I just returned home from an overnight stay in the hospital after having a pacemaker implanted in my body. I am now a bionic writer. I wonder if that will help.
My heart, which for eons has pumped along at a steady 60 beats per minute, decided to take its foot off the pedal and operate in the low--and inadequate--40s. I learned that people as young as five years old have been implanted with pacemakers, so I'm hardly unique. But it is disconcerting to have that most reliable of organs sneakily become less so. Technology, however, has provided what seems to be a good answer.
No post today because it's a little disorienting to be faced with "going under the knife," even for a low-risk, standard operating procedure (pun intended). Makes you think about things. What happens to your partner if it doesn't turn out all right? All the business stuff you have going? The blog?
I entered the procedure with a belief that it would be all right. Luckily, I wasn't a character in a novel subject to the whims of an author itching to make things go wrong. Still. Anxiety rode along with me. And then left to be replaced with happiness when I woke up alive this morning.
I'll be doing a post Monday on a helpful article I found about creating an "adversarial ally" to increase the tension in a story. This comes along at a very helpful time as I'm dipping a toe into writing my next novel, and this is an insight that I think will be mighty useful.
On Wednesday there will be a flogging--another smart writer has sent a first chapter for a critique. With luck, another writer will open themselves up to a fresh look and the insightful comments that you guys provide.
So I'm looking forward to next week.
And glad that I'm a position to make it next week, not this week.
Submissions sought. There’s naught in the queue. Get fresh eyes on your opening page. Submission directions below.
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—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.
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.
Deborah sends the first chapter of a YA novel, Vision. The rest of the submission follows the break.
A bead of sweat slithers down the back of my neck. I swipe at it, expecting a mosquito, but pull back a wet hand. “Why is it so hard to breathe?” I wonder, but my eyelids are too heavy. Just as my lashes dust my cheeks, my waist buzzes, jolting me awake. I kick off the quilt that’s suddenly suffocating me and make myself roll over. Two AM. Ugh, I’m too tired for this. I unclip the pump from my pajamas and look at the screen. Thirty-two. I press the graphing button. My blood sugar’s been falling for over an hour — why hadn’t I woken up sooner? I reach for the juice box on my night table. Empty. I fall back onto the bed and fight against my eyes — they want to close so badly. Nope, gotta get up. I strain to lift my leaden head from the pillow. Blood is pulsing at my temples and I feel the thud of each struggling heartbeat vibrating in my chest. The tip of my tongue is already tingling with a numbness that would slur my speech if there was anyone here to talk to.
I listen for footsteps running down the hall, but no one is coming. Right, I remember, I’d made my mom turn off the pump alerts on her phone last week on my birthday. It was my present to her, although she didn’t see it that way. She said she liked knowing that I was okay, and she wouldn’t be able to sleep without it. It was just like getting rid of the baby monitor, I’d argued. I was twelve now, it was time for me to take care of this on my own. She finally gave in. If I yelled for her now, that would all be erased.
Good writing and a likeable voice get this opening off to a good start. And there is tension here—an alarm has gone off and there’s a medical problem that seems like it could be serious. All of that is established in the first paragraph. Good story question raised—will she be okay? So far so good. It was enough to get me to turn the page—however, if you read the rest of the chapter, you’ll find that it’s a little bit of bait and switch; the story isn’t really about her dealing with her illness.
But, after a strong opening, we shift to backstory. If you must have it to establish the age of the character, cut it way back. For my money, it’s not needed and you should just stay in the moment. Figure out another way to slip the age in (if this is YA, it’s unusual to have a heroine that is just twelve years old.) There are some narrative issues I think should be addressed in that opening paragraph.
One more thing: the rest of the chapter moves completely away from this medical emergency into what seems to be a paranormal story. While the bridging tension of the insulin problem may get us there, it doesn’t seem to actually have anything to do with what happens in the story afterwards. Were it me, I’d look for a way to start as close to the intruder as possible. If you need a way to get the parents in the room, trim the opening paragraph a bunch, but let us know the danger, and have the pump send the alarm that brings the parents running with juice to handle it. Then immediately hear the intruder (on the first page) and take it from there. I’d get rid of the lightning and the storm because it would make it very difficult to hear creaking stairs, and just aren’t needed. Keep it simple. Notes:
A bead of sweat slithers down the back of my neck. I swipe at it, expecting a mosquito, but pull back a wet hand. “Why is it so hard to breathe?” I wonder, but my eyelids are too heavy. Just as my lashes dust my cheeks, my waist buzzes, jolting me awake. I kick off the quilt that’s suddenly suffocating me and make myself roll over. Two AM. Ugh, I’m too tired for this. I unclip the insulin pump from my pajamas and look at the screen. Thirty-two. Oh, no. I press the graphing button. My blood sugar’s been falling for over an hour — why hadn’t I woken up sooner? I reach for the juice box on my night table. Empty. I fall back onto the bed and fight against my eyes — they want to close so badly. Nope, gotta get up. I strain to lift my leaden head from the pillow. Blood is pulsingpulses at my temples and I feelwith the thud of each struggling heartbeat vibrating in my chest. The tip of my tongue is already tingling with a numbness that would slur my speech if there was anyone here to talk to. The first sentence lets us know that she knows it’s a bead of sweat, so why would she expect a mosquito? Didn’t make sense to me. I felt that having her eyelids “dust” her cheeks was a contradictory image after all the detail about sweat and wet; look for another verb. Let us know that the pump is an insulin pump so we have a better idea of what’s going on and the jeopardy associated with it. I added a reaction to the pump number to signal that it’s not a good thing and to increase the scene tension. The symptoms with her tongue and numbness are excellent details to heighten the tension and danger. Something is clearly wrong.
I listen for footsteps running down the hall, but no one is coming. Right, I remember, I’d made my mom turn off the pump alerts on her phone last week on my birthday. It was my present to her, although she didn’t see it that way. She said she liked knowing that I was okay, and she wouldn’t be able to sleep without it. It was just like getting rid of the baby monitor, I’d argued. I was twelve now, it was time for me to take care of this on my own. She finally gave in. If I yelled for her now, that would all be erased. Trim this way back so we can get on to her dealing with the problem, or change it to the parents running in.