Advice needed

[TarnishedPenny]

I’ve been kicking this around and around and not getting anywhere.

The situation has the protagonist helping his girlfriend climb a wall. It’s a very repressed society and just having had his hands around her waist has been thrilling. She slips and falls and her bottom lands square on his outstretched palms. ‘First feel’, so to speak.

What I had next was: Embarrassed and delighted in equal measures, the boy’s shoulders heaved, pushing the girl upwards.

That’s clear enough, I think, but the boy’s shoulders were of course neither embarrassed nor delighted; the boy himself was. I’ve rewritten it back and forth, but it always winds up rather bloated and inelegant. Any suggestions?

 

[Omenainen]

“Embarrassed and delighted in equal measures, the boy heaved his shoulders, pushing the girl upwards.“

Can you even say “heaved his shoulders “
I shouldn’t be handing out advice in matters such as this.

 

[KeithD]

. . . the boy heaved his shoulders up, pushing . . .

(Also, assume your British with the "upwards"; if American, it should be "upward."

 

[HectorBidon]

Or maybe something like ". . . the boy gave a mighty heave, pushing . . ."

 

[oggbashan]

Just omit 'shoulders'.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Yes. Thank you all. The logjam has been released.

 

[SimonDoom]

Agree with Ogg. According to the dictionary, "to heave" is a transitive verb usually used to mean lifting (a heavy thing). Shoulders don't heave, and you don't heave shoulders. You heave a person. Get rid of "shoulders" and have the boy heave the girl.

If you want to keep "shoulders" in the sentence to express their role in the act, you could say something like

“Embarrassed and delighted in equal measures, shoulders straining, the boy heaved the girl upwards.“

Or replace "upwards" with "back up the wall."

 

[KeithD]

Sure you can heave your shoulders, and the problem issue as about the antecedent of shoulders (the original having made them embarrassed and delighted), not anything concerning "heaved." The problem was in shoulders, not the boy, being embarrassed and delighted.

 

[SimonDoom]

Sure you can heave your shoulders, and the problem issue as about the antecedent of shoulders (the original having made them embarrassed and delighted), not anything concerning "heaved." The problem was in shoulders, not the boy, being embarrassed and delighted.

I think you're right, but in this case the way it's written as "his shoulders heaved" rather than "he heaved his shoulders." I think it's better to say just "he heaved the girl" because otherwise there's a redundancy .

 

[KeithD]

I think the slight change in antecedent is all that's necessary to maintain the author's original voice. Good editing is doing only the fixing that doesn't change what is a legitimate way an author wants to render something in her/his voice. It isn't rewriting to please the editor.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Now I'm curious as to whether this repressed society is in the past, present, or future. You don't have to give anything away of course if you choose not to.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Now I'm curious as to whether this repressed society is in the past, present, or future. You don't have to give anything away of course if you choose not to.

Sci-fi/Fantasy. No real period, but if I had to describe it, maybe kinda-sorta a pre-Roman Celtic feel to it? I said ‘repressed’ as a simple and easy intro. Although it isn’t described, I suppose it would be no more repressed sexually than, say, 1950s USA. Yes, yes, that’s a fair bit, but hardly überVictorian-six-layers-of-underwear repressed.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Good editing is doing only the fixing that doesn't change what is a legitimate way an author wants to render something in her/his voice. It isn't rewriting to please the editor.

Heresy! Rank heresy!

But thanks.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Sci-fi/Fantasy. No real period, but if I had to describe it, maybe kinda-sorta a pre-Roman Celtic feel to it?

Thank you. Somehow it reminds me of A Canticle for Leibowitz, it which the world has regressed to something like the early Middle Ages after a nuclear war. It's a rather repressed society in the places where the Catholic church dominates. (I don't know where all the Protestants in North America went.)

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Thank you. Somehow it reminds me of A Canticle for Leibowitz, it which the world has regressed to something like the early Middle Ages after a nuclear war. It's a rather repressed society in the places where the Catholic church dominates. (I don't know where all the Protestants in North America went.)

More of an ‘old gods in primal forest’ feel, but I would be enraptured if I could write as well as Miller. Superb book, that.

Basic idea is boy is invited to a picnic and discovers his fiancée is not entirely the girl he thought she was. Magick, dark lords and such.

 

[KeithD]

Heresy! Rank heresy!

But thanks.

Well, no, I actually took the courses. If one actually studies editing, this is how they are taught to approach someone else's work. They aren't taught to get back "This is how I'd phrase this in my voice."

 

[davion2308]

The passive voice is getting you

I think it's the passive voice making it sound awkward.

"The boy ignored the weight and curves of her bottom on his body. He felt both embarrassed and delighted as he heaved the girl upward."

Something like that.

 

[gunhilltrain]

More of an ‘old gods in primal forest’ feel, but I would be enraptured if I could write as well as Miller. Superb book, that.

Basic idea is boy is invited to a picnic and discovers his fiancée is not entirely the girl he thought she was. Magick, dark lords and such.

It's unfortunate that Miller became so depressed after that and eventually took his own life. He had only one more book published, posthumously, a sequel to the first one.