Flogometer for Margo—would you turn the page?

“The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles is fun, action-packed and a bit irreverent, a story with a lovable hero and a lot of heart.”
Megan Chance, author of Prima Donna

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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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Here are Margo’s opening lines from a YA novel:

Something was changing in me, and I couldn’t figure it out. I looked at the razor in my hand. Blood glistened on the edge. I held it near my forearm where a thin red line remained visible next to my opal bracelet, but no blood. I pulled the razor across my skin, again, and watched as the wound neatly knitted itself back together. It wasn’t my imagination, or a dream, because blood lingered on the blade in my hand. I glanced at my open desk drawer, where blades from yesterday, and the days before, lay crusted with blood.

It started after I took a header off my bicycle two weeks ago. Seriously, a bicycle – Mom refused to let me drive the car by myself even though I had my driver’s license. After the bicycle accident, I sat on the sidewalk and looked at the cuts and scrapes on my hands and knees. They’d already stopped bleeding. When I got home, I went to clean myself up – but the cuts had completely disappeared. I attempted to tell my mom, but she suggested I’d imagined the injuries.

She also said, “Maybe the fire opals healed them. They’re supposed to have healing properties.” She smiled. As a geologist, she disregarded the metaphysical properties of rocks and crystals. However, what alternatives explained the healing? Did I inherit the ability like I inherited my blond hair and blue eyes? Maybe I should talk to Dad, because Mom was no help. But, Dad was always in a hurry. Rarely did he slow down to do anything with us, let alone listen.

Close, but I didn’t move forward
This has a nice voice and certainly opens with an interesting story question—why is this miraculous healing happening to this person—but the laid-back tone of the narrative ultimately cause a lack of credibility. So did the mother’s reaction—I’m a parent, and I don’t think that if a child of mine had come to me with a sincere story of cuts and scrapes healing almost instantly my reaction would have been to dismiss it (even if I thought my kid was nuts, I’d surely be on that case).

More than that, it’s the boy’s attitude. Basically, he’s just puzzled and musing. This extraordinary change doesn’t seem to provoke any strong emotion in him. I can’t see a teenager reacting in that way unless it’s motivated somehow, and it’s not here. So, on two points, the narrative lacked credibility. Notes:

Something was changing in me, and I couldn’t figure it out. I looked at the razor (blade?) in my hand. Blood glistened on the edge. I held it near my forearm where a thin red line remained visible next to my opal bracelet, but no blood. I pulled the razor across my skin, again, and watched as the wound neatly knitted itself back together. It wasn’t my imagination, or a dream, because blood lingered on the blade in my hand. I glanced at my open desk drawer, where blades from yesterday, and the days before, lay crusted with blood. (If this has been going on for two weeks, then he has changed, not changing. I wonder about the razor, too. These days, 99.9% of razors you buy are either the disposable kind or have a disposable cartridge and don’t use separate blades any more. Where would this kid be getting razor blades? Also, does it hurt when he cuts himself? If not, wouldn’t he marvel at that, too? And, since this has been going on for two weeks, all that he’s doing about it is still cutting himself? It seems to me that this would be a HUGE change in anyone’s life, especially that of a teen, but after two weeks all he’s doing is this?)

It started after I took a header off my bicycle two weeks ago. Seriously, a bicycle – Mom refused refuses to let me drive the car by myself even though I had have my driver’s license. After the bicycle accident, I sat on the sidewalk and looked at the cuts and scrapes on my hands and knees. They’d already stopped bleeding. When I got home, I went to clean myself up – but the cuts had completely disappeared. I attempted to tell my mom, but she suggested I’d imagined the injuries. (Here we divert to backstory. If it were related to the cause of this—something about which the character seems uncurious—that might be okay. But this paragraph serves only to tell us about something that we’ve already witnessed in the opening paragraph. In my view, what we should be getting into here is the impact of this on his life.)

She also said, “Maybe the fire opals healed them. They’re supposed to have healing properties.” She smiled. As a geologist, she disregarded the metaphysical properties of rocks and crystals. However, what alternatives explained the healing? Did I inherit the ability like I inherited my blond hair and blue eyes? Maybe I should talk to Dad, because Mom was no help. But, Dad was always in a hurry. Rarely did he slow down to do anything with us, let alone listen. (You know my thoughts on the mother’s reaction. We’re getting more backstory and exposition here, at a time when something needs to be happening to this boy to cause him tension and concern because of the impact of this healing ability on his life. What’s the downside of this? How does it jeopardize him? What are the stakes?)

I think there is a lot of good stuff ahead in this story, but so far I haven’t been engaged enough with the character to make it feel like it’s worth reading on. Try starting later in the story, or perhaps have this ability impact him right after he discovers it, not weeks later. In other words, where’s the drama, the urgency, of this story?

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

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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.

© 2010 Ray Rhamey

Comments

[Margo Kelly]

Thanks Ray! I value your opinion. Anyone who'd like to read the entire first chapter may do so at my website:
www.margokelly.net

[TamaraL]

The first paragraph made me think the character was self-mutilating or committing suicide and I recoiled in horror. My stomach did that squoogy flippy thing and I actually pulled back from the computer. At first glance, it seems more gruesome than the scene actually is.

The sentences, grammar, etc. are all quite good, and the story is interesting.

