Odds and Ends

Question

You know, I spent most the night re-formatting my document, but I've run into a small problem. I don't know if my poor computer isn't running the program fast enough even though I close windows and erase un-needed files but using word 13 the document seems to reach a point of decentagration where you can never get it, "Just right?" Anyone else experiancing this? I know there were some hyphen mistakes in the other document but if you want to peek at the latest one.
https://app.box.com/s/hi5uu0zu9990l0nc9g3eyh09lnp5e38t

Answer 1

Ron Miller wrote:
Taking just the first paragraph, here are a few suggestions...
People needed to realize that when it first started out it was just kindof an innocent infatuation between a man and a teenage girl, who was just about to turn sweet sixteen all over again I have to agree that this is going to make readers scratch their heads. All her life she had been writing in her books. Outlining the chapters, doodling in the margins, and keeping note-pads filled with skits and poems written about different people, but mostly whimsical dream-like interpretations of her ongoing relationships with friends. Friends who were not really of this world. Growing up in the small town of Cherry Creek, Nevada, and Cameron Pantalero would have the holidays off from school. this sentence makes no sense It was a long bus ride into White Horse, located thirty miles to the south, just over the 6,241-foot mark I presume mean altitude: you should say so. White Horse Pass was located between the two towns. The only thing that brought them them? the towns? together was that long ride down the single-lane mountain highway known as Highway 6, or more affectionately by the young people who lived there, as the Hicks Sticks Highway 6. He who? the only person you have mentioned so far is the girl was the local shaman, known to the white folks only as Henry. Henry’s real name was never used because most people found him to be a little odd. why would this make people not want to use his real name?
As a side note on those notes... If you take the word "and" out of the passage marked in red, it makes sense and introduces the girl.
Beginning at "He was the local shaman," there should be a new paragraph because the subject has changed from her to him.
If the sentence that begins "The only thing" is moved to the end of the selection, then the pronoun "them" would collectively mean Cameron and Henry, assuming that this was the intention. Better still, move the previous sentence ("It was a long bus ride...") as well.
Then you will have a paragraph introducing her, a paragraph introducing him, and a paragraph explaining the geography that separated them.
I hope that's helpful.