Flogometer for Marty: would you keep reading?

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Update on We the Enemy

A week ago I queried 11 agents about taking on my novel; I've heard from 5, and 1 requested a full for an assistant to read. As a result of a guest post on Write Unboxed about this, another bold agent requested pages in her comment. Power to the Internet! 20 people have requested the free PDF. And there's a post on Readers and Writers Blog. about it. This Wednesday I'm doing a guest post on M.J. Rose's Buzz, Balls & Hype blog. And reader reviews are coming in.

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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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Marty's first 16 lines:

Temperance Jones struggles into her winter coat. She has not even bothered to remove her nightgown. In the last few years she has simply begun to put her clothes over the top of it. Stockings cover her thin legs and a long wool skirt hangs well past her knees. She starts looking for her gloves. She knows they aren't very far away but at 73 her mind has began to wonder and her memory isn't so good anymore. Still she needs to find her gloves without them her hands will be covered with blisters by the end of the day. Temperance has dug all day without them in the past, so she is well aware of the consequences. She spots them lying on top of her boots. Guiltily she looks around the room as she picks them up, almost like she expects someone to be watching and judging her failing memory. But of course she is alone.

Temperance has considered replacing her stockings with slacks like her family has suggested. They would definitely keep her legs warm but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Ladies didn't wear trousers. She had heard that numerous times from her mother when she was a child. Her sweet mother had always been the very picture of what a lady should be. Even when she was found dead at the bottom of the stairs she had managed to fall in a ladylike position. Temperance wondered what her mother would think of her if she were alive today. If she could see everything that she has done and worse everything that has been done to her over the years. Would she still…

I stalled out on backstory

I liked the voice, and the point of view of a 73-year-old is definitely interesting. I was even willing to go along with the leisurely tone, but for me there was finally too much doddering old lady stuff and not enough hint of an interesting story was at hand.

That's the danger of dawdling on an opening page. Shortly thereafter, Mary had this line:

Ladies don't wear trousers but they don't get gang raped and smother the life out of their elderly husbands either.

That raised interesting story questions, but too late. And then the story dropped into backstory. For me, there just wasn't enough tension. And a few craft problems:

Temperance Jones struggles into her winter coat. She has not even bothered to remove her nightgown.  In the last few years, she has simply begun to put her clothes over the top of it. Stockings cover her thin legs and a long wool skirt hangs well past her knees. She starts looking looks for her gloves. She knows they aren't very far away, but at 73 her mind has began to wonder wander and her memory isn't so good anymore. Still, she needs to find her gloves; without them her hands will be covered with blisters by the end of the day. Temperance has dug all day without them in the past, so she is well aware of the consequences. She spots them lying on top of her boots. Guiltily She looks around the room as she picks them up, almost like she expects if someone were to be watching and judging her failing memory. But of course she is alone.  (There were a few comma faults, and one missing semi-colon. I think little misses like that rob narrative of the professional tone it must have, as does the occasional misspelled word [wander]. The part about "Stockings cover her thin legs" steps away from her point of view and tells rather than shows. I think you could communicate thin legs descriptively, i.e. Baggy stockings cover her legs…)

Temperance has considered replacing her stockings with slacks like her family has suggested. They would definitely keep her legs warm, but she couldn't can't bring herself to do it. Ladies didn't don't wear trousers. She had heard that numerous times from her mother when she was a child. Her sweet mother had always been the very picture of what a lady should be. Even when she was found dead at the bottom of the stairs, she had managed to fall in a ladylike position. Temperance wondered what her mother would think of her if she were alive today. If she could see everything that she has done and worse everything that has been done to her over the years. Would she still… (I felt the green part slowed the narrative and could be deleted -- an opening is not time, IMO, for a character to slip into rumination. Eliminate that and we can get to the gang rape/smothering part on the first page.)

It seems like there could definitely be something intriguing here, and the voice is strong. Work on tightening the narrative and keeping the focus on what's happening that makes us want to know what happens next.

Comments, anyone?

For what it's worth,

Ray

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Flogometer update
As of this post, I've done 100 "floggings," and there are 23 in line. As they say, "Hurt me good." If you're in a hurry, I recently did a "private flogging" for a reader: $50 for his first chapter.

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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

[Norm Benson]

No, I wouldn't have kept reading. The third-person omniscient narrator is off-putting to me in most stories (I ignored it in Harry Potter because the story drew me in quickly).

3PO coupled with present tense narration (I read Gibson's "Pattern Recognition" and it irked me throughout) the overall feeling is one of a clinician explaining an on-going science experiment.

Toss in a 73 year old with dementia for a protagonist and well, it doesn't say "read me, you will be glad you did" to me.

