Flogometer for Stu: 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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Stu’s first 16 lines of a brief prologue:

The scent of death flowed through the chilled night air across the unmoving sands of the desert. The Striped Hyena raised his wide snout towards the narrow light of a quarter moon. His dry nostrils wrinkled in confirmation and he glanced back to the female loping some distance behind him. She was tired this night, weakened by the additional burden of carrying an imminent litter. Striped fur and skin hung from their bones, loosened by a lengthy period without food now their prey had been driven away by the desert drying up many of its Wadis.

A desperate need to eat drove the Hyenas further from the safety of their lair. Set in the shadow of a large mountain, sheltered beneath centuries old warped and weathered rocks, descended from ancient long forgotten tombs. The male had dug out their lair six weeks earlier, ready for the cubs due in thirty days. A nocturnal creature by nature, he had burrowed deep so the lair might offer respite from the heat of the day.

The Hyena raised his head again. The smell had become stronger, closer, yet he knew it was not truly of death. It was the odor of man. But in the instincts accrued by the Hyena and its ancestors over the centuries, the odors of death and man invariably journeyed together. He moved forward with caution while the female followed obediently in his paw prints. Her instinct was simply to trust her mate. Devourers of carrion, the Hyenas would, if lack of food (snip)

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Not for me yet
There are things to like about this, and I suppose it’s a way to set the scene for the coming first chapter. However, unless the hyenas figure in the story, why aren’t we starting with the story? And there are some craft issues. Notes:

The scent of death flowed through the chilled night air across the unmoving sands of the desert. The Striped Hyena raised his wide snout towards the narrow light of a quarter moon. His dry nostrils wrinkled in confirmation and he glanced back to the female loping some distance behind him. She was tired this night, weakened by the additional burden of carrying an imminent litter. Striped fur and skin hung from their bones, loosened by a lengthy period without food now that their prey had been driven away by the desert drying up many of its Wadis. (For me, too many adjectives, here and later in this writing. “The scent of death” is an abstract; this is telling, not showing. For example, would this be more evocative? The sweet scent of rotting flesh flowed…etc. There was a disconnect between raising his snout to the moon and wrinkling in confirmation -- confirmation of what? The moon? I know you mean the scent of death, but that's not what this narrative is saying. Lastly, the last sentence. Perhaps this is a hyena point of view, but this makes the desert the entity that dried up the Wadis. Doesn’t make sense, and it’s a bit of a tangled sentence anyway. I suggest that you keep it simple, i.e. by the drying up of the desert’s Wadis.)

A desperate need to eat drove had driven the Hyenas further from the safety of their lair. Set in the shadow of a large mountain, sheltered beneath centuries old warped and weathered rocks, descended from ancient, long-forgotten tombs. The male had dug out their lair six weeks earlier, ready for the cubs due in thirty days. A nocturnal creature by nature, he had burrowed deep so the lair might offer respite from the heat of the day. (Info dumping site. And the second sentence isn’t a sentence—it’s a fragment. And all mountains are large. What does it matter how long ago the hyena dug the lair, or when his mate is due? Get on with the story.)

The Hyena raised his head again. The smell had become stronger, closer, yet he knew it was not truly of death. It was the odor of man. But in the instincts accrued by the Hyena and its ancestors over the centuries, the odors of death and man invariably journeyed together. He moved forward with caution while the female followed obediently in his paw prints. Her instinct was simply to trust her mate. Devourers of carrion, the Hyenas would, if lack of food (snip) (More info-dumping going on. And we’re doing a little hyena head-hopping here, I think, with a shift to the female’s point of view.)

There are clear signs of good writing here, but on the storytelling side we’re not building in much of the tension. In the chapter that Stu also sent, there were the same symptoms—lots of adjectives, and information/backstory that didn’t propel the story forward. With editing or self-editing, I think there’s plenty of potential, though.

