Flogometer for Jan: would you keep reading?

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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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Jan's first 16 lines (Australian punctuation):

'Michael's gone!' Julia screamed into the payphone outside Flinders Street Train Station.

'Calm down, Mrs Stewart. She'll be with you shortly.'

Julia bristled at the matter-of-factness of the receptionist's voice. 'I don't care if she's with the Queen. My husband is missing. I think I'm losing my mind.'

'Please hold and I'll see if I can interrupt.'

Click. Mozart replaced the receptionist's voice. The familiar hold music from the past sounded surreal against the background tram and traffic noise of the Melbourne thoroughfare.
A pedestrian bumped into her daughter's stroller, turning Shellie to tears.

'Stop that, you bad girl!' Julia rolled the stroller under the phone box, putting her child out of the way of the Friday afternoon commuters.

Shellie reached out and cried louder.

'Arrgghh!' Julia dropped the receiver, picked up the three year old and settled her on her hip. Shellie quieted, distracted now by an earring.

Ignoring her, Julia reached for the dangling receiver, and found silence. 'Hello? Hello!' Don't be gone. I don't have any more change.

'I thought I'd lost you.' The receptionist's cheerfulness was enough to piss off anyone.

I wanted to see what was next

Good story questions, good writing, a likeable voice -- all contributed to my turning the page. I like starting with a scene, and the very first line introduces an element of tension. Still, you know how nit-picky I can be. Some thoughts:

'Michael's gone!' Julia screamed into the payphone outside Flinders Street Train Station. (If you want the reader to get that 'Michael's gone!' is screamed, then you need to clue the reader first, i.e. Julia screamed, 'Michael's gone!' into the payphone outside Flinders Street Train Station. I felt naming the train station felt like an authorial intrusion here. I'd leave it at the pay phone and mention the train station later.)

'Calm down, Mrs Stewart. She'll be with you shortly.'

Julia bristled at the matter-of-factness of the receptionist's voice. 'I don't care if she's with the Queen. My husband is missing. I think I'm losing my mind.' (While this seems okay, I wonder if it's enough. As it turns out, her husband has been missing for two hours, and she's pretty much panicked. Would she "bristle" here? A thoughtstarter: what about an internal monologue rhetorical question, something like: How could the damned receptionist be so matter-of-fact? 'I don't care…etc.)

'Please hold and I'll see if I can interrupt.'

Click. Mozart replaced the receptionist's voice. The familiar hold music from the past sounded surreal against the background tram noise outside Flinders Street Train Station and the traffic noise of the Melbourne thoroughfare.

A pedestrian bumped into her daughter's stroller, turning Shellie to tears.

'Stop that, you bad girl!' Julia rolled the stroller under the phone box, putting her child out of the way of the Friday afternoon commuters.

Shellie reached out and cried louder.

'Arrgghh!' Julia dropped the receiver, picked up the three-year-old and settled her on her hip. Shellie quieted, distracted now by an earring. (The "distracted" part is telling where this could be shown. For example: Shellie toyed with an earring and quieted.)

Ignoring her, Julia reached for the dangling receiver and found silence. 'Hello? Hello!' Don't be gone. I don't have any more change.

'I thought I'd lost you.' The receptionist's cheerfulness was enough to piss off anyone. (While I agree that the tone might piss anyone off, I don't think that a woman in a state of panic would be thinking of that in this way. Thoughtstarter: what about something like Julia wanted to scream at the cheery voice, but choked it back. as a way to show her emotions and frame of mind?)

Nice work, Jan. Keep at it, and focus on finding ways to show us, and keep the protagonist's emotional state firmly in mind when you describe reactions, etc.

Comments, 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.
5. If you rewrite while you wait you turn, it's okay with me to update the submission.

ARCHIVES .

© 2008 Ray Rhamey

Comments

[Sheila]

I would read on. Jan presents a very tense situation with clean writing and panic vibrating off the page.

Personal nit-picks about the three year-old: I could see this scene perfectly if the child were less than one, but it didn't work for me because the child was three. What is a three year-old doing in a stroller? I'm not sure a child this age would cry because someone bumped her. And sure, you can heft a child this age on your hip, but she's not going to be distracted by an earring, that little trick stops working after one. Is the child disabled? If not, I would suggest having the child wander out of reach while the mom is tethered to the phone. That's what my kids did at three and it always caused me huge amounts of stress.

Also, as a mom, I know that my kids are sometimes the unfair victims of my moods. I can understand Julia taking her frustration out on her daughter, but when she called Shellie a "bad girl" for crying when a stranger bumped me, that seemed a bit off to me, a bit harsh coming from a mother, even a stressed-out one.

Good job!

[Bill]

I got hung up with things that annoyed me.

I don’t know how things are in Australia, but in my experience, pay phones are nearly obsolete, replaced by cell phones. In this scene, the pay phone provides a good center around which the scene is built, but is it realistic anymore? Should “Train Station” be lower case? I doubt that a receptionist would tell a caller to “calm down.” Maybe they are old acquaintances, but I don’t know that yet, and I find it jarring. I think there are better ways to describe what happens to her daughter than “turning Shellie to tears.” It bugs me. And why is Shellie a “bad girl” when a passer-by bumped her? Maybe Julia should lash out at the passer-by. And “quieted” as a verb in “Shellie quieted” bugs me too.

On the other hand, there are some very nice turns of phrase. And yes, I want to know what happened to Julia’s husband.

Jan should be more critical of the conversational voice she is using. I would ask myself, “Does it ring true?”

[mai]

While I agree that a panicked person wouldn't be judgmental about a receptionist's cheery voice, I also thought "...The receptionist's cheerfulness was enough to piss off anyone..." told me more about Julia's personality than anything else did, and it was that line that engaged me emotionally and made me want to turn the page. The rest of the writing was telling too much, and my reaction was impatience. But that that last line hooked me tells me the opening of the story is sound, for this reader, despite the telling.

I agree with Sheila about the use of "bad girl" towards a tired toddler. I wondered if the phrase is common in Australia in that context, or if Julia is way overwrought and the story will emphasize that to the reader later.

[JanW]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I shared it with my writing partner as a surprise in our edit session yesterday.

Just a little clarification re points made: yes, we still have payphones, especially at train stations. But we are also a country of mobile phone fanatics, more than one for every living soul in the country: >20mil.

Re the stroller: that is also very common for mums here, keeps the kid under control in crowds. The rest of the story explains why she has it.

I'm pleased you picked up on Julia's bizarre reactions. Perfect. :-)

Interesting some of you thought she was telling Shellie 'bad girl' because of the pedestrian. Julia was calling her a bad girl for crying. Her exasperation will also emerge over time in the book, at least we hope so!!

Anyway, much appreciated. We'll take the comments on board.