Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Try it this way:

“The summer I discovered the world was not black-and-white--the way I liked it--but was instead a host of annoying shades of gray, was the summer in which a lot more changed than my vision.”

No it’s not fine as-is—it’s awkward as all fuck and who the hell would write the opening line of a novel like that? Sheesh.

It is fairly awkward, and a lot more wordy than it needs to be, but it does make sense, LOL.

Here’s one for you:

Quote: War of the worlds”No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intellegences greater tan man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.”

That’s one sentence.  They just don’t write’em like that anymore.

I suck at haikus but the sentence game - very fun!

Pardon any typos

I’m a firm believer in the fact that there are no rules in writing, except one: Never confuse your reader on the level of fundamental reading comprehension. Call me kooky, but readers should be able to understand you.

Awww, Candy, you ar enot a retard. You should see the doozy’s I come across in editing. I am all for poetic and lyrical writing, but my rule is that if your editor had to reread several times for comprehension, then it needs to change. And that goes double for words the editor needs to reference in the dictionary. The best one so far has been concupiscence. I was like, since when has desire become a word non grata?

Duh, and it might help if the editor proofs her own work before hitting post. Disregard typos please, I obviously need a nap.

Ha!  I decided to work from home today and now I am stuck on hold waiting for a freaking conference call to start.  It’s one of those lovely calls where more work is heaped on me at the end as the execs all decide - yeah “Let’s do that!” When they actually MEAN to say “Let’s make Ferfé do that!”

How’s that for fucked up sentences?

Ummm.  Isn’t this a werewolf story?  So she ... wait - ::Processing fact that animals don’t see color::  disregard.

Thanks Sarah, now my head wants to a-splode.

From the editor who knows instinctively what looks wrong or right in fiction (where some strict grammar rules need not apply), but could not quote the grammar rules that apply to save her life. (Hah! How’s that for a convoluted-ass sentence?) And all this despite an english literature degree.

It’s my guess that a word was left out.

“It was the summer I discovered the world was not black-and-white--the way I liked it--but a host of annoying shades of gray.  It was the summer a lot more changed than my vision.”

That makes sense and has a nice rhythm too.

And yes, an author and editor and copy editor CAN miss a typo like that in the first sentence.  And then the author suffers mortification for years, every time he/she thinks about it. ;)

Heh. A lot of those types of sentences is what I run into when I skim a book. However, the sentence your referenced broke all kinds of grammar rules, I’m sure. That first sentence can make or break a book so it’s really important to get it right. But many people enjoyed her books so - go figure. Maybe something’s wrong with us?

I didn’t proofread. Sorry. [contrite]

You’re not alone Candy.  It took me four tries to read it the right way—and I’m pretty wide awake.  I think it’s the “the way I like it” that really throws the sentence off.  It would be easier to read as:

The summer I discovered the world was not black and white, but a host of annoying shades of gray, was the summer a lot more changed than my vision.

Sheesh.  Way too complicated to start off a book that way.

I think the confusion comes from the awkward use of the hyphens and dashes in such close proximity.  Not only does it create the illusion of one long phrase staring with “black” and ending with “it--,” but it also slows down your reading and comprehension of the sentence so that you lose track of the logic by the time you reach the last clause.  But I do think it makes sense and is grammatical, even though it seems an awfully awkward way to begin a book.

It took me three tries to understand how the modifiers actually related.  At first I kept thinking there was a word missing.

LOL! My natural thought pattern must be really convoluted. I got the meaning immediately, and was actually rereading it multiple times to see if I was missing the *problem* with it.  :)

I can see how that sentence could twist you up if you didn’t pause at just the right time

Er...I don’t get what’s the problem with the sentence.  Makes sense just as it is.

Sigh… it read fine to me. Going back to try and find an error I would only put a comma (they really aren’t the anti-christ) between grey and was.

But I have a question for all you awesomely Smart Bitches. Why has the em dash replaced parenthesis? (which apparently ARE the anti-Christ).

X

An editor should never have let this sentence out to play. “was the summer a lot more changed than my vision” is the improper use of a clause as well as an improperly-conjugated verb ("was"); it makes no bloody sense. Strunk & White would expire in a fit of apoplexy, and I’m not far behind.

Suggestion: The summer I discovered the world was not black-and-white the way I liked it but a host of annoying shades of gray; that was the summer a lot more changed than my vision.

There, you see? Perfectly readable, at least in my mind, and not confusing at all.

