Learning to be a human being has a lifelong learning curve, and we can use all the help we can get because there aren’t many good instruction books. Although novels are fiction, they can instruct us on the truths of being human.
Fiction models behavior for us, teaches us what (in the writer’s imagination) works, and what doesn’t work. We like to see characters desire and yearn and attempt because it helps us understand, maybe, what we can do in our own lives.
That was me theorizing, but recently I came across an article about research on psychological reactions to reading fiction, and this fascinating result leaped out at me:
Drs. Keith Oatley and Raymond Mar, in collaboration with several other scientists, reported in two studies, published in 2006 and 2009, that individuals who frequently read fiction seem to be better able to understand other people, empathize with them and see the world from their perspective.
In a 2010 study, Dr. Mar found substantial overlap in the brain networks used to understand stories and the networks used to navigate interactions with other individuals — in particular, interactions in which we’re trying to figure out the thoughts and feelings of others. Scientists call this capacity of the brain to construct a map of other people’s intentions “theory of mind.” In other research that same year, Dr. Mar found that the more stories preschool-age children had read to them, the keener their theory of mind.
Fiction, Dr. Oatley notes, “is a particularly useful simulation because negotiating the social world effectively is extremely tricky, requiring us to weigh up myriad interacting instances of cause and effect. Just as computer simulations can help us get to grips with complex problems such as flying a plane or forecasting the weather, so novels, stories and dramas can help us understand the complexities of social life.”
Finally, I’m rereading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and, especially for young adults, it certainly fits the notion above. Katniss, the heroine, is conflicted about things, as is her audience (and most of us). She isn’t perfect, but she slowly learns of her shortcomings and tries to deal with them. And she takes on evils larger than the personal ones we all face--and that’s an admirable lesson for readers of every age.
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.
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.
A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.
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.
Story questions
Tension (in the reader, not just the characters)
Voice
Clarity
Scene-setting
Character
Shannon has sent the opening for a short story, Entombments, Incorporated.
The smell wasn’t so bad. At least, it seemed okay to me and my husband. Maybe we were used to it. Maybe our noses no longer distinguished between the rancid stench and my prize roses. Sometimes I wondered if anyone could smell it, but we had distance on our side. In our sprawling, gated community, each mansion grew grander than the one before. While the smoke and flames from The War Between The States smoldered, the other stately homes were built around our monstrous pink and red Victorian.
Sniffing the air as I bounced down our long driveway, I was optimistically reassured the reek was not following me like a wispy tentacle. Who would ever suspect a young married couple of having a hoarding problem? I was sanely aware ours wasn’t a run of the mill hoard. There were no walls of trash with snaking paths. There were no boxes stacked to the ceiling, or mountains of bags containing new clothes. We could walk through our house without any problem. Except for the kitchen. It was a separate, ancient structure in the backyard. Legend was this Irish beehive hovel, or a Clochán, dated back to Saint Patrick himself. Stephen’s great-great-great Grandfather Leyden moved the hut stone by stone from Ireland to Northeastern Virginia. It had been expanded over time, the base squared off, the round roof lifted and supported by wooden beams.
Nope
The writing is good and I like the voice, but I fell there was too much time devoted to describing the outbuilding.
There was no real tension on this page, but there was some wairing. As it turns out, the third paragraph had strong page-turning components, so I’m going to edit this down enough to get some of those lines on the page.
Note that there’s an unusual word, “ferly,” in the addition. While I like learning new words, it seems to me the time to introduce one is not on the first page where you want zero speed bumps to get in the way of that page turn. A new poll follows. Notes:
The smell wasn’t so bad. At least, it seemed okay to me and my husband. Maybe we were used to it. Maybe our noses no longer distinguished between the rancid stench and my prize roses. Sometimes I wondered if anyone could smell it, but we had distance on our side. In our sprawling, gated community, each mansion grew grander than the one before. While the smoke and flames from The War Between The States smoldered, the other stately homes were built around our monstrous pink and red Victorian.
