Flogometer for David: 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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David’s first 16 lines:

The bellow of the green dragon nearly deafened him. Nathaniel’s hands were slick with sweat as he gripped the shaft of his spear. Aaron’s face showed serious concern as he stood beside his friend, and with good reason. Magical construct or not, this dragon could hurt or even kill you, as all of the Guardes-In-Training had witnessed earlier that day. Michael had gotten too close to a sizable red dragon construct and took a razor-sharp tail spike to the chest, dying instantly.

The instructors purposely did not halt the lesson, and in the chaos two more trainees were injured: one of them by fire from the same red dragon and the other by the crystalline claws of a white dragon. Stephen lost one of his eyes to the cruel dragon claws, and Mark might yet die from fire poisoning.

A close swipe of the powerful dragon’s tail and a warning shout from Aaron returned Nathaniel’s mind to the present threat: the bellowing earth dragon intent on crushing the life out of them. A powerful creature by nature, somewhat dim-witted but extremely tenacious, green dragons were very difficult to kill. Nathaniel had been drilled repeatedly on the “correct” method of dispatching such a threat, but a spark of an idea grew in his mind. Their performances today would determine their placement in the Guarde, and Nathaniel was determined to one-up his best friend and comrade-at-arms, Aaron.

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A close call for me, but finally no
On story, I was ready, and David does indeed have an interesting story going. But there were craft issues that were also reflected in the rest of the chapter. Bottom line, there’s good imagination, fairly good writing (and some overwriting), and plenty of promise, but it doesn’t reach the publishable level for me, and that’s what it has to do for an agent. Some notes:

The bellow of the green dragon’s bellow nearly deafened him. Nathaniel’s hands were slick with sweat as he gripped the shaft of his spear. Aaron’s face showed serious concern as he stood beside his friend, and with good reason. Magical construct or not, this dragon could hurt or even kill you, as all of the Guardes-In-Training had witnessed earlier that day. Michael had gotten too close to a sizable red dragon construct and took had taken a razor-sharp tail spike to the chest, dying that killed him instantly. Beside Nathaniel, Aaron, his best friend and comrade-at-arms, looked worried. (The “of” construction instead of a simple possessive is a habit I have to avoid in my own writing—it’s more words with lesser effect, IMO. The introduction of Aaron in the second tangled sentence robbed drama from the opening, so I simplified it and moved it to the rear so that the reader will know that Aaron is there when it’s time for him to take part.)

The instructors purposely did had not halted the lesson, and in the chaos two more trainees were had been injured: one of them by fire from the same red dragon and the other by the crystalline claws of a white dragon. Stephen lost one of his eyes to the cruel dragon claws, and Mark might yet die from fire poisoning from the red dragon, and Stephen had lost an eye to the cruel claws of a white dragon. (There was “double” telling in this summary, so I cut and rearranged heavily to tighten it. The narrative told us that two trainees had been injured, and then told us again with descriptions of the injuries. There were some tense tangles, too.)

A close swipe of the powerful dragon’s tail and a warning shout from Aaron returned Nathaniel’s mind to the present threat: the bellowing earth dragon intent on crushing the life out of them. A powerful creature by nature, The somewhat dim-witted but extremely tenacious, green dragons were very difficult to kill. Nathaniel had been drilled repeatedly on the “correct” method of dispatching dragons such a threat, but a spark of an idea sparked grew in his mind. Their performances today would determine their placement in the Guarde, and Nathaniel was determined to one-up his best friend and comrade-at-arms, Aaron. (I found it hard to believe that someone confronted with a bellowing green dragon would be so distracted by what had happened earlier that he would have to have his mind returned to the threat at hand. “Powerful dragon” seems redundant—I think we all perceive dragons as powerful.)

David gets to some seriously interesting stuff a number of pages later, but the narrative needs tightening so we get there sooner. Keep at it, David.

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 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

[Deana]

David, Ray did a lot of chopping and rearranging of your narrative, and I hope you won't be one of those writers who gets defensive about it. It's easy to do, even professionals can get testy about their own prose.

But most of his corrections helped streamline your opening, and that's a good thing.

Here's an example of too much description in one of the sentences Ray axed entirely:

A CLOSE swipe of the POWERFUL dragon’s tail and a WARNING shout from Aaron returned Nathaniel’s mind to the PRESENT threat

I've capitalized the extra words so you can see each and every time you thought it necessary to "help" your narrative just by tacking on an extra description. It really isn't necessary and slows your writing down.

[Jon]

I was an 'okay, maybe... the writing needs tightening but the story's okay...' until this line:

>>
Nathaniel had been drilled repeatedly on the “correct” method of dispatching such a threat, but a spark of an idea grew in his mind.
>>

...and then I -had- to find out what the idea was.

