Flogometer for Carl: would you keep reading?

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Validation from an agent

The FtQ "Flogometer" challenge reflects the real world. I came across this quote from an established literary agent with 20 years experience, Lori Perkins, on her Agent in the Middle blog.

"…your novel has to grab me by the first page, which is why we can reject you on one page."

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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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Carl's first 16 lines from a short story he's thinking about as a prologue:

Two drunken vaqueros argued outside the cantina door. They shouted and pushed back and forth; one fell on his ass causing laughter among the bystanders. I understood enough Spanish to know their dispute concerned the sister of one and the saddle of the other. I had no interest in the details and pushed the other drunk, who still stood in my way, on his butt as well. The onlookers laughed even louder.

I entered the dark, low-ceilinged room where my partner, Hump, a large, sociable man with one eye, a crooked nose and a shaggy mustache, drank tequila and entertained patrons with jokes and lewd stories. The place smelled of tobacco and unwashed bodies. Hump knew little Spanish but, with obscene gestures, made his meanings clear. He had a running start at a drunken evening.

The glare of harsh sunlight reflecting off whitewashed adobe walls had made me squint as Hump and I rode into the dusty village earlier that day. Even at a distance, I could see the chapel on the plaza was in disrepair. Windows were broken, bullet holes pock-marked the facade, the door hung loosely on its hinges. The place smelled of goats. Chickens roamed free, a three-legged cur barked at anything that moved while an undernourished pig slept in the shade of a mesquite. A whirlwind scattered litter around the plaza and kicked grit into our faces. Hump and I had served together in Company K of the Seventh Cavalry, Pennsylvania Volunteers.

Didn't move me

Despite some nice writing (along with some "telling"), I liked the voice here. But I stalled out on description and the last sentence looked like we were headed into more exposition about the past instead of what's happening. As for what's happening…a guy goes into a saloon. Little in the way of story questions or tension here. Some notes:

Two drunken vaqueros argued outside the cantina door. They shouted and pushed back and forth; one fell on his ass causing laughter among the bystanders. I understood enough Spanish to know their dispute concerned the sister of one and the saddle of the other. I had no interest in the details and pushed the other drunk, who still stood in my way, on his butt as well. The onlookers laughed even louder. (The first sentence is telling, and summary. Let the action tell the story. For example: Outside the cantina door, two drunken vaqueros shouted and pushed back and forth. I felt "causing laughter among the bystanders" was less than smooth. I thought the line about the sister and saddle was fun.)

I entered the dark, low-ceilinged room where my partner, Hump, a large, sociable man with one eye, a crooked nose and a shaggy mustache, drank tequila and entertained patrons with jokes and lewd stories. The place smelled of tobacco and unwashed bodies. Hump knew little Spanish but, with obscene gestures, made his meanings clear. He had a running start at a drunken evening. ("one eye" says only one eye -- is he a Cyclops? More clear: "one good eye." The next to last sentence could have flowed more easily, i.e. Hump knew little Spanish, but made his meanings clear with obscene gestures.)

The glare of harsh sunlight reflecting off whitewashed adobe walls had made me squint as Hump and I rode into the dusty village earlier that day. Even at a distance, I could see the chapel on the plaza was in disrepair. W The chapel's windows were broken, bullet holes pock-marked the facade, the door hung loosely on its hinges. The place smelled of goats. Chickens roamed free, a three-legged cur barked at anything that moved while an undernourished pig slept in the shade of a mesquite. A whirlwind scattered litter around the plaza and kicked grit into our faces. Hump and I had served together in Company K of the Seventh Cavalry, Pennsylvania Volunteers. (The first sentence really confused me at the beginning -- we had just entered a dark room and suddenly there's a glare of sunlight on white walls. Clearly a transition problem. Could be fixed this way: When Hump and I had ridden into the dusty village, the glare of sunlight reflecting off whitewashed adobe walls had made me squint. Then telling follows with "the plaza was in disrepair." The telling is followed by showing, and that does the job fine. Then, as noted, the last sentence veered into the past. We don't care about that right now.)

I do like the writing, and the description was evocative, although could have been stronger if it were "experiential," by which I mean we experienced it through the character's feeling about it. For example:

The stench of goats made me want to hold my breath.

Comments, anyone?

For what it's worth,

Ray

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Donations go to the cost of hosting FtQ.

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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

[Bill]

Unspoken in the Flogometer’s premise is that agents and editors read with the purpose of discovering work that they can sell. (By the way, is it flog-OM-meter or FLOG-o-meter?) I couldn’t judge what would sell if Ray held a gun to my head. From my position of blissful ignorance, I have to say that I enjoyed the 16 lines and would like to read further. I think it’s the description of Hump that grabbed me.

But who is the narrator? “I had no interest in the details” suggests a gentleman with higher education, but if he’s hanging around in the dust with Hump, that says something else. One way or the other, I think that could be clarified. Hump “entertained patrons,” but is he a (fellow) patron or a bartender? Again, unless the narrator is of a higher social class, “patron” may be a misleading word choice. It seems to me that the voice needs work. Ray handled the unpleasantly abrupt transition of the third paragraph.

Realizing that Ray and I are probably seeing this from different perspectives (his more professionally oriented than mine), cowboy hats off.

[Ray Rhamey]

Bill, in my head it's "flog-OM-meter." I liked this submission, but the challenge is to make it compelling, i.e. irresistible, something you cannot stop reading. This came close, but it wasn't hard to walk away, either.

[Kamila Miller]

For me it read like some craft issues were getting in the way of a lush setting.

"one fell on his ass causing laughter among the bystanders"
causing is a flat verb. Here's an impending scuffle, nothing serious obviously but I don't get the sense that this is a lively interaction.
"and pushed the other drunk, who still stood in my way, on his butt as well." on his butt as well again comes across flat. The pov character is observing and doing things just as a matter of course with no sense of fun or interaction.

Then the author backtracks to earlier in the day. Is there a compelling reason why we have to go back? Can it start wit them riding in and go from there? Whenever an author backtracks then I lose any sense of tension or immediacy in a narrative. When an author opens with a hook then I assume that that's where the action is, and if we then backtrack A. I know nothing that goes on in the backtrack is going to prevent what's happening in the opening--it's a 'done deal' and B. I expect I'm about to be given an info dump about who these characters are. Since I'm resistant to info dumps, I would stop reading right there.

Great setting--I say skip the info dump, get some livelier verbs and interaction going with the locals so it doesn't feel like the pov character is just clicking a mouse on characters on a screen, and keep going!

[Norm Benson]

Kamila says, "Is there a compelling reason why we have to go back? Can it start wit[h] them riding in and go from there?" This was not the place for the story to go backward and infodump. It looked to me like it could have started there in the blinding sun, unless there is a compelling reason to have whatever happens with the narrator and Hump occur at night.

[Clair Dickson]

Okay-- maybe this is a bit nitpickey anyway, but why use 'ass' in one line and 'butt' in the other? I'd pick one and just stay with it. Unless he fell on his donkey...?

Other than that, I think the detour into earlier would be better held off until the action really gets going. State why they're in town, then move on from there.

[Sheila]

I did "feel" this setting. As a descriptive piece I think this works well. But the point here is to hook the reader and for that you need a little more action, or at least some subtle hints of what will soon happen. Hints of conflict, tension, what they are doing there, etc.

I agree with others about the awkward scene shifting. Plus, the last sentence in the final paragraph seems disconnected to what came before. Why wouldn't you have started a new paragraph there?

"Is he a cyclops?" Ha! Now, that would be interesting.

Keep at it!