Flogometer for Robert: would you keep reading?

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Update I have a guest post on "Writing for Effect" up at Writer Unboxed.

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The relevance of We the Enemy

The Supreme Court has taken up the issue of the right to bear arms, a central theme in the novel I'm offering for free (click the image for a free PDF), We the Enemy. The timing is right to read about ways to deal with the problem that go well beyond traditional thought. This book could change the way you think about a number of things.

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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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Robert's first 16 lines of a fantasy novel:

The smell overwhelmed him; a bizarre mixture of burning lamp oil, cooked meats, and an acrid tang hidden beneath the other scents, a faint suggestion of death.

He opened his eyes. A bright flare rent his skull, and he balled his hands to his face. Phantom ghosts danced within the darkness. He drank the redolence; the ancient aroma, so thick he tasted it on his tongue. With care, he cracked his eyelids and peered between his fingers. Little by little, his vision adjusted.

Searing light resolved into a soft, filtered glow. Dust motes gamboled in the warm beam spilling through an opening a foot above his head. He found himself in a small, enclosed space. For a moment, fear gripped him but then the aroma, somehow familiar, held him gently as a mother cradles a child. He was where he should be. But where is that?

He lifted one hand toward the light -- his fingers glowed red. He raised his other and marveled at their frailty. What has become of me? Armies once quaked at the strength of my hands.

With a groan, he raised to a seated position. His head grew faint and grey dots like tiny fairies flirted before his eyes. In time, his sight steadied and he gazed around.

Burning lamps on golden stands stood in the center of a long narrow room. Rows of columns on each wall supported a groined ceiling above. He sat in a granite box on a raised…

I wasn't drawn on

While there is mystery to this narrative and my curiosity was aroused to some extent, the density of the prose deterred me. In my view, a writer needs to make immersion in the flow of the story effortless, and that wasn't the case here for me. And there was some overwriting. Plus some things that, for me, didn't make sense. Notes:

The smell overwhelmed him; a bizarre mixture of burning lamp oil, cooked meats, and an acrid tang hidden beneath the other scents, a faint suggestion of death. (The first trip wire was the notion of a smell overwhelming someone. I didn't believe that the scents described could literally overpower a person. Also, there's the "telling" of the adjective "bizarre." The good part is the suggestion of death…maybe the smells could rouse him rather than overwhelm him.)

He opened his eyes. A bright flare rent his skull, and he balled his hands to his face. Phantom ghosts danced within the darkness. He drank the redolence; the ancient aroma, so thick he could taste tasted it on his tongue. With care, he cracked his eyelids and peered between his fingers. Little by little, his vision adjusted. (More here that was, for me, overblown. The light rents his skull? Opens the bone? Then comes "redolence," an unfamiliar word that tells me what is then described. And what makes the aroma ancient? Tasting something "on his tongue" is overwriting -- where else would he taste it? The last part just wasn't needed, IMO.)

Searing light resolved into a soft, filtered glow. Dust motes gamboled in the warm beam spilling through an opening a foot above his head. He found himself in a small, enclosed space. For a moment, fear gripped him but then the aroma, somehow familiar, held him gently as a mother cradles a child. He was where he should be. But where is that? (For me, and this is terribly subjective, having the dust motes gambol was too playful an image for this mysterious place, and was counter to the mood. Now the aroma, rather than overwhelming, is gentle. By the way, the narrative doesn't actually say that the aroma eases the fear. One other thing: "small" is a relative term, and doesn't really mean anything without some contrast. This is "telling." If the space allows only inches of room to move, then that could be seen as "small.")

He lifted one hand toward the light -- his fingers glowed red. He raised his other and marveled at their frailty. What has become of me? Armies once quaked at the strength of my hands. (I'm not so sure he needed to raise both hands, but I can go along with that. But what's a little hard to buy is that armies quaked at the strength of his hands -- is he gigantic? A god? How could hands, no matter how powerful, cause armies to quake? Seems over the top to me. I sense what the writer is going for, but it didn't work for me.)

With a groan, he raised to a seated position. His headHe grew faint and grey dots like tiny fairies flirted before his eyes. In time, his sight steadied and he gazed around. (A staging problem here. When he awakens, there's an opening a foot above his head, and he's in a small enclosed place. And now he sits up. I don't think his upper body is less than a foot in length, so it would be impossible for him to sit. This slip is the result of an editing goof -- the original narrative Robert sent, then revised, had the character removing the stone top of a container before he sat up. Do we really need the formality of "raised to a seated position" rather than a simple, direct "sat up?" Remember, make it easy and smooth for the reader. While fantasies can lay on the language to some extent, I think keeping simple things simple is a good idea. I wondered about the "fairies" simile, which took me out of the story a little. They didn't seem to fit with the other notion of armies quaking.)

