Flogometer for John—would you turn the page?

Update I've a post up on Writer Unboxed about rejection.

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How about a fun beach read?

It’s summertime, and a good beach/park/lazy day read is a good thing to have handy. In that vein, here are quotes from reader reviews of my The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles. It's available on Amazon.com:

“This book is full of wry humor, and yet somehow strangely believable. I would highly recommend it, even -- in fact, especially -- to people who would otherwise pass it up because they have no interest in the subject.”

“Not a vampire fan, not a cat lover, but I was thoroughly entertained by this novel. I read it in about 3 sittings stolen from a hectic schedule. Most novels I read do not catch hold of me that well. I recommend it.”

“There were many times when this book made me laugh out loud, and let me tell you, very few books can manage that.”

Just sayin’ …

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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 or 17 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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John’s opening lines:

The second punch was faster than the first. I hunched my left shoulder and his fist struck the deltoid muscle instead of my face. In my adrenalized state, I felt nothing.

Still crouching, I fired two quick jabs at his midsection. He deflected them both. I kept my hands up and stepped forward. He stepped back, his posture matching mine. The darkness of the park around us made details harder to see but the ambient yellow streetlights silhouetted him well enough.

His feet shoulder-width apart, he danced forward like a boxer and again shot two quick punches, and then two more, at my head. I kept my arms up, my head down, and blocked with my forearms. I feinted a jab with my shoulders. He skipped back a step, then shuffled towards me with a long right hook towards my head.

For that brief moment, moving forward with his right arm extended, his center of gravity was over the ground in front of him instead of between his feet. My arms still up, I slid forward inside the punch, snap-rolled my left wrist over his, grabbed his sleeve, and pulled hard. His arm continued across his body, hauling him off balance. I snapped my hips to the left and blasted both of my arms down. The move took him off his feet and he slammed into the ground. His head bounced once on the hard earth but he scrambled forward on his hands and feet before I could land on him. I took a quick step after him but he managed to grab a fallen branch and (snip)

Nope

You would think that opening with a fight, which is both conflict and action, would be a page-turner, but, for me, this micro-detail quickly killed my interest. Visualizing movement to this extent adds up to overwriting, a sure pace-clogger. Of much more interest is who is fighting, why they are fighting, the stakes for the winner and loser, and some reason to care who wins or loses.

More than that, we’re a page away from a paranormal element—the use of halos in the fight—that creates interest and starts to set this world apart. I’ll make some notes on this narrative but, for my money, It should all be deleted to get to the more interesting stuff on page two:

The second punch was faster than the first. I hunched my left shoulder and his my attacker’s fist struck the deltoid muscle instead of my face. In my adrenalized state, I felt nothing. (In the middle of a fight, would you be thinking about your “adrenalized state”? Neither would I. Or the fact that his fist hit my deltoid muscle? Not me. I’d change the last two sentences to something like I blocked it with my shoulder. Adding something like “attacker” helps the reader take sides.)

Still crouching, I fired two quick jabs at his midsection. He deflected them both. I kept my hands up and stepped forward. He stepped back, his posture matching mine. The darkness of the park around us made details harder to see but the ambient yellow streetlights silhouetted him well enough. (The light from the streetlights would be ambient, not the streetlights themselves. If it remains a good idea to open with punching. I’d combine what I’ve left of this paragraph with the first, but then it would be time to get into who, why, etc.)

His feet shoulder-width apart, he danced forward like a boxer and again shot two quick punches, and then two more, at my head. I kept my arms up, my head down, and blocked with my forearms. I feinted a jab with my shoulders. He skipped back a step, then shuffled towards me with a long right hook towards my head. (I just wouldn’t include all this.)

