Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for language.
And here we have the problem with NaNo novels: you're going for word count. So I could babble to my heart's content regardless of how relevant the details I was babbling about were to the story. I feel like some of this could be cut, and yet I'm quite attached to most of it. Sienna's work with neurotoxins becomes crucial later, and both Nia and Paeton play big roles in the story, so I don't want to cut much about them. But I am legendarily bad at knowing what to cut and what to leave, so advice on that is welcome, as are comments about whether or not Sienna's voice is consistent. I especially worry that it sounds too clinical when she's describing her lab work, because while most labsters slip into Science Speak when talking about our work, it might be distracting to a reader.
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None of that changed the fact that Sienna was running late. Not that she’d be chastised, as she technically didn’t even have to be in lab until after her first class, but she had been hoping to get to one of her own experiments. When she had cottoned on to the fact that her lab mentor's research wasn't promising, she had managed to pick up the project of a former lab tech who had gone on to bigger and better things, and she was hoping it would yield some promising results.
But not if she didn’t get her ass to lab. She raced around her dorm room, fastening the silver ankh necklace she wore every day around her neck, hastily plaiting her long hair into a single lopsided braid, and brushing her teeth so quickly it would have made her pre-dental friends wince. With a harried good-bye to Wendy, Sienna swung her backpack onto her back and hustled out the door to her room. She bolted out the back door of the house and took off for the lab at full speed on her bike.
Weschler Hall was the main biology building, but thanks to “security concerns” or some bullshit, neuroscience was in a side building called Bhattarchayya Hall. On Tuesday and Friday mornings, Sienna cursed this fact using some of the foulest language she knew. “There’s my favorite thundercloud face,” said the girl on sign-in duty as Sienna stormed into Weschler Hall's foyer. Sienna tried to turn her “thundercloud” face into an apologetic one and signed her name. She cited her reason for being in lab outside of class hours as “working on special studies”; after all, her little neurotoxin project could very well turn into a special studies project if she cried at Dean Terkildsen enough.
Paeton was already in lab, bent over a Western blot. As usual, Sienna eyed Paeton’s buzzed hairstyle and envied her lack of need to put her hair back for lab work. Sienna's hand unwittingly flew to her long braid and she gave it a squeeze, as if reassuring it that she wouldn't cut it off. She waited until Paeton finished loading the wells before saying, “Hi, Paeton.”
Paeton turned around and Sienna felt herself relax muscles she hadn’t known were tensed. “Hey, Sienna. Don’t look so freaked; I won't yell at you for interrupting. I heard you come in.”
Sienna looked down at her decidedly quiet bright red Converse sneakers. “You must have hearing like a bat.”
Paeton grinned, her bright white teeth contrasting with her deep brown skin. “My parents used to call me ‘eagle ears’,” said Paeton. “They hated it because I could usually hear them fucking.”
Sienna wrinkled her nose. “Gross, Paeton.”
“Damn right, ‘gross’. Might be why I turned out to be an ace dyke.”
Sienna laughed. "I'm not sure that's how it works."
“You working with your neurotoxins today, or more CRISPR?” Paeton asked.
“Neurotoxins now, CRISPR later.”
Paeton shook her head good-naturedly. “You say ‘CRISPR’ like you were saying ‘dog shit’. What would you do if Gianni hadn’t left his project here?”
Sienna blinked; she hadn’t thought she sounded particularly cranky while mentioning her assigned project. “I don’t think he’d take all those samples with him to Mayo Clinic—“
“You mean Mayo Graduate School?”
“Yeah, whatever the hell it’s called. If he hadn’t gotten that job, the lucky bastard, I’d be pestering him about it and asking to help enough that I could still include working on it on my own application to Mayo.”
“You’re interested in Mayo Grad School?”
“Yeah, why not?”
Paeton whistled. “Girl, you’re applying to too many places. You’ll be up to your ass in application fees.”
Sienna groaned. “Don’t remind me. Anyway, I’m late, and I should get going.”
“Good luck getting anything done, Miss White Rabbit.”
It took Sienna a moment to figure out what Paeton meant by that comment. “’White Rabbit’? Paeton, the Disney Alice in Wonderland movie came out in…like, the 40s.”
“1951, and it’s a classic!”
