Flogometer for Stephanie: would you keep reading?

---

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.

---

Stephanie's first 16 lines for an urban fantasy:

Amaan House

Bawiti

11:43pm, 30 June

Julie had visited the hovels of many archaeologists in her three years of working for National Geographic, but she'd never seen a house as dingy as this one.

Plaster peeled from the walls, and giant cobwebs stretched over every corner. A Mount Everest of food-encrusted paper plates leaned against the coffee table. Beer cans littered every surface not packed with boxes of artifacts.

Katie Hunt, the assistant director of the Bahariya excavation, pushed papers and bags of sand off the moth-eaten couch, and gestured for her to sit.

As Julie perched gingerly on the corner of that couch, trying to avoid stepping on anything, she noticed the skull.

It grinned at her from a tray on the breakfast bar, its toothpaste-white cranium gleaming under the dim light. All but two of his upper teeth remained, and these were remarkable. The long incisors curled inward, giving him an…

The teeth got me
Archeology is interesting, to begin with, and the mention of the unusual teeth were enough to pique me into turning the page. And the writing and craft were sound. Sure enough, interesting things happened after this page. But still…some notes:

Amaan House

Bawiti

11:43pm, 30 June (I "cheated" in the 16-line count and included these three timelines. Unless they are VITAL for the story, I'd leave them out. With them in, the page would end with "noticed the skull," and that's not as good a hook. Doesn't seem to me that the time of day or the date are key. The location I've included below.)

Julie had visited the hovels of many archaeologists in her three years of working for National Geographic, but she'd never seen a house as dingy as this one in Bawiti. (Nice job of setting things up, but not exactly gripping. I'll have a suggestion later.)

Plaster peeled from the walls, and giant cobwebs stretched over every corner. A Mount Everest of food-encrusted paper plates leaned against the coffee table. Beer cans littered every surface not packed with boxes of artifacts.

Katie Hunt, the assistant director of the Bahariya excavation, pushed papers and bags of sand off the moth-eaten couch, and gestured for her to sit. ("Moth-eaten" is on the cliche side of things, can you come up with a fresher way? Or even a plainer one, i.e. "tattered?")

As Julie perched gingerly on the corner of that the couch, trying to avoid stepping on anything, she noticed the skull.

It grinned at her from a tray on the breakfast bar, its toothpaste-white cranium gleaming under the dim light. All but two of his upper teeth remained, and these were remarkable. The long incisors curled inward, giving him an…(A clarity issue here for me -- the narrative says that all but two of his teeth remained, and then says that they curved inward. Do you really mean that only two of his teeth remained. In addition, I'd move this (and the rest of the skull's description) to the first paragraph. For example: A skull grinned at Julie from a tray on the breakfast bar, its …etc. Then I'd get into the rest, though I'd look for places to trim that. The unusual skull/teeth are a far stronger opening hook for me than the fact that archaeologists have messy houses.)

The rest of the chapter was also nicely written, but the amount of talk before the explosion started to drag a little for me. Still, nice work. I urge Stephanie work on adding tension to this opening page, and then getting to the explosion sooner.

Comments, anyone?

For what it's worth,

Ray

---

Many thanks for your kind donation, Richard.

---

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 .

© 2008 Ray Rhamey

Comments

[mai]

I like the way I'm led into the story. The unusual setting, and unusual characters promise a good tale. I would have turned the page.

A few things bother me. Paper plates and beer wouldn't be found at archaeological digs outside western countries. Giant cobwebs and moth-eaten cloth would be unlikely in a dry desert area, which this sounds to be, given bags of sand. I think a lot of archaeologists would bridle at their on-digs dwellings being generally called hovels. It's unlikely that any ancient cranium would be toothpaste white.

[Scott from Oregon]

On the plus side, there wa a nice rythm to this prose and I could have easily kept going. If the story had some "teeth" I might have dug the whole thing.

My pet peeve though, is when descriptors get assembled right before my eyes.

"food-encrusted"
"moth-eaten"
"toothpaste-white"

Too many of these, and I get a little old-mannishly cranky...

[C]

Good job, Stephanie, but stay out of my livingroom. Hey, I can't write and clean!

