Flogometer for Elana: 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, 12-point type, 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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Elana's first 16 lines of his fantasy novel:

Technically immortal, Jonathan Clarke felt a surge of apprehension as he walked among the living. He lagged behind several people as they pressed through the front doors of the Bellagio Hotel and Casino. Sure enough, the glimmer of movement out of the corner of his eye confirmed his suspicions. He was being followed.

His options were limited. He couldn't just vanish, people tended to panic when other people simply faded into thin air. He knew from personal experience. Stunning, plasma, and explosions were all out. He couldn't deal with the possible repercussions alone…no, going on the offensive would not work. He had two choices, really. Up or down.

Lamps lining the sidewalk came to life as the last of the sunlight faded. Jon protected himself, Claiming the magic in the water as he wandered back to the sidewalk and turned to pass in front of the fountains. The next show was about to start, and he thought maybe he could get lost in the gathering crowds, dissipate through the sewer grate, or something to get out of there.

His appointment with the Keeper would have to be postponed. Her anonymity was crucial, and he worked hard to keep her name from floating to the front of his mind.

"Ah, Jon, there you are."

He froze at the voice. He knew who it was before the man materialized. The crowd of (snip)

I turned the page
I like fantasy, to begin with, and this opening raised story questions that I wanted more about. The writing is, for the most part, good and I didn't fear being bogged down -- we start with a scene and very little backstory. However, this could be crisper in spots, and there are some other notes worth mentioning.

Although technically immortal, Jonathan Clarke felt a surge of apprehension as he walked among the living. He lagged behind several people as they people pressed through the front doors of the Bellagio Hotel and Casino. Sure enough, the glimmer of movement out of the corner of his eye confirmed his suspicions. He was being followed. (I added the "although" to get this closer to his POV -- he wouldn't think of being technically immortal ordinarily, and a qualifier seemed relevant to the situation. "Several" people is vague so, unless a quantity is specified, which would be good, there's no need for the extra verbiage. Clarity issue: the opening seems to indicate that he feels apprehension because he's walking among the living. But then it seems to be because he's being followed. This is basically confusing, and I think should be straightened out.)

His options were limited. He couldn't just vanish, people tended to panic when other people simply faded into thin the air. He knew from personal experience. Stunning, plasma, and explosions were all out. He couldn't deal with the possible repercussions alone…no, going on the offensive would not work. He had two choices, really. Up or down. ("thin air" is a cliché, so I nixed that. The part about knowing from personal experience is redundant because the previous sentence lets us know that he knows, so why waste the words?)

Lamps lining the sidewalk came to life as the last of the sunlight faded. Jon protected himself, Claiming the magic in the water as he wandered back to the sidewalk and turned to passed in front of the fountains. The next show was about to start, and he thought maybe he could get lost in the gathering crowds, dissipate through the sewer grate, or do something else to get out of there. (The wandering on the sidewalk staging is the writer seeing the scene in action, but in my view includes information not needed for the story, so I cut it. A little bit of overwriting, I think.)

His appointment with the Keeper would have to be postponed. Her anonymity was crucial, and he worked hard to keep her name from floating to the front of his mind.

"Ah, Jon, there you are."

He froze at the voice. He knew who it was before the man materialized. The crowd of (snip) (If the previous cuts are made, you would read that a man materializes. Contrary to the earlier part about people panicking when someone disappears, no one noticed when this man appeared because it was so crowded. Seems to me this is a contradiction -- if they won't notice someone materializing, then they wouldn't notice the opposite. Some consistency of the world is called for here.)

Plenty of promise here, all Elana needs to do is keep an eye out for small excesses as noted, and inconsistencies. Good work.

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

[Deana]

Is it safe to say you would have to be a fan of fantasy or sci-fi to enjoy this? Even with Ray's corrections, I came away confused and not really interested in learning more about the story.

What is this protag, anyway? A shape shifter? Vampire? What?

Perhaps the author anticipated that her readers would already know and therefore didn't waste any time explaining things. But as a "cold" reader, I felt disoriented and waiting for signals that never came.

Is lack of backstory always a good thing?

[Sheila]

I would read on, it's a good scene with tension and an interesting protagonist.

Nit picks - In the first paragraph he notices "a glimmer of movement out of the corner of his eye." It's been a while, but my experience is that casino entrances are streaming with people and movement. And since the fountain show is about to begin, I imagine the crowds would very thick. It struck me as unlikely he would notice he was being followed by a mere "glimmer of movement" caught out of the corner of his eye. It would be more believable if he recognized his pursuer in the thick crowd, or recognized something that set his pursuer apart.

I also wondered about the contradiction Ray pointed out - if a man can materialize unnoticed, why can't the protag disappear?

I like the story questions here and they would compel me to read on. Especially - what is the Keeper doing at the Bellagio?

Good work!

