Flogometer: craft glitches sunk this one

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective. Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, etc.) there should be about 16 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page).

Some homework. Before sending your novel's opening, you might want to read these two FtQ posts: Story as River and Kitty-cats in Action. That'll tell you where I'm coming from, and might prompt a little rethinking of your narrative.

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This is for Marti. Here are the first 16 lines:

My father's voice whispered in my ear, "A single moment."

I nearly wet my pants.

I leapt up from the cemetery bench, shaking.  My heart pounded, and my eyes darted around like hummingbirds on crack.

What the hell was that?

It sounded like my father's voice.  The voice I'd heard all my life was talking into my ear, just like he was standing right there.

Only he wasn't standing right there, he couldn't be, would  never be standing right there again.

He's dead.

It had to be my imagination.  After all, Daddy uttered that phrase a thousand times.  Yes, that's it.

Breathe.  Breathe.

The wind blew a wisp of golden brown hair across my face, frightening me again.  I brushed it aside, feeling foolish.

This is insane.  You're just overwrought.

Marti did a lot of things right here -- started with a scene, raised an interesting story question, has an appealing voice -- but just not enough to overcome some narrative shortcomings and move me further into the story. You've probably read that agents and acquisition editors say they're looking for reasons to reject a submission. While they're also looking for reasons to accept one, the volume is such that signs of less-than-professional writing are frequently enough to make them pass.

One big flaw, which was not repeated on subsequent pages, were disagreements of verb tense -- there are a couple of present-tense verbs in a past-tense narrative. And there was a little overwriting, IMO. Here are some notes:

My father's voice whispered in my ear, "A single moment."

I nearly wet my pants.

I leapt up from the cemetery bench, shaking.  My heart pounded, and my eyes darted around like hummingbirds on crack. The light tone of this was an interesting contrast to the idea of being sufficiently startled to wet one's pants.

What the hell was that? Couple of things: you don't need to italicize what is clearly internal monologue. And I don't think this internal question is needed -- she answers it in the next line, and I'm not so sure a person would do this upon hearing what she heard. This slows the narrative, and I'd delete it.

It sounded like my father's voice.  The voice I'd heard all my life was talking into my ear, just like he was standing right there.

Only he wasn't standing right there, he couldn't be, would  never be standing right there again.

He's dead.  The present tense here brought me to a halt, which was too bad as it's a terrific hook.

It had to be my imagination.  After all, Daddy had uttered that phrase a thousand times.  Yes, that's it.  "That's" is another bit of present tense sneaking in. With this second instance of the wrong tense, I was feeling that I would be confronted with a manuscript full of them, and I didn't want to be reading that. Interestingly, there were no more of these in a number of the following pages. Just goes to show you how much care you have to give to that opening page.

Breathe.  Breathe.   Personally, I don't think this helps. It's another pause in an otherwise interesting situation. And, in a situation as mysterious and potentially alarming as this one is, would a person really be telling themselves to breathe? I think they would just continue experiencing it, which is what the reader wants to do.

The wind blew a wisp of golden brown hair across my face, frightening me again.  I brushed it aside, feeling foolish. The description is a step out of her point of view and into a more omniscient one. It's the author telling us something, not the character experiencing it. No one, in my view, would be conscious of his or her hair color in a situation like this. In addition, this action contributes nothing to the story, tension, etc. I don't believe that the wind blowing a wisp of hair across her face would really frighten her, not if it wasn't unusual, and the narrative hasn't told us that the day was still and calm and the wind comes out of nowhere. So it doesn't matter that the wind blew a wisp of hair across her face, IMO.

This is insane.  You're just overwrought.   This is more internal monologue that really doesn't contribute to the story, in my view. It's slowing me down, and a damper on my wondering what's going on here.

So it was craft issues that slowed me to a halt here, not story questions. I continued to read, of course, in order to get a bigger picture. No more tense errors jumped out at me, but there was overwriting, and right at the top of the page a continuity problem stuck out. The narrative said this:

The compact clattered to the ground.

Compact? As you can see, the narrative contains no reference to a compact, so its out-of-the-blue appearance was another clue that this manuscript, despite some appealing elements, really needs polishing and editing before it's ready to be considered for publication.

But keep at it, Marti. Oh, by the way, please send samples in standard manuscript form instead of it being formatted in single spacing, no indents, extra space between paragraphs, and on 6" x 9" paper. I know you have it that way for self-publishing purposes, but it's a pain to have to reformat it in order to properly assess it.

Comments, anyone?

For what it's worth,

Ray

Public floggings available. If I can post it here,

1. send 1st chapter or prologue as an attachment (cutting and pasting and reformatting from an email is a time-consuming pain) and I'll critique the first couple of pages.
2. Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
3. And, optionally, permission to use it as an example in a book if that's okay.

ARCHIVES .

© 2007 Ray Rhamey

Comments

[Clayton Lindemuth]

Ray--

Thanks for the great work you do. I read this blog all the time, and just wanted to let you know how helpful your insights are.

Clayton

[Ray Rhamey]

Thanks, Clayton. Good words from folks like you help keep me going.

Ray

[Theadra Leilani]

Hi Ray,

I just found your website today and I love it. It's very helpful to those of us who are still chasing the dream of being published. I wanted to let you know that I mentioned you today on my blog. I hope that's okay. Oh, and thank you for what you're doing...it really is appreciated.

Theadra

[patti]

Whoa. I just found this site. and, you scare me a little...but i like it.