Flogometer for Glenda: 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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Glenda's first 16 lines (BTW, this is the 300th post on Flogging the Quill):

Windows of the partially remodeled room hide behind sheets of plywood. Smells of turpentine and fresh paint crowd the room. A child stands in the middle of the room. Her pulse quickens. Darkness invades the room. Not the darkness created by the absence of light but the darkness created by evil and fed by fear. Outside, high winds and heavy rains pound the deserted beach. The storm surge threatens to swallow the lonely house perched on top of the dunes.

Candlelight glints off the razor sharp edge of the raised blade. Sweat trickles down the child's back. Her nightgown sticks to her skin. Terror tightens its grip.

The dagger rises higher. Her heart pounds. She watches the dagger climb. "No, no, no…" her mind pleads. Her hands shake and the blade quivers, dancing in the candlelight.

"Yes!" The voice whispers in her ear.

Bile creeps up the back of her throat. The acidic taste burns, gagging her. The hurricane tears across the island destroying everything in its path. The roar of the storm drowns out the screams of the others in the room. The voice whispers again, "Hear the storm? Feel the power? Make it yours." Anger mixes with fear. "Now!" the voice urges. "Do it now!" A keening begins deep within the child, torn from the very core of her being. The edges of her vision fades. Downward the dagger plunges.

Yeeks! I turned the page.
Despite some nits and clarity issues, what's happening here was plenty to get me to turn the page. While I'm not a fan of the omniscient point of view, perhaps in this case it's good to remain distant from the protagonist. But there were things I found confusing.

The hurricane tears across the island, destroying everything in its path. Windows of the partially remodeled room hide behind sheets of plywood. Smells of turpentine and fresh paint crowd the room. A child stands in the middle of the room. Her pulse quickens. Darkness invades the room. Not the darkness created by the absence of light but the darkness created by evil and fed by fear. Outside, high winds and heavy rains pound the deserted beach. The storm surge threatens to swallow the lonely house perched on top of the dunes. (Unless the remodeling and smells are key to the story, I see no need to use words to include them (and they didn't seem important to the following pages of narrative). I've moved a sentence from four paragraphs down that didn't fit well there for me and moved it here to help set the scene. I also deleted the repetition of "the room.")

Candlelight glints off the razor sharp edge of the raised blade. Sweat trickles down the child's back. Her nightgown sticks to her skin. Terror tightens its grip. (I thought the sweat detail was good.)

The dagger rises higher. Her heart pounds. She watches the dagger climb. "No, no, no…" her mind pleads. Her hands shake and the blade quivers, dancing in the candlelight. (I cut the sentence mostly to avoid repetition of "dagger." Also, her watching the dagger climb made me think that someone else was wielding it, and then the last sentence suggests that she is. Whether she is the one using the knife is never quite clear in the whole prologue, which may be intentional. But if it's not, I'd appreciate clarification.)

The voice whispers in her ear. "Yes!" The voice whispers in her ear. (I think that if you want a reader to hear the way in which a speech is delivered, that needs to come before the words.)

Bile creeps up the back of her throat. The acidic taste burns, gagging her. The hurricane tears across the island destroying everything in its path. The roar of the storm drowns out the screams of the others in the room. The voice whispers again, "Hear the storm? Feel the power? Make it yours."

Anger mixes with fear. "Now!" the voice urges. "Do it now!" A keening begins deep within the child, torn from the very core of her being. The edges of her vision fades. Downward the dagger plunges. (This paragraph, for me, lacks clarity. I'm not seeing how the "others" in the room relate to the girl, who may or may not be holding the dagger. Are they screaming because of the storm, or the blade? Note: it's "fade," not "fades" here.)

Is it her anger that mixes with fear? I added a paragraph break to help signal that it's her anger/fear, not the mysterious speaker's. I don't think it would hurt to expand this a little to create more of a picture and add clarity. From this, and from what happens next (lots of stabbing and blood), the girl's role is never clear, nor is what else goes on in the room. It seems like she could be the stabber, and it also seems that she is not. Unless there's a reason for withholding this, why not create a larger, more full picture?)

Keep working on this, Glenda. But watch out for "overwriting" -- on the first page of chapter one you have a detective tapping a paper against "his Wrangler clad thigh." Not only is a hyphen missing, that kind of detail is the author talking, and took me out of the story. I felt it would have been better to just have him tap it against his leg, and worry about whether or not he was wearing jeans later.

