h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You have some serious talent, Bob. Strong characters, realistic settings, and a definate nack for discription. Parts like this:

the windowless coridoor was dark, the lighting was a really low wattadge and most of the bulbs wernt lit.

...are excellent.

You've made a few errors that have nothing to do with spelling and punctuation.

You need to chose one tense and stick to it. You start out in present and then go to past.

You need to shorten a few of your sentences, to tighten up the prose a bit. In many places, you've discribed every tep the character takes, when all you need to say is that "he went over there."

In other places you have run on sentences.

I've copied and corrected part of the story as a helpful guide, correcting a bit of the spelling and punctuation errors, so that you can look at it from a fresh perspective. I've made a few changes and a few comments. If you'd like to see more, let me know.





To Find A Child

The moon light filtered in through the window, its silver light diffusing round the room, giving everything soft edges and thin filmy shadows. The apartment is silent. The sounds of the night-time traffic don’t reach to the 6th floor of the building.

The apartment is almost bare. There is a desk with a high-powered mac computer and a small lamp on it. A black leather swivel chair sits next to it.

The walls have no pictures, no flowers, nothing to soften the bare wood. An old battered arm chair is across the room from the computer table facing the window, with a TV and VCR under it. Next to the arm chair, attached to the wall, is a phone. That’s it. There is nothing else in the studio apartment. Nothing for making food. Nothing to sleep in. Nothing to make it comfortable in any way.

Excellent description, but might be overstating the bit about it being bare.

There is a rattle at the door. The lock clicks off and the door opens soundlessly. A tall, well built, but not bulging man walks through it and closes it behind him. He walks over to the desk and flips a switch. Yellow light fills the apartment, and the man is revealed as a young, clean shaven man in his mid 20s, wearing tight black jeans and a black shirt.

(Here you have a tense change, from present to past tense) He sat (sits) down in the arm chair and picked (picks) up the phone. The apartment was (is) filled with the sound of the dial tone. It seemed (seems) to bounce off the walls and travel back to the man still sitting in his chair. ( the last sentence is run on. I have separated it out into 3 sentences to clarify.) He sighed (sighs) and murmured to himself. "Poor kid it was better she ran away. Now, what the hell do I tell the parents?" He sighed (sighs) again and quickly dialed (dials) the number. The ringing sounded through the apartment then a voice, frail and scared, full of grief. "hello?"


(I’m gonna leave it in past tense for now, but the entire piece should be in one tense, present or past)

The man spoke slowly and gently. "Mrs. Rodgers, this is John from Child Finder. It is about the case that I am handling for you." There was a pause as the women on the other end started screaming with excitement. She thought that she was going to get her daughter back. The man’s face fell as he spoke again.

(Oh, NICE!)

"Yes, that’s right, I did find your daughter. Where is she?… Well, she doesn’t want you to know. Her farther seems to have been abusing her. I can tell you that she has a job, and is set up in a house. She also has a child that she claims to be…" he trailed off and swallowed hard. When he spoke again, his voice was horse. It was hard to tell whether it was with repressed anger, or grief. "She claims that the child is her son and the father is… the father is your husband. Her farther. Blood tests show that there is a match in DNA and blood type, and there is no difference in the genetic code.

“Basically, this child was created by two people of the same family and blood line.

“She does not want to be contacted by you and I respect her wishes. My fee will be returned to you in full. I suggest you don’t try and find her again. She said that she will talk to you when she is ready and not before, and the more that you try to find her the more that you will be pushing her away." There was silence for a seemingly endless 3 minutes, then the apartment exploded with the roaring from the phone. The man just sat there in silence, allowing the waves of grief and anger to wash over him. Then, after the storm subsided, he said, "I am sorry you feel that way, ma’am, but if you read the contract I gave you. It says I reserve the right to do this, and it is going to be done."

There was a click, as the connection was broken by Mrs. Rodgers. The man just sat there with the phone in his hand, the tone echoing through the apartment.

He replaced the receiver, and sighed again. "Jesus." He got up out of his chair and went to the draw in his computer table. He took a bottle out of the drawer and carried it back to his chair. He switched on the TV and took the remote back to his chair, settling down to watch the news.

He opened the bottle, and the smell of strong spirits filled the room.








I hope this helps. If you'd like to join our writing club, let me know.