Flogometer for Ana—would you turn the page?

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Update. I have a post up about "voice" at Writer Unboxed that's kinda fun.

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A new review of The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles is up on Vampires.com. Here’s a portion; I hope you’ll visit the site, it’s quite nice:

When I picked this book up I expected a cute children’s book, but instead got a perfectly executed adult novel that had many incredibly cute moments, mixed in with lots of bloody ones. Ray Rhamey’s quick wit and clever sense of humor is just what the vampire world of fiction needs. There were many times when this book made me laugh out loud, and let me tell you, very few books can manage that. Rhamey mastered what so many authors attempt but fail miserably at. If I were you I’d definitely pick up The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles.

BuzzBlast contest a-comin’. Prizes will include gear (t-shirts, mugs) from the world of Patch and signed copies of The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles. As soon as my store is up and the website complete, which should be within a week or so, I’ll launch a weekly buzz-builder contest to get you to help spread the word about my novel. No purchase necessary, and everybody will have a chance to win. Watch for it!

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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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Ana’s first 16 lines from her first try at a novel:

Leo stood watching snowflakes dance in the darkness outside. He purposefully concentrated on the tiny specks of white to avoid looking at the reflection. Soft click of the door made him turn. An unassuming grey-suited man acknowledged his presence with a nod, before following his gaze towards a pool of finely shredded paper on the floor. Aircon fan hummed, occasionally lifting a few scraps of paper into the air. Those reminded Leo of tiny snowflakes and for a moment he thought that the body was covered with a light dusting of snow. The gray man walked towards the once Head of Natural Resources Committee, now lying face down in the pile, and checked his pulse.

‘The chief is dead,’ he looked around the room, taking in the shredded documents dumped on the floor, ‘You here alone?’

‘Yes. I called you straight away.’

‘You did right,’ the man studied Leo’s face, ‘Any thoughts?’

‘I don’t know. Harp—’

‘I say heart attack. I’ll do everything that needs to be done. You’re free to go.’

Leo nodded and hurried towards the door, straining not to look at the corpse.

‘Congressman Clark?’

Another close one
The story questions were nearly enough to get me to turn the page, but there were craft issues that suggested to my cranky editor’s eye that the writing, while good, still needs work that the story questions weren’t powerful enough to overcome. Lots of promise, though. Notes:

Leo stood watching snowflakes dance in the darkness outside. He purposefully concentrated on the tiny specks of white to avoid looking at the reflection. The Soft click of the office door made him turn. An unassuming grey-suited man acknowledged his presence with a nod before following his gaze towards a pool of finely shredded paper on the floor. The aircon fan hummed, occasionally lifting a few scraps of paper into the air. Those reminded Leo of tiny snowflakes and for a moment he thought that the Senator’s body was covered with a light dusting of snow. The gray man walked towards the once Head of Natural Resources Committee, now lying face down in the pile, and checked his pulse. (The missing articles at the fronts of a couple of sentences made the narrative feel choppy to me, and threw off the rhythm of the sentences. I added “office” just to help set the scene a little better, and “Senator’s” because letting the reader know that an important government official lay there dead seems like a way to raise the stakes and tension. The line about avoiding the reflection doesn’t really work because the reader doesn’t know what’s in it that needs to be avoided. Changing it to something such as to avoid the body reflected by the glass or some such would help give it meaning. Also, suggesting that for a moment he thought the body was covered with snow doesn’t seem credible since he knows that it’s paper. To make it so, simply change it to something like for a moment it seemed as though. . .)

‘The chief is dead,’ he looked around the room, taking in the shredded documents dumped on the floor, ‘You here alone?’

‘Yes. I called you straight away.’

‘You did right,’ the man studied Leo’s face, ‘Any thoughts?’

‘I don’t know. Harp—’

‘I say heart attack. I’ll do everything that needs to be done. You’re free to go.’

Leo nodded and hurried towards the door, straining not to look at the corpse.

‘Congressman Clark?’

Another suggestion. Trim down the long first paragraph if possible (I think the part about Head of Natural Resources Committee could wait until later) and add to the last sentence this from the next page, also said by the gray man:

Not a word of this. We’ll be in touch.’ The man got his phone, ‘I need a team of sweepers.”

