Flogometer for Jim. Would you turn the page?

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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). Directions for submissions are below.

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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Jim’s first 16 lines:

Chapter 1 1500 hrs Thurs, 14 August 1969 Alex’s Room In First Battalion Lines

The stench of damp, gray woolen socks, a touch overdue for the laundry, overlaid with a hint of Sergeant-major’s soap and just the faintest whiff of young men housed in too-close quarters tugged at the narrator’s nostrils. As he drifted upstairs, the hallway echoed and re-echoed with the sounds of ghostly, ancient farts, tell-tale evidence of the regularity, if you’ll excuse the term, of many beans and wieners suppers through the years. He was accompanied by the lingering aroma that clung to the stairwells as if the troops, dashing to their duty position, stopped long enough to let a few go as they headed out the doors, he crept unannounced into room 224 of building D-27.

That building was home to the living-in privates and Corporals of Delta Company of the First Battalion of the Canadian Highland Infantry. It was a perfect time to wander into the room. Private Tommy Judges, or TJ, stood in his olive drab combat pants, a white tee-shirt and half-unlaced combat boots.

“I’m off to Woodstock for the weekend,” he said.

TJ’s roommate, Private Alex Murphy, lay on his back on his red-blanketed bed in his white tee-shirt, white boxers and gray socks. “It’s Thursday, ass, you’ve got to suffer through (snip)

Didn’t hook this reader
Jim wrote that he’s trying to write his novel in a style similar to P.G. Wodehouse. I’m not familiar with Wodehouse’s work, so I’m guessing that’s where the “narrator” comes from. It’s a device that didn’t work for me. It might have, though, if there were any tension in this opening page.

While the writing is good and the description fulsome, there were no compelling story questions raised for me, nothing to make me wonder what was going to happen next. It may be that in a literary novel this leisurely opening and good voice would be enough to get an agent to turn the page, but I think it’s taking a chance. Notes:

Chapter 1 1500 hrs Thurs, 14 August 1969 Alex’s Room In First Battalion Lines (I wouldn’t use one of my precious 16 lines for this, I’d work it into the narrative if it was important.)

The stench of damp, gray woolen socks, a touch overdue for the laundry, overlaid with a hint of Sergeant-major’s soap and just the faintest whiff of young men housed in too-close quarters tugged at the narrator’s nostrils. As he drifted upstairs, the hallway echoed and re-echoed with the sounds of ghostly, ancient farts, tell-tale evidence of the regularity, if you’ll excuse the term, of many beans-and-wieners suppers through the years. He was accompanied by the lingering aroma that clung to the stairwells as if the troops, dashing to their duty position, stopped long enough to let a few go as they headed out the doors, he crept unannounced into room 224 of building D-27. (For me, there’s confusion here. The narrative suggests that the “narrator” is physically present, but he’s not. While there are certainly no rules against a stylistic thing such as this, it just didn’t work for me. Which is a subjective response. But, still, we’ve read all this and there’s no sign of story ahead yet.)

That building was home to the living-in privates and Corporals of Delta Company of the First Battalion of the Canadian Highland Infantry. It was a perfect time to wander into the room. Private Tommy Judges, or TJ, stood in his olive drab combat pants, a white tee-shirt and half-unlaced combat boots.

“I’m off to Woodstock for the weekend,” he said.

TJ’s roommate, Private Alex Murphy, lay on his back on his red-blanketed bed in his white tee-shirt, white boxers and gray socks. “It’s Thursday, ass, you’ve got to suffer through (snip)

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

© 2009 Ray Rhamey

Comments

[Maya]

I'm somewhat familiar with P. G. Wodehouse, but I didn't get that from this passage except in the humorous use of high-fallutin' language to describe low-fallutin' (?) things. I liked that aspect of this passage, but I was tripped up by grammar and by the difficulty of figuring out what is actually going on. I ultimately figured these are soldiers in an army, but I couldn't tell why they're living in these conditions, whether they're in an actual war, or what.

On the other hand, I feel brain-dead today, so take this for what it's worth. (Oy... I almost wrote brain-ded. My spelling has gotten bad lately!)

[Kami]

This falls under the experimental fiction category, which may work for some, but be sure to read each individual set of guidelines. A lot of agents and editors specifically say don't send experimental prose, and I believe that, at least in my opinion, this qualifies.

>The stench of damp, gray woolen socks, a touch overdue for the laundry, overlaid with a hint of Sergeant-major’s soap and just the faintest whiff of young men housed in too-close quarters tugged at the narrator’s nostrils.

This is a lot of elaborate detail just to get the smell of the place down. The smells continue. Unless scent is the point (as in the brilliant novel Perfume) all this care and attention to setting steals time from story. It's always a balancing act, and at least for me, the scale is tipped too far toward setting in general, and odors specifically. There's some overwriting too--faintest whiff; damp, gray, woolen. I'm not a big fan of scents tugging on nostrils, not just because it's cliche' but because it invokes an unintentionally humorous image of little scented hands plucking nosehairs or something.

Too many adjectives, not enough in the way of active verbs.

To pull me into a conceit like this, I'd have to really enjoy the narrator as a character in its own right. This one just drifts (literally) around and doesn't contribute to the narrative except as a witness.

>It was a perfect time to wander into the room.

Why? I feel like I've missed something.

>“It’s Thursday, ass, you’ve got to suffer through

This ends mid-snip but I already suspect that it's As-we-all-know-Bob dialogue. They both know it's Thursday, and they both know their daily schedule, since it isn't going to vary, or at least that's what I assume.

I don't know why I should care about these people, or their smells, nor does it seem to matter whether or not this character will get to Woodstock. I might care if I knew it mattered to him beyond a whim, mattered in a way that I found compelling. For example, I would care if his dying baby sister will definitely be there and he's willing to go AWOL to see her. I would care if any number of reasons ended up on the page in those early lines, so long as I could relate to them.

