Flogging the Quill

Flogometer for Gene: would you keep reading?

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS

I'm having a lazy day, but decided I'd better do a flog since I didn't say I was going to take the time off.

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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, 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).

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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Gene's first 16 lines:

August 1945, Japanese occupied Manchuria

Two hours after receiving the telegraph from Tokyo, Lieutenant General Kahshara Futaki remained at his desk, still struggling with the words. The order came from the High Command. He must obey it, but he could not bring himself to pick up the phone to set it in motion. How could he? Doing so would mean the end of his life's work. There had to be something wrong, some mistake, perhaps a word he'd missed or had not understood. For the tenth, or maybe the hundredth time -- he'd lost track -- he reread the brief text:

To: Kahshara Futaki, Commanding Officer, Unit 859
From: Koiso Kuniaki, Premier and Commander-in-Chief

Despite the Imperial Army's valiant struggle, the Russian invaders will overrun your position within forty-eight hours. The weapons you have stockpiled and the buildings and any equipment used to manufacture them cannot be allowed to fall into enemy hands. The secret you have guarded all these years must remain. You are therefore ordered to obliterate all traces of the facility you command and return to Tokyo. No sign of your operation is to remain by the time the invader arrives.

Again, General Futaki found no hope. The order was unambiguous leaving no chance that he could save anything. He would be shot unless he obeyed it to the letter. Even if he tried, it seemed impossible. How could he destroy 150 buildings in less than two days, one of them with eight-foot-thick double walls?

I read on with this one

This is a prologue, and usually I'm against them, but this one raised good story questions right away (as so many prologues fail to do), so I turned the page. Besides, the writing is clean, and there's a promise of taking me somewhere I haven't been. Good work, Gene.

When I read on, I discovered that the General was producing bombs loaded with a plague. He decided to use them, but misfortune prevents that. All but one bombful of viruses is destroyed, and eventually the virus finds a home on a Pacific island. There the prologue ends, with a killer disease ready to infect the world. And thus a thriller is begun.

The writing is pretty tight, though I'll suggest a few little tweaks.

August 1945, Japanese-occupied Manchuria (needed a hyphen for compound adjective "Japanese-occupied")

Two hours after receiving the telegraph telegram from Tokyo, Lieutenant General Kahshara Futaki remained at his desk, still struggling with the words. The order came from the High Command. He must obey it, but he could not bring himself to pick up the phone to set it in motion. How could he? Doing so would mean the end of his life's work. There had to be something wrong, some mistake, perhaps a word he'd missed or had not understood. For the tenth, or maybe the hundredth time -- he'd lost track -- he reread the brief text: (As noted below, the text is not really brief, and not done in the way of telegrams.)

To: Kahshara Futaki, Commanding Officer, Unit 859
From: Koiso Kuniaki, Premier and Commander-in-Chief

Despite the Imperial Army's valiant struggle, the Russian invaders will overrun your position within forty-eight hours. The weapons you have stockpiled and the buildings and any equipment used to manufacture them cannot be allowed to fall into enemy hands. The secret you have guarded all these years must remain. You are therefore ordered to obliterate all traces of the facility you command and return to Tokyo. No sign of your operation is to remain by the time the invader arrives. (If this is a telegram, I question its wordiness -- wouldn't a telegram be, well, telegraphic? Might be more dramatic if written in the way of telegrams -- the language was very brief because of all the code that needed to be signaled.

Again, General Futaki found no hope. The order was unambiguous leaving left no chance that he could save anything. He would be shot unless he obeyed it to the letter. ("to the letter" is a cliché, suggest delete if can't change it) Even if he tried, But it seemed impossible. How could he destroy 150 buildings in less than two days, one of them with eight-foot-thick double walls?

Good stuff, Gene. I saw more small opportunities for polishing in the rest of the sample, but you're well on your way. Thanks.

Comments, anyone?

For what it's worth,

Ray

Public floggings available. If I can post it here,

1. send 1st chapter or prologue as an attachment (cutting and pasting and reformatting from an email is a time-consuming pain) and I'll critique the first couple of pages.
2. Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
3. And, optionally, permission to use it as an example in a book if that's okay.

ARCHIVES .

© 2007 Ray Rhamey

Flogometer for Marianne: would you keep reading?

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, 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).

