Flogometer for Mai: would you keep reading?

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Update: I've a guest post up about "experiential description" up at Writer Unboxed that you might find interesting.

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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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Mai's first 16 lines:

The inner wall of the bus fought it out with Clara's shoulder, while Amit Chatterjee's corduroy voice scored the play. Her NYC-black medium Bic Round traced barbed-wire words on a lined sheet in a spiral-bound notebook with a blue cover, $1.29 from the bodega on the corner near the office. She was going home to two old dogs, and seven coconut shells cut in half. The dogs were brothers, fourteen years old. There were fourteen coconut half-shells. The dogs watched over her. The coconut shells held her paints. A soft cheek passed at eye-level, a half-pear of sueded skin in a luminous medium tobacco brown. A child. Her nerves danced with Rehman, to Pal Pal Hai Bhaari.

Urdumen stood over Clara. His breath soughed, with a soft hunger-like quality. If he could have gotten away with it, her hair would be wrapped around his fist and jerked hard, and his other hand would be on her waist. With her head pulled back like that, she'd be looking into his eyes, her face stiff with shock. His breath soughed again. He was still. He couldn't get away with it yet.

Clara stared through the spaces in the crowded bus to where the brilliant lights of a dark NYC night sparkled. Seen through the bus's glossy windows, the night was like a tunnel with lights as its signposts. The night-and-light tunnel went all the way to New Delhi, India, more than 7,000 miles away, a place she'd never been. Anu Malik sang to her, his voice like honeyed whisky.

Exotic qualities kept me reading

Despit personal/professional misgiving about hopping from one character's head and into another's, this narrative holds the promise of somewhere I've never been before, the lure of the unknown. And the writing is very good.

I prickled a little at the extreme detail about the pen and notebook, but it was well done, and could be a character of this protagonist. The focus on "seven" and multiples of it later seem to point to an obsessive quality that may be a factor later, so it was working as characterization.

I wished I'd seen a little of those barbed-wire words, just a little. Otherwise, this is simple telling in a place where showing me even a phrase from those words would have added interest and characterization.

Because I have no idea what her nerves were dancing to, "Rehman, to Pal Pal Hai Bhaari," I had no idea what was going on. I think some clue would be good. Is she listening to favorite Indian sound tracks/songs on an iPod? It would only take a few words to make this clear. If not, then please cut them because I think they're an interference, a speed bump, for readers not familiar with those names or titles, whatever they were.

The hop into Urdumen's head was something I'd never do, especially in the second paragraph of the opening, but it did raise story questions and add a lot of tension. I'd look for a different way to do this, but this worked better than most. If anything, I suggest separating the pov sections with three centered asterisks in the line breaks between paragraphs.

I'd work on the phrase that describes Urdumen's sigh -- "with a soft hunger-like quality." Since we're in his point of view, I don't think he'd characterize it that way. It would be possible to do this, I think, but from within him. For example:

His breath soughed, and wondered if the other passengers could hear his hunger in the sound.

Just a thought. The narrative continued to build an air of mystery and suspense, and Urdumen seems to be not human. Mai sent just 4 pages, and I would have read on. But, Mai, there were other missed opportunities for clarity that I'd attend to -- for example, when Clara falls, she thinks about suffering a "SLAM" injury. I suggest that you define that in context somehow. Otherwise, it's meaningless to the uninitiated (me) and might as well be deleted. The opening pages must be clear and easy to understand, even if it takes a few more words here and there. I'd also be careful about working too hard to find "different" ways to say things. For example, when Urdumen pushes her on the way out of the bus, you write:

Her exit was amplified by a push…

For me, "exit was amplified" veers into overwriting and telling. "A shove from behind" or something simple and clear will communicate the action you intend more pictorially and without slowing the reader.

Good work, though, especially if you can find some good fresh eyes to point out little soft spots such as these.

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

[Cat]

I thought the first paragraph was too abrupt. As well as being hard to read, I would have liked some sense of where she was. Consider starting with the third paragraph, then the second. Also, the details of the pen and notebook were overwhelming, but I understood why it was done. However, listing 3 different singers/songs in such a short span was overkill. Songs are 2-5 minutes in length. She's obviously listening to each one, and so much jumping around distracts from other important details.

[TMM]

Lost me with the first line and then it just got more confusing. Do I really care what brand of pen she's using, or how much her notebook costs, or that it has a blue cover? Nope. Not at all. I want to know WHAT she's writing, or WHY. Basically, tell me who is she - and why should I care?

Try starting there before going into so much descriptive detail. It's clear you have a talent for stringing words together in interesting ways, but don't count on readers being intrigued by the obscurity of what you're talking about - they're lazy. In most cases, if you make it hard for them to figure out, they'll just give up.

[writtenwyrdd]

I found the first paragraph to be a distracting grocery list. Too much detail, not enough hook.

Perhaps consider starting with paragraph #2?

[Liz]

I loved the second paragraph, it really pulled me into the story and raised lots of questions. The first didn't do a thing for me, too much itty-bitty detail, but I can see how the author could be setting up Clare as an osbessive/compulsive type of personality. I just think that it's too much too soon. But that's just me.

[mai]

Thank you, Ray, for the critique and sharp observations. I'm indebted to you, sir.

And thanks to Cat, TMM, writtenwyrdd and Liz, for cogent thoughts.

After I'd sent this in, I did the usual -- reread it after a few days -- and I cringed, seeing its flaws clearly, and anticipating the feedback. I'm honestly delighted that the exotic elements came through to you, Ray. It means a lot to me, because the exoticism is one of the motivations for my trying to write this story. That this aspect of the story intrigued you gives me fresh courage and energy to continue.

Cat, thank you for alerting me to my insensitivity to implicit time structures.

Fresh eyes, indeed! Thank you, all, again!

-- mai

[Ing]

Myself, I really liked the details of the "barbed-wire words" and the notebook. Very creative. The barbed wire metaphor, the price, and the mention of the corner bodega work together quite well (I think) to suggest an inner-city location and also evoke tension.

However, some other things didn't work so well for me. The sudden move from Clara to Urdumen was jarring, and "soughed" made me stumble -- I pronounced it "soft" in my head, then bumped up against the word "soft" later in the sentence and had to wonder if I knew how to pronounce the word at all, and then I thought that probably soughing implies softness anyway. Nitpicky, I know, and I feel bad because "soughed" is a great word that probably isn't used enough, but I couldn't help stumbling. It just happened.

(Okay, I just looked in the dictionary: "Soughed" does denote a soft sound, so "soft" is an unnecessary adjective in that sentence. And I don't--didn't--know how to pronounce the word, so I stumbled as much over my own ignorance as anything else. Sough is supposed to be said "suf," not "sof". And it is a GREAT word to use.) :)

Also, some of the narrative lost me. I don't have the foggiest idea what the music references are supposed to mean (though maybe that's my own narrow musical taste speaking), and by the time the coconut shells were explained, I was pretty confused about why they were in the story at all (cool concept, though; the way the coconut references were scattered through the first paragraph threw me off).

Still, there's some powerful writing here. This passage has an exotic feeling and lots of tension, like something (or someone) is going to snap any second.

Very intriguing.