First Page Critique: DISSONANT CHORDS

By Joe Moore

Looks like I’m first up with our first-page critiquing fun. Before I take on today’s submission, I wanted to pass on some good news for e-book publishing and local bookstores. A recent Authors Guild bulletin stated that Random House, the largest trade book publisher in the U.S., announced last week that it is adopting the agency model for selling e-books. For readers and authors concerned about a diverse literary marketplace, this is welcome news, a chance for online bookselling to avoid the winner-take-all trap. Random House’s move gives brick-and-mortar bookstores, many of which are now selling e-books but cannot afford to lose money on those sales, a fighting chance in the new print + digital landscape. To read the entire bulletin, click here.

And now for today’s first page.

Dissonant Chords

Professor Bridget Sutton heard the screams.

Light seeped in beneath the door, a faint glow visible in fragments between the huddled bodies around her. Parts of her bare legs were numb where the marble floor wicked away her body heat. Her open toed shoes offered no protection from the unheated air, as pins formed in her feet. She needed a bathroom. She wanted to stretch. She would shift her weight, remove the shelf knifing her back, but the trembling girl latched around her neck prevented her from moving.

The girl gasped for air, breaking the silence.

“Shh, shh, shhhhh,” she pressed her lips into sweaty hair, taking in the smell of unwashed scalp. Hot breathe buffeted her chest. When the trembling intensified, and it seemed the girl was going to jump out of her skin and run through the door, she pressed her cheek against the girls head and held her tight, overpowering the kicking and clawing. When it was over, the girl put her head back under Bridget’s chin, and her body went limp. Bridget worried that others would panic from the darkness, lose it from being restricted, feeling like easy targets and attempt freedom, and try their luck on the run. Afraid to speak, to betray their location, she kept her reassurances to herself, running down a mental list of why they were safer locked behind a door in a storage closet down a side hall at the back of the admissions office. The fact that only one guard was on duty, unarmed, left her discouraged.

Sand scraped her skin, adding to the discomfort she felt everywhere else. Even in the dark, she was aware that her skirt was off center, riding higher that was comfortable. Pulled to one side and unbuttoned by the outburst, her blouse stuck to her skin, the silk soaked through by the girls steady leaking. She adjusted nothing, even as her bladder succumbed to the pressure, her pain threshold breached, nothing any amount of kegels could have prepared her for. The relief was temporary. The disgust lingered.

One of the things we preach here at TKZ is the importance of conflict—drop us into the conflict right off the bat, whether it’s physical or mental, or both, and make us keep turning the pages to find out how it resolves. This sample contains plenty of conflict. A woman is hiding inside a dark storage room with what I think is a group of kids. There is obvious danger on the other side of the door and little protection from that danger. The discomfort for the woman and the kids is extreme. The child she is holding in her arms is either reacting violently to the danger or experiences some sort of seizure. There seems to be nothing good going on here, and the situation calls for the woman to give in to her lack of access to a bathroom. The last two sentences sum up the situation well.

Overall, I found the sample intriguing but a bit over-written. Since I don’t know what type of danger the woman and the others face, maybe it’s appropriate. But there is a great deal of mixed visuals coming at me here, some of which are strong on their own but as a whole, seem to work against each other. But again, I don’t know the whole picture.

For instance, I get the impression that she is in the storeroom with children and yet we are in an admissions office with a professor. So are these college students or kids?

The woman smells sweaty hair and an unwashed scalp. I think that should be the other way around—hair doesn’t sweat, scalps do. Most people wash their hair, not their scalps. Does that mean that the girl is dirty and unkempt? That’s another reason I’m picturing children, not college students.

I’m not sure what “as pins formed in her feet” means.

Why is sand scraping her skin? Is there sand scattered across the cold marble floor?

The woman’s blouse became unbuttoned by the outburst. Could that be said better, such as the blouse was yanked open rather than the slower, more calculated action of unbuttoning?

Word choice is vital.

I’m sure that all my questions would be addressed if I had the opportunity to read the next few pages. And I’d definitely keep reading if I had the chance. All the elements of tension, suspense, conflict, danger and mystery are present. I think this first page reads like a first draft with great potential but in need of a rewrite. I don’t think it’s ready to be submitted to an agent or editor yet, but it’s a good start. What do you think? Would you keep reading?