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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Marianne's first 16 lines:

At first, when I first met Jimmy, for weeks I wondered whether we would get to be more than friends. Whether I'd want to be - knowing it was a possibility because he's the sort of person who takes what's offered and thinks about where it might lead afterwards. I'm not sure even now what it was held me back right from the start, except maybe some hint of the destructive element in Jimmy's life. And then the longer I knew him the more that side of him began to surface and there were other reasons not to want to link my life with his too closely. I thought I should keep him at arms length, someone who made me laugh and forget myself - so long as he remained a friend, so long as I was in control.

And I thought I was, in control, even after he started to borrow money from me, and scrounge floor-space for days at a time, use up my drink and cigarettes, and appear at my door in the middle of the night with that wry smile on his face and one eyebrow raised - a trick that he knew from experience let him through many doors. How many other people he used in this way I don't know; what I do know is that eventually they all did what I should have done and refused to open the door to him any more. In fact it worked the other way with me, the more people gave up on him the less I felt able to, because what would Jimmy do then?

I've always been too soft for my own good.  That was how we met.

More "telling" than I wanted to read

There is good writing here, but it's all someone telling me about someone, and in vague terms, too -- "hint of the destructive element" and "that side of him began to surface" -- what element? What side? Why are you withholding this from me, says the frustrated reader.

This opening seems like what is called "throat clearing" -- telling us stuff the author thinks we need to know. Not really -- what we readers need is to experience a story. This opening is information, not drama.

For me, a scene is by far the best way to involve a reader, and Marianne's very next page opened with just that:

It's a Friday night. I'm in town with Liz and Sameera - and by midnight I've had enough. We've ended up at Limit but somehow I can't be bothered. I'm thinking about going home, after this last drink that I'm just being served, when I become aware of this guy at the side of me, softly, but persistently, cursing.

"I've been fuckin' robbed," he's complaining to a disinterested barman. "I had a fiver, a fiver, look - it's fuckin' gone."

Now that's a far better hook for me, and raises story questions immediately. There's a promise of a story and interesting characters.

I read on, doing my due diligence as an editor, not a reader. Marianne continues to have some nice writing and good dialogue -- but my interest eventually waned because the narrative was mostly "get-acquainted" stuff about the protagonist and Jimmy. Never did really learn what the story was about.

My feeling, Marianne, is that you're starting way too early in your story. Can you get closer to the inciting incident, the event where things turn troublesome with Jimmy? That's the story, isn't it -- what he does, and how this character deals with it? Give us a good, dramatic scene, and working in backstory (if really needed) as you go. Frankly, I don't think how they met is particularly important, or interesting. What would be interesting is the tension and conflict that arises when Jimmy does whatever he does that shows his "destructive element."

I'm sure you have something good to read waiting for us -- so don't make us wait. You've got the writing skills, now focus on story. If you haven't read the posts mentioned above as "homework," maybe they will help if you give them a quick look. Thanks for sharing this with me.

Comments, anyone?

For what it's worth,

Ray

Public floggings available. If I can post it here,

1. send 1st chapter or prologue as an attachment (cutting and pasting and reformatting from an email is a time-consuming pain) and I'll critique the first couple of pages.
2. Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
3. And, optionally, permission to use it as an example in a book if that's okay.

ARCHIVES .

© 2007 Ray Rhamey

Flogometer for Mai: would you keep reading?

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Update: I've a guest post up about "experiential description" up at Writer Unboxed that you might find interesting.

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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, 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).

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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Mai's first 16 lines:

The inner wall of the bus fought it out with Clara's shoulder, while Amit Chatterjee's corduroy voice scored the play. Her NYC-black medium Bic Round traced barbed-wire words on a lined sheet in a spiral-bound notebook with a blue cover, $1.29 from the bodega on the corner near the office. She was going home to two old dogs, and seven coconut shells cut in half. The dogs were brothers, fourteen years old. There were fourteen coconut half-shells. The dogs watched over her. The coconut shells held her paints. A soft cheek passed at eye-level, a half-pear of sueded skin in a luminous medium tobacco brown. A child. Her nerves danced with Rehman, to Pal Pal Hai Bhaari.

Urdumen stood over Clara. His breath soughed, with a soft hunger-like quality. If he could have gotten away with it, her hair would be wrapped around his fist and jerked hard, and his other hand would be on her waist. With her head pulled back like that, she'd be looking into his eyes, her face stiff with shock. His breath soughed again. He was still. He couldn't get away with it yet.

