Flogometer for Cynthia. Would you turn the page?

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My book, Flogging the Quill, Crafting a Novel that Sells, is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com. I should be printing and shipping within in about 3 weeks, and early orders will be tremendously helpful.

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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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Cynthia’s 16 lines:

The closing of another season was upon them.

It was the death of summer…what the People called the Mother’s Dance. A time of cold, blustery days and the occasional coastal storm, both heralds of the coming Dance of the Crone: winter. One such storm had roared through the prosperous town of Sisafer the previous night, leaving in its wake a tangle of twisted trees and smashed fishing boats. Nets were discovered strung across neighbors’ rooftops, and livestock had to be searched out from hiding places among the scrubby inland cliffs and caves. Much of what should have been a day of preparation for the coming festivities was spent instead in repairs, cleaning, and the whispered suggestions of omens.

Just another autumn day on the Blessed Coast.

The water at the beachfront was cold and churning; it swirled over the jagged rocks and sucked at the bare legs of the two walkers as if determined to wrest them by force into the tidal pools. Even the sky seemed certain that the Goddess’ anger had yet to abate with the rain and winds; it settled instead into a lowering brood. Sunrise had been eclipsed by stubborn clouds and the wind still tugged them across Father Sun’s face in ragged streamers long after His ascension into the eastern sky.

‘Foul time for a stroll,’ one of the walkers complained. The gusting breezes muffled his (snip)

Despite the writing, no go
The lyrical writing and strong, confident voice were tempting, but a couple of things stopped me. One was the distance between me and the people here. They’ re just “walkers.” On page two they have names, so why not here? The second reason was a lack of tension. While the description is well done and evocative, I began wondering if the story could continue in this too-leisurely-for-me vein, and wasn’t that interested in that kind of story. Admittedly, on another day I might have turned the page, and I’m sure others will find this worthy of a page turn, but that’s the subjective nature of this business.

Sure enough, if I’d been patient (but it’s important that I wasn’t), a couple of pages later was this:

‘I’ve found something big, I think. Something brought in last night.’

‘No doubt another record-winning giffa.’ His jest over the normally minnow-sized fish fell on deaf ears. He sighed again. ‘Arissa, please. My feet are nearly frozen through, and the tide is almost out. You’ll miss any more eels…’

‘One moment more. Really, Sugan; you could be helping me move these branches…ahhhh!’

‘Riss?’ Her exclamation startled him and made several nearby rock gulls take wing with equally loud cries of annoyance. He leapt forward for her even as she jumped back and they nearly collided. ‘What is it?’

‘A hand! Blessed Mother! Sugan, it’s a person! A person rolled up in a grass mat!’

If Cynthia could spend less time on setting the scene and the world and get to this on the first page, I’d have definitely turned the page. page. Even then, though, in the following pages I didn’t get a sense of the stakes or consequences to the two walkers for rescuing the person they found. Once again, too leisurely for my tastes, though it might be okay for another.

To be honest, I feel almost churlish for denying this writer a page turn. But remember, the challenge is compelling, not “interesting” or “well written.”

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

[Jess]

Hello! The writing is great, and I think your world-building is probably really intense and good, but I agree with Ray. Nothing happened. Sometimes a leisurely pace works - usually what I'll call the Big Fat Fantasy novels - but even then they'll bridge conflict with small bursts of story questions/tension to link through other information you need to know, but this doesn't seem to have that. I think if you look at it again critically and ask if there's conflict on every page you could pare it and shape it into something amazing, though. :)

[Kami]

Although overall the writing was good, the passive language and lack of characters prevented me from turning the page. The Mother's Dance, Dance of the Crone, etc. are world building details, not the story itself but they and the Goddess and the storm take precedence. As a reader this makes me worried that the characters won't have much say in the outcome of the story.

Passive language: Nets were discovered. By who? And whose nets? Since nets are a maintenance nightmare and no fun to lose because making new ones is time-consuming, whose nets they are and what condition they're in would be an event in and of itself.
Livestock had to be searched out. Again, who is doing the searching? Implied generic villagers aren't as interesting as real people, and, btw, real livestock. If I'd lost my goats in a storm, I'd be pretty frantic. If I had to rely on them for milk/cheese and/or meat, I'd be even more concerned. This is a crisis, but it reads as humdrum.
Prep for festivities was spent ... same issue. People are implied but they don't actually appear on the page. They're whispering about omens? I'd be more than whispering, myself. I'd either be saying heck yeah it's an omen, or arguing against. The only reason to whisper in this sort of situation is if you're afraid someone might hear--does the Goddess listen in? Would whispering help keep her from hearing? For me, reading about people griping and worrying is interesting, especially if they don't have grocery stores or emergency government shipments to help them recover from a storm. Having a storm put people in crisis on page one just before a festival (and could anything bad happen if they don't have a festival celebration?) would be interesting to me. But this didn't feel like a storm event to me.

In the last paragraphs the Father is more important than the walkers, who, as Ray pointed out, don't even get names. This makes me worry even more that the characters won't have any significant part in the story. I prefer character-based stories (not everyone does, so if that's not what you're aiming for, bear in mind that it might be wise to ignore me) because so many non-character-based stories drag the characters along from one event to another for artistic reasons. The endings on those so often end up to be literal deus ex machinas that any sign of that sort of ending in a beginning chases me away.

