Flogometer for Jeff—would you turn the page?

---

Tess Gerritsen, bestselling author of Ice Cold says this about The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles,

"What a pleasure! Quirky and laugh-out-loud fun. Ray Rhamey takes the vampire novel where it's never been before, into the realm of sheer hilarity."

---

You can win in the BuzzBlast contest It's simple, and everyone has a chance to win. Use email or Twitter to spread the word according to the contest rules here. No purchase necessary.

I really need your help in spreading the word. I'm not asking (or expecting) anyone to buy the book, just let people know about the website. After you visit the contest page, take a look around the website—there are podcasts, the video, a sample from the book, and reviews and endorsements.

No one has entered yet. There are currently two contest periods, this week and next week. Read all about it here, and take a look at the fun stuff you could win.

Even if you don’t enter the contest, PLEASE consider emailing or tweeting as many people as you can and send them to the website: www.vampirekittycat.com. A shortened URL for tweets is http://bit.ly/7TPGjy. That’s all -- no selling (unless you want to). Your help can make a huge difference, so please lend a hand.

---

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.

---

Jeff’s first 16 lines:

Crying. It was a child. It was an honest cry, not the kind one could tune out as Ira usually did. It forced him upward through the smoky haze surrounding him. It filled him with energy.

“Why can’t I move?” She stopped to gulp air in quivering gasps, followed by a wail, ending with staccato squeaks. He tried to reach out into the darkness to offer his comfort. He forced his eyes open. The black smoke boiled around him like tornado weather as he focused on the overhead lights. He took a breath and the clouds dissipated like a ghostly presence.

The light stung his eyes and his head pounded. “Ugn! What hit me? A truck?” The cry transitioned to howling then quieted to a whimper. He rolled to his left side and looked at a blurry double image. Nikki’s spotted grey dolphin flukes were hanging over the side of the sick bay bed in the next space. He followed them upward and found shoes then legs dressed in a shipboard uniform sitting in her lap. The fuzzy picture coalesced to a single image.

Nikki had Leolani held snugly in her arms, her face buried against her neck. Leolani inhaled and howled. Nikki’s uniform lapel was soaked. The mermaid kept her eyes closed. Ira hung his feet over the side of the bed, making an effort to sit up. His head swam. She continued to bathe the young girl in motherly affection, tilting her back, kissing her wet face. Other children were there, sitting or kneeling on either side of her.

Didn’t work for me

Despite Jeff’s effort to imbed us in an immediate scene, I ended up confused. I read on, of course, as part of doing this post, and the narrative continued to have clarity and flow problems. And there was an inconsistency. I think there are fascinating elements here, but they’re not working for me just yet. Notes:

Crying. It was a child. It was an honest cry, not the kind one could tune out as Ira usually did. It forced him upward through the smoky haze surrounding him. It filled him with energy. (So far so good.)

“Why can’t I move?” She stopped to gulp air in quivering gasps, followed by a wail, ending with staccato squeaks. He tried to reach out into the darkness to offer his comfort. He forced his eyes open. The black smoke boiled around him like tornado weather as he focused on the overhead lights. He took a breath and the clouds dissipated like a ghostly presence. (Confusion started here. Is the quote from Ira or the girl? Not clear. More confusion: first there’s a sentence that tells me it’s dark, and then I learn that his eyes are closed. You steered me in one direction and then went the opposite. Then, for the second time, I’m told that there’s smoke [smoky haze, black smoke], and then he takes a breath and the smoke goes away. So it’s not smoke? If it isn’t smoke, why lead me to believe that it is? If it is smoke, how come taking a breath makes it go away? I don’t know what’s going on by the end of this paragraph. I suggest removing all that relates to the crying, which has already been established.)

The light stung his eyes and his head pounded. “Ugn! What hit me? A truck?” The child’s cry transitioned to howling then quieted to a whimper. He rolled to his left side and looked at a blurry double image. Nikki’s spotted grey dolphin flukes were hanging hung over the side of the sick bay bed in the next space. He followed them upward and found shoes then legs dressed in a shipboard uniform sitting in her lap. The fuzzy picture coalesced to a single image. (More confusion. The narrative lets me know that Nikki is a dolphin, and then there are legs in her lap. Dolphins have laps? Who do the shoes and legs in a uniform belong to? There’s a continuity issue begun here, too—Ira wonders what hit him, yet we learn later that this has happened before. In other words, he knows quite well what hit him.)

Nikki had Leolani held snugly in her arms, her face buried against her neck. Leolani inhaled and howled. Nikki’s uniform lapel was soaked. The mermaid kept her eyes closed. Ira hung his feet over the side of the bed, making an effort to sit up. His head swam. She continued to bathe the young girl in motherly affection, tilting her back, kissing her wet face. Other children sat and knelt were there, sitting or kneeling on either side of her. (Now the dolphin has arms. Oh, wait, maybe she’s a mermaid. Or is the child the mermaid? "Other" children is abstract and gives no picture. Specifics create scenes, i.e., Three other children huddled close, sitting and kneeling beside her. BTW, “His head swam” is a cliché to be avoided.)

This narrative feels jammed up and rushed to me, and it needs careful thought about how it’s communicated. For example, the mermaid’s appearance. A quick fix could be something such as:

Nikki’s spotted grey flukes, so much like a dolphin’s, hung over the side of the sick-bay bed. The mermaid had her arms wrapped around little Leo, who drew in a breath and wailed.

It turns out that they’re on a spaceship, and have, I think, just had a battle of some kind. I suggest that you slow things down, break up actions by different characters into separate paragraphs. Try reading the narrative aloud to catch things that might not communicate the way you intended.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray
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 rewrite while you wait you turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

ARCHIVES

Comments

[Lexi Revellian]

I couldn't guess where they were, what had happened, or what was going on.

