Flogometer for Douglas—would you turn the page?

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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.

Storytelling Checklist

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this list of 6 vital storytelling ingredients from my book, Flogging the Quill, Crafting a Novel that Sells. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Evaluate the submission—and your own first page—in terms of whether or not it includes each of these ingredients, and how well it executes them. The one vital ingredient not listed is professional-caliber writing because that is a must for every page, a given.

• Tension
• Story questions
• Voice
• Clarity
• Scene setting
• Character
  

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Douglas has sent a prologue and opening chapter. The opening page of the prologue:

He hid among a cleft in the desolate shoreline, a shadow lurking in the darkness. An outsider often made an outcast, this night he exacted retribution.

Three partially sunken ships blocked the narrow channel opposite, the funnels and decks eerily illuminated by faint colored streaks of an intermittent aurora. The closest ship, angled by countless storms, left a gap just wide and deep enough at high water for a u-boat to enter, a u-boat he would guide. Past the block ships the channel opened into the broad depths of Scapa Flow, the hallowed anchorage of the Royal Navy and heart of Britain’s naval dominance.

An ethnic German and veteran of the Kaiser’s navy, he cared nothing about the new conflict with Hitler, lived quietly in Orkney eighteen years and did not think himself an enemy. Only when the government forfeited his English wife’s modest inheritance simply because of her marriage to him did his mind change. Forced from a family cottage despite poor health, her long held hopes and dreams vanguished, she died despondent and destitute and left him angry and alone. He did not understand why a country so proud of law and fairness scorned its own.

The disembodied low churn of diesels wafted on the breeze, the mechanized sound of his fury and wrath, and two flickers of light signaled across the water. He responded with a shielded lantern.

And now the first chapter opening:

Richard Kast hated to fly. Cramped inside the cargo hold of an RAF transport, he winced at a sudden drop in altitude and fought roiling spasms in his stomach and throat.

A stiff backed Royal Marine opposite noticed. “A bit green. Just like a civi.”

Kast stared coldly. A dark featured, imposing former boxer accustomed to quick physical domination of his environment, he considered airsickness an unsettling character flaw and personal challenge. When turbulence again assaulted his equilibrium he focused on the floor between his feet and willed himself not to vomit.

Necessity brought him airborne. Two nights earlier the battleship Royal Oak exploded and sank at anchor inside Scapa Flow off northern Scotland with over eight hundred lives lost. Preliminary reports indicated a German u-boat penetrated the harbor, delivered the fatal blow and escaped into the sheltering depths of the North Sea.

The horrific defeat on home soil only six weeks into the Second World War raised serious concerns about Britain’s defenses and caused widespread public outrage. Parliament demanded an immediate explanation and the Admiralty, in charge of harbor security, hastily assembled a Board of Inquiry. Most observers thought the incident spelled political doom for the new First Sea Lord, Winston Churchill.

For me, these lacked the pulse of character

I have a couple of notes for Douglas in a moment, but first, my reactions. The narrative’s historical nature and the possibility of a good story have appeal, but for this reader it was all distant, at arm’s length, and not involving. The sweat and emotion of these characters wasn’t there, and without the feel of the character’s experience of what was happening, I wasn’t compelled.

In the prologue, the third paragraph, while spelling out the character’s motivation, was also info dump. More than that, it seems to me that this would hardly be what he was thinking about, or in this manner, at such a time. There are ways to slip some of this in, for example: Tonight he would avenge the British government’s calloused murder of his wife. He still burned at the thought of her evicted from her family home to die of a broken heart and body. (By the way, I think you meant ‘vanquished’ rather than ‘vanguished’.)

The second paragraph was pretty much told (not so much shown) from an authorial, distant point of view, not from within the eyes and mind of an angry, vengeful man.

The chapter opening came closer to involving me with the character, but then slipped out of the character’s POV and into the author’s for a physical description that the character would never have thought of while desperately fighting off airsickness, and this takes me out of the story. The narrative also got a little info-dumpish, too. I understand why, but the task at hand here is to hook me with the character’s experience, not the historical setting of the story. That can come later with dialogue or other exposition.

Bottom line, while the events and history are interesting, the reader is not immersed in the living experiences of troubled characters. Get us in their skins, Douglas, and you might have us.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

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Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred):

1. your title
2. your 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
3. Please format with double spacing, 12-point font Times New Roman font, 1-inch margins.
4. Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
5. And, optionally, permission to use it as an example in a book if that's okay.
6. If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
7. If you rewrite while you wait you turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

© 2010 Ray Rhamey

Comments

[Lexi Revellian]

I had problems with the language. Douglas, do you read your work out loud? It shows up awkward passages. The second sentence, 'An outsider often made an outcast, this night he exacted retribution' held me up for a bit working out the syntax.

There must be a name for when you are told a lot about the subject of a sentence before you discover who he/she/it is. It's kind of irritating. This sort of thing:

Bright yellow-green with a tracery of curving lines, furry texture wearing in places, flying faster than a bird, the tennis ball smashed into the net.