Hmmm, I don’t know, Lilith, your version reads more like a run-on sentence to my eyes. I am all about breaking the grammar rules in order to promote readability. (Not saying the original was all that readable, LOL.)

And Christine, I have no clue why parenthesis are suddenly the anti-christ. All I know is that my publisher does not allow them (em-dashes are used instead) and severely discourages semi-colons where at all possible. It can be a bit of a pain when editing, but with some creative rearranging most of the semi’s can be eliminated.

errr...I like it the way it is.  It’s messed up, but perfectly understandable.

“Suggestion: The summer I discovered the world was not black-and-white the way I liked it but a host of annoying shades of gray; that was the summer a lot more changed than my vision.”

But what’s the main verb in the main clause (the one before the semi-colon)?  Doesn’t “was” modify “The summer” as the sentence is originally written?  Isn’t the clause that begins “I discovered . . .” basically proceeded with an implied “that” and therefore a restrictive clause?  I can’t always remember the exact rules.

All this makes me think of Mr. Impossible when Rupert tells Daphne she can “teast a proposition out of him” instead of “preposition”—ooooh, I love that book!

“Why has the em dash replaced parenthesis? (which apparently ARE the anti-Christ).”

I’m overly fond of both parentheses and dashes, but basically I understand the difference as one of emphasis.  Parentheses are more gentle in introducing information that’s related but not crucial to the main clause, while dashes indicate a more emphatic introduction of such information.  Since the information inside dashes still appears to be a part of the sentence, I often use them when I want to emphasize but still need to set off the supplemental information I’m introducing.

“All I know is that my publisher does not allow them (em-dashes are used instead) and severely discourages semi-colons where at all possible.”

Is the intent to promote shorter sentences?  Because I love, love, love semi-colons (okay, I understand it’s sick to love a grammatical device, but there you have it).  I didn’t learn how to use them properly until graduate school (and a very patient Chaucer professor), and before that I made so many (more) comma errors it was embarrassing.  Although they indicate a complex sentence, it would seem to me that semi-colons are a huge help for creating clarity in a sentence with more than one clause.  I think of them as ultimately shortening sentences, since it takes more connective words to string a lot of commas together.

Er...I don’t get what’s the problem with the sentence.  Makes sense just as it is.

Like Norma said, it’s all in the rhythm, and also in realizing WHAT exactly “black and white” was meant to modify. I thought that it modified completely the wrong thing, hence my headache, and also hence my admission of retardedness once I read it with the correct rhythm in my head.

**Is the intent to promote shorter sentences?**

Possibly, I am not totally sure. I personally have no problems with longer, more complex sentences as long as they flow well. As the above sentence shows, sometimes you lose part of your readership when a long sentence allows the original meaning and intent of the sentence to be lost. Many times I am able to substitute a regular comma for the semi-colon (if it was used incorrectly to begin with) or if it reads just as well either way. Another way to circumvent it is through using an em-dash. I often find that the later half of the sentence after a semi-colon is often being used as an informational aside, or as a point of emphasis, in which case an em-dash works well.

For the cases where neither a comma or em-dash will work in substitution, as long as the sentence reads well, as is, I will let the semi-colon stand. We do not ban them, after all. We just want to make sure they are really REALLY necessary.

“The summer (that) I discovered the world was not black-and-white--the way I liked it--but a host of annoying shades of gray”
was
“the summer a lot more changed than my vision.”

This is how I read the sentence.

Hmm. In my opinion, the sentence was too clumsy and improperly constructed to begin with, any fix would have to take those flaws into account. I can see how someone could eventually get the meaning the author intended by closely examining it, but it seemed to me to be unclear, improper, and highly frustrating.

But, since so many people had no problem understanding it, I’m fully willing to admit I might just be an idiot. That’s always a possibility. (Grin)

As for em dashes and parenthesis, they seem to be a matter of individual publisher and editor tastes. I’ve heard so many conflicting reports and had so many conflicting style sheets and edits that I’ve given up trying to figure out what they want ahead of time…

**The summer I discovered the world was not black-and-white--the way I liked it--but a host of annoying shades of gray was the summer a lot more changed than my vision.**

Now I am investing way to much time and effort re-reading this dang thing multiple times, but I tend to think a lot of the initial confusion could be solved with the addition of a comma. (But then, I am a total comma queen in my own writing, and have to severly refrain from adding more commas than I take out from my authors edits.)

Anyhoo, I think it may read a bit clearer like this:

The summer I discovered the world was not black-and-white--the way I liked it--but a host of annoying shades of gray(,) was the summer a lot more changed than my vision.

