Advance review offer for vampire kitty-cat & flogging Vaughn

UPDATE I've a post on story structure up at Writer Unboxed that you might find helpful.

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Here’s what other advance readers have said about the protagonist in The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles:

”Patch, the vampire kitty, totally grabbed me and has risen to the ranks of one of my all-time favorite heroes.”

“This is a cat I want to know. I love this character.”

“I wanted you to know that I adore Patch.”

Enjoy a fun holiday read for free:

Help create buzz for a lovable new character by reading a PDF review copy of Chronicles in return for writing a blog post or review in advance of publication on February 1, 2010.

While hoped for, favorable opinions are not required or requested, and there are no strings attached other than agreement to these two conditions:

1. You agree to write about the book and post it on your blog, website, or an appropriate forum (for those who don’t have a blog or website -- discussion boards or online booksellers such as Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com) in January before February 1, 2010. If you want to include a link to the website, vampirekittycat.com, it should be up and running by then.

2. You agree not to sell, distribute, redistribute, post on the Internet or otherwise pirate copies of the novel.

Extended deadline Please email me with your agreement to the above terms no later than midnight PST on Friday, December 18th and I’ll email to you a PDF of the complete book.

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And now to our regularly scheduled flogging.

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page?

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page? In a properly formatted novel manuscript, 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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Vaughn’s first 16 lines (prologue):

Most people would have held such a meeting in the dark corner of a bar. Duke LaCrosse was no such fool; how better to advertise a clandestine meeting than to have it in a clandestine manner. Instead, he and the other 5 men were sitting on a hilltop around a roaring fire, roasting several ducks they had just killed, and discussing treason.

“Is everything ready?” The duke asked the small man sitting across from him.

“Yes. The horseman has been paid off and understands his instructions.”

“How ironic, to use a horseman.” -- this from the man to the duke’s left.

“Yes,” replied the Duke. “And it provides us with a wonderful deniability if he is caught. Besides which a young male horseman is amazingly easy to hire… if you want a job done that requires staying on horseback for days at a time.”

“Why not just kill the boy?” put in the man to the duke’s right. The others stared at him.

“He is the Duke’s nephew!” ejaculated the man on the left.

“Yes” Replied the duke coldly. “Besides which the kidnapping of the child, which we will later produce evidence of the horseman’s involvement in, will produce both a ‘need’ for a regency and an excuse for our actions against the other ‘races’.”

“I don’t like it. It is a loose end. I don’t like loose ends.”

Didn’t get there for me

While it is a scene, and I like opening with those, and there is a small burst of conflict (though not sustained), and story questions raised, I didn’t move on. Perhaps I didn’t care about the intended victim, knowing nothing about him—maybe he needs to be kidnapped. And the purpose seems to be to tell me what’s going to happen. I’d much rather experience what’s going to happen; I’m not sure this prologue is necessary. Notes:

Most people would have held such a meeting in the dark corner of a bar. Duke LaCrosse was no such fool; how better to advertise a clandestine meeting than to have it in a clandestine manner. Instead, he and the other 5 five men were sitting on a hilltop around a roaring fire, roasting several ducks they had just killed, and discussing treason. (Even though distant and a little clunky, linguistically speaking, I liked this opening—it has attitude. I should mention that “several” is an abstract and gives no picture. I’d have liked something such as “two” much better.)

“Is everything ready?” The duke asked the small man sitting across from him. (We have a small man (small as compared to what?), and later a man on the duke’s left, and then a man on the duke’s right. In other words, vague forms that are there only to deliver information to the reader. While all characters serve that role, to be sure, I think fiction is much more lively when they aren’t cardboard. For me, this scene would have played much better if it were the Duke and a single other, distinctive person, his number one subordinate.)

“Yes. The horseman has been paid off and understands his instructions.”

“How ironic, to use a horseman.” -- this from the man to the duke’s left. (Unfortunately, since the reader has no idea what the man refers to, this “irony” is meaningless. If it had gone on to say something such as to use a horseman to kidnap a baby centaur, or something ironic, it would have had meaning. As it is, I think it’s a waste of space.)

“Yes,” replied the Duke said. “And it provides us with a wonderful deniability if he is caught. Besides which a young male horseman is amazingly easy to hire… if you want a job done that requires staying on horseback for days at a time.” (Somehow I just didn’t get a connection between a person being young making it easy to hire him for what is clearly an arduous task. I could connect being stupid with it, but not youth. Seems this is an artless way for the author to tell us that the kidnapping involves a long ride. Why not just go there instead of talking about it?)

“Why not just kill the boy?” put in the man to the duke’s right. The others stared at him.

