Paragraph #28

Next,

It started with a prickle at the back of her neck. Lifting her head, she scanned the crowded bar quickly, assessing each person for danger before moving on to the next. A quick glance showed her no one out of the ordinary, just the usual smattering of disgruntled workers and tourists that thought visiting the bowels of NAME ME station, and the bar named the Den of Inequity made for an adventure.

First things first:

A quick glance showed her no one out of the ordinary, just the usual smattering of disgruntled workers and tourists that who thought visiting the bowels of NAME ME station, and the bar named the Den of Inequity made for an adventure.

Now we have a couple of stylistic choices.  The paragraph is well written and works as is, but we could make it a touch sharper.

It started with a prickle at the back of her neck.

Good by itself.  We could flip it so it reads more active.  A prickle nipped the back of her neck, frex, but it works well as is.

Lifting her head, she scanned the crowded bar quickly, assessing each person for danger before moving on to the next.

Let’s look at the definition of scan from the dictionary:

scan

To scan already implies a quick and sweeping examination.  Which means that we can get rid of that quickly and before moving on to the next. This is what happens when you pick a right verb – it saves you a ton of words.

Lifting her head, she scanned the crowded bar, assessing each person for danger.

Do you see the issue here?

Let me highlight:

A) Lifting her head, she scanned the crowded bar, assessing each person for the signs of being in danger.

B) Lifting her head, she scanned the crowded bar, assessing each person as presenting potential danger.

Which one is it?  Is she surveying people in the bar like a bouncer to make sure all of them are safe or is she surveying them to make sure one of them isn’t going to nuke her in a minute?  Funny how word choice can alter the meaning of the sentence.

I’m guessing it’s Option B.  We have several stylistic options:

Lifting her head, she scanned the crowded bar, assessing each person as a potential threat.

Lifting her head, she scanned the crowded bar, assessing each person, searching for a potential threat.

Lifting her head, she scanned the crowded bar, assessing each person, wondering which one of them would strike.

And so on.

A quick glance showed her no one out of the ordinary, just the usual smattering of disgruntled workers and tourists who thought visiting the bowels of NAME ME station and the bar named the Den of Inequity made for an adventure.

Here is an opportunity to drop the readers directly into the character’s head.  We don’t have to take that option but if we did, it would look like this:

No one out of the ordinary, just the usual smattering of disgruntled workers and tourists who thought visiting the bowels of NAME ME station and the bar named the Den of Inequity made for an adventure.

We can maintain the distance – nothing at all wrong with that.  As I said, it’s a stylistic choice.

Before:

It started with a prickle at the back of her neck. Lifting her head, she scanned the crowded bar quickly, assessing each person for danger before moving on to the next. A quick glance showed her no one out of the ordinary, just the usual smattering of disgruntled workers and tourists that thought visiting the bowels of NAME ME station, and the bar named the Den of Inequity made for an adventure.

After:

It started with a prickle at the back of her neck. Lifting her head, she scanned the crowded bar, assessing each person as a potential threat.  No one out of the ordinary, just the usual smattering of disgruntled workers and tourists who thought visiting the bowels of NAME ME station and the bar named the Den of Inequity made for an adventure.

All in all, good paragraph.  Almost there.    Keep it up!