The genius of this method is that it gets me to turn the page; the risk is that if what's on page 2 doesn't amaze me in some way, the piece has lost me. Now, "amaze" could take a few forms:

+ It could be something I'd never think of doing.

+ It could be something I -would- think of doing, but which fails spectacularly

+ It could just be starting, and promising something reallyreally nifty, when something else cuts it off

...key to it, though, is subverting my expectations in a logical yet completely unpredictable way. Simply jumping on the beast's back, running up its neck, and stabbing it through the brainpan wouldn't do it; I've seen that movie before. No pressure :)

What I take away from this introduction is this: the writer has some craft issues, but there's good imagination on display and the promise of a good story to tell. A trainee with something to prove is about to do something potentially -very- stupid. Who wouldn't want to read more?

It can't all be roses, though. Here are a couple of suggestions, in order of difficulty of application:

1. (easy)

There's too much of the "[color] dragon" phrasing for my taste; it got repetitive. Consider that if they're used to fighting these things, or having them in their world (in the non-construct version), there are probably in-names for them. At a minimum, "greens" and "reds" (after the 'green WHAT' question is answered in the initial reference), but this could spiral out to whatever you want it to be. All green dragons could be named "Harrys" because the guy who discovered them--and was unfortunately and ironically eaten by one when he got too close--was the famous Harry of Shearerville.

What I'm getting at, in any event, is worldbuilding-by-inference, so-called "inclueing."

2. (not in any way easy)

Ray makes some good grammar points; the writer should listen to him.

I -would- however, consider ignoring his bit of advice on line 1; it's the roar that deafens Nathanial, not the dragon, and therefore the roar might want precedence in the sentence, and words 1/2 are the weightiest words in any sentence. You -could- avoid the whole thing by saying "The bellow nearly deafened him" and then going on to say what's bellowing in the next sentence (or something like that).

Word-order precedence is something the writer might want to consider in general, from this sample.

The most impactful words of any sentence are the first few and the last few; the most impactful sentences in a paragraph are the first and the last. This has to do with how we process information when we read; there's all kinds of science behind it, or so I've heard.

With that in mind, it might be useful for the writer to look at the "power positions." Since these positions are the ones that get the most attention, it only makes sense for the writer to pay attention and make sure that those positions are filled with vivid.

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[[[A close swipe]]] of the powerful dragon’s tail and a warning shout from Aaron returned Nathaniel’s mind to the present threat: the bellowing earth dragon intent on crushing the life [[out of them]]. [[A powerful creature]] by nature, somewhat dim-witted but extremely tenacious, green dragons were very [difficult to kill]. [Nathaniel had been] drilled repeatedly on the “correct” method of dispatching such a threat, but a spark of an idea grew [in his mind]. [[Their performances today]] would determine their placement in the Guarde, and Nathaniel was determined to one-up his best friend and [[[comrade-at-arms, Aaron.]]]
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Notice how the brackets work here.

The first sentence always gets attention, so it needs to be tight and bright to pull the reader through the next sentence.

The beginning of the second sentence--particularly in a brick of text such as this one--gets some weight, but not nearly as much as the beginning of the first sentence.

By the end of the second sentence, and through to the last line of the paragraph, the reader is prone to skimming. (single brackets)

At the end of the paragraph, heading into the last sentence and definitely at the end of the last sentence, the reader keys in again, because he needs to know where the next paragraph is going to go.

(keep in mind that phrases are often interpreted whole by the reader, so the absolute-for-convenience delineation I've made of the 'last 3 words' can sometimes be 2 and sometimes be 5.)

With that in mind, let's look at this paragraph again. (And bear with me, this is going to get a little theoretical, and is HIGHLY arguable... I'd love to hear arguments as to why I'm wrong, in fact.)

>>>[[[A close swipe]]]

Good. Vivid, and makes me want to read on...

>>>of the powerful dragon’s tail

still got me...

>>>and a warning shout from Aaron

losing me JUST a little, it's a little vague...

>>>returned Nathaniel’s mind to the present threat:

losing me rapidly...

>>>the bellowing earth dragon

getting me back...

>>>intent on crushing the life [[out of them]].

Got me back again. Could use a good bit of tightening to avoid losing the reader (Maybe break into multiple shorter sentences? Maybe eliminate stuff?)

>>>[[A powerful creature]] by nature

Losing me...

A little vague, and a sentence structure that makes me read on to find out what the heck the author is talking about. This can work when it's intentional, but there's no great mystery here to lead the reader toward.

>>>, somewhat dim-witted but extremely tenacious, green dragons were very [difficult to kill].