Clara stared through the spaces in the crowded bus to where the brilliant lights of a dark NYC night sparkled. Seen through the bus's glossy windows, the night was like a tunnel with lights as its signposts. The night-and-light tunnel went all the way to New Delhi, India, more than 7,000 miles away, a place she'd never been. Anu Malik sang to her, his voice like honeyed whisky.

Exotic qualities kept me reading

Despit personal/professional misgiving about hopping from one character's head and into another's, this narrative holds the promise of somewhere I've never been before, the lure of the unknown. And the writing is very good.

I prickled a little at the extreme detail about the pen and notebook, but it was well done, and could be a character of this protagonist. The focus on "seven" and multiples of it later seem to point to an obsessive quality that may be a factor later, so it was working as characterization.

I wished I'd seen a little of those barbed-wire words, just a little. Otherwise, this is simple telling in a place where showing me even a phrase from those words would have added interest and characterization.

Because I have no idea what her nerves were dancing to, "Rehman, to Pal Pal Hai Bhaari," I had no idea what was going on. I think some clue would be good. Is she listening to favorite Indian sound tracks/songs on an iPod? It would only take a few words to make this clear. If not, then please cut them because I think they're an interference, a speed bump, for readers not familiar with those names or titles, whatever they were.

The hop into Urdumen's head was something I'd never do, especially in the second paragraph of the opening, but it did raise story questions and add a lot of tension. I'd look for a different way to do this, but this worked better than most. If anything, I suggest separating the pov sections with three centered asterisks in the line breaks between paragraphs.

I'd work on the phrase that describes Urdumen's sigh -- "with a soft hunger-like quality." Since we're in his point of view, I don't think he'd characterize it that way. It would be possible to do this, I think, but from within him. For example:

His breath soughed, and wondered if the other passengers could hear his hunger in the sound.

Just a thought. The narrative continued to build an air of mystery and suspense, and Urdumen seems to be not human. Mai sent just 4 pages, and I would have read on. But, Mai, there were other missed opportunities for clarity that I'd attend to -- for example, when Clara falls, she thinks about suffering a "SLAM" injury. I suggest that you define that in context somehow. Otherwise, it's meaningless to the uninitiated (me) and might as well be deleted. The opening pages must be clear and easy to understand, even if it takes a few more words here and there. I'd also be careful about working too hard to find "different" ways to say things. For example, when Urdumen pushes her on the way out of the bus, you write:

Her exit was amplified by a push…

For me, "exit was amplified" veers into overwriting and telling. "A shove from behind" or something simple and clear will communicate the action you intend more pictorially and without slowing the reader.

Good work, though, especially if you can find some good fresh eyes to point out little soft spots such as these.

Comments, anyone?

For what it's worth,

Ray

Public floggings available. If I can post it here,

1. send 1st chapter or prologue as an attachment (cutting and pasting and reformatting from an email is a time-consuming pain) and I'll critique the first couple of pages.
2. Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
3. And, optionally, permission to use it as an example in a book if that's okay.

ARCHIVES .

© 2007 Ray Rhamey

Flogometer for Danielle: would you keep reading?

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, 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).

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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Danelle's first 16 lines:

It was the whisper that first caught my attention.

Soft and caressing, it captivated my senses as I followed its resonant tones through the dense mist, a lighthouse in the blindness of the world. At first only a ghost of a sound, as I came closer it grew more audible until finally I could make out a single word.

"Tia."

The voice was calling me.

But why?

The source of the whisper was close; that much I knew instinctively. Curiosity overcame me. I struggled to free myself from the restraining grip of the fog, but no matter how hard I fought I could hear the voice slipping away from me, growing ever more distant.

"Please! Come back!" I cried, frustrated tears streaming down my face. I tried to reach through the impenetrable haze, but my arms hung uselessly by my sides. I was trapped, and the whisper was evaporating in the mists of time. "Don't leave me!"

Laughter filled the air. It was a sound full of joy, such as a child makes before its innocence is taken away by the ravages of age. It was a sound of pure exhilaration, of sunshine and rainbows, of infinite promise for the future. I let its waves flow over me, and heard its echo in the stillness around me even as it faded away to nothing.