I can totally dig the add-a-comma fix. I think that works.

I’m just loving this. If you gals are debating it this much, well, suddenly my grammatical inadequacies don’t seem insurmountable.

X

Exactly.  The comma tells you where to pause.  You don’t have to try to figure it out.  Love the comma.

Well, unfortunately, grammar isn’t always black and white.

Candy -

You are not retarded. It was definitely an awkward sentence, that was a prime example of what a well-placed comma can do.

E. D’Trix - totally agree that the goal should be to make sure you don’t confuse the reader - especially in that ever important 1st sentence!

Beth - agree with you on… well, basically everything:)

Well, the sentence in question is sort of like a more complex version of the following sentence:

“I saw the woman who was elected mayor in the shopping mall.”

There are two possibilities of interpretation here: either the mayor was seen in the shopping mall, or the mayoral election was held there.

I mean, technically, the above sentence is grammatically sound too, and it flows well. The modifiers are just a bit confusing.

The summer I discovered the world was not black-and-white--the way I liked it--but a host of annoying shades of gray was the summer a lot more changed than my vision.

I had to parse it like this:

1) I liked to see the world in black and white.

2) One summer, I discovered it was in annoying shades of gray.

3) The summer I discovered this was the summer that more changed for me than my vision.

Just had to say that I went to read a bit more of the book to see if it flowed better (it does, BTW) and found that lower down on the first page a character is commenting on all the loonies who come out on a full moon. She refers to one as a “nut cake”, LOL. Now, I am not sure that this is a character who is full o’ malapropisms (although further reading did not imply this) or a reflection on the overall editing…

A nut cake? Them’s tasty words.

And Becca, here’s how I parsed the sentence--initially, anyway:

1. I discovered the world one summer.

2. That summer was black and white.

3. Utter gibberish, but something about shades of gray.

It was sad. I mean, the way I parsed it didn’t make much sense, but I was stuck in the rhythm and my brain INSISTED on reading it that way.

Can I play? I’m sure this absolutely wrong, but pause/rhythm-wise this is how I read it.

The summer I discovered the world was not black-and-white (the way I liked it), but a host of annoying shades of gray; was the summer a lot more changed than my vision

LOL, Candy—I have been wrestling with a fairly tough edit all day (plowed through 50 pages though, yay me!), so it is so refreshing to pop in and out here and puzzle/ponder/debate the meaning of one awkwardly constructed sentence. It gives my brain a break!

I wuv you guys, too. And fluffy bunnies. *squeeee*

Okay, gramatically this is a valid sentence, but… it not a good sentence to begin a book.

Several reasons why:

1) If the reader had a chance to get more used to the author’s complex-sentence-structures style, it would have been easier to understand later on.  Like, maybe in the third paragraph.  But as an initial opener it reguires the reder not only to get the meaning but to take in the weird compound sentence flow.

2) The word “that” might have helped, here: “The summer that I discovered the world was not...”

3) Saying that the world is black-and- white or shades-of-gray (unless it is my own book where that’s the literal case, LOL!) is pretty cliche—two cliches, in fact.  Two double whammy cliches in one loaded sentence makes it pompous.  Heck, I can write pompous myself, but usually I work the reader up to it. ;-)

4) Long sentneces as openers are just not that great. You want short and even choppy at first, to get the reader comfortable.  Of course there are no real rules, but I notice that I prefer that kind of intro to any new book’s world as I begin to read: simple striking sentences.

Of course, having said that, I could be completely full of shit.

The summer I discovered the world was not black-and-white--the way I liked it--but was instead a host of annoying shades of gray, was the summer in which a lot more changed than my vision.
--------------

Because I desperately need a life, I’ve been sitting here coming up with multiple ways that paragraph could have been written to say the same thing, yet flow easier for the reader.

So at this point, I know, without doubt, that something could have been changed.

On the other hand, I admit I sort of like it as is, except for the lack of the comma.

Also, I’d prefer the parenthesis around “the way I liked it”. For me, that works well in first person writing.

Heart the parenthesis… embrace the parenthesis.

X

Ok, I am completely full of fast-fingered shit.  I was trying to say this:

2) The word “that” might have helped, here: “The summer I discovered that the world was not...”

The above change would have clarified the sentence and kept all the funky compound clauses. (not Santas...)

What X said! Yes! Parenthetical remarks rock.

However I’ve been told to never, ever use parentheses. Dump the commas while I’m at it, dammit.  So I end up using dashes, which annoy everyone involved.