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

[Kamila Miller]

The tension in this opening is what turns the page for me. It has great elements--unanswered questions (though some of it's confusing,) danger, a dynamic setting. It has some weaknesses that are hurting it. Ray mentioned the word repetition. It has rhythm repetition as well. The opening sentences all had the same structure, approximate length, and feel. To a reader they end up reading like a more complex version of Spot is a dog. Spot is brown. Spot has four legs.

My confusion arises from the child apparently being in the room alone and yet there's this dagger rising. I'd definitely read on, but if I was 'tricked' I'd probably stop. There's a fine line between excluding information to create surprise and leaving out obvious information to trick the reader. Hopefully that line isn't crossed.

[Kitty]

Putting a child in danger would make me think twice before reading. (Same goes for animals, btw.)

That said ... I think you have the beginnings of a good read. The imagery these lines conjure is very good: "Darkness invades the room. Not the darkness created by the absence of light but the darkness created by evil and fed by fear." Simply stated yet powerful.

Ray has given you good suggestions, especially concerning overwriting.

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[Sheila]

Congratulations, Ray, on your 300th post!

The impression I got from this opening is that someone is egging on a young girl to stab something or someone. "Her hands shake and the blade quivers," seems to indicate this, plus the disembodied voice saying, "do it now!" That's kind of a gruesome scenario, but one that would keep me reading, with my stomach in knots, to see what happens.

I didn't really feel her terror, though. Perhaps it was the omniscient POV, perhaps it was that the scene setting wasn't clear. It's hard, in 16 lines, to do this. Including the right details might help add terror and improve clarity. For instance, you place the "others" in the room and describe them as screaming. I could picture a hundred different scenes with this description. If the girl stole a quick glance at their faces and saw them flickering in the candlelight (one candle? many? the lighting is also unclear), would she see them wincing in fear, some hiding their faces because they cannot bear to watch? Or perhaps they are screaming to egg her on, with blood-thirsty expressions?

Good luck!

[Sally]

Sorry, I'm not in agreement on this one. It just seemed terribly melodramatic and even with the corrections Ray suggested, still too overwrought...something like Stephen King having a William Shatner moment. JMO. Sorry.

[Mai]

Sometimes the writing took me out of the story or mood: "Outside, high winds and heavy rains pound the deserted beach." -- this pulled me outside and broke the flow of the story. If one word's position were changed, like this: "High winds and heavy rains pound the deserted beach outside." -- I could see outside from within, and mood and story flow would be maintained. This: "The storm surge threatens to swallow the lonely house perched on top of the dunes." -- took me into the realm of weather reporting -- science, the impersonal -- and weakened my emotional connection with the story.

Things like these softened the build of tension. Because they came early on in the opening, I became impatient, and didn't want to turn the page. The rhythm and texture of the writing are too regular, as others have pointed out. This makes for a sense of condescension, of author towards reader, that I found annoying.

(Congrats on 300 posts, Ray!)

[Bill]

The most confusing Western I ever read. But if some of the confusion could be turned into honest mystery, I’d read on with enthusiasm (honest mystery as opposed to the bogus, misleading mystery that Kamila mentions). Personally, I like the choppy sentences in the first paragraph.

I think Ray’s suggestions are a great help, especially mentioning the hurricane first. But the sentence poses a problem of logic for me. It sounds like, wham, everything is destroyed at once, and if that’s so, sayonara to the house we’re sitting in. Tornadoes move at great and terrifying speed, but hurricanes destroy almost in slow motion. I think the impending destruction could be used to good effect. Also, if the windows are boarded up, I’m left in the dark in the second sentence. Maybe bringing in the candlelight earlier would set the scene more completely. Should “razor sharp” be hyphenated? Otherwise, I’m really interested to know what’s going on!

[Glenda]

Thank you, everyone, for your comments. I will take them all under consideration while editing and rewriting this novel.

I wanted to leave the reader uncertain as to who actually did the stabbing. It is important to the plot later on.

Thanks again for all the input.

[Ray Rhamey]

Glenda, you did a good job of not quite letting us decide that the child did the stabbing. However, there are no alternatives present, so I'm not so sure that everyone will get it. Can you let us see more of who else is in the room? Or something to give us an alternative stabber to vacillate between?

[L.L. Abbott]

Yeeks, indeed!!!!

Instead of: "Smells of turpentine and fresh paint crowd the room." which tells more that shows, I would suggest: 'Turpentine and fresh paint permiated the room.' -- as 'knowing' there was a stench to her surroundings didn't bother me.

What did was the "others" sleeping (?) in a room full of toxic fumes? That doesn't make sense. So for me this needs to be clarified.

And, no one was able to stop a "child" wielding a knife? Were they adults or other children?

Don't get me wrong, I would definitely turn the page.