Friday Fun and Flogometer for James—would you turn the page?

Chapter 7 We come out

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Midwest Book Review.

A sample of The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles is here. You can order a paperback or e-book copy there, too.

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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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James has sent a prologue and the first chapter. Here are the prologue’s opening lines:

Mildly annoyed, the young newlywed stood on a faux wooden deck, gazing across the yard at a tool shed door.

“Greg!” she called to her husband. “You’re wanted on the phone!”

When he still didn’t answer, she descended the steps and strode to the shed. As she reached for the door, he cracked it open to peer outside. She rolled her eyes over his paranoia. The shed contained their backpacks, a workbench, and a few electrical parts, not a UFO.

“It’s the railroad. They want you on duty for six tonight.”

While they hurried towards the house, he shook his head in reply to her questioning look.

“It’s a great idea,” he said, “but I can’t seem to make it work. You’ll probably need to talk with a quantum physicist. After all, I’m just an amateur—”

An explosion hurled him against her and knocked them down. After they helped each other up and checked for injuries, they gawked at a crater where the shed used to sit.

“Oh dear,” she said. “I guess it was a dumb idea after all. I’m sorry about your shed.”

He snatched her into his arms and twirled her around.

“Not so! I think you just solved the world’s energy crisis and made fossil fuels obsolete.”

He started to laugh but then looked worried. She wondered why.

The first chapter opens this way:

A small part of her wanted to blot out the mountain, forget her crusade, and go home to make a lasagna. Otherwise, Cassandra agreed with her beagle. When he lowered his leg and moved away, she confronted the metal post. Embedded in cement, the sign mocked her latest rejection: No Trespassing. Violators will be Prosecuted. Beyond it, a gravel drive arced up a canyon that groaned with mechanical thunder. She glared at the warning and kicked the post.

Despite her preparations, which included lighting a candle the previous night and creative visualization, her protest had flopped. No celebrities, fellow activists, or reporters were in sight–only two ravens on a power pole, ponderosa pines along a county road, and the virgin peaks she longed to defend. Spooked by her behavior, the ravens flew off.

She gave the road a last hopeful look and then turned to stare up the drive. Don’t even think of it. If you stay to picket, it will just be you, your dog, and a bunch of angry miners. Now is not the time to make a personal statement or to share unwanted facts. Next time try a weekend. She turned to go and blanched.

“No!” she screamed at the beagle. “Don’t!”

Laced with cyanide, a torrent rushed beside the drive. Nothing grew alongside it and nearby foliage hung mottled and limp. In the valleys below her daily walks, wildlife that drank (snip)

Prologue, yes, chapter, less so

Good writing throughout, and I trusted this author's ability to spin a yarn. I most definitely wanted to know what happened next with the prologue—by the way, that’s all there was to it, just those 16 lines. In fact, I was a little disappointed when chapter 1 didn’t pick up the story and keep going. I wonder why it didn’t, in fact.

The chapter raised a story question about the dog, but not the person. She’s about to mount a protest against a mine, and there’s some danger, but you don’t see it here. I think the first chapter needs more tension and story if it’s to be this scene. What are your thoughts?

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

[Aimee Laine]

It's too "telly" for me. There isn't any depth to it. No description ... for example ... "An explosion" <-- how was it? Large? Hot? Bright? What did it smell like?

"While they hurried towards the house..." hurried <-- did they run? Scurry? What were they walking on? Just because the phone had rung, did they need to "hurry"

"After they helped each other up and checked for injuries, they gawked at a crater where the shed used to sit."
That quick? Really? There is this "explosion" that we have no clear picture of, but my mind went to "big" but they are "ok"? How big is the crater? Is it massive? What color is it? Does it smell? Is it a sink hole now?

I think there could be some significant additions to make us feel more in that prologue then we'd be ready to move forward. There IS a sense of tension, we know something is coming, but the result of that doesn't have enough "oomph" for me.

Keep at it though! Just add some little details. :)

[Rebecca]

I'm gonna ditto what Aimee said about feeling like I needed more flesh/showing to draw me in. This is a classic example, in my opinion, of trying to create a hook purely through the action of the story. But, bottom line, I need to get hooked by more than an exploding shed.

Of course, that depends on what genre you're writing in... because a more thriller/action book will have different rules that I'm not familiar with. You might be doing exactly what you need to do, and can ignore my advice. But I still would agree with Aimee's advice.

[Doug]

I voted "yes" on both, but with reservations.

First, the prologue:

Is there some reason that we can't know the protagonist's name? This should be in the first paragraph, preferably the first sentence, unless there's a really good reason for it. As it is, we never do learn her name. We learn her husband's name, though.

When is this set, that people don't have cell phones or at least cordless phones? I haven't "run to a phone" in a decade except when I've left my cellphone somewhere (like on a charger).

The use of "for" in the phrase "on duty for six tonight" is a regional idiom. I'd recommend changing it to "at six".

