Flogging for Lynn—would you turn the first page?

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The Year of Patch begins I’ve received my first blurb for The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles. It’s from Megan Chance, a marvelous historical fiction author—check out her novel, Prima Donna. She sent this:

"The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles is fun, action-packed and a bit irreverent, a story with a lovable hero and a lot of heart."

Her email included the following note which, as writers, you’ll understand that I found even more pleasing:

”I really loved how you managed to pull off the whole story from the POV of a cat who cannot speak, and yet you kept his interaction with his humans real and consistent without breaking POV. Very nice work!”

By the way, it’s now on Amazon.com (clicking the image should take you to the page) and Barnes & Noble, and available for reviewing and pre-order. It will be available for delivery February 1, which should also include the launch of e-book formats. In terms of process, I'm ready to finalize the copy-edited interior, and waiting for a couple more blurbs before nailing down the cover.

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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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Lynn mentioned that she’s new at this. Her first 16 lines:

The amber sun hung low over the cotton fields, reflecting off the taxi’s rearview mirror, blinding Lenore Hennessey who sat quietly in the back seat of the yellow cab. At twenty-four and a thin memory of her former self, Lenore appeared to be without hope. Nearly everyone she’d loved either left or died. Feeling as if she were Death’s prelude, Lenore found herself waiting in dreaded expectation for it to take the one person left who loved her.

Lowering her head to avoid the sun’s intensity, she continued folding and refolding the letter her recently deceased fiancé, Steven, had written only six months ago. Strange how she could endure so much pain and continue to breathe. But at least she found some consolation in her suffering. It was her only atonement for the survivor’s guilt. Now with each day that passed, the air became increasingly bitter; darker and heavier than the one before. Like a swelling tidal wave, she waited to crash, but the pain never crested and the sorrow continued its consumption. Death, a participant in every thought, wormed its way in, burrowing deep inside, shrouding her soul from the light. Waiting patiently, the parasite fed off Lenore’s fears, gaining strength before resurfacing to claim another victim, adding to her guilt.

She’d lost both parents, Sara Hennessey of an apparent overdose in the alley behind Starbucks, and Sam Hennessey disappeared before Lenore’s first birthday, leaving a void she (snip)

Keep working at it

The writing is clean and sound, but I had point-of-view and story issues. They continued on the following the pages, with the point of view wandering, omniscient-like, from Lenore to her sister and even into the head of a doctor. The “info-dumping” signaled here by the last paragraph also continued as the writer told us what she thought we needed to know, a common effort “new” novelists make. More after these notes:

The amber sun hung low over the cotton fields, reflecting off the taxi’s rearview mirror, blinding Lenore Hennessey who sat quietly in the back seat of the yellow cab. At twenty-four and a thin memory of her former self, Lenore appeared to be without hope. Nearly everyone she’d loved either left or died. Feeling as if she were Death’s prelude, Lenore found herself waiting in dreaded expectation for it to take the one person left who loved her. (The first sentence starts nicely, then shifts into author/omniscient mode, an approach that I feel isn’t the best for delivering the experience of the character, which is (for me) the path to engaging a reader. We’re told that she appears to be without hope—wouldn’t it be better to get inside her mind and feel her despair? Not that I would want to do that for long, but if it were established and then something happens to change things, it would be a way to go.)

Lowering her head to avoid the sun’s intensity, she continued folding and refolding the letter her recently deceased fiancé, Steven, had written only six months ago. Strange how she could endure so much pain and continue to breathe. But at least she found some consolation in her suffering. It was her only atonement for the survivor’s guilt. Now with each day that passed, the air became increasingly bitter; darker and heavier than the one before. Like a swelling tidal wave, she waited to crash, but the pain never crested and the sorrow continued its consumption. Death, a participant in every thought, wormed its way in, burrowing deep inside, shrouding her soul from the light. Waiting patiently, the parasite fed off Lenore’s fears, gaining strength before resurfacing to claim another victim, adding to her guilt. (There are signs of strong writing here—I liked “Like a swelling tidal wave, she waited to crash. . .” Nice imagery. But then there’s the way the information on the fiancé was delivered so flatly. To weave information such as that, try something like: . . .refolding the letter her fiancé had written before he was murdered six months ago. That’s rough and quick, but I think an improvement over “her recently deceased fiancé.”)

She’d lost both parents, Sara Hennessey of an apparent overdose in the alley behind Starbucks, and Sam Hennessey disappeared before Lenore’s first birthday, leaving a void she (And here we dive into backstory, a sure momentum killer, especially in the opening of a novel.) (snip)

I urge Lynn to pick one character to focus on in this opening—the protagonist, and I didn’t know for sure who that was after going through the rest of the chapter—and sticking with her. Show the story as the character experiences and feels it, and raise some story questions. Lenore has been seeing visions of dead people and thinks she may be insane. We don’t know if they’re real or not, but that situation raises story questions. Where does he story really begin? What happens that forces her out of whatever mode she is currently in? I urge you to keep at it, Lynn. Try reading contemporary novels in the genre that yours falls into and see how they handle point of view, tension, and story questions. That could provide guidance. Of course, there’s always my book : ).

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

© 2010 Ray Rhamey

Comments

[Christine H]

I agree with Ray's comments. However, I voted to turn because I like the voice. I would want something interesting to happen pretty quickly, though, or I'd get tired of watching her sitting a cab. I agree that if we knew that the boyfriend was murdered that would raise an important story question on the first page.

I also want to know why Lenore feels so guilty. Has she done anything to contribute (at least in her mind) to any of the deaths? If not, I could understand her being really depressed, but the guilt part wouldn't ring true with me. I mean, it's not like she gave her mom the drugs. Or did she???

[Doug]

Nice command of English and there's definitely promise as a writer, but a number of common beginner's miscues made me vote "no".