Sniffing the air as I bounced down our long driveway, I was optimistically reassured the reek from our kitchen was not following me like a wispy tentacle. Who would ever suspect a young married couple of having a hoarding problem? I was sanely aware ours wasn’t a run of the mill hoard. There were no walls of trash with snaking paths. There were no boxes stacked to the ceiling, or mountains of bags containing new clothes. We could walk through our house without any problem. Except for the kitchen. It was a separate, ancient structure in the backyard. Legend was this Irish beehive hovel, or a Clochán, dated back to Saint Patrick himself. Stephen’s great-great-great grandfather Grandfather Leyden moved the hut stone by stone from Ireland to Northeastern Virginia. It had been expanded over time, the base squared off, the round roof lifted and supported by wooden beams.
The most peculiar thing about our ferly outbuilding was the wide, deep well in the center of the room. I used to worry about falling into the cavity when we first inherited the property. But there was no need to worry any longer for the pit was now filled with dead bodies. Overflowing, actually. The desiccated arms and legs, heads and torsos, peeked up over the rim. Our grotesque blossom.
UPDATE: the blog host advises this for IE8 users who have a problem:
It sounds like the readers are experiencing a caching behavior in their browser. We recommend clearing the browser cache in their preferred browser so that saved data from visiting your blog is not interfering/conflicting with new data.
The blog host instituted a new Captcha anti-spam process for posting comments, and a couple of FtQ readers have had trouble when they were using Internet Explorer 8--they couldn't get there from here.
I've tried it with IE9 and it worked fine. I suggest that if you're using IE8 to upgrade. You should get better performance anyway, and will be able to comment here.
I've notified them of the problem and will report on the answer.
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.
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.
A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.
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.
Story questions
Tension (in the reader, not just the characters)
Voice
Clarity
Scene-setting
Character
Adam has sent his opening chapter for I’ve Been Deader.
Fred's ruined face stared back at him from a fractured, mold-spotted mirror. There was no denying that he'd seen better days. The remains of breakfast pooled around his feet and a pair of lace panties clung to his shoe, glued there by God knew what. Bits of flesh were stuck between his yellow teeth, along with the sodden remains of a "hand wash only" label.
Being a zombie is no picnic.
He wiped his gore-stained hands on a filthy shirt, not sure if he was cleaning the hands or the shirt. He felt compelled to pause and take stock of himself. His right eye looked like a crushed egg yolk and his left leg was broken in at least two places. A large splinter of bone poked through the skin above his thigh, fine dark lines etched across the surface like a bad piece of scrimshaw. The open wound on his neck had started leaking again, but at least the fluid was mostly clear now.
No use dwelling on negatives. Time to get to work. He turned away from his reflection and limped out of the men's room of the Vince Lombardi rest area.
An overly bright morning sun assaulted him as he stepped outside. Fred gave a mental wince, wishing again that he could blink. Sunlight had no adverse effect on the undead, but he had never been a morning person. Rain or shine, today he had to shamble over to Terminal C of Newark Airport, where eight breathers were making their last stand. Zombies were lone hunters (snip)
Nope
I will admit to a certain horrified fascination with the zombie thing, but, technically speaking, there was no tension on this page, no real story questions raised, and no jeopardy suggested for Fred. I understand that a certain amount of exposition needs to happen to introduce the reader to this world, but something needs to be happening at the same time.
That said, I liked the voice--the calm, matter-of-fact nature of it lends reality--and the writing is good. But I think it could be crisper, and there was a little telling going on. Notes:
Fred's ruined face stared back at him from a fractured, mold-spotted mirror. There was no denying that he'd seen better days. The remains of breakfast pooled around his feet and a pair of lace panties clung to his shoe, glued there by God knew what. Bits of flesh were stuck between his yellow teeth, along with the sodden remains of a "hand wash only" label.Though the mirror approach is cliched, the "ruined face" made it work for me.
Being a zombie is no picnic.