[Kamila Miller]

I too glitched on the fact that apparently he isn't allowed to disappear in public because it would cause a panic but someone else is allowed to appear--and doesn't cause a panic. Other than that, great beginning. I'd want to read on, but as a reader I'd hope that the information/questions coming in slow down so that I can learn about the rules of this world and what's going on.

[Wendy]

I got stopped at the first sentence, because what followed didn't explain what his being immortal had to do with anything, or why an immortal should be apprehensive in a crowd of mortals. I would leave off the "Technically immortal" entirely, and let the fact that Clarke contemplates vanishing hint at his immortality.

I agree with Ray's other changes, and overall, I probably would have turned the page. Good stuff!

[Jon]

I wouldn't go on.

The first line started it:

>Technically immortal, Jonathan Clarke felt...

This was to my ear clunky and unengaging. The "Technically immortal" bit MIGHT have worked for me (doubt it, but maybe) if it had been followed up strongly, but the sentence structure implied either a continuous feeling (he 'always' felt apprehension when walking among the living), or he usually walked among the dead. Neither seemed to be the case here, so I was out-of-the-gate thrown.

The second paragraph lost me anew, both with the comma splice in sentence 2 and the content of said sentence.

Thing is, this -could- have gotten me engaged. The "Technically immortal" and "people tended to panic" bits have an ironic detachment to them that I usually find very fun, but the detachment wasn't followed up in the same vein; rather, it seemed to be sprinkled as seasoning in a closer and more engaged narrative. If the piece had been all snark, or if it had been all engaged, I'd have gone with it, but it felt like it was trying for a middle road that didn't do it for me.

Paragraph 3 has an oddity that, on reflection, is probably intentional:

>protected himself, Claiming the magic...

On re-read, we're doing the magicky thing of capitalizing the unusual bits (the usual alternative - italicizing), but in the sentence as structured it read like a typo/comma splice until I got to the end of the sentence and realized it read "right" if I allowed for the intentional capitalization.

Even granting that, since this is the first time he's Claimed magic (from fountains, neat!), I wanted some sense of what was involved in the process. Did the fountain change? Did his perceptions? Anything? If there's magic lying everywhere for use, why isn't it all Claimed by someone else?

>The next show was about to start, and he thought maybe he could get lost in the gathering crowds, dissipate through the sewer grate, or something to get out of there.

The ending of this sentence lost me all over again. I was fine until "or something," which a) breaks the parallel structure of the commas (verb, verb, noun), and b) is unpleasantly vague when compared with the specifics in the preceding clauses. "get lost in the crowd" was an ordinary response, "dissipate through a sewer grate" a much more unusual and quite exciting one, and then... nothing.

>Her anonymity was crucial, and he worked hard to keep her name from floating to the front of his mind.

This had very nice implications (if he thought her name it might be picked off; there are lots of people who might read your mind, the subtext says), but the way it was used, with the Keeper thrown in out of the blue and just as quickly dismissed, threw me out.

So, overall. Lots to be excited about--magic, paranoia-or-not--but overall the execution didn't draw me on.

Good luck with this!
-j

[Jon]

Ray said:

>The part about knowing from personal experience is redundant because the previous sentence lets us know that he knows, so why waste the words?

I can see this bit working -if- the tone of the rest of the piece supported it, as I talked about in my initial response. There's something fun about a snarky narrator, and that line was edging up to that line. If it had gone all the way over, and maintained, it might have worked better for me.

>f the previous cuts are made, you would read that a man materializes.

I see this as a poor word choice by the writer instead of a literal apparition. Which points to how picky one has to be when writing specfic, because words mean what they mean, and in a land where anything is possible eyes really -can- float across the room :)

Sheila said:
>I would read on, it's a good scene with tension and an interesting protagonist.

An interesting protagonist? What was interesting about him? That's not disparaging of either you or the author--I'm honestly curious. I found myself in no way engaged with Jonathan, so I'm curious as to what drew you (and others, if they agree) to him.

[Sheila]

What I found intriguing and unique here, and I don't read a whole lot of fantasy, so that's not saying much, is the conflict I read between the first descriptor - "technically immortal" and the fear that permeated his actions in the following paragraphs. What does someone who is immortal have to fear, other than boredom?

Maybe fear is too strong, but he's clearly nervous - about being followed, about being among the living, about giving up the Keeper. Why does he have those feelings? Why would he care if people panicked or not? What is the nature of his Claiming power?

I wouldn't say I was "engaged" with him, but these few paragraphs definitely piqued my curiosity.

[Jon]

Okay, that makes sense. Thanks!

I took the apprehension (by the end) to be not for himself but for the Keeper. Of course, that one of few "real" ways to do tension when your protag is invulnerable (or even just if you're writing a story in which the protag can be presumed to survive, like a detective story) -- threaten the stuff (people, ideals, relationships, etc.) that the protag cares about...

[teenwriter]

I turned the page! I liked that beginning.