Flogometer for Mike: 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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Mike's first 16 lines (the prologue) of a fantasy novel:

Kerith woke with a start. Perspiration glistening on her forehead, she sat upright in bed. The dream so real, she had to check. Jumping out of bed, she ran to her open bedroom window. A starry night greeted her, with only the soft chirping and whirring sounds of insects infringing on the moonlit pasture below. Letting out a deep breath, she pushed fingers through her matted blond hair. It was the fifth night in a row. She crept back into bed, exhausted, focusing blankly on the rafters in the barn's loft. Why the recurring nightmare? The strain made her fearful of sleep. Struggling with her drooping eyelids, the soft cricket song outside slowly enchanted her back to sleep.

Kerith stepped over the portal's threshold. She was immediately immersed in the world beyond, a warm breeze ruffling her flowing robes, as a black speck appeared on the horizon. Dread in the pit of her stomach was increasing, matching the pace of the black spot's expansion. She began shivering uncontrollably as the darkness grew until it blotted out the sky. She panicked as urgency overwhelmed her, needing to warn someone, somewhere...

The new day found Kerith in very much the same state as the past few mornings; anxious, sweaty and staring wide-eyed up at the rafters in her room.

Didn't sweep me forward
A caveat: I'm not a fan of prologues, and frequently skip them even in published books. There are agents who do as well, including Miss Snark. That's not to say some don't work, and one recently did here at FtQ, but this one didn't.

This dream, of which we see little and understand none, seems to promise peril -- but it's a dream. It doesn't necessarily relate to anything that might actually happen to the protagonist. All that actually happens here is that a dream stresses a woman.

The first chapter's opening page had even less tension. It went to a boy driving a mule to a market, and there was no hint of tension, conflict, or jeopardy. Some notes on the prologue:

Kerith woke with a start. Perspiration glistening on her forehead, she sat upright in bed. The dream had been so real, she had to check. Jumping out of bed, sShe ran to her open bedroom window. A starry night greeted her, with only the soft chirping and whirring sounds of insects infringing on the moonlit pasture below. Letting out a deep breath, she pushed fingers through her matted blond hair. It was the fifth night in a row. She crept back into bed, exhausted, focusing blanklyand focused on the rafters in the barn's loft. Why the recurring nightmare? The strain made her fearful of sleep, but. Struggling with her drooping eyelids, the soft cricket song outside slowly enchanted her back to sleep. (Several craft issues with this paragraph. If we're to be in close third person, and it seems that we are, then the following are steps outside of that pov: the perspiration glistening on her forehead and her matted blond hair. Also, the sound of insects "infringing" on a meadow didn't make sense to me. The last edit, of "focusing blankly," had her focusing on the rafters as she crawled into bed, which would mean that her head had turned completely around so that she could look upward while on her hands and knees.)

Kerith stepped over the portal's threshold. She was immediately immersed in the world beyond, a warm breeze ruffling her flowing robes., as aA black speck appeared on the horizon. Dread in the pit of her stomach was increasing, matching the pace ofgrew as the black spot's expansion expanded. She began shivering uncontrollably as the darkness grew until it blotted out the sky. She panicked as urgency overwhelmed her, needing to warn someone, somewhere... (I broke the second sentence because it was complicated, going from ruffled robes to a black speck appearing. I felt the "dread" sentence was overly complicated as well (one might say a little overwritten).

The new day found Kerith in very much the same state as the past few mornings; anxious, sweaty and staring wide-eyed up at the rafters in her room. (This is telling, not showing, and it can't really touch us because we don't know what was in the dream that was so unsettling. We had a black speck expand to blacken the sky, but what happened to frighten her? For this reader, it was all too unspecific, and any jeopardy is either non-existent or at arms length, not real.)

It was clear to me that Mike has imagined a rich and probably interesting world for his fantasy, but the attempted tease of the prologue that lead to a chapter that opened with zero jeopardy didn't reach the level of compelling. I urge Mike to abandon the prologue and to begin the first chapter with some hint of a problem coming to the point-of-view character.

Comments, anyone?

For what it's worth,

Ray

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Thank you, Terri, for your donation. 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

[TammyT]

I'd like to also throw out there that dream scenes suck the life out of a story. I don't want to know what a character DREAMS, I don't want to see them wake up, I want to see them do stuff. In movies, they use the "woke up in a dream in a sweat" and it doesn't translate well into books, IMHO.

Dream/waking up scenes can sometimes work. But, they have to have a real purpose, like someone is breaking into their house and is holding them down. Or they are paralyzed for no reason. Or they roll over and rhino is sleeping in the bed next to them. Other than that, sleeping, eating, the phone ringing, walking down the street, all these suck the life out of a story.

[Kamila Miller]

I definitely would have read onward. Other than a craft issue (the dream so real lacking a verb popped off the page) I was quickly immersed.

However, I was disturbed to hear this was a prologue and that the narrative then switched to a completely different character.

I do read prologues, but in this case I would have been very disappointed to leave this character and her situation and move onto another character. The author is starting me from square one again, and if I don't find the Ch. 1 character engaging, then I'm done.

That's the big, big problem with prologues and why so many people skip them. If the prologue's only purpose is to inform the reader that there will (eventually!) be something interesting coming along, just wade through the first three chapters and you'll see! then the writer has lost me. I read past the prologue if:
1) The same character is in the next chapter.
2) I'm not thrust back in time to when all the stuff started before the prologue (really loathe that device, even in tv series where it happens all the time with the next scene beginning with the caption "24 hours earlier" or whatever)
3) The prologue isn't all world-building. Yes, JRR Tolkien got me to read Concerning Hobbits, but only because I approached his books as an educational read.