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THE PHOENIX APOSTLES, coming June 8, 2011.
(The Phoenix Apostles has) “so many twists and turns that you won’t have time to catch your breath!" — Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author of ICE COLD

14 thoughts on “First Page Critique: DISSONANT CHORDS

  1. I agree with everything Joe said–I like the tension, the sense of danger, the inherent conflict. But I agree that it is a tad overwritten. Also, in the section that follows the dialogue,

    “Shh, shh, shhhhh,” she pressed her lips into sweaty hair,

    the object of the pronoun she is unclear. I know it refers to Bridget, but because it directly follows “The girl gasped for air, breaking the silence”, on first reading I thought that she referred to the girl. So I was confused until I reread it.

    But I would also keep reading! Sounds like an interesting story. You have to wonder why people are being terrorized in an admissions office. I know I was when I was applying to colleges 🙂

  2. Of course I agree with Joe. There was so much detail that it was a bit overwhelming, almost numbing. I fought to focus – a bit too deep. However, I really felt pulled in and felt her discomfort, and I definitely wanted to read more to find out what is going on.

  3. Pretty good opening, Joe, IMO. I agree with you, though, that there’s a little too much going on, and with a lack of exposition, this leaves the reader somewhat confused. I’d keep reading, though.

    And “breath” is misspelled (no “e” on the end).

  4. I agree that it is a tad overwritten. To me, that really came from the verb choice, e.g. “hot breathe BUFFETED her chest” and “The disgust LINGERED.” The verbs really make it seem like the writer is trying too hard to sound clever.

    In the first case, maybe use “blanketing,” turn it into a gerund phrase, and then add it to the first sentence of that paragraph instead. “Shh, shh, shhhhh,” Bridget said, pressing her lips into unwashed hair, taking in the smell of sweaty scalp, hot breathe blanketing her chest in waves.”

    In the second case, I think “permanent” would have really strengthened the entire passage. “The relief was temporary. The disgust permanent.”
    Good, sharp contrast for the reader.

    Overall though, I enjoyed it.

  5. As Joe says, word choices are very important. I got hung up on wicked away her body heat. That’s a rare usage of “wick” which I had to look up. I kept thinking it was a misuse of the normal word “wicked” (which wouldn’t make sense) or a typo.

    It’s a fine line. We want to put in fresh word choices sometimes, but we also don’t want to pot hole the readers. Stephen King once said any word you have to find in a thesaurus is the wrong word. I’d err on the side of readability.

  6. I agree with everything that’s been said so far- this is an intriguing opening, but it needs a bit more polishing.
    I would add in that ending the first page with the character soiling herself was off-putting, at least for me. Remember that agents and publishers are looking for a reason to reject a manuscript based on this page. The terror in the room was already well conveyed-I don’t think the loss of bladder control added anything, and it might just provide a reason to set it aside. I’d recommend omitting it.

  7. I have to vote nay on the looking-up-words-in-the-thesaurus thing. I love finding fresh words while reading. I usually make notes about them. One of the greatest things about my Kindle is that it pops up the definitions of words when you put the cursor on it. But there is a fine line between fresh and tortured.

  8. Kathryn, your opinion is polysemous, perhaps even tenebrous, but I shall give you the benefit of the Interregnum and aver your sapience on the remonstrance.

  9. I think the author made good use of sensory detail. The scene has a feeling of immediacy, but the whole thing felt a bit heavy.

    The weight of too much description may have slowed it down, but I’m of the Hemingway school so I may not be the best advisor on this.

  10. I agree that perhaps paring down some of the description would help clarify some of the sensory confusion but I also agree there is great potential here. The claustrophobia, panic and tension are riveting and I would definitely want to read more.

  11. Pare down the descriptive thickness, but overall I thought it was very good. I would definitely keep reading. And “wicked” didn’t stop me. I think an editor would clip on it a bit, but I’m not going to nit pick. Shows considerable ability.

  12. Polysemous sapience? Beautiful women cachinating?

    Pornography! Naked people remonstrating their badinage!

    oh the imagery! I have to scrub my eyes with listerine…

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