It generally means you're trying to cram in too much information, too.

[glj]

I was interested in the prologue, but you lost my interest in the first page. I like historical fiction. I like WWII fiction. Your prologue starts with intriguing action and plausible and potentially interesting characters. What worked for me was the action. The action and the history. Most people know about the war and the evil Nazis, so you already are relieved of telling as much back story as if you were writing an alternative history piece. And everyone knows Nazis are the bad guys, so you have that covered. But since the events of WWII are generally known, where you will find power is in the struggles and plights of the main characters. Without creating reader involvement with the characters, you may have a relatively dry plot, compared to a completely fictional story with a unique plot line.

My problems with this are: a) character remoteness, as noted by Ray, and b) over-written in places, leading me to think the manuscript as a whole might be rather tedious.

The remoteness is usually caused by the writer "telling" the reader what the character is seeing and experiencing, instead of making the reader experience the character's sensations. It is a subtle difference, but can create a distance that leaves the reader uninvolved. For example, "Richard Kast hated to fly." This is telling. "Cramped inside the cargo hold of an RAF transport, he winced at a sudden drop in altitude and fought roiling spasms in his stomach and throat." Here, you make us feel it. Plus, this is inside the character’s head. Telling us he hated to fly is outside the character’s head. BIG difference.

Suggestion: "Cramped inside the cargo hold of an RAF transport, Richard Kast winced at a sudden drop in altitude and fought roiling spasms in his stomach and throat. He had never been able to experience rough air without the feeling of panic."

"The horrific defeat on home soil only six weeks into the Second World War raised serious concerns about Britain’s defenses and caused widespread public outrage. Parliament demanded an immediate explanation and the Admiralty, in charge of harbor security, hastily assembled a Board of Inquiry."

This feels too much like an excerpt from a history book. You need to express this as the character reflecting on his assignment. "He hated being on the Board of Inquiry. But a ship in Scapa flow, Britain's safest harbor, had exploded, killing . . . It had to have been a German U-boat. But how could it have penetrated the best harbor defenses in the world? Something wasn't right."

By overwritten, I mean that it seems too dramatic at times, as if you are trying to force the reader into feeling the emotions that you want the reader to have. I would prefer that you show why the reader should be alarmed and then trust the reader to get it. For example: “An outsider often made an outcast, this night he exacted retribution.” It seems a bit preliminary to sum up the character like this in the SECOND sentence of the book, plus this is a bit overly dramatic.

[Doug]

I voted "no" on the prologue. I almost always vote no on prologues. This one didn't contain any information that I needed to know to understand Chapter 1. In fact, much of it was repeated on the first page.

I voted "yes" on Page 1, with considerable reservations. The big story issue is there, and we know who the protagonist is, but not much else. There's not much tension in the scene, aside from whether Kast will hurl or not.

The first sentence is a throw-away. We'll find out in the very next sentence that Kast gets air-sick. I wouldn't waste the first sentence like that.

The final two paragraphs are definitely telling and not showing. Let us see what Kast thinks and feels about the events. Let us see what he's expected to *do* about the situation. I'd think that it'd be reasonable that he at least reviews the situation in his mind to try to get his mind off of his airsickness.

The final paragraph was particularly rough. A ship was sunk on home *soil*? Did they call it "the Second World War" back then (the term seems to have been coined in 1942)? Is it necessary to tell us that the Admiralty is in charge of harbor security?

Overall, starting with a travel scene isn't usually the best choice. There might be a later scene that would be a more powerful opening.

[Q of D]

I lost track of the story because I started counting adverbs and adjectives instead.

Of course that's me looking at it from a writer's perspective, but others have also noticed craft problems and likely an agent and/or publisher would, too.

So while I can't comment on the story I can tell you that the writing compelled me to vote no on both.

[Deb]

I voted yes and yes. But I agree with the overwriting, telling, and POV errors plus a few missed commas and grammar issues. With that being said I think you have the makings of a fine book, and all of the above mentioned items happen all of the time in published books. I believe the question is can you get a page turned and IMO the answer is yes with both prologue and chapter.

[Dan]

Resist, with all your might, the urge to put backstory in the first chapter. Hooking a reader's interest is paramount.

[Deb]

I should have said that I am hooked on where the story is going.

[Greg]

I’m gonna second Deb’s comments. Needs a lot of work, but the storyline alone was more than enough to capture my interest. Clean up the writing, Douglas, and there’ll be a copy in my library.

[Jami Gold]

I voted no and no. As others have mentioned, the writing was tangled (too many leading clauses before the main subject phrase, as well as some dangling modifiers), distant (telling), and filled with backstory info dumping.

I should never have to read a sentence more than once to make sense of it. If I do, you've lost me.

Get deeper into POV and many of these issues would probably fix themselves.

[Kelley]

Sorry, two No votes from me. It's just too much information at once. I couldn't even tell what was happening without reading it several times. My mind was consumed by all the information and couldn't find the story.