Burning lamps on golden stands stood in the center of a long narrow room. Rows of columns on each wall supported a groined ceiling above. He sat in a granite box on a raised…

Robert has a richly imagined world here. I sampled further, and found plenty of detailed imaginings. However, the density remained, as well as some overwriting. I think Robert should focus on creating a crisp narrative that gets us to the really interesting part where the character understands that he has awakened in a tomb. Now that's a story question…unfortunately, it comes on the next page, too late to pique my curiosity.

Keep at it, Robert, there's the promise of a fascinating story here.

Comments on the opening, anyone?

For what it's worth,

Ray

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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.
4. If you're in a hurry, I've done "private floggings," $50 for a first chapter.

ARCHIVES .

© 2008 Ray Rhamey

Comments

[Mary Burns]

I agree with Ray's comments completely, and have this to add: the character's state of mind would be more interesting to me (certainly at first) than trying to get to it through the thick atmosphere of similes and description -- all of which are interesting in a way, but hard to wade through. I found it odd that he would even feel like musing about the frailty of his hand against the bright light in his immediate condition. Waking up suddenly in the near-dark, unaware of one's location or condition, has got to be really scary! Think of waking from a heart-pounding nightmare in a dark hotel room - we need to see/feel the panic and fear this person is experiencing - when he calms down, we can then look at his surroundings through his eyes, and you can begin again with the atmosphere. You've got a way with words, Robert, but you need to focus!

[mai]

The first line moved me enough that I wrote this sentence before reading the rest of the opening -- it's both spare and succulent -- it's very nice, and by itself it almost got me to turn the page...

In the rest of the opening, the texture of the words seems a little disrupted -- the words will flow, and then there will be a little hitch -- like when you use within instead of in. And there's redundancy, like when you write phantom ghosts. The extra writing seems to act as a block to story. I wanted to want to read on, but I couldn't find the story.

The writing has great potential, I thought. Best of luck to you.

(I was OK with the smell being overwhelming at the beginning, and given the description of the smell, I could see why it would be experienced like that -- an odor can easily be too much for someone who's subject to migraines, has a lot of untreated allergies, is ill, or is weakened by physical or emotional trauma. But later, the odor cradles him, which creates a halt for the reader, as he or she tries to figure out why something that was first experienced as an assault is now cradling the protagonist.)

[Kamila Miller]

As always Ray offers really solid advice.

I felt this was overwritten. As a fan of genre writing (and a writer) I really wanted to like this, so I kept making excuses for the prose, hoping for better things to come.

I'm going to be really, really intrusive and I hope no one minds:

The smell overwhelmed him; a bizarre mixture of burning lamp oil, cooked meats, and an acrid tang hidden beneath the other scents, a faint suggestion of death.

Much as I enjoy overwhelming scents, I'd rather be informed about them rather than told that they're overwhelming, just as Ray suggested that bizarre is telling rather than showing. The scent of burning lamp oil seems too specific and too general at the same time. Is it kerosene, whale oil, olive oil ...? All of these have been used for lamps over the ages and all have specific scents that will help place us in time as well as in a mood. Anyway, if the reader is bombarded with scents, then it will be overwhelming without saying so, especially if the pov character reacts by retching, drooling, gagging, coughing, or whatever. I really liked 'the suggestion of death' and felt that 'faint' detracted from the idea. Faint and suggestion are somewhat redundant and of the two I found suggestion more compelling.

He opened his eyes. A bright flare rent his skull, and he balled his hands to his face. Phantom ghosts danced within the darkness. He drank the redolence; the ancient aroma, so thick he tasted it on his tongue. With care, he cracked his eyelids and peered between his fingers. Little by little, his vision adjusted.

I agree wholeheartedly that 'rent' is way overdoing it. The author has a really good grasp of sensation but I feel as if he's not trusting the audience to get it. It's enough for things to hurt, and hurt in specific, especially interesting ways. I get tired of rendings and spikes and swords of pain. Sometimes finding the exact interesting word can be hard, but that's what writing is all about. I remember a friend of mine wrote something about a pin of light piercing a character's eyes. It was almost overwritten, but I accepted it because it was so visceral.
In this paragraph in particular there are a lot of instances of two words that could have been replaced by one better one. I'm also unsure about what the phantoms are supposed to represent. We've had a lot of scents, which is a great way to open, but if I'm given a visual, even an imprecise one, I'd really like to have more useful details like (relative) size, color, distance, etc. If this is just his eyes being dazzled, I'm being misled and I don't care for that. I'd like to have a better indication that this is an internal response than him seeing something that I should care about.