Speaking of ANNOYING, why haven’t you bitches entered my contest? I’ll give you chocolate or alcohol (not you, Sarah) if you do.

Kate: At this point I can barely read and parse a 32-word sentence correctly, and you expect me to string together 65 words more-or-less coherently for a contest?

Surely, you jest.

But I will hopefully have something done before the deadline. I weep at the scroogely word limit, though. I have bad, bad problems with brevity.

When I first read that sentence I felt I got the basic gist of the sentiment, but that it also has to go down in history as one of the all-time worst book openers, ever.  (An intriguiging idea for a separate discussion, I think.) That’s gotta be bad for business, I would think, if there are lots of people like me that need the first page to catch the attention in a positive way before the wallet parts ways with the money.

As respects the paucity of punctuation problem: this is a mystery to me.  I can get behind the concept that the greater the variety of punctuation in a sentence, the greater the odds that it’s complex and thus apt to confuse the reader.  Perhaps those particular complex sentences need to be simplified is all.  All forms of punctuation serve a purpose, so why not use all of the tools available in the interest of clear understanding between author and reader?  This seems like the thing I’ve noticed with phone numbers in the US: years ago it was (555) 555-5555.  Then it went to 555-555-5555.  Then 555.555.5555.  Now I see more and more 555 555 5555.  What’s up with that? Where’d the punctuation go?  Were the ( ) really so very naughty that they had to be sent away from common society?

Oooh, oooh, oooh, I have an explanation for why parantheses have fallen out of vogue for phone numbers! The short explanation is: it has nothing to do with punctuation, and everything to do with appearance.

See, the ( ) break the flow on the page. Hyphens end up cluttering the page. Using both parantheses AND hyphens can make a design look crowded or just kinda out of sync and jumbled, especially on business cards and letterhead where space is at a premium and interruptions in flow tend to jump out at your eye. Using periods, small bullets or spaces creates a less cluttered, more elegant, more uniform look.

(Saith the woman who always swaps out the parantheses and hyphens in phone numbers for periods when she re-designs any aspect of the company literature, from the website to the letterhead to business cards.)

Yeah, I figured “look” had something to do with it.  I guess I assumed our new global reality was also involved (e.g. I’ve never seen punctuation in British phone numbers).  While there’s a part of me that agrees with the simplification - and quite likes using periods in phone numbers, it’s much easier to type . vs ( ) and - in the midst of something - there’s also a part of me that laments the loss of my great friends the parentheses.  I suppose the world’s loss of ( ) has been made up for by its gain in the use of @. 

(Not saying I think @ is a mark of punctuation, just that it’s one of those things I loved using for no real reason as a kid and it makes me smile to see how it’s taken over the world since then.)

OK, one more thing...I just now clicked the linky-loo to look at the book in person and something else annoyed me: the police dispatcher, after taking a call involving a cell phone with static and lots of screaming, wanted to engage in small talk about nut cakes and blue moons before sending the cop on her way?  Really?  That lacks some internal logic for me.  Granted, it was the second cop she called, but I’m still not buying it.

Well, I liked the opening of the book and the rest of the book.  And the sequel.  And hopefully the one coming out at the beginning of next month will be just as good.

Ya gotta love how people come out of the woodwork when you talk about punctuation and grammar.

I find it easier to use 555-555-5555 when I type phone numbers in since I always do it on the num pad and the hyphen is up on the corner, not stuck at the bottom between enter and 0 like the period.

Fiveandfour, it makes more sense once you’ve read the whole book.

One sentence ... beaten into complete submission until it cries like a Lit*tle girl.  It is possible, and just a wild theory, that before this is done, more text will have been generated discussing that sentence than are contained in the book in which the sentence appears. 

There’s a word for this ... a description of what this much analysis might indicate.  What could it be?

Ferfe - I guess we can file this under the “there’s no such thing as bad press” category in addition to the one you’re thinking of (if not also in the “boredom at work” file).  For better or worse, this book has now been imprinted on each of our minds.  Someday, all we’ll remember is that we’ve heard that title somewhere before; time will have worked its magic and we won’t remember if it was discussed in a positive or negative way and the next thing you know, bam!, another book will be sold.

*coff* not that I’ve ever done such a thing *coff coff*

And in summation, we all agree I’m right.

(snigger)

I am clearly going to have to come with something hellishly irritating to lead off my next MS.  The badly worded sentence Marketing strategy ... never occured to me ... brilliant!

