First a digression to build suspense.
I used an analog random number generator, which is among my favorites.
Then I scrolled through the comments to the 29th and that was—
By the way, when you are writing fiction building suspense by having your character do unnecessary digressions before revealing a crucial piece of information is a really clumsy trick. Sure, it delays the reveal which could make people more tense but usually it just annoys them. It’s also not very realistic, unless someone has a legitimate character reason for avoiding whatever it is they are about to say.
But generally, if someone is being chased by zombies the first word out of their mouth is, “Zombie! Behind me!”
It’s usually not something like, “Hey guys. I have something to tell you. Something bad.”
“Oh yeah? What?”
“You’d better sit down.”
“No, really, just tell us.”
“It’s so indescribably bad though.”
“Okay, I’ll sit.”
“I was walking to the store today. You know, I love an autumn day–” And then a zombie crashes through the window and eats them all.
If you have a crucial piece of information, just deliver it up front instead of rambling about something completely unrelated. It annoys your readers and… oh.
The winner is Larry Henry (@tremac12)! Have a drink!
Just send me a message with your physical mailing address and I’ll get this in the mail.
I wanted to comment, but since I already have a very nice copy of Glamour in Glass, I didn’t feel it would be good. So I am commenting here instead! Congrats to Larry!
Also, Mary, do you know if the Kindle version of Shades of Milk and Honey might have the new ending?
At the moment, no. I suspect that only the UK ebook will have the new ending but I don’t actually know.
Awww. Sadface.
Not something I have control over, I’m afraid.
I actually laughed out loud at this. Brilliant!
Heheheh…
You could have used a digital generator — flip a coin for as many binary digits as you needed, 0 for heads and 1 for tails. Vice versa? MRK is OK by me, whichever! Enjoy, Larry!
Ha! That just makes my head hurt thinking about it.
Congratulations Larry. I was going to say that you suck for winning this out from under me, but then I figured out that this just means I’ll get a chance to meet Mary at a signing sometime and get my copy signed in person. So there. Take that. Who’s laughing now, Larry?