Four sentences in the first paragraph beginning with 'it' is too many, I think. I'd like to be told the name of the POV character at the start.

[Rebecca]

I was off by about sentence four. I ditto the "confusing" diagnosis. No matter how many times I re-read it, I can't figure out what is going on, or picture the scene, or figure out what it's supposed to be about. Perhaps we're too much in the middle of things, and going to drown. Throw me a life-raft...

I have no idea what genre it is, so I can't tell you whether I'm a target reader or not. But regardless of whether I would pick it up off the shelf, I wouldn't buy it.

[Jean]

I'm going to be the odd one out and admit I voted yes. I was totally intrigued by the mention of a uniformed mermaid and wanted to know more about what bad thing had befallen the three characters.

That said, I'd suggest dropping the second paragraph and spending a few lines clarifying the setting and situation in the third.

If Nicki's description read: dolphin-grey flukes, that would have been less confusing. Mentioning that Leolani sat in the mermaid's lap in that same paragraph would also help convey a clearer visual.

[Jon]

Hi, Jeff.

Alas, this one was a no for me.

Good first lines, but the "It filled him with energy" bit seemed somehow, um, _positive_? to me? Like he fed off it somehow?

The second paragraph made me think they were trapped in rubble after an earthquake or explosion, something like that. But then we have lights, and then Ira breathes and the smoke goes away. Which kinda rules that out. But now I have no frame of reference; what's going on here? Crying kid, can't move, but there're lights, and magic smoke. Or hallucinations, but we still have the lights overhead, which wouldn't be the case for a rubble-trapped individual.

So now I'm 2 paragraphs in and somehow know less than I did before I read the first word...

And then we find in paragraph 3 that the crying child has flukes and is a mermaid.

Except in paragraph 4 we find the mermaid is apparently in the crew, and is holding the crying baby. Who is wearing shoes and a shipboard uniform, apparently. Which is a funny image and probably not what you intended, infant-in-uniform.

And we still don't know what happened before the start of the story.

All that said, there are things to like. The instinct to dole out information as we need it is a good one; the sentence-level writing is generally strong; the creativity of a mermaid member of a ship's crew holds promise and poses interesting possibilities. (Is she a classic mermaid, luring sailors to their deaths? That poses interesting situations, with her a member of the crew (or, maybe, borrowing a crew uniform after rescue... but why would you rescue a mermaid form the sea? or it could be captivity... interesting story questions there...))

There's stuff to build from here, but I think the opener to this one needs to be reconceived to give the reader more info they can use to build a mental image.

Good luck! Thanks for sharing!

-j

[Ray Rhamey]

Sorry about the double poll--I build the posts first on the Publishers Marketplace version of FtQ, and then copy and paste here. For some reason, Typepad duplicates the poll code, and I usually remember to take that out. I made the same mistake with Jeff's name. It was not an easy morning.

[Bree]

I second Lexi's comment about the four "its" in the first paragraph. This is another instance where being more specific about what is going on in the scene will make the writing stronger. If you can place the reader into the setting and indicate the who/what/when/where right from the beginning, the story will be less confusing.

Confusing story rarely equals compelling story.

[Brenda Knutson]

I voted "no." This was too confusing. It seems like there is a very creative idea going on here, but it is buried. Ray makes some good comment, very good, so I would follow what he has to say.

[Chris]

Hi Jeff,

I have to echo the comments of most of the replies above. There are some very intriguing snippets here, but overall, I'm afraid I'm much more confused than compelled.

I'll try not to rehash what Ray and others have already said, but I will add a few thoughts:

-- For me, a big chunk of the confusion comes from simply not being able to clearly identify which of the characters is doing what. It took a couple of reads, but I think we have three characters: Ira, the "he" who's POV we're mainly in; Nikki the "she" who's holding the crying child; and Leolani, the other "she" who's doing the crying. I'm not 100% sure which one is the mermaid -- I believe it's Leolani, but I'm not positive. Some of the problem is due to the flurry of un-anchored pronouns. The guideline is that every pronoun should have a clear antecedent, but it doesn't always seem clear to me here. For example, "she", "the girl", "the mermaid", and "her" are all used in a short span and it's a little hard to tie each one to the appropriate character.

-- In the same vein, the "it" in the first paragraph doesn't always refer to the same thing -- this adds to the confusion. For example, reading, "Crying. It...", I expect the 'it' will refer to "crying" since that was the antecedent, but "it" actually refers to the child doing the crying. Then the second "it" DOES shift back to mean the crying. So now, when I encounter the third "it" of "It forced...", I'm initially a little uncertain -- does this 'it' refer to the child? The crying? Or something else entirely?

-- Some of the word choices were a little weak or vague. For example, the 'energy' was already mentioned, but I also hesitated on an "honest" cry. Does that mean as opposed to a dishonest cry? I might instead describe it as "urgent" or something else that clearly highlights the tone and clearly shows that it can't be ignored. Or, the phrase, "like tornado weather" -- Do you mean like an actual funnel cloud? Or like the dark low-hanging bottom of the clouds from which the tornado drops down? Or like the high-speed winds of a tornado blowing everything around, since that might refer to the smoke moving so fast it looks like it's 'boiling'?

All in all, we have some clever elements that show we're in for an interesting story: A mermaid, uniforms (military?), a ship (naval? or space? And why is the mermaid ON the ship?), a crying child, other children clustered around, a MC who's coming out of a groggy state (why? what happened to him?), etc. All great components of what could be a fun read. You just need to tweak your writing to make it as clean, clear, and concise as possible. Yeah, I know -- MUCH easier said than done, as I can attest to in my own writing.

But hang in there -- I know this will be a great piece with just a little bit of work.