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

There are two sentences that are a little awkward. I like the staccato style, so many short sentences with only one or two words, sentence fragments, gives you a feel for all her actions being choppy. However there were two sentences that looked awkward to me.

In the paragraph below the first "Fade to black," there's a sentence that says: "Sits, looks, guns trained, she hesitates."

This might work fine without any changes, but it might also make sense with a period after "trained."

"Sits, looks, guns trained. She hesitates."
or "Sits. Looks. Guns trained, she hesitates." ???

The other one that was a little more confusing was in the paragraph below that one. "Guns drawn she steps out, Woman and pushchair.

Would that work better with a period after "she steps out"? Or possibly even beginning a new paragraph with "Woman and pushchair"?

Let me know what you think.

Thanks,
Deidzoeb

I think I prefer

Sits, looks. Guns trained, she hesitates.
Or
Sits, looks. Guns trained. She hesitates.

Sits and looks should be together, just to make it clearer that the cat is doing the looking as well as the sitting.

But each action or observation should be a seperate sentance if we're going to be consistant, so maybe a stop after sits as well. Whatever you decide will be fine, it's a fairly finicky point after all, and I won't have a hissy fit and get offended if you change my 'deathless prose'.

I think woman and pushchair was supposed to be a new sentance and I agree that it could stand to be a new paragraph as well.

There are a few places where there are commas where there should clearly be full stops. If I've capitalised I probably intended a full stop.

I wondered if the 'fade to black' and 'Game Over' should be emphasised. Put in bold or just slightly larger?

Thanks for doing the editing.

If it's allright, I like your second variation: "Sits, looks. Guns trained. She hesitates."

There are two or three sentences that start out "Guns drawn, she approaches..." and "Guns trained, she hesitates." So it will vary the wording more if there's a full stop at the end of "Guns trained."

For some reason, the first time around, when I saw commas and capitalised letters, I trusted the commas but "corrected" the capitals. After you pointed it out, I changed them back to capital letters and full stops in place of the commas. It's more consistent with the rest of the piece that way, all the one and two word sentences and fragments.

Good idea about emphasizing the "Fade to black" and "Game Over." I was going to suggest something like that for the Game Over.

If it looks okay to you now, then I can take out the red punctuation and hand it over to the UG Editors. Not sure how soon before the Underguide will actually start, but the h2g2 Editors should email you when they eventually put it on the front page.

Later,
Deidzoeb

Is this one ready then ?

I've been catching up on the backlog in our UG Yahoo thread, so I just found out I was supposed to add the "official underguide" graphic. Other than that, I was only waiting for a final thumbs up from Speckly before emailing you to let you know it's ready.



Eagerly!,
Deidzoeb

Yup. Looks good guys

Thanks Deidzoeb The polishing process is going much quicker than I predicted it.

Looks fine to me.

Good job