I hope this helps!

[Jess]

Everything Kami said. It also didn't help that the high-falutin' language was redundant - if it smells like old farts, we don't need to be told three times in different ways. The use of the "narrator" put distance in that didn't make me want to turn the page any, but even had that been more welcoming, the introduction to the characters left me bored. The first line left me puzzled, too, as the narrative doesn't actually start in Alex's room. Is this a journal reflecting on the narrator going to Alex's room? It doesn't read like it, and it doesn't explain the narrator's ghostliness or why he wouldn't use first person.

[Jessica]

The first line stopped me cold. I found it cumbersome, and the narrator's reference to himself in third person put me off. You might consider changing it to "our hero," or even the main character's name.

The one element of conflict that I saw was the idea of an enlisted soldier going to Woodstock. You might consider starting with this. I can't imagine that the idea would have sat well with his commanding officers, or even with his fellow soldiers. His roommate tries to talk him out of it, warns him of dire repercussions, but our hero has reason to risk the wrath of the military. What is it? That's a conflict I'd be interested in following.

I agree with Kami that there's entirely too much sensory detail here. A little bit of stale flatulence goes a long way =)

That all being said, I am interested in how the story will unfold. Best of luck with it.

[Timberati]

I really like Jessica's idea of using"our hero." That little touch gives a whiff of whimsy (sorry about the alliteration).

I think Kami is right on: too much detail. It became overwhelming and I had nothing to grab.

The story needs to move forward on the journey while taking in enough details to give us a sense of where we are and where we're going.

I think, the writing needs to be a wee tighter focused and not bounce about so much in a sentence (or I'm not seeing/experiencing what you want me to, which is also a problem).

For instance, "The stench of damp, gray woolen socks, a touch overdue for the laundry, overlaid with a hint of Sergeant-major’s soap and just the faintest whiff of young men housed in too-close quarters tugged at the narrator’s nostrils." We go from socks (in Alex's storage locker presumably) to the "Sergeant-major’s soap" (is he in Alex's room, next to the narrator, or a lingering presence?) to young men generally. It's meant to set a scene but it didn't focus me on anything. I thought I was in Alex's room, instead it struck me as being in three different places. It should start by orient me to place.

This may be too much me but it gives an idea of what I mean about orients the reader while giving a sense of the place:

"The quarters, for Delta Company's First Battalion privates and corporals of the Canadian Highland Infantry, smelt of damp woolen socks and last night's beans-and-wieners supper." (Hmmm. Needs work)

Keep going, writing is re-writing.

Best,
Norm

[Ben Bateman]

For the first dozen lines, I thought this was a story about kids playing solider, like Calvin and Hobbes grown up a few years. There are only a few situations where you would introduce a bedroom as "Alex's room," and the most common is a child's bedroom. It wasn't until "room 224 of building D-27" that I realized we might be talking about real soldiers.

Lots of books and movies use a terse military-style introduction for scenes and chapters. And if you're trying to do that, then do it right. Include the sort of detail that would allow someone else in the same military organization to know exactly when, where, and who you are talking about. It's a fun device because it reveals both the basic facts of the setting and the speaker's style of thinking.

Or you could tweak that device to suggest a very different style of thinking, which you seem to be going after here, as in: "14 August 1969. Fort Hood, Texas (US Army) Barracks Bldg 227, Room 43. Private Tommy Judges, or TJ, reached under the pile of smelly grey socks and extracted his least-smelly white t-shirt."

I suspect that you're trying to convey the tension between regimentation of military life and the juvenile behavior of the actual soldiers against the backdrop of Woodstock. If so, make that clearer. Show an orderly detail, show a chaotic detail.

And if Woodstock is going to be a major theme in this story, then promise to surprise the reader. Because if this is a story about a young Canadian soldier having a life-changing experience at Woodstock, then I'm already bored. Maybe he finds enlightenment through sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll, or maybe he is repulsed by filth and chaos. Either way it's an old, tired story unless it's a true story with lots of interesting detail.

But if you show me that you recognize the cliche danger and have a really interesting twist waiting for me, then I'll turn the page. Maybe something like:

"Woodstock, NY. 1969. People went there for different reasons: music, drugs, sex, social change. I just went because I was sick of peeling potatoes.

The trip succeeded in that it ended my intimate familiarity with the standard-issue Canadian Army potato peeler. The price of this success was meeting Linda Lupinsky, visiting Pier 47 in Miami, Florida, and learning more than I ever wanted to know about phantom limb pain."

I have no idea where to go from there, but I think that'll make 'em turn the page.

[mai]

I turn to fiction for escape from daily realities, and a re-introduction to my own and others' humanity. Some aspects of humanity are inescapable for all of us, though. That more than half of this opening -- 118 of 220 words -- is devoted to some of the more objectionable scents we create, had me questioning the author's motive.

Does this focus come into play because it's important to the story or mood? It doesn't seem to be, to me. Should I turn the page? If the second paragraph were cut down to its story value, something like this...

The stench of damp gray woolen socks, overlaid with a hint of Sergeant-major’s soap and a whiff of young men housed in too-close quarters tugged at the narrator’s nostrils. As he drifted upstairs and through the hallways, he seemed to hear ghostly echos, evidence of troops who'd been stationed there long ago. Mindful of the past, he crept unannounced into room 224 of building D-27.

...then I might turn the page. An edit like this would draw this reader deeper into the story.

In a pub, the second paragraph might have been a cute thing to share with pals wondering how the book is coming. But printed on paper and read by strangers, it doesn't work, in my most humble opinion. It is a good mini-treatise, though, on why we do laundry regularly and avoid combining legumes and fatty meats in the same meal.