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

[Jessica]

I liked the imagery and setting. It put me right in the middle of the action, and I could sense the entire scene in three dimensions. I thought there was a little overwriting (too many adjectives), but that's easily smoothed out. At the same time, I found myself starting to skip over text, wondering whether the entire book was going to be told from a hyena's point of view. This is an issue of my taste, rather than of writing quality. All the same, I'd be hesitant to buy an entire book if I thought it was going to read like an episode of "Nature." If there's human conflict, I'd prefer to see it by the second paragraph. If they book is told from the hyena's point of view, you might still consider putting the threat earlier on, perhaps explaining how the hyena came to associate the smells of man and death.

I thought the writing was solid and well crafted. I'm very curious to see where this is going.

[Kami]

I also thought the writing was solid, aside from a few minor quibbles. Unfortunately I wouldn't have read on either. There's some repetition--rehashing the thinness, the desperate straits, the scent of death--and there's hyena backstory with digging out a den, and discussion of hyena instinct. That's not necessary to the story, is it? I'd like to get to the people sooner, please.

[Theadra Leilani]

I liked the writing style, the voice, but not the point of view. I've read a few other books that let me see from the eyes of an animal, so I'm not opposed to that. The length of it, though, loses me. Animals are very much in the here and now. Squirrels don't bury nuts because they're worried about winter and having enough to eat, they bury nuts because that's what they need to do right now. From an animal point of view, this is dragging.

My suggestion (I tried to keep as many of the original words in the cut version as I could.)

The scent of spilled blood flowed through the chilled night air across the sands of the desert. The Striped Hyena raised his snout towards the narrow light of the moon. His nostrils wrinkled and he glanced back to the female loping some distance behind him. She needed food or he'd be alone. No mate, no offspring. The rumbling of his stomach made up his mind. Staying in the shadow of a large mountain, the Hyena raised his head again. The smell was stronger, closer, yet he knew it was not truly of death. It was the odor of man. He moved forward with caution, the female followed.

[Deana]

First it's the scent of death, then it's confirmed, then we find out it isn't really the scent of death after all, just stinky old man.

Well, if you're aiming for some kind of overly dramatic Discovery Hyena Saga, with a good bit of "humans suck" thrown in, you're probably on the right track.

[Dan]

Leaving aside the issue of whether this is a story about hyenas or people, the opening needs trimming as suggested by Ray and others.Overwriting is a problem I share with the writer. I suggest he eliminate adjectives, adverbs and any phrases with a hint of redundancy.

[Jon]

Almost-but-no, from me. Or maybe yes. It's right on that 51-49 cusp.

On the plus side, the writing is confident. The verbs are active, the images strong, the problem compelling. All very good things - the 51%. Or 49%. :)

Weakening the piece is the over-reliance in adjectives; virtually every noun has one. Prepositional phrases also predominate. The result is a ponderous read.

Cutting out half the adjectives and condensing some of the prep phrases, we might end up with a first paragraph something like this:

Death's scent flowed through the night, across the desert sands. The striped hyena raised his snout towards the quarter-moon's narrow light. His nostrils wrinkled in confirmation and he glanced back to the female loping some distance behind him. She was tired, weakened by the additional burden of her imminent litter. Striped fur and skin draped from their bones, hunger-loosened now [that] their prey had been driven away by the drying-up of the desert's wadis.

It could still use some work, but it's tighter stripped of some of the prep phrases and adjectives, no?

One other factor, seemingly silly but offputting, was the capitalization. Nouns are nouns; capitalizing them seemingly at random made the piece feel a bit like a 17th century travelogue.

And as a side note, the third paragraph kind of recants the strong image in the first line - if the critter smells death, let it be the smell of death. Backing off from that makes the first paragraph feel like a false promise.

Good luck with this one! It's not far off, even if it was a no from me as-is.

[Jodi]

If this is animal fiction about hyenas and the like, I'd read on. If it is just some sorta set up or prelude to a story about humans, I wouldn't.