Okay, we agree that it’s punctuated wrong, but where in the he** were her editors when they let it slide by???  It’s really a very basic punctuation issue.  And it’s the first freakin’ sentence in the book.  It’s not like they had to read 100 pages first and were brain dead.  How did they, she, her agent, every last one of them, miss this???

How did they, she, her agent, every last one of them, miss this???
--------------------

When the 1st copy editor got a hold of THE BRIAR AND THE ROSE, he took out ALL italics, a bunch of quotation marks (random, it seemed), and did all sorts of other hateful things to my manuscript.

It took me 2 days to piece it all back together, and even then, I missed a couple of things, and fortunately the 2nd copy editor caught most of those.

However, the 2nd copy editor would have had no way of knowing where italics belonged, and might have had some trouble with those random missing quotation marks.

The editor would have probably trusted the copy editors.

And if I hadn’t been so freakishly obsessed with someone else touching the book, I might have missed some of this, too. So an author who trusts copy editors might well miss commas that go missing.

Just one way of explaining what might have happened to that first sentence:)

Basic? You call this discussion of exceptionally smart bitches (who can’t agree)(oh and there are my parentithical friends again), basic? If they can’t figure it out, why should one poor editor be able to?

X

Hmmm...how can we lure Lori Handeman here to tell us if it was her or the editor(s) that set this boat asail without making her feel like she’s under attack?  Now I’m veeeery curious about her side of the story.

And Ferfe, any time you need some confusing sentences I’ve got plenty laying around that I’d be happy to share.  Just let me know...no charge.

With that, fellow bitches, I’m tapping the mat.  Time for me to shut up and move on.

Maybe I need to send Candy my copy of the book so she won’t debate whether to read it anymore.

Yup, still got your address.  I’ll throw in my copy of Hunter’s Moon too.  Blue Moon was one of my favorite books from last year, but I can see how people woulnd’t like it.  The heroines of both books can be rather bitchy.  *g*

damn, damn, damn. ..offtopic again: I just figured out I missed voting in the haiku contest.

Who won?

OH SHIT. Thanks for the reminder about the haiku contest.

We are now officially at 80 comments for this non-topic, Bitches! Wooo! And also: Aw yeah!

beejay said:

“Okay, we agree that it’s punctuated wrong...”

No, well, it is technically not wrong, beejay.

But it is awkward and not a good choice of a sentence as an opening.

Jumping on at the end of the wagon--I was offline for two days due to a very sad event, but that’s another story.

One thing I hate is when people set rules in punctuation that make no sense. If a semi-colon is required, it should be used, and hang the “nobody uses semi-colons” rule. The ones we stick by are no parenthesis and no all caps--for the reason stated. The pull you right out of a story and interrupt flow.

There needs to be a seminar on how to use a damned comma, too. It’s very irritating.

Oh, and five more hours of sleep would rock.

Worst. Sentence. Ever.

What’s she even trying to say?

6,441 words.  Is it a record?  Waiting by the bell.

Sign me up for the comma seminar.  Seriously.  I’m a bean counter, not a comma expert.  There are a couple of copy editors in New York who loathe and despise me and are fast becoming drunkards in an attempt to live through the thought of another of my manuscripts, headed their way in about five days. (Did I have correct comma usage in this post?)

Stef - whose submit word is still34 - I wish!

I found a sweet little comma tutorial (that you can print out in pdf format), compliments of Purdue University, at the following URL: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_comma.html

That page should link to others on semi-colons, parentheses, etc. 

I haven’t scoured them to make sure all the rules are correct, but the page on commas looked pretty good on my fly by.

Thanks so much, Robin!  I’m printing it out to be perused at length.  Those copy editors will love you.

They may yet become drunkards, but it won’t be because of my scary use of commas, or lack thereof.

Stef

Robin, I’m glad I’m not the only one who is slightly infatuated with semicolons; they are a beautiful piece of punctuation. :)

Why has the em dash replaced parenthesis?

As for this question, the answer is that it shouldn’t. An em dash adds emphasis while parens deemphasize the information. They shouldn’t be used the same way at all.

As for the Blue Moon sentence? The original one worked for me.

The sentence makes no sense to me the way it is written.
“The summer I discovered the world was not black-and-white--the way I liked it--but a host of annoying shades of gray was the summer a lot more changed than my vision.”

What the sentence says is: “The summer was the summer a lot more changed than my vision.”

