I Hate This Paragraph · 2:37pm Mar 21st, 2021
First draft:
Frazzle leaned over and lapped at her tea, eyes up to watch Izzy work. She winced at the clattering from in there.
Second draft:
Frazzle leaned over and lapped at her tea, eyes up to watch Izzy work. She levitated the books with great care, but when she headed for the bathroom Frazzle winced at the clattering from in there.
Third draft:
Frazzle leaned over and lapped at her tea, eyes up to watch Izzy work. She levitated the books off the couch with great care, but then she vanished into the bathroom, where she clattered and crashed around worryingly. Frazzle winced, worrying about what she might be doing to the one clean room in her house.
I think I'm actively making it worse. I know I'm making it longer. Is this kind of fiddling good editing or perfectionism?
You might have a few too many things going on at once, like the 'eyes up' part. If she's just aware that Izzy is doing things, that might be enough. I think it is actually getting better, you just gotta chip out some chaff in the third version. :)
I know there's this theory of writing that you should avoid phrases like "the carpenter" when you can use a pronoun, but the issue I see with the last paragraph is that it has two characters taking actions, both being referenced by "she". Although it can be puzzled out which character each instance of "she" is referring to, that takes extra effort beyond what should be expected from reading the paragraph. I would suggest taking one tiny step towards the dreaded "purple prose", to smooth out the reading experience.
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I didn't expect to get actionable feedback from this! Thank you!
A lot going on, but I think the third iteration is nearly there if you remove "She levitated the books off the couch with great care". The second sentence is doing a lot of work.
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I think that's working! That and the other advice here. Thank you!