I think that adds to the mystery and thus the tension. A good scene and a good start.

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

[Jami G.]

I agree with all of Ray's revisions, but I'd also add in the dialogue tag issues. If the narrative accompanying dialogue doesn't describe how the words are said (whispered, etc.), they should be their own sentence and a beat (with a period), not a tag (with a comma). In addition, even when you have a legitimate tag, it should only be attached (with a comma) to one complete sentence of dialogue. It should only be surrounded by commas if it interrupts a single sentence of dialogue. (i.e. "So," he paused while he considered the man, "what do you think?")

In these two examples below, they should both be beats and not tags. And even if they were dialogue descriptive tags, they should only be attached to one of the two dialogue sentences, not both.

‘The chief is dead,’ he looked around the room, taking in the shredded documents dumped on the floor, ‘You here alone?’
- should be -
‘The chief is dead.’ He looked around the room, taking in the shredded documents dumped on the floor. ‘You here alone?’

‘You did right,’ the man studied Leo’s face, ‘Any thoughts?’
- should be -
‘You did right.’ The man studied Leo’s face. ‘Any thoughts?’

Beats are much cleaner to read than tags. So it's great that you're thinking of ways to avoid the "said". Don't mess that up that punctuating them as tags. :)

[jon]

Hiya, Ana. Welcome to novel-writing! This one was a no for me, alas.

First, though, the good stuff, and there is definitely good stuff here. Nice opening-paragraph setup, well-paced, with the reveal at the end of the paragraph as a great little kicker. Wherever there's a body, there're complications.

Too, the subsequently-revealed relationship between "Harp" and Leo is slickly done. There's nice subtext in their dialog -- Harp approving of Leo's calling him, and then his subsequent dismissal of Leo, puts him in an interesting position of superiority, at least in this situation, but the reveal of Leo as Congressman Clark (the only reading that makes any sort of sense, although the content is ambiguous as to which of them is the congressman) means that Harp is presumably an employee -- a chief of staff, maybe, or a frequently-employed "cleaner" or something similar. Excellent dynamic there, economically made clear in just a few words. Nice work.

So there's a lot of good stuff here. But since I voted "no," obviously I thought it was outweighed by the needing-work stuff...

In the first paragraph, the stylized lack of articles seemed intended to provide a brusque, staccato feel to the character, and in the sentences in which it was present, it did so. But the vibe of the rest of the lead paragraph was much slower.

(Reconciling the tone of the clipped-off articles might actually require a change to present-tense, as the past seems to impart the sort of reflection that diminishes urgency.)

In addition to the inconsistency between the clipped-off articles and the more reflective full sentences, there's also a bit of overwriting contributing to the mixed feeling-- e.g.,

- "purposefully concentrated" - can one accidentally concentrate? :o)

- "tiny specks" - I am unfamiliar with large specks, if such exist. :o)

- "light dusting" - A dusting that is not 'light' would probably no longer be a dusting.

...etc.

Too, "danced" as a descriptor of the snowflakes seems at odds with Leo, both in the personality reflected in the trimmed articles and, as it turns out later in the paragraph, in circumstance. If he was reflecting on their freedom while he was trapped in his current situation, it has a chance to work... but that's not what was happening here.

Also, would Leo really -think- that the body was covered in snow? No, of course not; it's plausible that it would remind him of the snow, but there's not much of a chance of mistaking one for the other, there in the office.

The net effect of this contrast between brusqueness and reflection in the same paragraph, and the overwriting and the strange image of a man mistaking paper for snow inside an office, was to leave me with a muddled feeling and a distrust of the narrator's voice that even the strong writing of the dialog couldn't overcome.

A couple substantive things I'd change to "improve" (hah! sez me, anyway) the dialog sections --

1. Harp comes in and sees the body, and knows that Clark has been here for a while. For me, it detracts from his professionalism to have him state the obvious in the way that he does.

2. I don't see a reason to hold back Clark's profession until the end of the segment. The scene would, to me, read stronger if Harp had led in the first sentence after we find the body with something like "Congressman." He looked around the room, taking in the shredded documents dumped on the floor and the body beneath them. "You here alone?"

