[Mark Trail, March 9, 2015.]
It’s not the instincts that are “not far from Lost Forest”; it’s the beaver himself. And “leave the colony in order to go out” is cumbersome phrasing.
[Mark Trail revised, March 9, 2015.]
From forty syllables to thirty, from thirty-two words to twenty-three. Big savings. Fare forward, young family-man, and best of luck to you in the Trail world.
Mark Trail has provided material for two other “How to improve writing” posts, nos. 44 and 46.
Related reading
All OCA How to improve writing posts (Pinboard)
[This post is no. 54 in a series, “How to improve writing,” dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]
Monday, March 9, 2015
How to improve writing (no. 54)
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comments: 4
It was kinda fun envisioning the beaver as mere packaging for the instincts that wanted to run free.... but I fear Mark Trail just wrote this up to give Cherry hope that HE would develop some instincts and a desire for a family....
Well, they have Rusty. And that word probably sums up Mark and Cherry, relationship-wise.
I liked 1960s Mark. I don't think he had a relationship then. Especially as a play on words.
The Wikipedia article on the strip has Cherry and Mark marrying in 1993, after forty-seven years, which would put her there from the start (1946). But the “relationship” seems more prominent now than a few years ago (which I was I began aware of the strip).
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