Flogometer for Pam: would you keep reading?

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Tell me something, please
What does FtQ do for you (if anything)? How does it help you (if at all)? Please email me with your feedback. And thanks.

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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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Pam’s first 16 lines:

Shayda's Name had only ever been safe in old Gebah's mouth and now that Name was washed away in Long River, and old Gebah too dead to give her a new one. For two full leagues beyond her people's territory, she had chased her Name as it tumbled with waters raging from spring thaw, until it disappeared around a south bend into a deep gorge where she could not follow.

The river wasn't supposed to take her Name—no water could. Shayda knew that like breathing. Fire was to claim it, and not until summer solstice. But now here she was, fallen to her knees, breathless, Nameless, and far from a hearth of Home.

Even gasping for air and coughing blood, Shayda knew her last concern was pointless. There would be no hearth nor Home for her among the People without her Name nor anyone she could trust, or afford, to Gift her a new one. Everything was gone, lost to her whose only valued possession had been the Name which bound her small world together. The Name which had taken to water without her.

Too winded to voice the keening pain of her loss, Shayda's only sign of mourning was to act without prudence alone in the Wilds.

Without care for damp earth or setting sun, Shayda collapsed onto her side heaving for air on the last stretch of grassy sand before the cavern swallowed all but the back-blown sprays of (snip)

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It was enough
A clear, distinct voice, the promise of an interesting and new world, and good story questions were enough to get me to turn the page. Not that there weren’t concerns. . .

Shayda's Name had only ever been safe in old Gebah's mouth, and now that Name was washed away in Long River, and old Gebah too dead to give her a new one. For two full leagues beyond her people's territory, she had chased her Name as it tumbled with waters raging from spring thaw, until it disappeared around a south bend into a deep gorge where she could not follow. (For me, the notion of old Gebah being too dead was an interesting “world feature.” Did it mean that she’s not all dead? A nice, subtle touch.)

The river wasn't supposed to take her Name—no water could. Shayda knew that like breathing. Fire was to claim it, and not until summer solstice. But now here she was, fallen to her knees, breathless, Nameless, and far from a hearth of Home.

Even gGasping for air and coughing blood, Shayda knew her last concern was pointless. Tthere would be no hearth or nor Home for her among the People without her Name. nor Nor would there be anyone she could trust, or afford, to Gift her a new one. Everything was gone, lost to her whose only valued possession had been the Name which bound her small world together. The Name which had taken to water without her.

Too winded to voice the keening pain of her loss, Shayda's only sign of mourning was to act without prudence alone in the Wilds. (I just didn’t get this. It’s very distant from the character’s point of view, and I didn’t understand why acting without prudence was a sign of mourning. I think this needs to either be more clear or cut. I would go for cutting it and getting on with the story.)

Without care for damp earth or setting sun, Shayda collapsed onto her side, heaving for air on the last stretch of grassy sand before the cavern swallowed all but the back-blown sprays of (snip) (Clarity issue here—first it was a gorge, and now it’s a cavern. To my mind, they are very different things. Which is it?)

I don’t know what’s going on, exactly, with the Name, but it sounds dire, and the character is sympathetic, willing to run until coughing blood to catch her Name, so I wanted to hear more.

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 plus 1st chapter 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

[Jon]

As the task is defined, this one was a no FOR ME, with special attention paid to the capitalized words, and the "as the task was defined" bit. I'll elucidate.

Gorgeous writing, complex but very clean, inspiring lots of world-building mystery questions in my head as I read it. I'd hardly change a word, if this is the vibe you're going for.

...but that vibe, the poetical flow of it, the promise that there would be mystery upon mystery and Things For Me To Figure Out... demanded too much of me as a reader for a first page.

This piece posed two challenges to me as a reader.

The first was the "readin' the writin'" linguistic challenge. This is where this piece lost me, I think. The word choices were excellent, the writing clean, the imagery nice...

...but the sentence structures, grammatically correct as they were, demanded a LOT of me as a reader. It made for a very fluid, poetic feel, but like poetry a lot of it washed over me, and I had to read and reread to get the sense.

There's nothing -wrong- with this, mind; I'm in no way suggesting it was a mistake to write in this fashion. But the way the sentences were structured, and the work required to unpack them, posed enough of a challenge as to become off-putting FOR ME.

