Flogometer for Suzanne—would you turn the page?

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A reader review I’ve received a couple of reader reviews of The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles from the e-ARCs I gave out. This reader preferred to remain anonymous.

"It sounds like a silly premise: cat turned into vampire - and it is. But it's silly in a good way. Patch narrowly escapes from one close call after another, all the while sharing snarky comments on the inherent inferiority of dogs, what makes a good cat associate (owner), and what it means to be a vampire (generally he's not thrilled about the idea).

"But just when you think that the story is all fluff (of the calico variety, of course), it throws in an occasional observation about civil rights, gay rights, animal rights, religious fanatics, sleazy lawyers, media manipulation, and small-minded tyrants. In other words, if you want a bit of depth to your humor, you can find it here, but if you don't, you can enjoy those one-liners."

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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Suzanne’s first 16 lines:

Alistair Foote owned the somewhat dubious distinction of having discovered a body. Not just any body, not something as mundane as a lifeless dog, for instance, but a genuine, one hundred percent dead person.

He regaled his traumatic discovery, embroidering it more at each telling, to his buddies down at the bowling ally. Impressed at first, they soon tired of hearing him tell it over and over to any newcomer who showed the slightest interest. They began to avoid him. Left off teams filled up before he arrived, he often found himself with no one to bowl with. But did he catch on? No. He continued to tell his grisly yarn at every possible opportunity. He’ll tell you, too, if you give him the slightest encouragement.

Alistair (almost everyone calls him Al, except his wife, who calls him Allie) always claims the first thing he did upon discovering the body was dial 911 on his cell phone. His wife disputes this, insisting that he told her first and she dialed 911, on his phone, which she had in her purse, since he always left it home next to his bed.

In any case, eventually the Leffler Police were called, Marybeth North, along with her new partner, Vicky Place, was dispatched to the scene where they found the two witnesses standing next to the victim, a dark-haired man who was about middle-aged, dressed in denims – (snip)

I turned the page, but . . .

A very likable voice and a good story question—what happened?—got me to turn the page. There’s promise of a mystery told in a pleasing fashion. Yet I have a question for Suzanne—did you start with the right person in the right place? In the rest of the chapter, Alistair turns out to be a bit of a fool and doesn’t seem like he could possibly be the protagonist. He, and his wife, seem to merely be an amusing way to introduce the police officers and the mystery.

If that’s true, then spending the whole opening page on a throwaway character whose story this isn’t, despite the voice, seems like the wrong place to start. With this opening, we wonder what’s going to happen to Alistair as a result of his finding the body, but lack of bowling opportunities mentioned on page one seem to be it. Notes:

Alistair Foote owned the somewhat dubious distinction of having discovered a body. Not just any body, not something as mundane as a lifeless dog, for instance, but a genuine, one-hundred-percent-dead person. (Very entertaining opening introduced with strong voice—entertainment is promised.)

He regaled his traumatic discovery, embroidering it more at each telling, to his buddies down at the bowling ally. Impressed at first, they soon tired of hearing him tell it over and over to any newcomer who showed the slightest interest. They began to avoid him. Left off teams filled up before he arrived, he often found himself with no one to bowl with. But did he catch on? No. He continued to tell his grisly yarn at every possible opportunity. He’ll tell you, too, if you give him the slightest encouragement. (And then we quickly lose steam as we hear about his troubles getting a bowling game instead of the dead body. Unless the novel continues with Al’s troubles with bowling, a novel that I don’t want to read, this detour to richly characterize a character who will not be seen again [I think] is not narrative that helps produce a compelling story, IMO.)

Alistair (almost everyone calls him Al, except his wife, who calls him Allie) always claims the first thing he did upon discovering the body was dial 911 on his cell phone. His wife disputes this, insisting that he told her first and she dialed 911, on his phone, which she had in her purse, since he always left it home next to his bed. (Also a fun bit of characterization, but is this necessary? Could we get on with the story?)

In any case, eventually the Leffler Police were called, Marybeth North, along with her new partner, Vicky Place, was dispatched to the scene where they found the two witnesses standing next to the victim, a dark-haired, man who was about middle-aged man dressed in denims – (At last, the story arrives.)(snip)

The writing promises fun, but the story . . .I urge Suzanne to apply her talents to engaging me in that right away. That’s a story (I think) that I’d be interested in turning pages to read.

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

[Darla]

I really liked the opening paragraph, but then I lost interest in the second and would have put it down after the third. A fun character voice, but not enough actual story.

[Jami G.]

I liked the voice, and if the Al character is the protagonist, I'd stick through the bowling characterization bit. However, if Al isn't the protagonist, then we don't need to wade through that.

[Doug]

I voted to turn, but I did have problems with the second and third paragraphs. The second paragraph fast-forwards us to a time that seems to be weeks after the discovery of the body, then the third paragraph drags us backward through time, landing in (what I presume to be) story time in the fourth paragraph.

The misspelling of "alley" in the second paragraph didn't help.

The number of commas in the last sentence of the third paragraph (four of them) was a bit hard on the fluidity. There are even more commas in the first sentence of the fourth paragraph, including a comma splice at the second comma.

The "He'll tell you, too" at the end of the second paragraph directly addresses the reader. That's something that many people discourage, although personally I've never had any problem with it, especially when the voice is not "just the facts".