Searing light resolved into a soft, filtered glow. Dust motes gamboled in the warm beam spilling through an opening a foot above his head. He found himself in a small, enclosed space. For a moment, fear gripped him but then the aroma, somehow familiar, held him gently as a mother cradles a child. He was where he should be. But where is that?

There was nothing in the previous portion to suggest that the scents we've been told about are homey, so I was thrown violently out of the story. Either there's a new, homey scent, or I'd like to know from the very beginning that he enjoys the scents. Have a reaction, as I'd mentioned earlier, would help. (Drooling and coughing, or maybe in this case, something that suggests that the odors are comforting.)

He lifted one hand toward the light -- his fingers glowed red. He raised his other and marveled at their frailty. What has become of me? Armies once quaked at the strength of my hands.

I really wanted the internal thought set aside in some way, although I suppose they may have been in italics originally and the formatting was lost. The 'one' hand seems overdone, whereas 'a' hand would read more naturally. Why is he raising his hands? Wouldn't he just be looking at them? Armies quaking at the strength of his hands seemed impersonal and very mwa ha ha villain. I'd be more interested in worries about frailty instead of assumptions that the strength to make armies quake is gone. What this character worries about will fill in more interesting character details than what the character was once capable of, especially if the character was all-powerful. All-powerful characters are, to put it baldly, boring and the suggestion that this being can rule the world without breaking a sweat makes me as a reader worry that my invested time in the book will only result in the character at some point regaining power and wasting my time with a whining Superman type, and possibly without kryptonite to keep things interesting.

With a groan, he raised to a seated position. His head grew faint and grey dots like tiny fairies flirted before his eyes. In time, his sight steadied and he gazed around.

I agree with Ray. The limited space combined with him sitting up (I thought he was already sitting!) raised choreography issues. I'm not sure how a head grows faint. 'In time' is weak and suggests a passage of time where nothing happens. I'd rather see this character acting and moving and exploring even while blinded, or if he can't, coping with his disability or just getting on with the action without the passage of time. Eyes adjust pretty quickly and unless there's something else going on, he's had plenty of time to recuperate. Also, why is he groaning? Is he sore? I want to know that, and how he's sore.

Burning lamps on golden stands stood in the center of a long narrow room. Rows of columns on each wall supported a groined ceiling above. He sat in a granite box on a raised…

I have no idea of scope with a long, narrow room. Giving the place some air and some familiar objects will help give scale to columns which could be two feet high or a hundred.

I hope my comments helped. I'm really hoping to see more of this, maybe on bookshelves, with the following heavily opinionated and not necessarily useful additional comments because they're just my taste (as is everything prior) and the first rule of writing is to write what you love and are passionate about:

I hope the story continues to be about this being and doesn't switch pov because this is just a prologue.
I hope this isn't a vampire unless the vampire is vampiric in an unusual way that I haven't read about yet.
I hope that this isn't a demon that's going to be redeemed by a woman unless it's done in a really, really interesting way. When it's on TV (Charmed series) then you know it's been overdone well before it even hit the networks.

Good luck!

[Scott from Oregon]

I have an expression I like to use -- "Like walking through mud in your flip flops..."

This writer needs to think of the reader for a second.

Pretend you come across your work and you are not you. You arecurious, and want to read a bit, so you start in on this story...

The first thing you notice, is that the "story" is hidden. You look for it, but it isn't in the words. Frustrated, you put the work down, and head outside for a bit of a game of tag with your kids and the neighbors kids...

Another way of saying this is that your writing is simply too thick to pour...

Try this for an exercise. Write this story (say five pages of your work) in as bare bone fashion as you can, omiting everything that is not essential.

John woke. He was confused. He remembered how he got here. He got out of the coffin. He ran outside. He found the guy who put him there. He klled him. The end...

Then you can see the structure and show it to us better.

[tomdg]

The semicolon in the first sentence put me off. Shouldn't it be a colon? Either way, it's a long sentence. I'm not even sure it makes sense. Can you break it up? It's not promising to start with such a complex sentence.

