Flogometer for David—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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Note: this is SF, but don’t let genre likes/dislikes stop you—storytelling considerations are still valid. David’s first 16 lines:

High noon in Mare Orientale: Terra hangs lambent in a black star-shot sky. Invisible to optic and electronics alike, synth-ceramic spheres ring its blue-green orb. Gravitic com-links flickered like summer lightning as the red icon of a gravitic source bloomed in the Mediterranean Sea. Wing pinions thuttering in consternation, the Seeker moved to investigate.

Primary A’Rwth blinked yellow eyes. A grizzly-sized, saurian heavy-worlder, his fearsome exterior belied a nature moderated by thousands of years of civilisation; yet his task was clear. The Triune Protocols required that gengineered species have gravitics before contact; but they also had to be unitary with mores acceptable to the Star Concordiat. Mankind was a long way from that. Worse they were feral. A’Rwth bared glistening sabre-like teeth at the very thought of gravitic-equipped humans raging along the starlines. He rumbled “Deploy the Juggernaut. Confirm the gravitic sighting and waken the Mentor. A decision will be needed on species annihilation and that needs all of us on-line.” The others moved to obey.

* * *

Deep in the asteroid belt, gravitic arrays awoke. A continent-killer moved in-system; others close behind. Unless checked, Apocalypse would fall within a month, scrubbing Terra clean. The decision would not be taken lightly, for it would set aside a plan millions of years in play. It called (snip)

Okay, I wanted to find out if mankind is doomed

I’m a long-time science-fiction reader, and this “forerunner” tale felt familiar in style yet fresh enough in execution to me to want to pursue that story question—will we all die?—a bit further. As with the kind of world-building that goes on in SF and fantasy, there’s an omniscient approach to description, which is admittedly more efficient. But the writing is solid and well within the expectations of the genre. Notes:

High noon in Mare Orientale: Terra hangs lambent in a black star-shot sky. Invisible to optics and electronics alike, synth-ceramic spheres ringed its blue-green orb. Gravitic com-links flickered like summer lightning as the red icon of a gravitic source bloomed in the Mediterranean Sea. Wing pinions thuttering in consternation, the Seeker moved to investigate.

Primary A’Rwth blinked yellow eyes. A grizzly-sized, saurian heavy-worlder, his fearsome exterior belied a nature moderated by thousands of years of civilisation; yet his task was clear. The Triune Protocols required that gengineered species have gravitics before contact; but they also had to be unitary with mores acceptable to the Star Concordiat. Mankind was a long way from that. Worse, they were feral. A’Rwth bared glistening sabre-like teeth at the very thought of gravitic-equipped humans raging along the starlines. He rumbled “Deploy the Juggernaut. Confirm the gravitic sighting and waken the Mentor. A decision will be needed on species annihilation and that needs all of us on-line.” The others moved to obey. (This exposition and description is clearly from outside the point-of-view character, and ordinarily I’d suggest using experiential description to picture it. But this is not likely to be a major continuing character, and the approach works to get us to the annihilation story question and set the scene, alien-wise. On the other hand, rather than “fearsome exterior,” which is blatant “telling,” wouldn’t it have been more fun to see some fearsome body parts instead? “Showing” is still a good idea, even in this kind of opening. I challenge David to rewrite this paragraph from a strict third-person limited pov to see if he can pull it off. Get inside the character’s head, don’t think/do/say anything it wouldn’t ordinarily [such as “I have yellow eyes.”] and give it a try. If you’re in that pov, you can even give the reader a hint of how A’Rwth feels about these developing events. Maybe his years of observation have created sympathy or hatred for mankind. Something to consider . . .)

* * *

Deep in the asteroid belt, gravitic arrays awoke. A continent-killer moved in-system; others close behind. Unless checked, Apocalypse would fall within a month, scrubbing Terra clean. The decision would not be taken lightly, for it would set aside a plan millions of years in play. It called (snip)

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

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Public floggings available. If I can post it here,

Submitting to the Flogometer:

1. Email your 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter as an attachment (.doc or .rtf preferred, .docx okay) and I'll critique the first page.
2. Please format with double spacing, 12-point font Times New Roman 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

[Christine H]

I didn't know what 'lambent' meant either, but I love books that send me to the dictionary. I love learning new vocabulary!
(it means: flickering, or softly radiant).

However, I only got about halfway through before I was hopelessly muddled. I'm not a heavy sci-fi reader, but I have read some Heinlein, Bradbury and Asimov.

