Having no floggees in the queue, I thought to look this morning for another Bookbubber to flog. I found a candidate, but a line on the first page has sent me off into a rant. Besides, after some nice writing, the protagonist decided to go off into a memory-lane trip into his teenage backstory. Ho-hum.
The story opens with a man musing (be still my heart!) and then he says (actual dialogue removed to conceal the author):
“Yada, yada,” he said out loud, not realizing he had done so.
We’re supposedly in deep, close, limited third-person point of view. In that point of view, the only things that can be in the narrative is what the character can normally see, hear, taste, feel, think, do, or know.
A thing that a character CANNOT know is something that DOES NOT HAPPEN. In this POV, the narrative is supposed to be delivering the experience of the character. How about you? Have you ever experienced something that didn't happen, that did not exist? Of course not. Nor should nothing be included in the experience of the character.
In this case, and in many cases I’ve edited, the narrative tells us of something that does not happen. He does not realize something.
So why the *$@! is it there? It has NO impact on the story or characterization. A waste of words.
Here’s another example from the chapter on POV from Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. This, too, is from a published novel.
Smith felt his head go light. Unaware of the action, he moved his free hand over his heart and clutched at his breast.
For my money, any limited point of view means writing ONLY about what the character perceives, does, feels, says, etc. If he or she doesn’t perceive it, it doesn’t belong in that portion of the narrative. If this character is unaware of what the hand is doing, it should not be included. More than that, does the lack of awareness affect the story? In this story, absolutely not.
What would work in this case? It’s simple:
Smith felt his head go light, and he clutched at his heart.
Just something to be aware of and watch out for in your stories.
Hey, want a fresh eye for your story’s opening? Send it here for a critique.
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—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.
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.
Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. 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.
Download a free PDF copy here.
Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.
A First-page Checklist
- It begins to engage the reader with the character
- Something is wrong/goes wrong or challenges the character
- The character desires something.
- The character takes action. Can be internal or external action: thoughts, deeds, emotions. This does NOT include musing about whatever.
- There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
- It happens in the NOW of the story.
- Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
- Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
- The one thing it must do: raise a story question.
Caveat: a first page can succeed without including all of these possibilities. They are simply tools you can use. In particular, a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and a create page turn without doing all of the above. On the other hand, testing pages with the checklist no matter where they are in a story can help identify where a narrative lags and why it does.
Ray
© 2016 Ray Rhamey