...lost me...

This sentence rambled and "told" and, particularly in an opening page, displays an authorial tendency to not let the reader figure things out for themselves... a bad trait, to this reader.

>>[Nathaniel had been] drilled repeatedly

Solid, getting me back...

>>>on the “correct” method of dispatching such a threat, but a spark of an idea grew [in his mind]

Could be tighter, but decent... and the emergence of the idea right near the sentence power position was a nice concordance of strong concept and good placement (in the sentence)...

...but I have a problem with the sentence as a whole, in that it's buried in the skimming-portion of the paragraph. Given that it's really the main hook in the first scene (for me) my thinking is that it might not want to be buried; rather, it should be in a power position. I'd suggest putting this sentence in the power position of its own paragraph.

>[[Their performances today]] would determine

okay... a little weak for the closer reading the last sentence gets, for me, but okay.

>>>their placement in the Guarde, and Nathaniel was determined to one-up his best friend

Solid writing here, if a little "telly" again.

>>>and [[[comrade-at-arms, Aaron.]]]

Waste of a power position, IMO. There's nothing wrong with the words, but they don't carry me forward into the next paragraph. Too, the hook to the paragraph was the preceding sentence; putting something else after it just confuses the issue.

With all that in mind, here's how I might consider rearranging/rewriting that paragraph. Please forgive in advance the considerable rewriting I had to do to make it flow in "my vision" of it.

--

Wind buffeted Nathanial as the dragon's powerful tail swept close. He jerked back, cursing himself for his woolgathering as Aaron shouted at him. Greens were hard enough to kill without leaving your brain in the cheap seats. And today's performances would determine placement in the Guarde. Best friend or not, Nathanial wasn't about to let Aaron beat him out for top honors.

Putting space between himself and the green, Nathanial studied the construct's flank speculatively. He'd been drilled repeatedly on the “correct” method of dispatching such a threat, but in his mind a spark of an idea was taking flame.

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Keep in mind that this isn't the only way to do it; there are a thousand, and mine might be worst among them. I'm in no way saying this is how the writer -should- do it. But it, as best I could in limited time, takes a run at working with those "power positions" to pull the reader through sentences and paragraphs.

Good luck with this piece! Please forgive my longwinded pedantry...

[Kim]

Loved the re-write, Jon. It takes the same information and makes it both more immediate and more firmly centered in the protag's POV. The author is already doing a lot of things right, IMO (starting with action, throwing in a rivalry) and a good re-write along these lines would really kick it up to great, fun read.

I'd never really thought about 'power positions' before, but thinking about the way I read, it really rings true. Good food for thought.

[Jon]

Did I scare everyone off?

Okay, I'll limit myself to 10-sentence feedbacks from now on... :(

[mai]

There were a number of things that pulled me out of the story.

One was "this dragon could hurt or even kill you" -- this made me wonder if there was something special about this one dragon -- maybe other dragons wouldn't be as dangerous?

Another was "Guardes-In-Training" -- the caps already made the term special; using the spelling "guardes", which implies a French-based word or world derivation, and possibly a feminine gender, made me stick there, instead of moving along with the story flow.

A third was "Stephen lost one of his eyes to the cruel dragon claws, and Mark might yet die from fire poisoning" -- it seemed the story-teller was unconcerned with the dire nature of these characters' injuries, and that made me stop, from sympathy for the characters.

From these example, you can get an idea of what kinds of things slowed this particular reader down, and made me reluctant to turn the page. There's good potential here, story-wise. I hope to read more from this author in the future.

[David]

David here (yes the author of this flogged page) and I would like to extend my appreciation to everyone (even you Jon!) who took the time to add to Ray's comments on my work. I've been watching this page like a hawk, refreshing the poll repeatedly (without voting myself) and being at turns encouraged and dismayed.

Ray, I appreciate you posting this. Your critique is invaluable and while it means I have yet -another- rewrite to do (arg!), it also amuses me. I actually paid someone to edit my first few chapters and the pages I sent you have been 'professionally' edited. Just goes to show how different writing styles and mind-sets determine how even one page can be viewed through different eyes. Never-the-less, I will do my best to clean up the craft issues and resubit some other time.

Deana- I know better (by now) than to take anything I submit for open critique personally or defensively. It's rather pointless to ask for help and then get upset when people actually find things that could be improved or need to be removed completely! Like Ray pointed out, I have a tendency to -over- write and I appreciate you pointing out the specific instances of it so clearly.

Jon- I've read your post probably five or six times and still cannot confess to entirely comprehend everything you are trying to teach me (what was that about over-writing Ray?). Either I am too dense to understand or you are a literary genius. Perhaps a little of both. I will print this page out for further study and digestion in a day or three.