I'm unclear who the "two witnesses" mentioned in the fourth paragraph are. I suppose that Al could be considered a witness, but who else was there?

I'd change "Marybeth North, along with her new partner, Vicky Place, was dispatched" to "Marybeth North and her new partner, Vicky Place, were dispatched".

Interesting voice, dead body (on line 1, alas), so definitely a reason to read on. But I'd recommend keeping your eye on telling the story.

[Jon]

Hi, Suzanne. I voted yes.

Fantastic opening paragraph, establishing a strong narrative voice and an interesting hook.

Second paragraph was, sad to say, rather unnecessary (although I did love the last sentence). I wavered on the "turn the page" bit strictly because of this paragraph; the threat of more paragraphs like it made me nervous.

But then, having read the piece through once, I read it again, mentally striking that paragraph, and the opener becomes compact and hooky again.

I particularly liked the conflict between how Al represents his discovery and how his wife represents it (we can guess whose is the more trustworthy) is a nicely humorous bit that masks what's essentially a backstory dump with a great humor and excellent character hooks.

Apart from the second paragrarph, I do have one additional concern. I'm willing to trust the writer on it on the first page, but my antennae are up and twitching after abuse.

Our narrator starts the piece talking about Alistair; the distance from him inserted by the humor clearly establishes a narrator who knows a whole story and is telling it at their leisure. (The last sentence in P2 supports this.) The piece establishes a "now" -- the time in which Alistair is (past-tense) currently existing.

The second paragraph establishes a time-collapsed, moving "now" - we're telescoping several days or weeks or months of Al's life into one paragraph.

The third paragraph floats free of time - supplementing paragraph 2, describing something he did during that telescoped time. I suppose that's okay.

But then we're back in time, no longer following Al, but rather two other people, the cops.

So we've gone: Al's Now >> Al's Extended "Now" >> Vicky and Mary Beth's Then

Okay, because of the voice, I can live with that, but if it keeps happening I think it'd quickly drive me nut and make me put the book down.

Good luck! Thanks for sharing!

-Jon

[Jon]

Sorry, I wandered a bit from my floating-narrator point and lost the thread.

What I'm concerned about as a reader about this technique is that it won't let me fasten in on one character or story flow; instead, I'll be bouncing around all book. If that's the case, I'm probably not going to enjoy the book because I, like most readers, need a fastening-on point so that I can build identification with a character and suffer and laugh with them through the piece. This can definitely happen with multiple viewpoint characters in a book, but when they're pinged through so rapidly it becomes more difficult; the only consistent presence I then have to identify with is the narrator, and unless the narrator turns out to have a story of their own, the voice won't be enough to carry me through the entire piece.

Oh, and also, because I didn't disclaim it and don't want to seem like I'm any sort of authority (I ain't), when I said "Second paragraph was, sad to say, rather unnecessary", I definitely needed to attach "for me; others' opinions may vary." Please consider it attached. :o)

-j, who won't bother going into the typos and butchered sentences he found on rereading his comment... should have previewed first... :o)

[Chris]

Nice voice and interesting opening paragraph (it made me think of the film "Stand By Me" based on Stephen King's "The Body").

But you lost me on the second paragraph, even assuming Alistair is the main character. For one thing, the paragraph really jumbles the sequential flow of the story. It describes the days, weeks, or even months worth of time AFTER finding the body for Al's bowling companions to tire enough of hearing about it to leave him off teams. It alludes to multiple times of him visiting the bowling alley after the teams have formed and Al not catching on. Then, in the third paragraph, the story goes back to Al and his wife calling 911 after the discovery, and then "eventually" in the final paragraph, the police are called and dispatched to the scene and we're zooming in to describe the victim. That's a very disorienting shift in time and place in a few short paragraphs.

The other thing that killed it for me in the second paragraph was the jarring slip into 2nd person POV at the end -- the author suddenly became a narrator and was suddenly talking directly to me.

Those were enough for me to vote "no".

[Chris]

You know, I should have read the other comments before jumping down to post my own -- I could have saved a lot of space by just typing:

"Yeah -- what Jon and Doug said..."

;^)

[Suz.]

Sometimes I wonder if, having read Ray's comments, and then those following, the others are just not parroting what was said before. Not that I don't take Ray's comments to heart, but that the others' are almost word for word copies.

[Jon]

Suz, could be that Ray's just on the money. I only read others' comments after I think mine through and post them; any co-incidence is coincidental.

[Doug]

Suz., I'm not sure whose comments you're looking at. The only significant duplication that I saw was Chris's, and he posted an acknowledgment of that.

In any event, duplicate comments are particularly useful. Different readers like different things. There'll always be at least one person who doesn't like the way that you wrote something, and you can't let that bother you. (Too often, that critical person seems to be me.)

And there'll always be at least one person who likes what you wrote even when almost everyone else doesn't. Like when I'm fine with directly addressing the reader even though others aren't.

But when there's an overwhelming consensus on something, as there seems to be about the second paragraph in this case, that's something to pay attention to. That consensus won't be apparent unless people post "me, too" comments.

My own offering here a few months ago got just about all "me, too" comments. Those comments were valuable to me, because I know that the weakness in my proffered opening isn't just a matter of taste or style.