Flogometer for Suzanne—would you turn the page?

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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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Suzanne’s opening lines from a YA novel:

Jynx first found out about her father’s secret life by accident. It was while she was eating a bowl of crunchy nuts and raisins cereal and reading the missing children alert on the side of the milk carton that she realized how much she missed her dad. He was gone on another business trip (how many business trips did an anthropology professor need to take anyhow?) and he hadn’t returned her calls in three days. An uneasy feeling turned the sweet milk sour in her mouth.

“Grammy, when did Dad say he’d be back?” Jynx asked her grandmother, who was spreading lemon curd on fresh, hot scones at the kitchen counter.

“He didn’t.”

“Well, don’t you have an idea?”

“No.”

It wasn’t like her grandmother to be so short with her. She was usually warm and kind and patient. This change in her mannerism added to Jynx’s uneasiness, injecting a sliver of apprehension into her mind.

She pointed at the smiling picture of the missing girl on the milk carton. “What if Dad is missing, Grammy? Maybe that’s why he hasn’t called back. What if he’s like one of these children that no one ever finds again? What happens to them?”

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Didn’t quite get there for me

Good, clean writing and an immediate scene are on the plus side, but the opening tease and the girl’s apprehensions weren’t quite enough. It turns out that her grandmother tells her and her little brother that her father is a time traveler, and a man from the future. We learn this in conversation, though her grandmother’s motivation for spilling this is not clear. I have a suggestion, but first some brief notes.

Jynx first found out about her father’s secret life by accident. It was while she was eating a bowl of crunchy nuts and raisins cereal and reading the missing children alert on the side of the milk carton that she realized how much she missed her dad. He was gone on another business trip (how many business trips did an anthropology professor need to take anyhow?) and he hadn’t returned her calls in three days. An uneasy feeling turned the sweet milk sour in her mouth. (The opening line foreshadowing the revelation of the secret felt artificial, somehow. Perhaps that’s the nature of any line that tells us something. The uneasy feeling isn’t really motivated by the fact that he hasn’t returned her calls. If we understood that he always returned her calls, it would be. Also, if he’s constantly going on time travel missions as her grandmother soon reveals, he wouldn’t have been able to return calls on those many trips either. So something doesn’t quite ring true with this. The lack of motivation for her apprehension saps the following narrative of tension for me.)

“Grammy, when did Dad say he’d be back?” Jynx asked her grandmother, who was spreading lemon curd on fresh, hot scones at the kitchen counter.

“He didn’t.”

“Well, don’t you have an idea?”

“No.”

It wasn’t like her grandmother to be so short with her. She was usually warm and kind and patient. This change in her mannerism added to Jynx’s uneasiness, injecting a sliver of apprehension into her mind. (It turns out that this character is 14. I don’t feel that “change in mannerism” and “injecting a sliver of apprehension” are wordings and phrasings that fit naturally into the way a child talks or thinks. For me, this weakens the illusion that I’m in a child’s mind. My feeling is that the narration needs to reflect the age, nature, and personality of the character.)

She pointed at the smiling picture of the missing girl on the milk carton. “What if Dad is missing, Grammy? Maybe that’s why he hasn’t called back. What if he’s like one of these children that no one ever finds again? What happens to them?” (Using the milk carton is a nice device for suggesting that her father is missing, but the statement seems almost playful, not anxious.)

I think that there’s some throat-clearing exposition going on here. Later in the chapter, Jynx decides to sneak into her father’s office to discover the truth even though the children are forbidden to go there. I think that’s where the story starts, when she and perhaps her brother sneak in—if, that is, whatever happens there is what starts the story. It’s entirely possible to inject her grandmother’s confession and Jynx’s dread into internal monologue if she’s alone, or dialogue if she’s with her brother. Doing something forbidden would add tension, and the notion that her grandmother’s crazy notion could be somehow right (otherwise why sneak into the office) could also add tension.

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

[Deb]

I think you're trying to let us know there is something big coming by telling us that Jynx found out about her Dad's secret life, but the thing is- you're telling us and it takes away the power of the statement. Foreshadow it, but don't tell us. Let us see Jynx's worry.

You're also telling us how sweet & warm the grandma usually is, give us an active example and then let us see that she gets uptight about Jynx asking about her dad.

[Doug]

What Ray said.

The first line wasn't followed up, and I felt like there was a bait-and-switch. The story almost certainly starts later, not with a bowl of cereal.

A few very minor comments on details:

There's some duplication in the second paragraph that could be eliminated:
- “Grammy, when did Dad say he’d be back?”
- Jynx's grandmother was spreading lemon curd on fresh, hot scones at the kitchen counter. “He didn’t.”

I think the problem with the milk carton sentence seeming "almost playful" comes from the wording, "pointed at the smiling picture". Something like this might be stronger:
- The picture of the missing girl on the milk carton bothered Jynx. “What if Dad's missing? ..."

In the above suggestion, I removed the second usage of "Grammy" in the dialogue. People rarely speak each other's names when talking to them, and not twice in such a short span of time. The first one works because it suggests to us that Grammy isn't looking at Jynx, and Jynx is just giving her a "heads-up, conversation's coming your way".

Also in that suggestion, I used the contraction "Dad's" instead of "Dad is" to make it more conversational.

By the way: in that same suggestion, I've made Jynx the object rather than the subject of the first sentence. In my comments on the previous submission here on FTQ, I'd complained about sentences that were constructed that way. A hypocrite, I am. In this case, though, I felt that Jynx wasn't actively doing anything; she was being acted upon by the picture (after I'd removed the pointing).

Anyway, this offering is nicely dramatized, well-written, and very cleanly edited, but I'm afraid it's something that needs to be eliminated so that we can start where the story starts.

[Christine H]

I got the impression that Jynx was much younger than 14 from the way she talks and thinks. The emphasis on the crunchy cereal, the way she's pointing at the milk carton, calling her grandmother "Grammy," asking what happens to missing children - all gave me the the impression she was about half that age, despite the fact that she knows he's an anthropology professor.

You might want to insert a little more angst, a little more concern, maybe some selfishness - does her Dad being gone interfere with any plans she had with her friends? Will her grandmother drive her where she needs to go? Is she annoyed with him at all for being so unpredictable, perhaps even resentful?

I don't have a problem with the scene in general. I think you could build enough tension to keep me (at least) interested in turning the page if you raised the dialogue (both internal and external) up a notch.

[t-bag]

I think the concept of the time-traveling dad is pretty cool. Best of luck with getting the hook right.

I would want some explanation, at some point, of the unusual character name.