Comma-tastic?

Tiny Nell

I have been re-jigging a blurb for a children's mystery and I have had to carefully select just the right length and number of words so that CreateSpace doesn't hyphenate them on the back cover.

My question is about the final paragraph. I am aware that it contains a lot of commas to separate the subjects from their references. Do you think that children will be able to interpret this part of the blurb - or do the commas make it confusing?


BLURB
A holiday at Pirates’ Cove is nothing like Toby expects it to be…

Not only is he is baffled by the mysterious beach fires and eerie singing he witnesses during the night, he is fascinated, too, by the weird and wonderful tales of the town: the legend of the pitiful Mary-Anne who is said to row out nightly to the Blue Rock and the peculiar plate in Mrs Salt’s cabinet which is said to carry a curse.

Strange happenings indeed…

Stranger still, why has a dead man been spotted in the town?

With the help of Hattie, an intriguing local girl, along with her dog, Scamp, and Rufus, the intelligent rat, the secrets of Salt Guesthouse are unravelled… but not before the children find themselves in grave danger.

Tiny Nell

.

heather

That is rather a lot of commas.

You could get rid of a couple by having 'he is also fascinated' in the first bit and losing the 'too'.
And how about
'With the help of intriguing local girl, Hattie, Scamp the dog and Rufus the intelligent rat, the secrets of Salt Guesthouse are unravelled… but not before the children find themselves in grave danger.
I don't think you need any more than that.

Tiny Nell

Yes, that's better, heather.

Although, is it correct to say 'Scamp the dog' rather than 'Scamp, the dog'?

Lizy

You've got lots of commas because the sentences are very long. They actually made me kind of breathless!
Could you chop it into smaller sentences so you have some full stops instead? Or at least cut down the word count of the blurb?
"Baffled by ... he is also fascinated . "
"The legendary Mary Anne who rows . . "
"The cursed plate . . "

etc

Tiny Nell

Yes, it's longer than my original kindle version as that looks a bit lost on a bookcover.

heather

Not sure - but if it's clear without the commas then personally I would go with it.

Mrs Bear

'He's baffled by mysterious beach fires and eerie singing during the night, and he's fascinated by the weird and wonderful tales of the town: the legend of the pitiful Mary-Anne who is said to row out nightly to the Blue Rock and the peculiar plate in Mrs Salt’s cabinet which is said to carry a curse. '

By changing the first bit, the second falls into place without so many commas.

'With the help of Hattie, an intriguing local girl, along with her dog Scamp and Rufus the intelligent rat, the secrets of Salt Guesthouse are unravelled… but not before the children find themselves in grave danger.'

You don't need the commas after dog and Rufus - it reads fine without.

Tiny Nell

I've just played around with it, following some of the suggestions. Now it's decided to split the word 'no-thing'! ~X(

Tiny Nell

I'm holding back from inserting a comma into the line 'Strange happenings indeed...'

I literally have comma-itis.

Now I've had to add extra words to prevent CS merrily hyphenating words at ends of lines that were not previously hyphenated. The latest is:


BLURB A

A holiday at Pirates’ Cove with Great Aunt Win is nothing like Toby expects it to be…

He is baffled by the mysterious beach fires and eerie singing he witnesses during the night. He is fascinated, too, by the weird and wonderful tales of the town: the legend of the pitiful Mary-Anne who is said to row out nightly to the Blue Rock and the peculiar plate in Mrs Salt’s cabinet which is said to carry a curse.

Strange happenings indeed…

Stranger still, why has a dead man been spotted in the town?

With the help of intriguing local girl, Hattie, Scamp the dog and Rufus the intelligent rat, the secrets of Salt Guesthouse are unravelled… but not before the children find themselves in grave danger.


*****************************************************************************
Or BLURB B:

A holiday at Pirates’ Cove with Great Aunt Win is nothing like Toby expects it to be…

Baffled by the mysterious beach fires and eerie singing during the night, he is also fascinated by the weird and wonderful tales of the town: not only the legend of the pitiful Mary-Anne, said to row out nightly to the Blue Rock, but also of the peculiar plate in Mrs Salt’s cabinet which is said to carry a curse.

Strange happenings indeed…

Stranger still, why has a dead man been spotted in the town?

With the help of intriguing local girl, Hattie, Scamp the dog and Rufus the intelligent rat, the secrets of Salt Guesthouse are unravelled… but not before the children find themselves in grave danger

Claudia

Prefer Blurb A - it seemed to flow better for me.

Phots Moll

With Great Aunt Win, Toby, Mary-Anne, Mrs Salt, a dead man, Hattie, Scamp and Rufus you have twice as many characters as paragraphs. That's a lot to take in.

Tiny Nell

Yes, I'm going to have to keep working on it!

Phots Moll

I wonder if you're trying to include too much specific information. If you take out most of the names, you get something like this -

Toby is on holiday at Pirate's cove. He learns spooky local legends, sees mysterious fires and hears eerie singing. When a dead man is spotted in town, Toby wants to find out what's going on. His new friends, who're as unusual as events as Pirate's Cove, help him find out despite the danger that places them in.

Seaview

I am also afflicted by this comma ailment, Tiny Nell!

Phots has a point about all the names. I think you could take out Win and just say 'his great aunt' and leave Hattie's name out.

Tiny Nell

Yes, originally, I had fewer names. I copied the shorter blurb onto my CreateSpace cover but lo and behold, the system started hyphenating words that fell at the end of the lines.

I then had to substitute and add words and keep changing and pasting until it all fitted with no hyphens. The only way I could keep the meaning was by adding the names. That's how I came up with the two versions above. Both of those work in the space. I'll have to keep trying different formulae until something else fits - and enticingly conveys the idea of a mystery!

It really helps to have fresh eyes looking at it as you can all see what's overdone where I can't.

This is the last hurdle. The book's been thoroughly edited, the inside and cover are done (apart from the blurb). I just need to press the 'Go' button!

danfango

I vote for Blurb A.

The only thing I'd question is the "Strange happenings indeed..." line. It only applies to a couple of things in the preceding paragraph (the fires and the singing), and comes directly after a mention of a story about a plate - which can't really be classed as a 'happening'.

Good luck with it, TN. It must be very frustrating fighting against the automatic layout function. As if writing blurbs wasn't hard enough already!

Phots Moll

TN, you can just insert spaces to stop the words hyphenating. If three letters of a word appear at the end of a line, insert four spaces between it and the preceeding word and the hyphenated word will appear whole on the next line.

Tiny Nell

Thanks, PM. I did try that at one point, but it didn't quite work for me. Perhaps I put the spaces in the wrong place. I'll have another go.

Lizy

TN - stop sweating at it and leave it for a day or two. Hopefully your mind will be clearer then, and maybe your subconscious will sort it out for you.