Ignore the clause in the middle which is not the subject (the subject is the summer) the ‘I discovered...is a clause describing the subject. The verb is simply ‘was’.

It’s so poorly expressed it makes me wonder if the editor even looked at it, or if the author insisted on keeping it like that because she was under the impression it looked good.

At any rate, what it says is that the summer changed more than her vision, which is confusing. How can a summer change? Was it the weather?
Could those posters who claim to understand completely what the author was trying to say clear this up?

The summer I discovered the world was not black-and-white--the way I liked it--but a host of annoying shades of gray was the summer a lot more changed than my vision.
-------------------

“The way I liked it” isn’t necessary to the sentence, except to emphasize that the narrator really likes black and white.

The summer I discovered the world was not black and white, but a host of annoying shades of gray, was the summer a lot more changed than my vision.

So, Jennifer, she’s merely saying that one summer, she found out the world was not black and white (and she was most comfortable with black and white). Instead, it was filled with those annoying gray areas. But the summer she learned that, a LOT more changed than just her vision of the world.

“of the world” could have been added after “vision”, I suppose.

It may be the whole “vision changing” that’s causing some of the confusion, as “vision of the world” was not mentioned, and it’s left up to the reader to conclude she’s talking about her own personal world vision, as opposed to her eyesight.

Or it could be that the truly important aspect of that sentence is that THAT summer, a LOT changed for her. Period.

Not only did her perspective of life change (everything was no longer black and white or right or wrong), but she went through other changes - or at least her life did. Or something (I did not read the excerpt, just this one sentence).

Except for the immediate “Ack! A comma’s missing” moment, I didn’t have a problem with the sentence. And, because of past experience, I’d readily blame a copy editor before the author.

What really bothered me? The debate I had with myself over “black and white” having the hyphens. I wouldn’t have used hyphens, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t right for her to have used them, since, for some reason, the industry is on a hypen kick, and joining two or more words with hyphens that really don’t need it. (Or written the way some books these days read: the industry is on a hyphen-kick and joining two-or-more words with hyphens that really don’t need it.)

A “well meant gesture” will almost always be written “well-meant gesture”. Now. Not in the past. So more than issues with parenthesis, colons, etc - why are we finding that “-” so very necessary to join words that historically have not needed joined in order to get the meaning across?

Ah. Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I can get to work:)

Stef2: I refer to that as comma trauma.

I wonder how many authors go back to their manuscripts after they finish the rush of writing, editing, and publication and wish they could change some of their sentences, especially those that begin or end a chapter.  The two sentences that begin this book strike me as slightly undercooked. They seem to me like the sentences one would write and look at later and think, “Wow, I could have said that so much better.” Ironically, the several pages I read after the first two sentences feature much shorter and better constructed sentences.  In fact, I’m intrigued enough to pick up this book, despite the first two sentences.  I definitely had to read past the first page, though, to settle in to the rhythm of the story.  In fact, while I agree the first sentence is awkward, I think the second sentence is actually worse than the first:

“However, on the night the truth began I was still another small town cop—bored, cranky, waiting, even wishing, for something to happen.  I learned never to be so open-ended in my wishes again.”

Okay, so it’s not ambiguous, but I think it’s even more poorly constructed than the first sentence.  Where, for example, does the “however” come from?  Where’s the contrast?  We know from the first sentence that the narrator’s vision underwent a transformation one summer, and she already gave a reference to her vision at the beginning of that process, so why does she need the “however” to begin the second sentence?

I know you can justify it, but then you get the rest of the sentence before the em dash, with that awkward image of “the night the truth began” and no comma between that phrase and “I,” since “however” becomes the introductory word to be followed with a comma.  Wouldn’t it be better to start like this:  “The night the truth began, I was still another small town cop . . . .”

Now here’s where my command of the comma rules gets squirrely.  Isn’t the comma between “wishing” and “for” unnecessary, since wishing is the end of the list and “for something to happen” finishes off the thought?

Also, it just doesn’t seem very powerful to end the sentence with the notion of “open-ended . . . wishes,” another hyphenated and, IMO, weakly descriptive phrase. 

Can anyone who’s read this book offer any wisdom on why the first two sentences seem kind of tortured, while the style relaxes a bit after that?  If it’s just bad editing, then wouldn’t someone pay extra attention to the first two sentences of a book?  Is there a purpose to the construction of those sentences I’m not getting since I have’t read the whole book?

The original sentence of this topic is not at all awkward or too wordy. it just depends on knowledge in English and sentece structures. It also depends on how your brain waves process.