Didn't work for me
This got off to a good start with the whisper and something happening in a scene, but confusion started setting in with the second paragraph, and clarity -- crystal-clear clarity -- is one of my requirements for reading on.

First problem: a whisper with resonant tones. When I whisper, it's a breathy sound that, far from resonating, ends as soon as I stop. So that seemed impossible. And then it was resonating in a dense mist, which would muffle sounds.

I wasn't really happy with "captivated my senses," either. I'd have been fine with "captivated me," but her senses? Touch? Smell? Lack of clarity. But I read on.

And it was good that we got closer to the whisper, and that it called her name. Good raising of story questions: who's calling, and why to her? But then came the next paragraph:

The source of the whisper was close; that much I knew instinctively. Curiosity overcame me. I struggled to free myself from the restraining grip of the fog, but no matter how hard I fought I could hear the voice slipping away from me, growing ever more distant.

I've seen "instinctively" used this way before, and don't get it. What does instinct have to do with it? Her regular, conscious faculty of hearing tells her this. This narrative is starting to signal "overwriting" to me, another stopper. Then curiosity overcomes her. Then she struggles to overcome the grip of the fog, which is no longer a mist. Frankly, I think I'd be concerned, or scared, or terrified in this circumstance. So now the character's actions aren't totally credible to me. And suddenly the voice is slipping away, while just seconds before it was stationary and she was able to close on it.

Next paragraph:

"Please! Come back!" I cried, frustrated tears streaming down my face. I tried to reach through the impenetrable haze, but my arms hung uselessly by my sides. I was trapped, and the whisper was evaporating in the mists of time. "Don't leave me!"

Frustrated tears? I don't think so. Yeah, tears of frustration, but tears aren't, as far as I know, sentient. The mist/fog has become an impenetrable haze, the third label for this -- I suggest we just stick with fog. It's easiest to visualize, and mist/fog/haze are different things, with both mist and haze, in my experience, being much thinner than fog. Lack of clarity and consistency.

And the whisper evaporates in the mists of time. I didn't understand how we got from mist/fog/haze to the mists of time, which is a much different concept, to me. Lastly:

Laughter filled the air. It was a sound full of joy, such as a child makes before its innocence is taken away by the ravages of age. It was a sound of pure exhilaration, of sunshine and rainbows, of infinite promise for the future. I let its waves flow over me, and heard its echo in the stillness around me even as it faded away to nothing.

Laughter filling the air is a cliché, look for something fresher. The writer goes on to describe the laughter in many ways, which might have been okay later on, but I found it too dense and too difficult to parse for an opening page (just for me, perhaps, a subjective thing). I don't think I should have to be cogitating at this point, just experiencing.

Danielle has some nice writing, to be sure, but I think it needs discipline and tightening. I read on, of course, and discovered that this is a dream. That can be okay, but there was also a major shift in voice when the narrator was awakened -- we went from the mists of time and the sound of pure exhilaration to the natural-sounding voice of a teenage girl. For my money, I think her dream voice should be the same as her real voice.

I think there's an interesting story here, but we aren't starting close enough to the beginning of it. After the dream, the story lapses into exposition and character introduction in a scene that has a little tension between sisters, but it's affectionate squabbling and not compelling. Had I turned the page, in other words, I would have definitely stopped after a few more.

Dig a little, Danielle. Go to the moment something happens to Tia that breaks her out of her familiar world and propels her into the story. As I said, some nice writing here, so you can do it.

Comments, anyone?

For what it's worth,

Ray

Public floggings available. If I can post it here,

1. send 1st chapter or prologue as an attachment (cutting and pasting and reformatting from an email is a time-consuming pain) and I'll critique the first couple of pages.
2. Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
3. And, optionally, permission to use it as an example in a book if that's okay.

ARCHIVES .

© 2007 Ray Rhamey

Flogometer for AC: would you keep reading?

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, 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).

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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AC's first 16 lines:

The cruiser slid quietly through the bay in the moonlight, two of its three powerful diesel engines running almost at the idle, the third shut down. He maneuvered the boat deftly out of the main channel and into a sheltering cove formed by the surrounding marshes where he knew it would be hidden from land-based eyes and most bay traffic. A practiced maneuver, honed perfect by repetition. The ship's clock showed two-fifty-nine. He was punctual for a change, almost to the minute; as punctual this time as she was every time. Tonight the stakes were too high for him to be otherwise.