For that brief moment, moving forward with his right arm extended, his center of gravity was over the ground in front of him instead of between his feet. My arms still up, I slid forward inside the punch, snap-rolled my left wrist over his, grabbed his sleeve, and pulled hard. His arm continued across his body, hauling him off balance. I snapped my hips to the left and blasted both of my arms down. The move took him off his feet and he slammed into the ground. His head bounced once on the hard earth but he scrambled forward on his hands and feet before I could land on him. I took a quick step after him but he managed to grab a fallen branch and (snip) (Understanding that, by now, as a reader I would have put this book down, the description stopped giving me images when he “blasted” both of his arms down after snapping his hips to the left. Down on what? And how could that take the guy off his feet? I’d look at condensing this action down to something like I slammed him on the ground with a hip throw.

The excessive detail continues on the next page. Here’s an excerpt:

I sprang forward and landed on him while his torso was twisted to his left. My right hand clamped around his right wrist, trapping the branch. My left fist drilled into the hollow below his sternum. (It is hardly important which hand did what, nor that the guy’s torso was twisted to the left. And I’ll bet there are readers who don’t know what a sternum is. And what does “drilling” into the hollow beneath it actually mean? This could be rewritten as: I pinned one hand to the ground and punched him in the belly.)

You’ve got good stuff coming, John, but need to get it up front, not smothered by details that don’t really matter to story or characterization. Keep action quick and simple, with clear, brief descriptions that readers can easily see.

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

[Lexi Revellian]

I'm all for realistic fights, but I think this blow-by-blow description is too much information. It's good that the author knows the details of the punches, but the reader doesn't need to know. (I fretted briefly about how an assailant facing him could hit his deltoid, the muscle above his shoulder blade.)

Halfway down, I got impatient at not knowing who the combatants were, or what they were fighting about. Metaphorically, I wandered off and left them to it.

[Bree]

Another thing to add to Ray's list of Who? What? Why? type questions is where are these two fighters? All through the first paragraph I kept trying to imagine where they were. Are they in a boxing ring, which puts a whole different spin on things than if they are in an alley somewhere? In paragraph two we get that they are in a park, which has streetlights. Are they in a park or are they on the street? I was confused. I wanted more details about the setting--in the beginning, please--and less about the actual physical fighting moves. And also, to repeat what Ray and Lexi already said, why are they fighting? And why should I care? I'm certainly not going to care if I don't have any clue as to who these people are.

[Norm]

I'm with Ray, Lexi, and Bree on this. I enjoyed the writing. I liked the detail of knowledge the MC(?) seems to have about fighting. Yet, there were no stakes and the "who cares?" factor was high--we don't know who this is yet and don't care what the outcome of the fight will be.

I found the style reminiscent of Robert Parker's character, Spenser, who would analyze his opponent's fighting ability. I love the Spenser novels; they're great fun. Parker always drew me in on the first page. I had to turn it.

[glj]

I would not turn the page.

I agree with the previous comments. The level of detail is too much. A person in a fight would not think about what body part was being hit. This is more like a post-fight analysis by sports commentators, and does not make me FEEL like I am in the middle of a brawl at night in a park. It needs more sensation, more of a sense of fear or anger. Is the protagonist angry, afraid, confused, or what? This is dry and mechanical, I'm afraid.

[Deb]

I wouldn't turn the page because I didn't know the characters- it was just body parts and I didn't know if one of them was male or female even, but the detail reminded me of the Sherlock Holmes movie.

[Christine H]

I liked the intensity of the first couple of paragraphs, but then it went on too long. I agree that I want to know "who" and "why" along with the "what" (a fight) and "where" (in a park at night). Are they teens or adults? Fighting over a girl? Territory? A stolen diamond? A microchip?

What's "the rest of the story?"

[Christine H]

I was reminded of this post by a scene someone at my writer's group read last night. He wrote it for a blogfest. I hope Ray doesn't mind my posting the link. But it was, to me, a really well done example of a similar scene, with the character descriptions and motivations worked into the scene.
http://constantrevisions.blogspot.com/2010/05/bad-girl-blogfest-poor-choices.html