I got stuck at the synth-ceramic spheres. To me, this sounded like a kind of light fixture for an alien home. I thought that the POV character was looking out his living room window at Earth, the way we look at the moon.

Then I got hopelessly lost.

Some thoughts from a casual reader:

1. If it's noon (implying mid-day) why is the sky black? Well, perhaps there is no atmosphere on the POV's planet, or whatever the heck he's on. Okay.

2. Why are the synth-ceramic spheres invisible to optics and electronics? Is the alien a spy, hiding from other life forms or from the earthlings? Is he living on the moon, observing Earth from a distance? Mare Orientale implies a moon location; I've had enough French to know that "Mer" means "Sea" and a lot of places on the moon are named after bodies of water.

3. I'm assuming a "gravitic source" is a source of gravity. How can a source of gravity bloom in the ocean, i.e. on the surface of a body that has its own gravity due to its own mass (i.e. Terra)? If a huge source of gravity suddenly emerged from the center of a planet, would that not mean that the planet itself was imploding (or exploding) due to the huge shift in its mass? Would it not then careen off its orbit, or something else truly catastrophic?

In that case, external annihilation would be moot.

4. Wing pinions fluttering implies to me that the Seeker is a mythological figure like a seraphim. But, space is a vacuum so what is he fluttering against? He could only propel himself with that motion if there was something like air present. Or is he truly angelic and insubstantial? I'm assuming the angelic, which then puts this in the metaphysical realm.

5. Primary A'rwth - This is just my personal pet peeve, but what is it with names that have apostrophes in the middle? I keep encountering this phenomenon, and am not sure how I'm supposed to pronouce or interpret it. I'm assuming this is "uh-rith"? And he has yellow eyes, and a physical body. So how does he relate to the insubstantial seeker and this living room window vision?

I know I'm being nitpicky here, and I hope you don't hate me for it. I just wanted to give you a sense of my thought process as I read (and re-read) this, to help you think of ways to make it a little more accessible. I have read some sci-fi in my younger days, but it's been a long time.

[Christine H]

P.S. To clarify, I should have said that "I've had enough French to know that "Mer" (which is pronounced "mare") means "sea" and so "Mare Orientale" means "Oriental Sea" and not "Oriental horse."

[Christine H]

This is more of a question than a comment... Am I the only reader who looks for meanings and links in sci-fi and fantasy names? I don't expect randomness, I want some consistency of language / meaning.

Am I overanalyzing?

[Christine H]

After going back and re-reading 8 hours later, I feel totally stupid for not getting it the first time.

[Darcy]

I haven't read any heavy science fiction, so I don't know anything about the conventions and terminology common to the genre. My comments are from the point of view of an avid reader who is interested in a variety of genres.

I really enjoyed the combination of cold technological terms with warm, earthy images such as blooming and summer lightning. Also, the potential destruction of Earth and mankind is definitely page-turning material. However, I found it so hard to orient myself in the first paragraph that I stopped reading and had to make a second attempt when I was feeling more like decoding.

I didn't know if our POV character was on the moon, in a spacecraft hovering above the moon or on Terra. I assumed on the moon looking at Earth. The next sentence confused me further, as I thought at first it was Terra that was invisible to electronics.

I'm still not entirely sure what was happening in the third sentence, but after several readings, I'm guessing that "Gravitic com-links flickered" on a monitor or informational panel of some sort? I was originally picturing something literally flickering/blooming in the Mediterranean.

By the last sentence, I decided that the POV character was in a ship hiding in the shadows of a moon crater, but by that time I found my enjoyment of the prose was far outweighed by the effort involved in following the story.

I was glad I went back and tried again later, because the next 2 paragraphs were much easier to follow. As much as I was turned off by the first paragraph, I was hooked by those 2. I think the first would have been clearer if it had read something like this:

High noon in Mare Orientale. Terra hangs lambent in a black star-shot sky. Synth-ceramic spheres, invisible to optics and electronics alike, ring its blue-green orb. On Primary A'Rwth's screen, the red icon of a gravitic source blooms in the Mediterranean Sea. Corresponding com-links flicker like summer lightning. Wing pinions thuttering in consternation, the Seeker moves to investigate.

Forgive me if I've totally mangled it--I'm still not sure I grasped what was going on, but hopefully the gist of my comments will be helpful. I think if you're aiming for a general audience, you need to help them visualize more clearly. On a side note, I would find the tense switch less jarring if it happens along with the shift to the closer POV instead of randomly after a couple of sentences.