BTW, if it's a foul day for a stroll, why are they strolling? That isn't so much a story question as a reader wondering why the characters are wondering on the page why they're acting out of character. It's sort of like me going to the store and saying aloud to another shopper "it's a bad day to go shopping." I'd have to have a really compelling reason to go shopping on a bad shopping day. Maybe these walkers are looking for missing stuff rather than strolling.

I hope this helps!

[Darla]

I enjoyed the writing and the images there but the lack of character involvement made this a no for me. I'm with Kami in enjoying character based stories. This is a lot of good detail but without anyone to tie the information to, I'm not connecting with it.

Could the walkers be talking about the Mother, the Crone and the festival while searching through the storm wreckage or something of the like? I'd like to see mess through someone's eyes and hear their thoughts on what storm's damage will mean for them, their festival and their way of life.

[Timberati]

The world setting seemed to me to be the writing equivalent of cracking one's knuckles. I'd like to see some action added to the scene setting (see Ray's "Story as River").

Eric Witchey talks about the ABCs of a scene. The small "S" is setting. The Agenda (of the character(s) in the scene), the Backstory (what fuels each character's agenda), and the resulting Conflict make up most of the scene.

World setting is critical to the story's narrator. That person needs to know the history and present character of the storyworld in order to tell the tale. But like being introduced to someone, I don't need to learn everything at once when we meet (at least I hope I don't, "Gee, I'd love to hear about your gall bladder surgery ...")

Perhaps set the first few pages aside for use here and there later. And, I agree with the other commenters about the passive sentences. Flip them so they say who does what.

Good luck and keep at it.
Norm

[Kim]

I have to admit I wouldn't have turned the page either. I probably would have put that down to a flaw in me rather than the writing, but still I wouldn't have read on. There's maybe a bit too much 'cultural anthropology textbook' in this beginning for me, and not enough 'zippy fun book'. That's very much a question of what I happen to feel like reading right now and not a refection on this, though--I hate the thought of a nice, lovely, thoughtful read being gutted and forced to move at unnatural speed just because that's what's popular right now.

I did stumble a bit over "the death of summer...what the People called the Mother’s Dance", though. To me, this read as if the last day of summer was the Mother's Dance. The following sentence made it clear that it was summer itself that was the Mother's Dance (as fall was the Crone's Dance). Just a trace of confusion there, but in the worst of places.

[Jessica]

I disagreed with Ray. The writing pulled me in, and the description of the storm suggested a foreshadowed conflict. I'd have turned the page. It was beautiful.

You might consider, though, getting rid of the two one-line paragraphs. The very first one ("the closing of the season....") doesn't add anything, and the following paragraph really says it all so beautifully. The second one-liner ("just another autumn day....") serves to dissipate the tension gathered in the previous paragraph, which suggests that it's *not* just another autumn day.

I really liked this. Nicely done.

[MCD]

Having a sense of place is very grounding, and often ignored in some of the posts I see here -- understandable when we are all trying to hook readers -- so I think it's good that this writer has started with some of those details.

But having *only* a sense of place, without linking it to a character, made the descriptions of storms and angry gods lack the tension they would have otherwise. I want to care on behalf of someone.

As an example, I just read Lois McMaster Bujold's Curse of Chalion (a new author to me, but no doubt well known to readers of this blog), where sense of place and sense of character are beautifully intertwined from page one. The reader gets into the mind of her wonderful protagonist immediately, and so everything we see in that world is through his eyes, and imbued with meaning and compassion (I think Ray calls it experiential description).

But I agree that the writer shows confidence and control and has a beautiful voice. That said, story first.

[Hayley E. Lavik]

I agree with previous feedback. Just to add my small feedback, I really enjoyed the tone of the writing and I loved the sense of world-building. The world seems very compelling, and the writing is elegant and inviting. If it had been sprinkled throughout amid a scene presenting conflict, I would really have enjoyed it.

[Cynthia]

This was great! Thank you ALL for commenting! It doesn't even matter to me that so many didn't want to turn the page; this was far more constructive than someone merely saying "Yes, I liked it."

This is a completely finished novel with the first half of a sequel already in the works. So much has happened since then (and, yes, I swear, a GREAT deal of action!) that it's strange reading comments about how slow-paced it is.

But what this proves is that this forum is the BEST place in which to test your work! The fact that very few readers would have turned the page makes me realize that no matter how action-packed the rest is, I would never get a reader TO that point with this kind of opening.

(Sad to say, this was actually the Preface and not Chapter One, but I thought it was important to present it as any reader would see it upon opening the book. And it certainly seems to be!)

Thank you, everyone. And now back to work! I have a lot to do!

[mai]

Confusion took me out of the story when I couldn't understand if the Mother's Dance referred to summer or its death. Since a herald announces something coming soon, "coming" is probably redundant in the second sentence. "Leaving in its wake" has become overused by weather and news announcers, as a result of the violent storms of the past few years. "Nets were discovered" is too passive, bleeding the energy and drama associated with heavy storms out of the story. When "should have been" is used, "instead" usually is redundant.

The writing is generally pretty dense, leaving little space for the reader to enter the story. The slightly archaic style has something to do with this. But it has more to do with an overtelling approach. The author paints vivid pictures and conveys a mood very nicely, but says too much sometimes. Setting the scenes more actively and simply -- finding where adjectives are verbs-in-disguise, and seeing where the picture is painted in too much detail -- will bring the story out more strongly.

I look forward to reading the next version of this story.