Flogometer for Dai: 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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Dai’s first 16 lines:

The boy is called from the side of his old nurse to attend his father—His Highness, the Prince—and marched down a hall so long that the other end dims in haze. He trembles as they go, and at one point stumbles, only to receive a clip in the small of his back—a reminder that he is to keep his bearing soldierly—otherwise it will be the worse for him, as he well knows from many sad experiences. He is nine years old.

In no time they are at the end, halting before the high and heavy double doors of the Arms Chamber. It had only been a trick of vision, for in his mind's eye he had seen himself and his tutor from the back as they advanced, furlong after furlong down an endless passageway.

A footman cracks the left-hand door and bawls, “His Royal Lordship and His Lordship's Preceptor!” then steps back and swings it wide.

Knees barely supporting him, the boy marches unsteadily to his father's chair, stopping four paces short and bowing deeply (feet together—none of your sashaying pixie-like curtsies), then stands at attention, his eyes fixed at a point over his father's right shoulder. Each corner of the room holds a glass-shielded pedestal candelabrum so tall linkboys must stand a-tiptoe to light it. Above his father's dais hangs a chandelier raised (snip)

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Yes, but. . .
“Story” moved me to turn the page, but there were reluctances. I wanted to know what was going to happen to this very sympathetic, terrified little boy. On the other hand, I felt very distant from him, almost to the point of not caring enough to want to know more. I think that’s a risk. And then, before tightening its grip on me with story, the narrative lapses into fairly dense description of the room. Those things and the pronoun with no apparent antecedent just about stayed my hand. Some notes:

The boy is called from the side of his old nurse to attend his father—His Highness, the Prince—and marched down a hall so long that the other end dims in haze. He trembles as they go, and at one point stumbles, only to receive a clip in the small of his back—a reminder that he is to keep his bearing soldierly—otherwise it will be the worse for him, as he well knows from many sad experiences. He is nine years old.

In no time they are at the end, halting before the high and heavy double doors of the Arms Chamber. It had only been a trick of vision, for in his mind's eye he had seen himself and his tutor from the back as they advanced, furlong after furlong down an endless passageway. (What is the “it”? Perhaps it’s what comes in the second half of the sentence, which refers to seeing himself from a distance. This backwards construction was a stumble for me, not good at a point where things need to flow smoothly.)

A footman cracks the left-hand door and bawls, “His Royal Lordship and His Lordship's Preceptor!” then steps back and swings it wide. (A tiny bit of overwriting; it doesn’t matter to the story or visualizing the scene which door he cracks.)

Knees barely supporting him, the boy marches unsteadily to his father's chair, stopping four paces short and bowing deeply (feet together—none of your sashaying pixie-like curtsies), then stands at attention, his eyes fixed at a point over his father's right shoulder. Each corner of the room holds a glass-shielded pedestal candelabrum so tall linkboys must stand a-tiptoe to light it. Above his father's dais hangs a chandelier raised (snip) (You bring me to a moment of tension like this and then talk about candelabrums and chandeliers? This took your foot totally off the gas pedal for me. Carry on with the story. Then, if these details are absolutely necessary, describe them through the point of view of the boy with experiential description that colors what he sees with what he feels about them.)

The narrative continues with the boy for another page and a half, then switches to past tense and an info dump about the world he’s in. I would have stopped right then and there as an agent because I would see that the author doesn’t show me that he/she knows that it’s “story” that is most important here, and that details of the world can be woven in.

And I have to wonder why the author kept me so distant from the point-of-view character, never giving him a name, staying an arm’s length from him, outside of his POV. I was ready and willing to connect with the character, but was not taken close enough.

Nice writing, though. For me, letting me inside this little boy and staying with his story would be the keys to a much more compelling opening.

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 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 format your submission as specified at the front of this post.
3. Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
4. And, optionally, permission to use it as an example in a book if that's okay.
5. If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
6. If you rewrite while you wait you turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

ARCHIVES

© 2008 Ray Rhamey

Comments

[Kami]

Sorry I'm late to the party. I just got back from OryCon 30.

I had a problem with the curtsey too, though I didn't have as strong a reaction to it. I didn't think the character was gay, or the pov was slamming gays. I just thought I'd misread the sex of the character, since I associate curtsies with women rather than men. It could have been an interesting world-building detail, except that I didn't have context so if that's the case it wasn't effective. No other men curtsied prior to this statement. It could be done only by fey of either sex, or only by servants, or it could be a cultural cue for whatever.

Sorry, I'm tired so I'm rambling a bit.

I couldn't tell, since I wasn't close in the pov, if the boy trembled from cold, fear, nervousness, or some other unrelated reason based on the same sort of alternate culture cue that produced the curtsey. For all I know the trembling is a practiced and proscribed thing to do in these situations.

Starting with what I presume will be a deathbed-side royal father to son talk can be a promising beginning, but I'd like to get there sooner, and have some ideas about why this is so stressful that the boy is trembling instead of worried and/or grieving. If I'd seen more of that, I would have voted Yes because it hints of a period-feel piece set on a non-Earth world and I love those.

I hope this helps!

[Jon]

FWIW, just to add a voice, I -liked- the "sashaying" line in question.

While it doesn't speak to the sexuality of the 9-year-old boy (and what 9-year-old boy -has- a sexuality, anyway?), it DOES speak to the Voice that's been drilled into the boy's head. Dear old dad's deathly afraid his boy's gonna grow up The Dreaded Gay (is Dad repressed himself? Or does he just fear for his lineage?), and he's programmed that--even though the kid doesn't know what it -means- exactly, in all likelihood--into the kid's head. That was actually the heartstopping "oh, that poor effed up kid" moment for me that got me to turn the page.

Just another opinion...