Flogometer for Patrick: 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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Patrick has returned for another round of fresh eyes. His first 16 lines:

Closing the comic book in his lap, Prentis Porter was yanked back into the clamor of his junior high cafeteria. He sighed thinking about the final page’s TO BE CONTINUED!

I’ll never get to see the end of the story now -- When he heard the pop, soft and distant, like a firecracker set off out in the hallway somewhere, he looked up. Nobody else seemed to notice. Suddenly, someone slammed the back of his chair, nearly knocking him out of it -- and pitching the latest issue of Sky Champion under the table.

No!

Prent dove after it, praying it missed the greasy bits of taco meat ground into the linoleum. Darren’ll freak if he sees his comic on the floor, and I can’t afford to replace it -- not now. His knee caught a blob of something under the table, but Sky Champion was still mint. He sighed, relieved, then carefully slid it back into in the flat mylar sleeve Darren gave him with it. Then he tucked it into his backpack, right next to where he discovered his lunch should have been. Of course.

Three weeks into the worst school year ever, it’s just one more way things just keep sucking worse since Dad announced – (snip)

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Closer, but…
This is a definite improvement on the first round, Patrick, but didn’t reach the level of “compelling” for me.

Stop a moment and think about what that means: to force, or urge irresistibly.

In this opening, while a reader may well interpret the “pop” as a shot, there’s no guarantee that he or she will. Lacking that, the only problem on this page is retrieving a comic book from the cafeteria floor. For me, not compelling. I think you need to get to the tense part much sooner. Some notes:

Closing the comic book in his lap, Prentis Porter was yanked back into the clamor of his junior high cafeteria. He sighed, thinking about the final page’s TO BE CONTINUED!

I’ll never get to see the end of the story now -- he heard the a pop, soft and distant, like a firecracker set off out in the hallway somewhere, he looked up. Nobody else seemed to notice. Suddenly, someone slammed the back of his chair, nearly knocking him out of it -- and pitching the latest issue of Sky Champion under the table. (I’m still not buying that “soft” and “like a firecracker” work together. I know how school hallways echo, and this would be soft only if it were down a long hall and around a corner. But this is closer. And, if this were a shot, there would be screams right away. He could misinterpret them, but they’d be there, wouldn’t they?)

No!

Prent dove after it, praying it missed the greasy bits of taco meat ground into the linoleum. Darren’ll freak if he sees his comic on the floor, and I can’t afford to replace it -- not now. His knee caught a blob of something under the table, but Sky Champion was still mint. He sighed, relieved, then carefully slid it back into in the flat mylar sleeve Darren gave him with it. Then he and tucked it into his backpack, right next to where he discovered his lunch should have been. Of course. (For me, it seems that his next reaction should be to look and see who shoved him. But he doesn’t. And, by now, there surely would be screams coming his way.)

Three weeks into the worst school year ever, it’s just one more way things just keep sucking worse since Dad announced – (snip) (For me, we’re spending too much worrying about the comic book, and now we’re slipping into backstory, just when the tension should be mounting. I think events should come rapid-fire now, jolting him out of his inner focus. By the way, Patrick, here you have him under the table, but on the next page he’s beside it. A staging difference that needs to be modified.)

While Patrick is doing well to introduce us briefly to Prent’s “normal” day before the inciting incident shocks him out of it, I felt it could have been done with less. Get me some screams in here, and maybe a louder pop. I think you should try leaving the firecracker part out. Here’s a thought: a book, dropped flat on the linoleum floor of a hallway, might make a sound like the one you’re looking for.

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

[Deana]

The first sentence is very passive. There are other hints in the opening that seem to hold the story back rather than propel it forward.

That said, I really do like the premise and even have sympathy for Prent. I just get the feeling the author is nervous.

You're getting there. Forward march! :)

[Julie Butcher-Fedynich]

I didn't understand why he wouldn't get to the end of the story. Won't he buy or borrow the next issue? That held me up. If you had said he hated cliffhangers, I would agreed with him and read on, unconfused

[Norm]

I agree with Ray too much comic book. It was a no for me. What level is this story aimed at? Is it for kids?

Too little conflict.