He wiped his gore-stained hands on a filthy shirt, not sure if he was cleaning the hands or the shirt. He felt compelled to pause and take took stock of himself. His right eye looked like a crushed egg yolk and his left leg was broken in at least two places. A large splinter of bone poked through the skin above his thigh, fine dark lines etched across the surface like a bad piece of scrimshaw. The open wound on his neck had started leaking again, but at least the fluid was mostly clear now. Clarity issue: “a shirt”--is this his shirt, or a discarded shirt? “Large” is a comparative adjective with nothing to compare it to. Why not a specific, such as A three-inch splinter of bone. . .
No use dwelling on negatives. Time to get to work. He turned away from his reflection and limped out of the men's room of the Vince Lombardi rest area. Trimming bits of overwriting--unnecessary detail that doesn’t advance story or character--makes room for tension-inducing elements if you have them.
An overly bright morning sun assaulted him as he stepped outside. Fred gave a mental wince, wishing again that he could blink. Sunlight had no adverse effect on him the undead, but he had never been a morning person. Rain or shine, today he had to shamble over to Terminal C of Newark Airport, where eight breathers were making their last stand. Zombies were lone hunters (snip) The part about wishing again that he could blink was a nice way of giving world information within character. I changed “the undead” to keep this within his POV. “Zombies were lone hunters” is the author intruding to give us information. To keep it in Fred’s POV, you can say something such as Like the other zombies he’d seen, he was a lone hunter . . . etc.
I’ve used Amazon reviews and ratings in making a decision about books and other products. Do you?
I also believe that they can be used to evaluate the quality of one’s fiction--if readers rate you highly, then that strikes me as a strong sign that your novel or novels is/are doing the right thing. Low ratings can clue you to where you might have gone wrong--I received a one-star rating on one of my novels, but, fortunately, it was the only one, and it derived from an idiosyncratic take on the nature of some of the content.
I come to this because, with 4 novels on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle versions, I got to wondering how they all worked with readers. So I added up all the stars and divided that total number by the number of reviewers. I was happy to find out that the average rating for my novels is 4.6 stars. Very happy.
So what do you look for in reader reviews and ratings, either for your own books or for those of other authors?
Spoiler alert: shameless self-promotion ahead!
Since I’m on the subject, I want to share with you the three most recent reviews. But be sure to give your thoughts on Amazon reader reviews in comments. Thanks.
It Makes Magic Believable
They're around us. A small mutation gives them powers over natural life, akin to magic. They've been persecuted and burned at the stake. So they have withdrawn from humanity, but their genes continue to ferment in the populace.
When powers blossom, and no one can teach you what they are and how to use them, how do you cope? When you grow up different, when Homeland Security hones in on you because they see terrorists in every strange manifestation, what do you do? When your only child shows the same powers, how do you protect him when you feel like a lost child too?
This is that story.
Rhamey is an excellent storyteller who grabs you from the first page and builds the tension so that you don't want to put the book down. He's been honing his craft for years and this gem is the result.
I just hope he's working on a sequel. I can't wait for the story to continue.
Tongue-In-Cheek At Its Best!!!
Fun, fun,and more fun!!!! This is the purrr-fect book to pick up after a long day when you need a few laughs or just a light read for the beach. Since I'm a fan of vampires and cats it was win/win. I loved the sometimes whimsical but sometimes snarky humor of this book. Don't expect a strong, prize winning tale. Just sit back and enjoy this book! If you don't, you're taking life way too seriously!!!!! Mr. Rhamey....MORE PLEASE!
Ray Rhamey does it again!
A warm and engrossing tale of growing up--Texas style. You'll find yourself rifling through the pages, as you sweat through the oppressive Texas heat along with Jesse, a young man struggling to survive his summer job as a newly hired ranchhand in 1950s Texas.
Jesse's journey to discover who he is as a man, and find his place in the world, is complicated by his budding relationship with a young woman, Lola, who he can't keep his eyes off of, a dangerous loose cannon of a co-worker, Buddy, who is bent on forcing Jesse to leave the ranch by any means necessary, Lola's cruel, controlling mother, who disapproves of her daughter's relationship with Jesse and a murder that looms large over everything that happens that summer at the ranch.
This novel will tug on your heartstrings. Great fun and powerfully written. Don't miss out.
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