[Rebecca]

I actually would have turned the page. After reading the critique, I would agree about voice. And the two-week thing got me, too. Typically, writing coaches say to start the story after the inciting event. So perhaps the first time he cut himself and watched his skin heal would have been more interesting (and felt more urgent) than two weeks later.

But I would have turned the page just to see what happened. If the voice continued to be so strangely detached, I wouldn't have continued after that. But I was interested.

[Jon]

"Claire-bear? Is that you? What is Horn-Rim-Glasses Guy going to do when he finds you in a YA novel? :op"

Hiya, Margo.

The above was my first thought when I finished the first paragraph of your piece. The TV show Heroes (great 1st season, mostly crud thereafter, RIP) pretty well explored this territory. Not that you can't or shouldn't, but if you're not aware of it, you should be, since it's still fresh in folkses minds. Your setup here seems very close to what they did with Claire on that show; you'll have to take care to differentiate your work from the show.

Now, on to the content. I did vote yes on this, if barely. There're two mysteries here that I imagine won't be solved on page 2. The first, the obvious one, is "why her?". The second, "okay, now what?", is the one that got me to turn the page. If she does something productive (and imaginative) with this on page 3 or 4, I keep reading; if she spends all her time investigating why her, why now, I probably put the book down. Others' reactions may vary.

The first line should, IMO, go -- it's not a bad first line, but it's inaccurate. Something's already changed in her, and now she's trying to figure it out. A better first line might be "Blood glistened on the razor in my hand."

The dream-line in p1 should probably go; if you cut yourself and it heals -- and if you've been auto-repairing for weeks -- you've probably already come to terms with the thing as a fact of life, if a weird and cool one.

Why it's taken her two weeks to start experimenting with razor blades is another question I have. Once she's proven that she can heal, and over and over again, why keep doing it? Time to move on!

paragraph 2 - the bit "but the cuts had already disappeared". There's still cleanup to do; she's still covered with blood. So the phrasing there doesn't quite work. Close, but not quite.

And why would mom think she'd imagine the injuries, when her clothes were covered in blood? That's a pretty oblivious mom; if she's not dead-drunk or blind, she's at best a negligent parent.

Y'know, going through it line by line this way, the logic gaps in this whole setup is really starting to bug me. I think I just pushed myself to the other side of the yes/no line :o(

I think I'd rather that this piece started with her already in motion, rather than debating the questions here. There is a nice mystery here (or two, as discussed), but those both could be addressed in motion, rather than with this relatively static beginning.

If, however, she's experimenting on herself - using different materials to make the wounds, coating her wounds with different substances to see the effects, sticking foreign objects in herself to see what happens when the skin heals (ouch, hope she didn't have any piercings...) --- then she's already in motion. But with this beginning, the questions raised are good, but probably not good enough to carry editors to page 2.

As a side note, if you keep the current flow, I'd find a way to break up that paragraph 3 - probably on However.

Also, since we're working in the past tense of a past tense story, you'd probably want "She'd also said" and "She'd smiled."

Good luck with this piece! Thanks for sharing!

-Jon

[Margo Kelly]

Thanks for pointing out problems that seem obvious now... ha. I was too close to the work and too much inside the characters' heads to see the writing from a fresh perspective. I will clean up the time frame and reconsider starting with the bicycle accident rather than the cutting. I will also improve the mother's reaction.

My only question at this point is: if I start with the bicycle accident, will I still be able to pose the necessary story questions on the first page?

I guess the only way to find out is to write it and see what works better.

Thanks again for your input.
Margo

[Deb]

Ray,
Why did you change this sentence to present tense?
"Mom refused refuses to let me drive the car by myself even though I had have my driver’s license."

And not these?
"But, Dad was always in a hurry. Rarely did he slow down to do anything with us, let alone listen"

I'm really new to this, so I'm afraid I'm missing something.

Thanks, Deb

[Ray Rhamey]

Deb, it has to do with the nature of first-person narration. The narrator is in some kind of present relating past events. But some things are factors in the narrator's present--in this case, the narrator's mom currently won't let her drive as well as back then, and she still has her driver's license.

[Doug]

I've held back on commenting because I'm 40+ years past being a YA reader. Keep that in mind as you read my comments: I'm not *so* your audience.

It's said that a plot is a premise plus a complication. This page presents a premise, but not a complication. Going back to the bicycle accident won't help, in my opinion. The story needs to start later, at the point where this quick-healing ability puts the protagonist into a situation that she couldn't normally have been in--a situation that prevents a return to normal teenage life.

In Painkiller Jane, Jane's rapid healing doesn't affect the pain associated with cuts, falls, beatings, gunshot wounds, etc.--it just means that she hurts for a shorter time. Your protagonist doesn't remark at all on the pain of the bicycle accident or the cuts. For most of us, it's the pain rather than the bleeding that would be a concern.

Has she kept this secret from her best friend for two weeks?

By the way, I'm assuming from a couple of clues that the protagonist is female. Has she had her period since the bicycle incident, and was that affected?

Story aside, for this non-YA person the writing was too leisurely. If I were the author, I would have stripped the redundancy and unnecessary words and replaced them with what the protagonist thinks and feels about what's happening and what it means to her. This is first-person point of view, and I expect more than a detached observation of facts.

[Deb]

Thanks Ray. I think that is something I may have over looked in my own pages. BTW I love the book Flogging the Quill. It has ehlped me tremendously.