Disengaging the Voyager's gears, he pressed a switch on the pilot's console and the rasping hum of the anchor winch answered in response. A few moments later the winch went quiet telling him the anchor had touched bottom. He waited for the motion of the boat to set the anchor, then killed the engines. In the ensuing silence, he listened for the high whine of the outboard of her little skiff, but heard instead only the mild lapping of water against the Voyager's hull.

The night air was chill and he raised the hood of his lined anorak against it, smoothing down a shock of white hair as he pulled the hood up over his head. Taking a careful sip of the still steaming, over-brewed coffee just poured from the thermos, he again listened for the familiar whine, but again heard nothing but the soft lapping of water against the cruiser's hull.

Signals of overwriting ahead stopped this reader

After seeing 75 Flogometer entries, small shortcomings are looming larger in my initial assessment of a narrative's ability to compel in the sense that they are predictors of what's to come, either positive or negative.

Like agents, I've become ever quicker to judge a smaller sample because of this predictive pattern -- if a turn-off is there in the beginning, it will be all through the manuscript.

In this case, two things gave me pause. Even though the narrative does have a certain air of mystery, that air isn't very thick. Not enough happens to make me wonder what will happen next -- basically, a man parks his boat and manages to do it on time for an appointment. So where's the tension in that? The promise of conflict? Jeopardy?

The signals that say "Riveting story here!" aren't present, perhaps because the narrative is -- to my subjective eye -- overfull of detail and inconsequential exposition. I read ahead to see if things changed, but they didn't. The next segment spent three pages of exposition without tension to deliver lush descriptions of a character and his environment -- the curse of overwriting. Some notes:

The cruiser slid quietly through the bay in the moonlight, two of its three powerful diesel engines running almost at the idle, the third shut down. He maneuvered the boat deftly out of the main channel and into a sheltering cove formed by the surrounding marshes where he knew it would be hidden from land-based eyes and most bay traffic. A practiced maneuver, honed perfect by repetition. The ship's clock showed 2:59 two-fifty-nine. He was punctual for a change, almost to the minute; as punctual this on time as she was for every meetingtime. Tonight the stakes were too high for him to be lateotherwise. You'll note adverbs deleted. The repetition of the words "punctual" and "time" were bothersome, so I've provided alternatives. The last sentence does a good job of raising a story question -- but then softens the impact by using a vague "otherwise" instead of a specific "late." I don't usually mind sentence fragments (the maneuver) if they're effective, but this could have been part of the sentence preceding it. The lack of names in this page bothers me a little, too -- why is the author withholding them? Often the lack of a name signals a disposable character, one I don't really need to invest myself in. Is that the case here?

Disengaging the Voyager's gears, he lowered pressed a switch on the pilot's console and the rasping hum of the anchor winch answered in response. A few moments later the winch went quiet telling him the anchor had touched bottom. He waited for the motion of the boat to set it the anchor, then killed the engines. In the ensuing silence, he listened for the high whine of the outboard of her little skiff, but heard instead only the mild lapping of water against the Voyager's hull. All of that teensy detail of pressing a switch on the console and the hum of the winch, etc. is non-essential detail that weighs the narrative down. I understand that the author is working to give a sense of being there, but in this case I think less is a whole lot more.

The night air was chill and he raised the hood of his lined anorak against it., smoothing down a shock of white hair as he pulled the hood up over his head. Taking a careful sip of the still steaming, over-brewed coffee just poured from the thermos, hHe again listened for her skiff the familiar whine, but again heard nothing but the soft lapping of water against the cruiser's hull. Lots of trimming here. I trimmed out the point of view "violation" wherein we're in a close third person point of view and have a character thinking of the nature and color of his hair. All the detail about the coffee seems entirely unessential -- so what if it's "over-brewed?" Also, it's not kosher to skip action the way "just poured" tries to do. Show him pouring and sipping, don't mess with time and sequence in this way.

What did the overwriting cost this writer? Well, the chance to get something much more provocative on the first page. Much condensed and heavily edited, here's the next possible paragraph, one that could have been on the first page:

Fifteen minutes later -- she was never late -- he risked a call. No answer. Her cell phone went everywhere with her. Alarm made its way up his spine.