In this piece, the conflict comes from worrying about whether a comic book has taco sauce on it. This may compelling tension for people really into comic books (I'm too far removed from that scene to know.) but it doesn't hold enough tension for me to care. Is Prentis (not Prent, yet, I'd continue with Prentis until his name becomes established) going to get beat up for turning a stained comic book back to whoever owns it? That "Darren’ll freak if he sees his comic on the floor..." doesn't carry the same weight as a whooping.

James M. Frey (How to write a Damn Good Novel)and Ray recommend putting the character into trouble from the start. Prentis doesn't know he's in trouble; this lack of knowledge of a school shooting (if I read this correctly) is supposed to provide the tension in the scene. It doesn't do that for me, rather, Prentis came off as a bit slow on the uptake.

There's trouble coming his way; let the reader see it as the comic book's condition preoccupies Prentis. I'd add screams, shouts, and kids yelling and pushing through the doors running away from a shooter.

[Kami]

I had a sense that Prent was going through very, very normal denial about what was going on, and I really liked that. Unfortunately it didn't clue the reader in well enough and became too dismissive. I wouldn't add screams necessarily--it could be written off by Prent as kids goofing off. People really do this.

What will tip it over the edge from over-emphasis on the comic book to something that reads as real and compelling will be the little voice in the back of his head that just about everyone listens too when the unthinkable happens. Unthinkable is a deliberate word choice--people in a crisis often fight to make what's happening unreal. They'll know what's going on but ignore it until they have no choice but to face it.

He hears something like a firecracker pop. He might think gee, that almost sounded like a gunshot. The people at this school are so stupid. Now girls are screaming--probably horsing around. But the hairs on the back of his neck are standing up, and he's nervous. He drops the comic book, fumbles to get it out from under the table. He feels safer under the table, just in case, but he needs the excuse of the comic book to be there. He doesn't want to look stupid. (Lots of people have gotten killed not wanting to look stupid.)

I hope that helps!

[Jon]

No for me, alas.

The first sentence pushed me off me a little - I'm not a fan of the "aing the b, C..." construction. I liked the name, though, and the sentence did give us an effective taste of setting.

Not sure why he'll never get to the end... unclear from the text.

The "pop" to me said school shooting--instant hook.

When his chair got jostled, though, I thought it was a bullet--good for drama, bad for verisimilitude, since it didn't go through and kill him dead. But apparently it wasn't.

The "lunch should have been" line -- I get the intention, and it's almost there, but not quite.

The italicized bit seems infodumpy, though.

Overall, I didn't know what I was supposed to be thinking or where I was being guided. The sound of gunfire was a definite hook (assuming that's what it was) but he disappeared so quickly into his mundane concerns--the comic book, then dad--that the importance of the shot (if that's what it was :) ) faded... but it's such an important thing that I felt whipsawed when we left it.

(Which isn't to say that it's not -believable- that the kid would dismiss the gunshot in favor of other concerns... but from a readerly perspective, when I got down to the bottom of the page and there was -still- no reaction from anyone, just the kid thinking Woe Is Me, I lost faith in the piece.)

good luck with this one!

[Theadra Leilani]

I would've turned the page, just to find out what happened. A couple comments though:

I didn't get snagged by the comic book like everyone else. I had a little brother, we liked reading the same things. I was better at keeping my stuff clean, so Mom and Dad would get me things first and, after I finished, I'd share them with my brother. I'd have a hissy fit if my brother ruined it. The kid worrying about keeping the comic clean didn't scream comic book fantic, it screamed little brother to me. I got it. I could feel it.

But . . . We see Prent dive under the table and then he's sliding the comic back into it's mylar sleeve. We aren't told if he thought to take the sleeve with him, if he reached up to pull the sleeve off the table, or if he crawled out. I lost the scene in my head. I didn't know where he was anymore in relation to the rest of the room.

And then, instead of looking for the person who almost got him killed (by his brother), he's thinking about dad . . . and there was a gun shot before. A gun shot. I want to know more about it.

Keep going. We're all behind you. =)

[Holly]

I actually liked this. I'm a collector of books and magazines and understand the trauma of potential damage to a collectable. If my Famous Monsters of Filmland #1 were damaged by a friend...
In any event, I turned the page and we'll see if I turn to page 3.