The narrative does rush past the explosion and its after-effects. The reactions of the two people seem to be quite tame under the circumstances. I'd be pumped with adrenaline, and quite upset at the loss of the shed and its contents. Presumably, the shed debris is scattered all over, which means a lot of clean-up work ahead. Unless they're out in the boonies somewhere, neighbors are going to be calling the fire department, and ATF will probably get involved. "Oh dear" seems like a low-key reaction, and a bit dated at that.

Also, the "Not so!" isn't something that anyone I know would say.

Changing the subject after the prologue isn't fair. The prologue is to help us understand what's going on at the beginning of Chapter 1, not to bait-and-switch. If we don't need it to understand the first page of Chapter 1, it can be worked in later as backstory. Or simply make it Chapter 1.

[Doug]

Now Chapter 1:

I liked the overall setting and tone. The menace is small at this point, but there is a promise of confrontation between Cassandra and the miners.

The clause "a gravel drive arced up a canyon that groaned with mechanical thunder" was very evocative.

I totally didn't understand "Despite her preparations, which included lighting a candle the previous night and creative visualization, her protest had flopped." I don't see how lighting a candle is going to help organize a protest.

I'm not convinced about the ravens flying off; they pretty much seem to ignore me no matter what I'm doing. But that's a minor detail.

The "last hopeful look" that she gave the road confused me. I finally decided that maybe she was looking for some protestors to show up.

I liked the use of second-person to convey Cassandra's inner dialogue without the need for devices such as "she thought" or italics.

I think that most people would include the dog's name when telling it "no", to get its attention.

The final paragraph on that page didn't come together for me as well as I'd like. I was expecting to find out what the beagle was up to, but instead got a multi-sentence description of the environment. I have a pretty good idea where it's going, but I'd rather have the paragraph lead with the beagle.

[e.lee]

this is a great open challenge, the first page is the most crucial point.

[jon]

Hiya, James.

These were both "no" for me, alas.

For me, the opening was cartoonish and unrealistic - the shed detonating to the point of disappearance should have shattered the windows, set off car alarms, and sent debris flying at high speeds in all directions; instead, it seemed to have all the impact of a good strong shove.

Since the opening makes the story seem like it's going to be at least partially informed by science and its fallout, I have to be able to trust the basic physics; if those aren't right, then I have no reason to trust more advanced stuff elsewhere, either.

(The banal on-point nature of the dialog didn't help me much either -- I was left feeling like I can't trust either the science or the emotional insights of the story.)

The chapter 1 opening was actually a little closer for me. It featured a great first line (and, sadly, a convoluted rest-of-paragraph-1) and a character with human-scale aspirations. Unfortunately, that character seems to have a basic lack of understanding of human motivations; anyone who thinks that creative visualization is a substitute for shoe-leather seems, like the physics in the opener, too cartoonish for my tastes.

I liked (perverse though it may be) the threat to the dog from the water; I disliked (here's an nitpick) the safely-mounted-above-the-fray ravens being influenced by anything short of a shotgun. Ravens are, in my experience (and maybe it's just because I'm suburbia-bound) pretty bold birds.

All in all, for me to enjoy this story it needed to show a better grounding in the real world.

Good luck with it, though, and thanks for sharing!

-j

The threat to the dog from the river, I bought.

[Renee Yancy]

I read this twice and the prologue seemed totally unrelated to the first chapter, as Doug mentioned.

It also seemed to me as if one person wrote the prologue and another the first chapter. The writing in the first chapter seemed to flow more smoothly. I found the prologue clunky and awkward.

I did want to find out what happened to the beagle! I would suggest putting something in earlier about the cyanide-laced river, so that when she turns around we grasp the import of what's happening immediately, instead of having to be told in the next 2 sentences.

I think if the tension was increased I would turn the page.

Good luck!

[Bree]

I liked the chapter better than the prologue. I didn't feel like I connected or cared about either of the characters in the prologue, but I liked Cassandra and her beagle. I also wanted to know what happened to the dog!

That last paragraph threw me out of the story a bit. It was flowing nicely and then the description of the torrent of cyanide laced water (I guess?) came out of left field. Maybe, like Renee said, if it were set up previously the description would work better.

I still voted yes on the chapter because I wanted to know more about Cassandra and the beagle. No on the prologue because I didn't care about those characters.

[TamaraL]

The characters' under-reaction (is that a word?) to the explosion seems unintentionally hilarious.

[James]

Thank you everyone for sharing your observations! Btw, I scrapped this prologue a week ago and revised the opening paragraph. Unfortunately, because the point of the book concerns the domino effect of Cassandra's creative visualization, the tongue-in-cheek suggestion that she [seemingly] misuses metaphysics will probably stay. Ditto for the ravens: I used to live in Idaho Springs CO, and country ravens at eight thousand feet do indeed fly away if one kicks their telephone poll with feeling. On the other hand, if describing the blighted streambed breaks the flow of the narrative too much, I need to change it. Thanks again!!! :<)