The kick of "Congressman" at the end makes the reader revisit the dialog before, looking for clues that they missed and reinterpreting the relationship between the two men; front-loading it lets the reader interpret the relationship "right" on the first read.

And, last, punctuation-wise, I have one nitpick many times occurring.

The "this, " construction is used for attributions, e.g., "this, " he said. If you're not following "this" with an attribution, but rather with an action, e.g., "'this.' He did something.", the comma gets replaced with a period.

(One could imagine a circumstance where an author might try this for effect:

"Climb the tree," shouted words meaningless in the bear's rush, "climb the ever-loving TREE!" ...

but that's a highly stylized intentional "rule-breaking" that doesn't work particularly well even when I try to use it deliberately. Not that it can't be done, it just sucks in my example :o). But while there might be a reason to do it, I don't see such a reason here, which makes me believe it's something that "should be" following the normal rules.
)

By the same token, the action after the dialog should be punctuated with a period, e.g., "...studied Leo's face. 'Any thoughts?'" The dialog doesn't flow from the action; instead, the action interrupts the dialog.

To recap-and-expand, here are some variants you might encounter:

"This--" the man shrugged-- "is intolerable."

(i BELIEVE the usage of the second em-dash is correct, but I'm not positive...)

"This." The man grimaced. "Is. Intolerable."

"This," the man said, "is intolerable."

"This," the man said, grimacing, "is intolerable."

"This stuff is intolerable." The man grimaced. "Really, Sue."

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Okay, all done. There really is quite a bit of strong stuff here, so I hope the critique wasn't too painful. ;o)

-j, apparently incapable of shutting up. :o)

[Doug]

Ow. A good opening scene that really left me wanting to know what happened, but the craft issues made it too painful for me to continue.

In addition to what Ray has already pointed out:

The use of single-quotes instead of double-quotes is weird. Not entirely unheard-of, but a beginning author doesn't have the luxury of being weird without good reason.

The use of commas instead of periods in the second paragraph is just wrong. There are three sentences there; the middle section is not a dialogue tag.

Ditto for the fourth paragraph.

Similarly for the paragraph that Ray pulled up from page 2.

The unnamed man is "grey-suited" in one place in the first paragraph and "gray" in another place. Not only does the spelling change, but the color of his suit seems to have spilled over onto the rest of him.

I'm not convinced that the adjective "unassuming" (for the anonymous man) adds any value.

Personally, I'd like Ray's addition of the word "office" to be moved up to the opening line: "... outside the office window." At first I thought Leo was a child.

I don't get why the anonymous man asked Leo if he had any thoughts and then cut Leo off when he started to offer one.

It's a strong opening (alas, with body in paragraph 1; is there no escape?), but the dropped articles in paragraph 1 and the constant mis-punctuation of dialogue in the following paragraphs killed it for me.

[Ray Rhamey]

Doug, I take the use of single quotes to mean that the writer is either Australian or British (even though the subject seems to be American).

[Gumption Brash]

I voted yes.

For me, the story was enough to get passed the craft issues.

That said, this piece needs an overhaul.

Aside from Ray's revisions and taking in what Jami G said, I'd like to advise the following:

‘The chief is dead,’ he looked around the room, taking in the shredded documents dumped on the floor, ‘You here alone?’

- There tends to be a logical association between what someone is looking at and what they are thinking. In this instance the grey man 'takes in' the shredded documents. This, to me, does not lead to the question: 'You here alone?' but instead something about the shredded documents.

If you had the grey man look at the door however, the question would have come off better.

OK, I'm being rather nitpicky ;-) but it's an indication of the level you may need to critique your work.

Lastly, regarding your dialogue:

‘You did right,’ the man studied Leo’s face, ‘any thoughts?’

This to me, punctuated as it is, is fine. It gives - correctly - the idea that the action and the dialogue is all-of-a-piece. Placing it all in sentences makes the dialogue somewhat robotic.

But I agree with the other example that Jami G provided. There is too long a pause - considering the action - between the first piece of dialogue and the second.

Hope this helps.