Whatever the purpose of an author's prologue, Chapter 1 has to be compelling too, and must clearly connect to the prologue.

Hmm. I think I'm going to blog about this.

[Ray Rhamey]

A word about using dreams: it's not that you can't use them (there are no rules in fiction), it's how you use them.

In one of my WIPs, the first time you meet the protagonist the first three lines of the chapter relate the violent ending of a dream, and then he wakes. What's important is not the content of the dream--there isn't much--it's the effect it has on him. He wakes with tears on his cheeks, but doesn't know why. It's a mystery to both the character and the reader.

Over the first half of the novel, if not a little more, the dream is revisited, revealing more and more of it in each instance, with the point being the effect on the character. Eventually the reader gets to the real-life version of the incident that provokes the dream, and the revelation impacts understanding of the character and the arc that he is undergoing. In this case, using a dream seems to work.

Otherwise, I wouldn't dream of using a dream. But there is resistance among agents in opening with a complete dream and then having the character awaken in circumstances that don't seem to relate.

[Kamila Miller]

I was under the impression that this dream was far more than just a dream, that something concrete was happening. If it also turns out that it's just a dream in the usual, metaphorical, all-in-the-character's-head sense of a dream, that too would be disappointing.

[Jon]

I would not (sorry!) have read on.

There were elements of interesting -- a woman, sleeping in a barn (odd place for a bedroom; I liked it), and the recurring dream that freaked Kerith out -- but I can't remember the last time I've read something that started with waking from a dream that sounded fresh and interesting to me.

The writing also, unfortunately, didn't get me to trust that I was in capable narrative hands.

The POV seemed to be close to Kerith (since we're discussing her intentions so familiarly in sentence 2 and her thoughts in the third-to-last sentence of paragraph 1), but both the camera (how could she see the sweat glistening on her own forehead? when I wipe my hair back, I don't think to wipe my -brown- (well, gray-and-brown) hair back; it's just my hair) and the rhetorically-elevated nature of the voice (Perspiration glistening) seemed to be operating at a remove from her. That elevated language distanced me throughout the first two paragraphs.

Now, if the first paragraph had been this:

>>The new day found Kerith in very much the same state as the past few mornings; anxious, sweaty and staring wide-eyed up at the rafters in her room.

I would have been happy to read on. That paragraph is punchy, immediate, and focused on Kerith, oozing mystery and engagement-- everything the first two paragraphs are not.

(btw, that should have been a colon, not a semicolon, in the last paragraph; semicolons are used for new-but-related complete sentences.)

Specific things to look at (please pardon the directness; I'm rushed):

>with only the soft chirping and whirring sounds of insects

Are chirps and whirs ever anything other than sounds?

>The strain made her fearful of sleep.

Too indirect.

>Struggling with her drooping eyelids, the soft cricket song outside slowly enchanted her

Confusing. The cricket song was struggling with her eyelids?

>She was immediately immersed

"Immediately" was unnecessary.

>Dread in the pit of her stomach was increasing

Too indirect.

>She began shivering uncontrollably

Only began?

>as the darkness grew until it blotted out the sky

Wordy!

>She panicked as urgency overwhelmed her

Redundant!

>She panicked as urgency overwhelmed her, needing to warn someone, somewhere...

The urgency needed to warn someone?

All that said, I -really- liked the third paragraph, and suggest that you jettison the first two and start with the third... and don't go back to the dream right away. I suggest that she be moved on with her day, immediately.

Good luck with this!

[Deana]

If dreams are overdone, they're overdone.

Obviously, too many other authors have found them a convenient tool. To me, there's no sense in putting all this time and effort into my work, just to make the already uphill battle even steeper. I want an agent/editor to read my work and go, WOW! That was original. Not, YIKES, another dream sequence.

JMO.

[Chro]

I have to agree that dreams have become a cliche opening for novels. In fact, starting a book or chapter with "So and so woke 'with a start'/'in a cold sweat'/'up screaming'..." is just as ho-hum as starting with, "It was a dark and stormy night..."

Another overused device: describing the PoV character's hair by having them run their hands through it. Aside from being cliche, it doesn't make sense. When you run your hands through your hair, are you thinking to yourself, "My hair is blonde"? Of course not.

Of course, it isn't cliches that will kill your novels, it's lack of tension. If Ray is right and there's no conflict through the first chapter, then the reader won't make it to the rest of the book.

[Mike]

Thank you all for the constructive criticism. It really was very helpful. This is my very first attempt at writing any type of work. Your insight allowed me to step away from the story and really examine it from a fresh reader's perspective. I, of course, know what will happen next, so am perfectly willing to wait it out through the development . It has become clear that this is not so for the unknowing! Kamila Milller was the only one who picked up on the fact that this was much more than a dream. I hoped by divulging the dream occurred five nights in a row, and that Kerith slipped right back into it after waking, would give a sense this was more of a premonition or vision. Obviously I missed my mark, since I was only able to convey this to one out of six of you.
As a result, I've decided to start with the third chapter, eliminating the prologue and Chapters 1 & 2. I will resubmit at a later date and see if I have successfully implemented your valid points. Thanks again, Mike.

PS Deana and Chro - I confess: After about two weeks of reading Ray's FTQ (after submission), I told my daughter, "I'll bet they nail us on the 'waking from a dream' cliché"!

[Ray Rhamey]

Mike, I also thought that the "dream" was more than a dream. Even so, it wasn't enough. Keep at it. You did well for the first time out.

[Jon]

That was your first attempt to write anything? Kudos, then! Much, much better than my first. Or second, or third, or fourth. :)

Good luck!