Sienna put her earbuds in, selected one of her ska playlists, and cranked the volume to a level that was probably unsafe, hoping it would motivate her to move fast enough to set up an experiment quickly. When she had started at Emberdale, she had thought that being slow and methodical was good for science. But no, apparently in order to get experiments started, running, and finished on time, you had to be Speedy fucking Gonzalez.
She was working on making small changes to the structures of several harmless proteins to see if she could turn them into something similar to—or, hopefully, identical to—a toxin called conatoxin-G. Unfortunately, the setup for the experiment she had planned for the day was so time-consuming that even her ska playlist didn’t help. Sienna realized this within a few minutes of rushing around the lab at a speed that would have impressed a professional sprinter. She replaced all her lab equipment, muttering curses even dirtier than those she had leveled against the hallway to Bhattarchayya.
Sienna slipped out of the lab through the back door so Paeton wouldn’t see her and know she had failed to set up her experiment in time. Paeton wouldn't judge you, she told herself, but the tears of frustration and guilt came anyway. Blinking rapidly, she climbed onto her bike and headed toward the student center café. After all, she had time for breakfast now, and maybe the TV in the café would be turned to SWBC so she would get to see more on the Psych Squad. And maybe Shamika James, whose sister was a Psych, would be reporting. Sienna didn’t particularly feel like hearing any more bullshi—editorializing from Collingsworth.
The TV in the café turned out to be playing a crime show, but it was one that Sienna had loved in high school. Sienna ordered breakfast and a large latte with cinnamon syrup and candy red hots (a Valentine’s Day special, as February had just hit and Sienna was already glaring at the multitudes of red and pink hearts draped over and taped on every possible surface). While she waited, she watched the show and recited the dialogue along with the characters in a low voice. The boy sitting beside Sienna scooted away. Considering the nature of the crime the characters were discussing, Sienna didn’t blame him, but she kept it up.
“Sienna! Hey, Sienna! Is that you? Howzit?”
Sienna’s mood lightened immediately as she swiveled around in her chair to greet the small, thin, black-haired embodiment of cheeriness who immediately hugged her tightly. “Hey, Nia. Wow, you give good hugs. I’ve had a garbage morning, but I already feel better.”
“Awww.” Nia gave Sienna a sisterly peck on her cheek. “Did you not have time for the elution?”
The boy who had edged away from Sienna shot them a disgusted look, threw his book into his backpack, and snarled "That's sick!" at Sienna and Nia before stomping off. Sienna’s right hand curled into a fist.
"You can't unlock the cause of Psychic Ability Syndrome from prison, wahine," Nia reminded her with a squeeze to her shoulder.
"Homophobic prick," Sienna muttered, but she turned back to Nia.
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140,903 Literary Works • 673,707 Reviews
Hey there, GeorgiaMasonIII, and Happy Review Day! I too have constantly blabbered on whilst writing my NaNo novels, but it's actually a good thing! Even if you cut heaps from your final draft, you still would have added extra detail to your story's world or plot, and that knowledge will definitely show through in the text that you do keep. I'll type out my thoughts as I read through, and will absolutely look out for things to cut.
But not if she didn’t get her ass to lab.
I thought 'lab' might have been a sort of nickname for 'the lab', but if that's the case it needs to be capitalised. Otherwise, you forget 'the' in front of 'lab', which is a really important word!
it would have made her pre-dental friends wince.With a harried good-bye to Wendy,
You forgot a space. Also, while I'm talking about that paragraph, I really liked your mention of the smaller details, such as her necklace and the way she wears her hair. Though not necessary to the plot, they help me to get to know your character better and to create a vivid scene in my mind's eye.
Paeton was already in lab, bent over a Western blot.
Here's another case of 'the lab'.
Paeton turned around and Sienna felt herself relax tensed muscles she hadn’t known were tensed.
You only need to mention 'tense' once, otherwise it's too repetitive. I would reword it to: Paeton turned around and Sienna felt herself relax muscles she hadn't known were tensed.
(a Valentine’s Day special, as February had just hit and Sienna was already glaring at the multitudes of red and pink hearts draped over and taped on every possible surface).
You asked, so here's something that could be cut, but I don't think it's necessary. Though the date doesn't particularly matter to the story (unless she's about to receive a Valentine), it's still a nice touch.
“1951, and it’s a classic!”
In fact, here's a place you could actually add some more words! If you wanted to add some more character info for Paeton, you could say why he likes old movies so much. I would be interested in knowing.
