Next Big Recognition Contest

Round 20

Or, better yet, reword, cull some prepositions and split them into more sentences.

—> He was the son of Fernando Rubair, owner of Rubair Enterprises, one of the largest Spanish pharmaceuticals in America, and was, as a result, filthy rich. He only went to a public high school because his father wanted him to "learn from the less fortunate" and grow up to be "humble".

Again with this:

"Whenever he would stride down the hallway with his minions nipping at his heels, it was as if time held its breath as it admired along with the rest of the school, his immense beauty."

—>

"Whenever he strode down the hallway, with his minions nipping at his heels, time stood still; as though it, along with the rest of the school, was busy admiring his immense beauty."

3rd para - repetition of "suddenly" too obvious to the inner ear, consider changing the adverb.

*checks genre*

Yeah, I thought so. This is an Action thing. Ok, then, since it's the Action genre, think pace. You can't get away with multi syllables. You need to tighten it with as few as possible.

"and so she took it as her cue to get the hell out of there..." —> "and so she decided to get the hell out of there..."

"The last thing she wanted was being thrown under the spotlight." —> "The last thing she wanted was to be in the spotlight."

For action scenes, keep the descriptions crisp. You don't need to explain everything in between. The motto is "less is more". So comb through them and be ruthless. Cut out what is not needed at all and keep the bare minimum descriptors for the readers. Because, in this genre, pace is the focus; everything else (emotions, settings beyond a certain radius of the action) can suffer a bit of neglect in description.

e.g. "She threw the gun into the dumpster and was about to run away when his deep voice rooted her in her place.

"Wait!" He ordered, not bulging an inch from where he was standing. He didn't have to, she had already stopped dead in her tracks. Zara cringed as she slowly turned around."

—> "She threw the gun in the dumpster. Zara turned to run.

"Wait!"

She stopped on her tracks. She cringed. And turned back to him.

Does that make sense? Like look at your para and determine what was necessary and what was not. The main gist you were trying to get across was that Zara mobilised, and was about to take off when she was stopped by him, right? So, the little details of "was about to turn away" (ie what she's planning to do), what voice he had (that it was deep), whether he moved an inch from where he was standing or not (Zara wouldn't have known and wouldn't have cared), and whether he had to move or not was not the point of the para, did not add to it, and, instead, dragged the pace.

Similarly, use that sort of critical inner ear to comb through the rest of your action narratives and effect the cull. I know it hurts. I totally love the in between descriptors to allow the readers to kinda know why and what the chars' are feeling but, in all honesty, you don't have that luxury in action scenes, esp in the Action genre. Sorry, dudette!

"He had never been attracted to douchebags..." —> Que? You mean "she"?

"Come here," he motioned, stepping away from the wall and standing in the middle of the alley, the light bathing him in a silvery glow. He had never been attracted to douchebags like him before, but right at that moment, she could feel a blush crawl up her cheeks as he stared at her intently. Now she understood what all those bitchy girls were on about. She involuntarily took a few steps forwards, her legs dragging her towards him, his magnetic eyes luring her to her doom."