Why doesn't this work?

[AG31]

Maybe that would be less clunky if I had read the whole story and already known about a previous moment at a party.

Nope. Nothing about the party, nothing about Kyle, nothing about being gay. This was clearly the author's way of introducing us to this aspect of his MC's personality. And doesn't mention it again until page 172, or thereabouts.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Nope. Nothing about the party, nothing about Kyle, nothing about being gay. This was clearly the author's way of introducing us to this aspect of his MC's personality. And doesn't mention it again until page 172, or thereabouts.

This is egregious then. It's not plinkage, it's far worse. It's just... bad. And annoying. And bad.

*sharpens sickle claws*

 

[MiaSalnias]

I was asked to re-post this from the other thread about the same passage ...

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It's clunky because the passage is not in scene. First, there is some dialogue that the author doesn't quote, so we don't know its exact wording. Then there is the internal response that is presumably riffing off the words that we never heard, which also isn't quoted exactly.

It's supposed to be a crude bit of word play on "sample", but the whole exchange is summarized so much that the word play loses its impact.

If the paragraph isn't important enough to be put in scene, then maybe the attempt to play on "sample" needs to be cut.

If the author wanted to keep the "sample" play, I would suggest reworking it in this direction...

Kyle took her glass and asked, "Would you like to sample anything else?"

Packard looked Kyle up and down. Oh, what I'd really like to sample is a handful of your dark hair, the scratch of your five-o'clock shadow, and the texture of that scar on your upper lip, Packard thought.

Honestly, I think it might work even better if the menu Packard was picking from was a bit cruder than this. But that depends on the precise relationship between Packard and Kyle.