wordiness of the excerpt I provided. I do tend to ramble a bit and I never thought of it as slowing the pace but you make an excellent point. I am going to play with this exact portion of the chapter and see how it looks, maybe even post it again for comparison and additional comment.
You have seen all the responses I have recieved so far, I think it is fantastic the support and advice I have been getting. It definitely exposes you to criticism but thats an exercise we all have to go through eventually.
Thanks for the visit, check back to see what others have added.
Hey, the thing I noticed is a major lack of punctuation that made reading your sentences rather difficult. Commas and semi-colons, or even just breaking the sentences up, would add a much nicer flow.
Dani, first of all welcome to my blog, and secondly thank you so much for taking the time to read my post and respond. Your comments are in line with others in here and I am learning more and more from each and every one of you. Thanks again, and I am on my way shortly to check out your blog. 🙂