Mostly, what Ray said.

Some less important considerations (expressed in a lot more words):

As a general rule, strong emotions such as Lenore's despair usually require few words. They're also usually shown from a greater "psychic" distance, through actions rather than telling us what's going on in her head.

The more you try to pound home her despair, the less impact it has on the reader. You've got a number of well-written sentences describing her despair, but I recommend that you pick just one or two and discard the rest. By the way, the writer's term for this winnowing is "killing one's darlings", which is generally considered a Good Thing even though awfully difficult to do.

Removing the extra sentences, along with pushing the backstory off until later, will give room on the first page to get us out of Lenore's head. Having someone ruminating at length about their lot in life is not a strong way to start a novel. Maybe some dialogue with the cab driver?

Watch out for overusing the present participle (-ing words). Your story is written, as most are, in past tense. Try to use the simple past tense forms of verbs as much as possible. There are maybe a dozen "-ings" that probably could be made simple past tense. Here's a simplistic rewrite of your opening line to avoid the present participle:
"The amber sun hung low over the cotton fields, reflected off the taxi’s rearview mirror, and blinded Lenore Hennessey who sat quietly in the back seat of the yellow cab."

You've done very well at using interesting, active verbs rather than the boring, passive "to be" and "to have", but you've mostly ascribed them to inanimate or conceptual subjects. The only action that Lenore takes is folding and unfolding the letter. Most stories do better with a lead who takes action. Even if it's slitting her wrists. :-(

Personally - and this is somewhat a matter of taste - I didn't care for your hiding who it is that remains for Lenore: the person whom she's worried about. We're told her fiance and both parents are dead, but we aren't told who it is who's still alive. Lenore certainly knows who it is and would be thinking about them, so hiding their identity is sort-of cheating the reader.

To pick on a word choice (I can never resist): "dreaded expectation" didn't do it for me. It's not the expectation that she dreads, is it? I think that the word "dread" alone is better.

Anyway, basically it's all stuff that beginning writers do. Nothing that can't be fixed by reading a few books on fiction writing. I think Ray might even have written one. :-)

[Lynn Johnson]

Thank you Ray, Christine and Doug! Your help is greatly appreciated. I've been rather nervous about my flogging but I need all the constructive critism I can get.

Thanks again, Lynn

This sites been a most valuable resource.

[hope101]

I can only echo the above feedback.

Lynn, I very much enjoy this voice. If this is what you can do as a beginner, I'd love to see what you could accomplish after some study.

Good luck.

[Nicola]

I thought the phrase 'It was her only atonement for the survivor’s guilt' was a little clunky. I mean, she's not atoning for feeling guilty, is she? And, although I know what you mean, I'm not sure 'a thin memory of her former self' makes sense either. I think that maybe in trying to get across the depth of Lenore's depression this passage has been a bit overwritten.

[Lynn Johnson]

Wow! I've gotten a lot of great tips, however, Doug if you don't mind I've decided to use your, wrist slitting idea. Also decided to do a complete rewrite of the first chapter. Let me know if this reads any better. Oh and please excuse the punctuation, I'm sure it's full of many mistakes, the midnight hour seems to render imagination but falls short in other areas such as that of punctuation, for me anyway. :)

****Lenore Hennesy, sat in her wheelchair, slumped over the bathroom sink, fingers, pinched tightly a small razor blade in her left hand. Her heart pounded in rhythm with the drops of sweat hitting the cold porcelain. She wiped her forehead before taking one last look at the stranger in the mirror. Nothing was the same, even the familiar knot in her stomach was replaced with a ringing hush, like the wind as it whipped through the Willow’s beside Steven’s lake house. That was a good place, but a place she’d never get back to even if she were sitting on the dock with her feet dangling over the water. Steven was gone, murdered, striped from her life, just like her parents. Michelle was the only one left that loved her but her sister's love wasn’t enough to stop the pain. Lenore pushed the corner of the blade deep into her flesh then slowly pulled it across her wrist, cutting the vein and tendon. The blood felt warmer and darker than what she imagined.
Holding her hand over the sink she watched the blood run like a tiny river, washing the years of sorrow down the dark drain. She could feel something now, it was only a phantom breeze from an old memory of Steven, but nonetheless she finally felt something.

***its just a rough draft, but I've tried to cut the information dumping and some of the nauseating drama.. :)

[Katherine]

That was... hard to read. I could see it all, and to be honest, it gave me the creeps. Ugh. Shivers still running down my spine...

Just a question, but if your main character slits her wrists, isn't she going to die? If so, who will carry on the story???

Also, wouldn't she feel some pain?

[Lynn Johnson]

Katherine, great questions and heres some answers. I debated wether or not to mention that she felt no pain, but opted to leave it out. Most people that attempt what we would consider a painful suicide don't feel pain like we do. Their already tortured souls and whatever sort of sorrow or pain that has pushed them to suicide is greater than that of anyother outside physical pain....Maybe I should find someway of fitting that in.

Oh and it's a failed attempt, she only slits one wrist because she can't slit the other, due to the fact she cut the tendon in her right hand.

Thanks for reading and sorry it was difficult.

[Christine H]

I don't think she would die. I believe most people who do this don't cut that deeply. Usually it's a cry for help rather than a serious suicide. For one thing, it takes quite a while to bleed to death.

But, I like the other beginning better. This one would turn me off. I'm not that fond of blood.

[Doug]

Whoa, dark. But the strong reactions indicate that this opening is really touching the readers.

Now you have to make the call whether to keep the opening so strong that it polarizes the readers, or to go softer. I suppose you could keep this opening but switch to intentional overdose to get rid of the blood, but it sort-of seems to me that the violent suicide attempt is more appropriate given the violent deaths of her loved ones.