You make lots of use of complex or obscure words, often where there might well be a simpler alternative. Is this deliberate? I was taught that good style was actually to keep things simple, using short, everyday words as much as possible. Is the highfalutin language a deliberate stylistic thing to give it a poetic feel? If so it would probably work better if your imagery were more consistent. Here's what it says to me: acrid tang = poison gas, flare = Very pistol, aroma = perfume, gamboled = lambs in a field, mother cradling a child, tiny fairies. All in one page! Ok, that's just me, but still, it's too much, too confused.

I liked this sentence: "Dust motes gamboled in the warm beam spilling through an opening a foot above his head". I can see that picture. But I don't think it's helped by the use of words like motes or gamboled. "Flecks of dust danced ..."?

Overall, I really struggled to read this. Yes, it's interesting, the description is atmospheric (where it's not totally over-the-top), and by the end I'd almost figured out this was some Osiris-type god-figure rising from his tomb. But it's way too heavy.

Sorry :(

[mai]

Scott, your suggestion is very helpful. Thank you.

[Sheila]

I can't really offer any new suggestions. Ray, as always, did a great job and caught all the things that I found, and then some. I do agree with Scott's approach to improvement - lay out the story in a bare bones fashion and then really think about the description you add. Every detail should do something - offer an insight into the character and his motivation, give the reader a better understanding of the character's world. Every detail should have a good reason for being there.

For me, this problem is represented by the dust motes. Dust motes are everywhere (literally) and are a pet peeve of mine because so often they are just described for the heck of it, because it seems writerly to do so.

[Sheila]

Oh, I forgot to add -

Robert, I hope all this doesn't get you down. I think it is easier to trim the fat of over-writing than it would be to fix a problem of weak imaginings or boring plot. (Those would be my problems.)

Good luck!

[D. Robert Pease]

Wow! Thank you all so much for taking the time to critique this! I'm actually glad that no one liked it particularly. How helpful would a "Nice writing." critique be? (Except to stroke my ego.) I actually can see everyone's point. I've struggled with how far to try to push the prose, instead of just telling the story. I think this first chapter (the first page in particular) is probably really overwritten. I've rewritten it at least a hundred times. Thanks Ray for taking the time, and everyone who commented. I didn't expect so much helpful advice.

Time to go back, rewrite (again) and take out all the "highfalutin language".

BTW Kamilla, the story is about this character, and it is not a prologue. He is not a Vampire. Nor a Demon.

[topher61]

I just want to say that the comments were constructive. Too bad Writers.net isn't more like this.

[L.L. Abbott]

Sorry for being late,

I've read everyone's comments and have nothing new to offer, except to the following:

I worked with a guy who wrote movie reviews on the side. I happened to be one of his select few, that received advanced copies. He always wanted us to know how they read, prior to the paper's editor mucking them up with edits. He was accused of writing over the 6th grade reading level most papers aspire to. It angered him because he "refused" to write down to people.

I completely understood his concern. But, [and he knew it was said 'with affection'] every once in a while, I would reply, "You've been reading the Thesaurus again, haven't you!"

My point simply being, there's a way to write and show your true voice, without making people go, "What?"

[D. Robert Pease]

Not sure if anyone will come back and see this or not, but I've rewritten (nearly all of) the opening. Let me know if this gets any closer to what you all are talking about. Nary a highfalutin word in here:

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Burning oil and cooked meats masked the acrid smell of death. With a swollen tongue, he tasted thick dust on his cracked lips. Rough stone dug into his back. He opened his eyes, and then flung hands up to shield his gaze from a burning flare. Dust billowed around nearly skeletal fingers, which glowed against the light. Where am I.

The reek of death grew stronger. He struggled to move. His legs were stiff; his shoulders jammed between stone. He was in a cramped box. Sweat poured from his brow. He kicked his legs and grappled toward the light. Where am I.

He strained against the edges of the box and pulled himself up, toward the ruddy glow. Grey dots danced across his vision and he nearly fainted. His head spun. At last, the room steadied.

He sat in a granite box on a raised platform at the end of a long narrow chamber. Stone sarcophagi lined both sides of the room. A chill prickled his skin. I have awakened in a tomb.

His mind raced, as fresh sweat rolled down his grimy forehead into his eyes. Nightmarish visions of faces filled his mind—faces surrounding him—large pale eyes watching, always watching. A need to get free of the coffin overpowered him.

[Kamila Miller]

I liked the rewrite much better!

For me, that's great news regarding the opening and character. Now I'm curious about who or what this being is and what happens next. Write on!