Seriously, I agree with Ray; begin with the skull. The first sentence, seemed weighty with the National Geographic info and all. I mean it sounds a tad soon to learn all that.
Also, it would have to be some pile of paper plates to be called Everest. Paper plates don't pile up that high. Ditto on the dashes, Scott mentioned.

I would have turned to read more though, so good job overall.

[allen b. ogey]

I'm going to pick nits over the use of the gender based possessive adjective and pronoun with regard to the skull.

As skull is an 'it' as referred to in the first excerpted sentence above. Why are they "his" teeth in the second sentence? Why do the teeth give "him" something? Can Julie identify the gender of a skull at a glance? Is there a label on it or is it some sort of famous skull, like Pitcairn Man?

I know I'm being fussy, but to me a skull is an 'it' and should remain an 'it' unless further development of the background shows that it merits gender identification.

So...it jarred me a bit as I read the paragraph.

[Danie]

I'm going to disagree with Ray on where to begin this story. I loved the first two paragraphs because they set the scene very well. I wouldn't change a thing there.

But I do agree with Ray's edits on the fourth paragraph. "Gingerly" is an adverb to kill, and I have an issue with how the action is presented in this paragraph.

"As Julie perched gingerly on the corner of that couch, trying to avoid stepping on anything, she noticed the skull."

Julie didn't try to avoid stepping on anything by gingerly perching on the couch. She may have avoided stepping on anything on her way to the couch. "Anything" doesn't really give me a picture of what's on the floor, and I think it would be more interesting to elaborate. E.g., "Julie sidestepped (something) and perched on the couch.

About the Colgate white teeth, I agree that a skull's teeth would not be that white, but again, perhaps there's a reason for it. It's not something that would have stopped me from turning the page.

Overall, I really enjoyed your first 16 lines. You do a great job of setting the scene in very few words making the scene interesting. The first two paragraphs give it teeth.

[Steff]

Hey guys!

Thanks for the excellent comments. I have been looking for a way to make that opening more engaging for ages, and Ray's solution is so simple and so effective.
A few clarifications on the points you raised:

The skull as an it. I do actually agree with you here. In my story, the archaeologists have named the skull Larry and so most people who come into contact with Larry tend to think of him as 'he'. Although now you mention it I think that's not obvious here and might need to be changed.

The skull Julie sees is a cast. Which is why it's white. It's explained in the next paragraph or so, I think.

Also, I talked to an American Professor who dug in Egypt and he assured me that they definitely had access to beer!

My thanks to everyone who took the time to comment and notice things. I'm working on fixing some of the nitpicks you've noticed, and I'll keep you posted on progress re: shopping to agents and editors.
Cheers - Stephanie

[tomdg]

I loved the first paragraph exactly as it was. I like the way it ends: "... as this one." The rhythm of it just feels absolutely right. You get in the character's name, her job, her experience, probably a guess at her age, and an interesting situation that she's in just in a single sentence.

In fact, I think the timing of the whole page is brilliant: introduce the character, sketch out the setting (para 2, not too long but with enough details to enable me to visualise the scene and its atmosphere), a little bit of mundane action (sit down), then the killed detail that's out of the ordinary (the skull). I'm seriously tempted to bookmark this as a template for what I'd want my first pages to look like!

One minor quibble that hasn't been mentioned yet. The first sentence of the second para lists two descriptive features; the paragraph as a whole lists four. From a rhythm and feel perspective, I think lists work best when they have three things in. That would either suggest putting another point into the first sentence (leaving the paragraph as a whole with five points in, which is also a good number) or making the whole paragraph three one-point sentences. As it is, the ", and" linking the two halves of the first sentence feels not-quite-right. Or maybe you could repunctuate what you've got like this:

Plaster peeled from the walls; giant cobwebs stretched over every corner; a mountain of dirty plates leaned against the coffee table. Beer cans littered every surface not packed with boxes of artifacts.

Okay, maybe you can't use semicolons like that. It also mixes the dirty plates (human) in with the two natural sources of decay (cobwebs and peeling plaster), and highlights the beer cans, none of which may be what you're trying to achieve. But it might prompt an idea ...