[Jodi]

I don't like how the narration avoids mentioning the "elephant" in the room, or in this case the dead body. I can understand focusing on a window--but focusing on the paper instead of the body it was covering is too much. I'd almost suggest starting with instead: "The gray man walked towards the once Head of Natural Resources Committee, now lying face down in the pile, and checked his pulse." If it wouldn't shift focus off the character of interest in this. That line at the start of a novel with a little tweaking around it for setting would draw me in much faster. Especially since I was drawn in by what followed that line so easily.

Jodi

[Chris]

There are things to like here:

-- We begin in the midst of a scene.
-- There is no throat-clearing or info-dumping.
-- There is clear tension and conflict.
-- There are plenty of story questions raised.

But, unfortunately, I voted to not turn the page. True, as Doug bemoans, it's a BOPO ("Body on Page One"), opening which can easily degenerate into cliche, but that's not enough to prevent me from turning. The killer (no pun intended. Well, OK -- maybe a litte one), as Ray and the others have said, was the shaky writing. Punctuation problems, un-anchored articles, pronoun puzzlement, and other sentence stumbles convinved me to turn away.

I'm not even entirely sure of the character names, other than Leo. "Congressman Clark" could be Leo or the body; I'm not sure. I'm also unclear about the "Harp". Heck, it might not even be a name. Leo was cut off as he was speaking. For all I know, he might have been going to say, "Harp music is playing somewhere; there's a new angel in Heaven now." Or maybe, "Harp seals get clubbed in the noggin like that poor schmoe did."

Good effort, and plenty to work with, but it does need some work to get it to a page-turner.

[jon]

gumption @9:28 -

I have to (well, don't "have" to, but choose to, to avoid misinforming a newbie) take exception to your comment:

"This to me, punctuated as it is, is fine. It gives - correctly - the idea that the action and the dialogue is all-of-a-piece. Placing it all in sentences makes the dialogue somewhat robotic."

Punctuation is generally not a matter of opinion; it's correct or it's incorrect. (We'll leave aside intentional rule-breaking.) The dialog punctuation should thus be as per the corrected version, as found in my or Jami's critiques. If that feels 'robotic' then the option's always there to change the way the dialog flows, but phrased as-is, it's incorrect.

-j

[Jami G.]

Jon,

I agree completely. If the author doesn't like the flow and finds it too choppy, they can always rewrite. The answer to the problem is not to ignore punctuation rules. :) And I'm not sure about the em-dash usage either. I know they need to be paired, but I'm not sure if they should both be attached to the dialogue on either side of the interruption (inside the quote marks - "This--" the man shrugged "--is intolerable." - would a comma go after 'shrugged' there?), or if they should be attached to the interruption (this is how I do it in my WIP based on how I've seen published books do it - "This" --the man shrugged-- "is intolerable."), or if it should be one in the quotes and one out (as in your example - "This--" the man shrugged-- "is intolerable.")

On a related note: Yes, Gumption, it is acceptable/understandable when punctuation rules are ignored within dialogue (not the tags, but the dialogue itself, as people often speak in run-on sentences) or in first-person or deep-third-person POV (as both POVs are written with the character's voice as opposed to a narrative voice). However, none of those were the case here.

If you take the interruption out of the quote: ‘You did right, any thoughts?’ It results in a comma splice as it's currently punctuated (the "Do you..." is implied in the "any thoughts?" phrase, so, yes, that's still a complete sentence as is). That's why having a tag attached with commas to both dialogue sentences is incorrect - only one sentence per tag.

Ana, We're nitpicking here, but take heart. Everyone is saying this has potential. :) Doug and Chris also had some useful feedback.

Hope this Helps!
Jami G.

[Ana]

Thank you all very much for your comments. Ray, many thanks to you for taking your time to look at my writing with your editor’s eye. You’re wonderful!

I agree with all the suggestions and I’ll try to put them to use in the opening scene, as well as the rest of the book.

I know I’ve got problems with articles and punctuation. English is not my native language (I am a Russian speaker) and I don’t notice these things sometimes. Still, it’s great to know that what I write has potential and with hard work can become half-decent.

Thanks again,
Ana