“He is the Duke’s nephew!” ejaculated the man on the left. (You probably knew you were going to be called on “ejaculated.” It really is best to just use “said” most of the time. While this use of “ejaculated” is appropriate, it seems to me that just about every adult will add the sexual connotation, and that muddies the meaning.)

“Yes” Replied the duke coldly. “Besides which the kidnapping of the child, in which we will later produce evidence of the horseman’s involvement in, will produce both a ‘need’ for a regency and an excuse for our actions against the other ‘races’.” (As readers of FtQ know, I’m not a fan of trying to use adverbs to tell a description instead of strong verbs or actual description to show it. This is heavy-duty “telling.” Wouldn’t it be better to have started with the kidnapping and let this play out?)

“I don’t like it. It is a loose end. I don’t like loose ends.” (The antecedent for “it” is unclear. I’m guessing it refers to leaving the boy alive, but that topic is paragraphs ago. It wouldn’t hurt to be specific.)

This prologue feels very “rough draft” to me, with not a lot of work put into setting the scene and creating a drama. It is all talk that tells, not shows. And it tells stuff that these henchmen should already know, so why are they talking about it? I’d much rather have started with a sweet child being ripped from his safe life and terrified as the horseman carries him into the unknown, fearing for his life.

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 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 permission to post it on FtQ.

Comments

[Jami G.]

Nope. Too many craft/punctuation/grammar issues for me. Sometimes, it's a bad sign if Ray doesn't point them out, as it might mean that there's too many.

For example:
“Yes” Replied the duke coldly. “Besides which the kidnapping of the child...
This sentence has dialogue tag issues, unnecessary word issues, and punctuation issues. It should be more like (not even counting Ray's comment about the adverb):
“Yes,” replied the duke coldly. "Besides, the kidnapping of the child...

Watch out for the details, because they'll bite you if you're not careful. :)

Good Luck!
Jami G.

[Kami]

Not a big fan of ejaculating in dialogue.

That and grammar/craft stuff aside--there are some things that tossed me out of the story pretty quick. There's a duke, which cues me into historical or fantasy, but then the word used is bar, not tavern, and they talk about leaving loose ends, which sounds modern (it may be old, but sounds very modern/colloquial to me, 20th century anyway.)

I agree that the irony is meaningless to me as a reader without any idea of what the irony stems from. I also would like to have more clarity in regard to the duke's objections to killing the boy. Remember, Queen Elizabeth put off executing Mary Queen of Scots because Mary had royal blood and that just wasn't done. To be royal meant a connection to God--and it would set a dangerous precedent that it's okay to kill royals in certain circumstances, something a royal wouldn't personally want to promote. If there's another lean to the duke's objections that has nothing to do with this, or if this is the reason, I want that to be crystal clear.

I hope this helps.

[Liz C]

I can't help it - I am one of those adults who always laughs when the term 'ejaculated' is used in the above context. I know it's juvenile, but reading it does brighten up the morning.
:)

[John]

Is "Duke" a name or a title? At first it sounds like LaCrosse's first name. Then it's used as a title, sometimes capitalized, sometimes not. The first two sentences are almost as ambiguous, and all the word echoes don't help. I think you need to start out with a straight-forward description of the five men gathered on the hilltop and go from there.

[von]

>> There's a duke, which cues me into historical or fantasy, but then the word used is bar, not tavern, and they talk about leaving loose ends, which sounds modern (it may be old, but sounds very modern/colloquial to me, 20th century anyway.)

Good catch. I often have a problem keeping my language consistent. Tavern might be better. Altho this is actually far in the future.

[Lesley]

Oxford English Dictionary definition: horseman:
The art of riding on horseback.
If this story is written in the past,then what is the alternative to a horseman, a footman?

[Trip Volpe]

I'm with John on the "Duke" part. When I first read "Duke LaCrosse," I assumed it was just his name, and my first impression was that it was the sort of name you'd give to a cheesy modern action hero. Then when I read "the duke," lowercase, I had to hit the brakes for a moment. Then I realized that you meant "Duke" as in the title of nobility, and that I should probably revise my initial images of seedy urban bars and explosive car chases. ;-)

Overall, I also feel that this whole scene is more or less a conversation that's only happening for the purpose of exposition. It doesn't quite feel like it's flowing naturally; partly I think that's because of the awkward dialogue tags and the vagueness of the characters.

If you really want them to have this conversation, I'd recommend making it more descriptive and trimming out any details that wouldn't emerge naturally from each speaker's perspective. But, like others said, I think it's probably a good idea to introduce the conflict in a much more direct way. It's a little bit difficult to become involved in the plot just by reading a high-level "preview" of sorts of what's about to happen.

[bdub]

The name "Duke LaCrosse" immediately made me think of the whole Duke University-LaCrosse team-rape-allegations scandal of a couple years ago.