That's all I found to mention. Overall, it was a well written chapter!
There's no way you could know the strange ways of lab rats, but in the world of lab science, we just call it "lab". We go to lab, we work in lab, we leave lab. There's no "the". Because we're weird.
I agree about the repetition of "tensed", though; definitely unnecessary. And maybe I will add more about Paeton's fondness for old Disney movies. (Was it not obvious that Paeton is a woman? Because she is. If I failed to convey that, I should fix it.)
Thanks for the review!
Thanks for the review!
Eek, I'm sorry! No, it wasn't obvious, and I just assumed she was a boy.
Onward! I see what you mean about word count. I think you're already sensing that you have a lot that can be cut. Sometimes it just takes that other person to tell you, "Yes! Cut cut cut! You know what you need to do!"
A submission like this makes me want to do in-line comments, because there's not really one or two great examples so much as an overall feel. I think there are two things contributing to the "bloatiness" of this chapter:
1. There's a lot of REDUNDANCY
2. There's a lot of TELLING rather than showing
I'd say each is contributing equally, and in different spots through the piece. I agree that it has that Nano-novel "feel." I think honing your eye for trimming and condensing will really make your writing shine.
The plot, setting, and characters are all pretty good. I especially thought the characterization of everybody was strong, and I think that's the best part. I already like everybody who's been introduced. Potentially the events of this chapter are a bit slow and meandery, but I think that will improve with overall tightening. I thought your writing was pretty easy to read and you have good use of language. If those sentences get tightened, I think your prose will be really strong.
So what do I mean... Well, yes, you may be right there's a bit of over-detailing in some of the sciencey stuff. But more importantly, there's a general wordiness of *all* the description. Let's see if I can find some good spots...
You definitely don't need the "behind which lay..." section, and you could probably even tighten the first part of the sentence as well.
You don't need "like Sienna had been afraid she would," and there's a lot of redundancy in the second part. It almost doesn't matter which words you cut. I might do something like "and Sienna relaxed muscles she hadn't known were tensed."
My mind totally wandered here and I lost track of what we were talking about. This isn't the only place that happened--careful about irrelevant tangents. You may argue that they're good for characterization, but I think there are other, better ways you have done & can do characterization.
This is all telling and backstory. I noticed you did this with Paeton's introduction as well. Don't tell me, show me! You've already shown some of this stuff--just keep doing that. I know it's temping to make super extra sure the reader understands what you're trying to convey. Trust yourself that you've conveyed it, because you have, and trust your readers, because readers can pick up on surprisingly subtle clues.
When you're writing nano, it reinforces fluffing up for word count. It's a good technique for learning how to blaze through a first draft. But now that you're into revisions, it's time to switch to editor brain, where you should be excited over how many words you can cut! (I might be the only person who loves editing :S) You have to think about words differently. This early in the novel, each word's worth it's weight in gold. You need to spend your real estate wisely, to keep the reader's attention and keep the momentum up in the story. Any time you throw the breaks on the scene to stop and explain something (whether it's backstory, a physical description, exposition, or some other infodump), we lose that momentum, get thrown out of the scene at hand and need to get re-invested all over again when we get back to it.
So that's my spiel for the telling. As for the redundancy, that's just a sentence-level issue that you need to train yourself to spot. My go-to way to think about it is EFFICIENCY. The more efficient, the better.
Let me know when the next part's up!
Thanks for all the advice! I might ask for a line-by-line review or something like it if I hadn't already hacked and slashed this quite a bit after your review.
My problem is I don't have an editing brain. For the longest time, I felt like word I wrote was a part of me and cutting words was like slicing off limbs. That has...changed. Unfortunately, what hasn't changed is that the idea of necessary vs. unnecessary infodump is really cognitively inaccessible to me because I have low intellectual empathy; I can't put myself in the reader's shoes. So for the time being, I am going to need a TON of help figuring out what to cut...which is one of the reasons I joined YWS. So if you wouldn't mind giving this chapter snippet another pass, I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks for the review!
The four spots I pointed out all look better. The tell-turned-show in the very end is perfect--now keep doing that with all of it!
As you say, you'll have to train your editor brain. I'd say keep posting and keep trying to spot the areas yourself, and it's a skill that'll develop over time. As far as not knowing what info to include, consider whether you're "explaining" something or not. Usually explanations = tells.