The second challenge was more puzzle-solving in nature -- e.g., figuring out what the Name is (obviously it's not just a breath of words, since it's in the river), and building a world based off of those assumptions.

This one -did- resonate with me; I liked the "incluing" approach and though it was pretty well done.

This task was made more cumbersome for me by the sentence-structure choices, and the fact that I had to do both sets of work (linguistic and puzzle-based) before I really had a reason to want to do so--since I couldn't identify with the character's Want (couldn't even really concretely identify the Want itself, for that matter), I didn't feel compelled to care if she fulfilled it or not.

In the end, the combination proved too much; I got to the end -not- dying to see what happens on the top of the next page. (Thus failing the "as defined" task, "would you turn to page 2?".

THAT SAID, I probably WOULD have flipped around in the book, to see if the poetical constructions were the way the entire book was executed, or if it was more (for me) more "readable" by virtue of being more straightforward. If I found that, later in the book, the text didn't require as much work, and the story had turned into something I might like better--with a character I bonded to, and a story I cared about--I might buy it. The quality of the writing, though not my thing, certainly merited flipping-around-and-further-investigating.

[Deana]

Shayda's Name had only ever been safe in old Gebah's mouth, and now that Name was washed away in Long River, and old Gebah too dead to give her a new one.

This stopped me cold. "had only ever". Then I realized that the sentence didn't even contain a proper verb.

I for one could not read a whole book with grammatically incorrect writing like this.

[Darla]

I wanted to like this but there were too many special (Name, Home, People, Gift) words to me to have to keep track of and wonder about in this short span. Also the shear number of 'Name' seemed unnecessary to me. We get it, there is something more to a Name.

You had me through the opening paragraph (loved the 'too dead' line.), but then the repetitiveness kicked in and more special words were piled on. I wanted more of the character and perhaps a hint at what dangers she faces now namless and alone in the wilds so that I am more concerned for her and driven to read on.

[norm]

Jon says it more eloquently than I could. I simply say that Jon's reason of "...sentence structures, grammatically correct as they were, demanded a LOT of me as a reader." Each paragraph was packed with evocative language, as poetry it works well. It didn't carry me. I have to unpack meaning of what felt like prologue.

It didn't work for me, but it for many others who are more literate than me.

[Sheila]

A regretful no from me, too, and mostly for the reasons Jon mentioned - too many questions on the first page and having to reread sentences to figure out what they mean.

"The river wasn't supposed to take her Name."
"The Name which had taken to water without her."

Did the river take her Name, or did the Name take to the river? It seems like an important distinction.

"coughing blood" - I've never heard of someone coughing blood from exertion. Two leagues = 7 miles, not that great a distance to run. It made me wonder if she was especially frail.

I would have liked the "too dead" line if I thought the intention was to introduce the concept of different degrees of dead. But that is not elaborated on here, so I was left to wonder if the author actually meant "too long dead."

Finally, her act of imprudence seemed to amount to falling down on the grassy sand because she was winded. That wasn't enough to get me to turn the page. Now, if she'd screamed and thrown rocks and had a tantrum, then maybe . . .

But I do think you have something here.

[Jon]

Deana, I can't say you're wrong for your readerly reaction (it's your reaction, after all), but the first sentence -does too- have a proper verb - is (had...been).

[Deana]

Jon, I reread it a couple of times and I was wrong. It does have a proper verb, of sorts. But, the way it's written is not direct and works to keep the reader from the story rather than propel the reader into it. I always put books down when I get the impression that rather than being told a story, I'm being forced to watch a writer try to impress me grammatical tricks.

Judging by the poll results, I don't think it worked here, either.

[Jon]

Deana - I got the impression that it's just how the writer writes (as someone who tends to nest thoughts in parentheses (both online and in person), and has to fight himself to break free of that, I get that completely). YMHVO (...has varied, obviously). But no, the piece is NOT written in a style accessible to the reader who prefers straightforward prose. That said, there are people who prefer that sort of thing, and (as Abe Lincoln once said), for those folks who like that sort of thing, well, this is just the sort of thing they'd like.

:)

[Jessica]

I loved this in every way.

[Amy Nathan]

This is not for me. I like to be drawn in and intrigued right off the bat, but not confused. Even if my assumptions are wrong about what's going on, I like to have a clear sense and a vivid picture in my mind from page 1...and then I don't mind the "oh, that's it" later on, or even on page 2.