Alas, my imagination is not as far-reaching as you had hoped and thus I find that I must rewrite what Nathaniel attempted to do to that poor dragon... I will try and make it more interesting than jumping on it's back and stabbing it in the back of the neck/head. I've already gotten a few other ideas on that note and for that alone I would owe you an incalculable debt of gratitude.

In addition, I'll work on the [color]/[element] dragon issue. I try very hard to stay away from creating 'new' words or deliberately obscuring things because of my favorite 'Note to the Reader' in "Nightfall" by Issac Azimov and Ron Silverberg. In short, it makes it easier for the reader when words are put plainly. Calling miles 'vorks' just makes the reader work harder to untangle what you wrote... but I'll try and come up for a 'pet' name for the different dragon types, you are right in that it gets repetitive.

Thank you so very much for the comments Jon, I really do appreciate them.

Kim- Thank you for the compliments, though I'm tempted to just send Jon all of my notes and files, I think he'd take my crazy ideas and turn them into something phenominal.

Mai- The point of the "this dragon" proviso was that though it is a magical construct, it should not be taken lightly because it is just as dangerous as a real dragon (or at least that is what the trainees are being taught... *cue ominous music*).

You're also not the first person to tell me that 'Guardes' sticks a bit in the throat, as it were, and I am considering dropping the extraneous 'e'. Was simply trying to make it seem a little more 'special' without inventing an entirely new word.

I'm not sure what to do about the lack of sympathy towards Stephen and Mark. Nathaniel is involved in a fight for his life (and his future) and I don't know that sympathy has any place in his mind right at that moment. I do agree that it needs to be adjusted some though, and I appreciate the compliments!

[Ray Rhamey]

David, for a counterpoint, I rather liked "Guardes." I understood it just fine, and it did make it special/otherworldly.

[Jon]

David -

Over-writing? Moi? To think!

What I'd recommend you do, if you want to "get" what I'm talking about for yourself (as opposed to having me cram it down your throat), is find a bunch of published books, and a bunch of unpublished manuscripts, all in your specific genre. Say twenty or thirty of each, to get a good representative sample.

Then flip through them at random until you find a page that features a big honkin' paragraph, roughly the same length. Maybe a third of a page? Half a page? Print out the page with that big paragraph, or photocopy it, or whatever--just don't -read- the big paragraph yet if you can help it, so you don't bias yourself going forward.

Set them aside.

Next, find a book you're currently reading, and read a few pages of it, just to get your brain in the reading-mode and out of the thinking-about-it mode.

And then, back to back, read the excerpts, just like you were reading the book you were enjoying...half-skimming, half-reading, letting the scene play in your head. But as you're reading, try to keep an eye on where your attention is.

And when you hit that big paragraph in each, pay particular attention. You may find yourself skimming. If you do, trace the book back, and notice exactly where the reading stops and the skimming began. Pay attention, too, if only in retrospect, to the ones that got you reading the whole paragraph.

Divide them into two piles - skimmies and read-throughs.

Last, look at the differences in the paragraphs. How is the writing in the read-throughs you kept reading different from the skimmies? If you've chosen well, it's not the density of the paragraph itself, because they're all roughly the same in density. So what are the characteristics of a long paragraph that keeps you actively engaged, rather than skipping to the next bit of dialog or short paragraph to give your eye some relief? For the individual sentences, what are the characteristics that prod you to actively read the next one?

That might help. Or it might not. But it's probably worth doing just for the experience :)

(damn, too long again.)

[Jon]

Oh, and I agree with Ray. Guardes worked for me. Also hints at "Garda," the name of the Irish police force, if I have my facts straight...

(shortness! success!)

[Kami]

The thing about professional editors is:

They try to preserve your voice, and so some issues don't go away. For example, if I were editing for you professionally I wouldn't remove the 'nearly' qualifier, but if it was my writing I'd either leave it at deafened or pick a closer word or description rather than use a qualifier.

Pro editors vary in quality/skill. Ones that have authors as clients who get their work published are desirable. I hope you researched this and found out if your editor regularly gets clients up to pro publishing standards and into print.

This would have gotten me to turn the page, but barely. I liked the concept but there were issues that Jon actually explained really well as far as where the emphasis in each sentence goes. I'd like the info-dump about the real damage that these dragons can do broken up somehow. It interrupts the flow.

Mai pointed out a great point about the disregard for the deaths and injuries. Granted, the middle of the fight is not the best place to go into a dark slump about them, but I think fear, anger, maybe even a desire for vengeance would be appropriate. Right now they're just statements that seem cold and uninterested in real pain.