All stories strike people differently. My opinion is simply one.

[Kamila Miller]

Hi, long time reader, first time comment-er.

Norm Benson hit on something that I'd like to expand upon. If I'm reading about a 73 year old protagonist in the opening, I have to wonder where the story will go from here. Although many fine books begin with someone late in life and then go on to describe what happened to that person in the past, I find this inefficient and off-putting. I would rather start where the story begins unless there's something important that happens now (in the future of the relevant part of the story) that relates in an interesting way and brings something fresh and exciting to the narrative.

If this is starting out with the 73 year old to develop sympathy for her before we get to the real story about other people coping with her, then I'm even more resistant to the idea of reading onward. I invest in what I read about in the first pages of a book and if I have to re-invest in someone/something else then I get frustrated.

Having said all this, I like the character and watching her struggle with simple tasks is engaging. I just need the activity/story stepped up more quickly.

[C]

I'm sorry the craft problems alone would have caused me to quit reading.
Along with what Ray and others above pointed out I have this to say: She, she she she she and more she's. Ug.

Now, an old lady is interesting to me, and 73 these days is hardly death's door. I found thinking about the cold and the hard chores she was about to do intriguing, but the voice and gramatical errors put a plug in my imagination.

Keep working though; it can easily be turned around with all you'll learn here.

[Sheila]

What is a 73 year-old woman doing digging all day? In her nightgown, no less? That kind of intrigued me. My mind started churning - is she looking for something her murdered husband buried? Oooh, that would be fun. But if she's just digging because she likes to work in the garden or she supports herself by picking cotton, well, I would probably be bored by that.

I wouldn't mind reading a story about a 73 year-old, actually. And I liked the description of her looking around the room as if someone was watching her. I've felt like that sometimes.

But I have to agree with C, the writing errors would have put me off. Those are not so hard to fix, though.

[Liz]

I wouldn't have turned the page. The story didn't resonate with me, possibly because it was told in the present tense. The missing commas raised a red flag. The phrase "has began to wonder" really jarred for me, and even allowing for the spelling error, shouldn't it have said 'has begun to'? That said, I loved the descriptions especially the piece about her mother. I agree with Ray about the section he marked in green, I think you should cut that.

[Jessica]

There were a number of intriguing things that would have kept me reading:

-73 year old protagonist. The media is so full of twenty-somethings, that I'm always happy to see someone older in a leading role.

-Spending the day digging. Instead of knitting or other stereotypical "old-person" things. And wow, what a story question! Why is she spending all day digging? I want to know!

-Dead mother dying in an unladylike position. Foreshadowing? I want to know more!

Like some of the other readers, I was turned off by craft issues. I'm not a fan of present-tense stories, but whatever the tense an author uses, it should be consistent.

It also seemed heavy on narration of minute actions and clothing details that don't seem significant.

You might consider starting off with Temperance's thoughts on ladylike clothing, her mother dying in a ladylike position, and the line that came later connecting trousers and rape. That line was very powerful, and opens lots of questions.

One final thought, and this is my own prejudice: unless it's really, really, really necessary to the story, you might consider NOT giving Temperance "old-people" problems like memory loss/senility/dementia, or, God forbid, incontinence. She sounds so interesting, opinionated, and strong, that giving her this sort of stereotyped handicap demeans her as a character, at least in my opinion.

Best of luck with your story. It sounds like it's going some interesting places, and I'd love to see how it progresses.

[Jessica]

There were a number of intriguing things that would have kept me reading:

-73 year old protagonist. The media is so full of twenty-somethings, that I'm always happy to see someone older in a leading role.

-Spending the day digging. Instead of knitting or other stereotypical "old-person" things. And wow, what a story question! Why is she spending all day digging? I want to know!

-Dead mother dying in an unladylike position. Foreshadowing? I want to know more!

Like some of the other readers, I was turned off by craft issues. I'm not a fan of present-tense stories, but whatever the tense an author uses, it should be consistent.

It also seemed heavy on narration of minute actions and clothing details that don't seem significant.

You might consider starting off with Temperance's thoughts on ladylike clothing, her mother dying in a ladylike position, and the line that came later connecting trousers and rape. That line was very powerful, and opens lots of questions.

One final thought, and this is my own prejudice: unless it's really, really, really necessary to the story, you might consider NOT giving Temperance "old-people" problems like memory loss/senility/dementia, or, God forbid, incontinence. She sounds so interesting, opinionated, and strong, that giving her this sort of stereotyped handicap demeans her as a character, at least in my opinion.

Best of luck with your story. It sounds like it's going some interesting places, and I'd love to see how it progresses.