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Q&A How well would this beginning sell the book to readers? Not necessarily for money

The ideas in this excerpt grab me. We have a first-person narrator who's dead; how does that work? This seems to have involved some sort of deal to help the narrator's son, and there seem to be a...

posted 12y ago by Monica Cellio‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T02:23:51Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/5760
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T02:23:51Z (almost 5 years ago)
The _ideas_ in this excerpt grab me. We have a first-person narrator who's dead; how does that work? This seems to have involved some sort of deal to help the narrator's son, and there seem to be alternate timelines or worlds involved. This makes me curious and it does not feel too information-intensive. I get the sense that you'll explain these details in time.

However, the _writing_ is difficult enough that I would not keep reading. English is a hard language to learn and I applaud anybody who can get as far as you can with it as a second language (says the mono-lingual American). But this would need substantial revision before I would be able to get past the writing to get to the story. Your best bet is probably to hire an editor rather than trying to do it yourself; editing your own work is always a little dicey and, as noted in the question, you have some language challenges. Don't make yourself crazy trying to figure it all out; get an editor or perhaps a co-author.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2012-05-25T15:48:55Z (over 12 years ago)
Original score: 6