Flogometer for CB—will you turn the page?

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FtQ is on the road I’m traveling to do my workshop at the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference. There may be no reliable Internet access for a few days, but I’ll do my best to keep flogging. So here’s one for CB.

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CB’s first 16 lines:

Chanel realized she had been holding her breath. She forced herself to open her throat as she lunged upward from the nightmare. Sitting up in her bed, the sheets were twisted around her thighs; her nightgown clung to her, drenched. She pulled them from her and heaped them onto the floor and fled, naked, to the bathroom.

She ran cool water from the tap into her cupped palms and splashed it onto her face. Staring at her reflection in the mirror, she saw past it back in time, back to the dreamscape of the forest. She could see it, the overgrown vines and feel the quiet of it, timeless, waiting, ever vigilant, just the other side of a long, long ago lost time.

She had left it there. There was no going back. It was not possible. There was only a long empty corridor to fall into, an abyss. And other than falling down and down and down into it endlessly, she had realized, long ago, that there was no going back.

It was Christmas. It came back to ask her every year. Every year, she stiffened, she twisted open the corks on bottle after bottle and let the effervescent liquid rise into her nose, pour down her throat, tingle with the silver bells strung up on the elderberry trees outside and tried to numb it. But it came anyway. If not to her directly, then through her thoughts where it would spiral up and she would be thinking of it, remembering it.

Not for me
It might have been all the “it”s. There were 14 of them, and I lost track of what “it” referred to. The nightmare? The jungle? While this character is troubled, the narrative didn’t leave me with an understanding of why, nor of the consequences of whatever (it) is troubling her. Lastly, the passage is so internal and packed with things that mean something to the character but not to me (yet) that I was not compelled to turn the page. Some notes:

Chanel realized she had been holding her breath. She forced herself to open her throat as she lunged upward from the nightmare. Sitting up in her bed, the sheets were twisted around her thighs; her nightgown clung to her, drenched. She pulled them from her and heaped them onto the floor and fled, naked, to the bathroom.

She ran cool water from the tap into her cupped palms and splashed it onto her face. Staring at her reflection in the mirror, she saw past it, back in time, back to the dreamscape of the forest. She could see it, the overgrown vines and feel the quiet of it, timeless, waiting, ever-vigilant, just the other side of a long, long ago lost time. (The first sentence veers toward overwriting. This is where the writer can let the reader fill in details. If the sentence had been She splashed water onto her face, wouldn’t you have seen pretty much what the original sentence described?)

She had left it there. There was no going back. It was not possible. There was only a long empty corridor to fall into, an abyss. And other than falling down and down and down into it endlessly, she had realized, long ago, that there was no going back. (This is where I really lost track of what “it” was. There’s another word echo, too—the word “long” happens 4 times in the last 2 paragraphs. While fiction can certainly take liberties with reality, there’s a bit of confusion in the idea that a corridor—a long, linear, horizontal thing—can be an abyss in which to fall, an abyss being (in the literal sense) a deep chasm.)

It was Christmas. It came back to ask her every year. Every year, she stiffened, she twisted open the corks on bottle after bottle and let the effervescent liquid rise into her nose, pour down her throat, tingle with the silver bells strung up on the elderberry trees outside and tried to numb it. But it came anyway. If not to her directly, then through her thoughts where it would spiral up and she would be thinking of it, remembering it. (More of “it.” What are the “it”s that the first two sentences refer to? For me, clarity became a killer issue. More than that, this opening didn’t raise a clear story question that made me wonder what would happen next.)

I think that a certain amount of linear clarity and simplicity is a valuable on the first page, at the least, and for several pages, at best, while you’re trying to hook the reader into your character and story. Here, I wanted to be sympathetic to the character, but the narrative leave an interesting opening, with specific, understandable action, to a collection of “it”s and other things that became confusing.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

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Public floggings available. If I can post it here,

1. Email: email 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 with double spacing, 12-point font, 1-inch margins.
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

[Aimee Laine]

On all the "its", I found myself needing to know what "it" was. :) So I said yes. :)

[kathy]

There were a lot of images that didn't seem to go anywhere. To me this read more like poetry. Personally I like it simple and direct, or at least I'm learning to.
Keep at it!

[Kami]

I had trouble sorting out what 'it' referred to as well, and there were some areas of overwriting. It's a fine line--much of the prose worked for me. Things that didn't:

She pulled them from her and heaped them onto the floor and fled, naked, to the bathroom.

Too directive for me. She can fling her stuff off and go to the bathroom--I know she's naked at that point.

Going back and back are echoed waaay too much for me. And I wouldn't consider falling into an abyss a form of going back, so the 'other than' doesn't work for me either.

Every year, she stiffened, she twisted open the corks on bottle after bottle and let the effervescent liquid rise into her nose, pour down her throat, tingle with the silver bells strung up on the elderberry trees outside and tried to numb it.

She stiffened what? She actually snorts champagne up her nose? (Implied by liquid, as opposed to the bubbles going up her nose.) And overall, there's just too much going on for one sentence.

For these reasons it's a reluctant no for me, but oh so close.

[Darla]

I was onboard until she looked in the mirror then things got confusing. The word repetition, 'it' overload and a lack of clarity made this a no for me.

[minervaK]

I hate to be this petty, but the name stopped me. Consider changing it to something that's not associated with a well-known product.

[Steph]

I got stalled at, 'She forced herself to open her throat...' I wasn't sure what was meant by that. Did you mean open her mouth? The way it is phrased at the moment for me brought to mind tracheotomies, which was probably not the image you were going for.

I also would suggest changing the name unless the fact that she's called Chanel has some great underlying significance to the plot.

[CB]

Thanks for all the comments. Very helpful.

I decided to throw this piece out.

This writing was more of an experiment and I hadn't committed to it going further.
I think the writing was atmospheric and I now realize it needed to share more information and less cloud cover!

Again, thanks for reading and taking the time to give me your suggestions and feedback!

-CB