I think that if that had been on the first page, along with the streamlined action as edited above, I'd have turned the page and this writer would have had a further chance to draw me in.

I think AC has good writing skills, but needs to add a sharp eye for excess and an even sharper scalpel (like, the delete key) to trim it away.

Comments, anyone?

For what it's worth,

Ray

Public floggings available. If I can post it here,

1. send 1st chapter or prologue as an attachment (cutting and pasting and reformatting from an email is a time-consuming pain) and I'll critique the first couple of pages.
2. Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
3. And, optionally, permission to use it as an example in a book if that's okay.

ARCHIVES .

© 2007 Ray Rhamey

Flogometer for Laurie: would you keep reading?

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, 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).

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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This is for Laurie. Here are the first 16 lines:

Before I outed Tommy Kozlowski, our friendship was already worn to threads. I had known for years that he was two-faced -- not the nicest kid in the world, you could say -- but he was basically harmless. The all talk type. But harmless or not, we were running on fumes.

Tom was what you'd call a 'summer friend.' I've also heard 'fair weather friend,' and I think that sums it up. We were only friends when Tommy or I was really desperate for someone to hang out with. Before the accident, we had already outgrown each other, if not quite yet our supposedly juvenile mutual interests.

Last year, when he was in ninth grade and I was in eighth, we were in totally different schools. It was better that way; not seeing him ignoring me or snickering with the older kids when they made their lame little insults. And him not seeing me getting pissed off at him for being a jerk. But when September rolls around, we'll find ourselves in the same high school and it will be the same old crap from Tom. He hadn't matured very much in the last year, I would say.

We have some things in common, Tom and I. For example, neither of us is known for our stellar academic performance. He's a whole grade ahead of me -- more than a year older -- and yet he says things like "I seen" and "it don't matter," and I know for a fact that he never, ever picks up a book just for fun. That's another thing we have in common.

Despite the nice voice, I passed.

The first couple of paragraphs hint at interesting story questions, but then the narrator slips into exposition. I read on, of course, to see if there was more later to draw a reader in that could be moved up front, but we never got back to the original story questions. Instead, we got into the narrator's family history. So the opening page was a preview of what was to come, which wasn't story.

I did like the writing, and the voice of the narrator is natural and easy to "listen" to. If only he'd been telling me a story about something that happened instead of how he played Legos with Tom and has two older sisters.

That's one of the reasons I advocate opening with a scene. By definition, a scene must include something happening -- dialogue (hopefully), action, description. And conflict. This story teases about conflict, but then walks away from it into backstory that, while well written, falls short of compelling for me.

Déjà vu all over again

Exposure to many different openings by many different writers has to do with why I didn't turn this page -- you learn, after a while, that what's in those first 16 lines is a fair predictor of what's to come. In this case, I anticipated more exposition and backstory, and I got it. Unfortunately, that's no way to hook this particular reader.

Other issues: clarity was one. Because the writer's name sounds feminine to me (but isn't, I guess, necessarily so), I assumed that the narrator was a girl. I found out on page 3 that the narrator was a boy. And what's his name?

There was a touch of overwriting that slowed things down, as well:

Tom was what you'd call a 'summer friend.' I've also heard 'fair weather friend,' and I think that sums it up. We were only friends when Tommy or I was really desperate for someone to hang out with.

While a real person, while ruminating, might toy with various expressions of something such as "summer friend" and "fair-weather friend," I think it doesn't work well in narrative. More than that, applying labels to behavior is "telling." I'd delete those two sentences and go with what follows them, i.e.:

Tom and I were only friends when we were really desperate for someone to hang out with.

Laurie definitely shows writing talent, no doubt about that. But I feel s/he needs to get the story going. Laurie, take a quick look at the articles cited above -- Story as River and Kitty-cats in Action -- for more about what I'm trying to get at. Then find a place in your story -- for example, how about the scene in which Tommy is outed -- and get me involved with what's happening now, not what happened then.

Thanks for sending your work, and keep at it.

Comments, anyone?

For what it's worth,

Ray

Public floggings available. If I can post it here,

1. send 1st chapter or prologue as an attachment (cutting and pasting and reformatting from an email is a time-consuming pain) and I'll critique the first couple of pages.
2. Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
3. And, optionally, permission to use it as an example in a book if that's okay.

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© 2007 Ray Rhamey