Welcome to this week’s first page critique – today we have the first page of a historical mystery/thriller entitled ‘Strangled by a Cloud’. As always, my comments follow.
Strangled by a Cloud
My part in the Tenant’s Harbor affair began on the last day of January in 1878. That morning I was at my usual station: peddling hand-penned calling cards in the lobby of one of Boston’s many hotels; this time it was Young’s, in the financial district. A dozen cards for a Harvard toff had already bought me a hearty breakfast; a dozen more – perhaps with some flourish – for a Court Street banker would carry me through the rest of the day.
As the clock and the thermometer waned and the clouds began to spit sleet, my mood soured: I take days like this personally, as have the thousands with my surname since the days of Noah. To lighten my mood, I left the outer crust of the lobby and strode towards the warmth of the core – the front desk – where I was greeted with the welcome smile of my friend, Adam.
“Cold is it, Mr. Merryweather?” he asked
“As colde as eny froste,” I replied, in an ersatz Middle English tongue.
“Ah, Chaucer – very good, very good,” he said (Adam was also the hotel’s unofficial man of letters and always appreciated a well-placed quote from the Tales).
I pulled the hotel register at his hands my way. Now and then I made a sport of guessing at the age, nationality, personality, or occupation of guests based on their handwriting. I traced my finger down the list of guests until I reached the name “Charles Goodword.”
“Now here’s a bad character, Adam,” I began. “I’m guessing a gambler by profession, maybe something worse…he’s about forty years old, broad-shouldered, perhaps five feet ten or eleven…stout…and mean. You’ll want to be rid of him, and soon.”
“Mr. Merryweather, it’s remarkable!” Adam said, truly surprised. “As to age and height and build, you are quite correct, sir, quite correct. But as to his character, you are very mistaken: he’s a clergyman, you know – here to preach for several weeks – the Benevolent Society for something-or-t’other is paying his board.”
“A clergyman, is he?” I asked, adding, “Well, he’s a thief to boot. Humor me and send for him,” I said, handing him one of my cards.
Adam obliged and sent a valet to call on Mr. Goodword. The valet returned swiftly, confirming that he had successfully delivered the card and invitation, with my compliments.
“You think he’ll come?” I asked Adam. He nodded in assent. “We shall see,” I said, shaking my head. “We shall see.”
Overall Comments:
Overall this first page was cleanly executed with an initial voice and style emerging that I think is pretty engaging. It appears to be emulating a Sherlock Holmes detachment and narration which I think could work well. What it initially lacks, however, is a bit of ‘oomph’ to set our story in motion and build intrigue. It also teeters, I think, in terms of credibility (see my specific comments below), but overall with some editing this first page could be an effective one.
Here are my specific comments:
Credibility
I think in this first page we need more background regarding the main character, Mr. Merryweather, as I’m initially skeptical that a man who makes his living penning calling cards in hotel lobbies would be educated enough to quote Chaucer and have even peudo-expertise in handwriting analysis. I’m also a little doubtful that a front desk clerk would be even an unofficial ‘man of letters’ without a bit more background. I’d be more willing to believe all of this if we got a sense that either Merryweather is an educated man that has fallen on hard times or that he is deliberately masquerading as someone he isn’t. Likewise I need a little more to buy into the fact that Merryweather has uncanny, Holmesian powers of deduction based on viewing Mr. Goodword’s handwriting.
Oomph
I wanted a little more intrigue from this first page when it came to the set up re: Mr. Goodword. I was expecting the valet to discover his dead body! The pay off on the initial page wasn’t really there and I was also skeptical as to why a clergyman would be interested in meeting a man who penned calling cards (or why the main character thought if he sent the valet up with his card the clergyman would respond – to be honest I’m not sure I even believe a man who makes his living hand to mouth by making calling cards would present his own card to anyone). I feel that on this initial page, more intrigue would set the story on a stronger footing and would entice readers to keep turning the page.
Minor editorial issues
There were a few moments where I was taken out of the story. The first was when the main character said ‘I take days like this personally, as have the thousands with my surname since the days of Noah’. I didn’t feel this reference worked, mainly because the name ‘Merryweather’ doesn’t exactly sound like a surname from biblical times. Perhaps a middle ages reference would be more appropriate but at the moment it sounds awkward. Likewise the reference to the ‘outer crust’ of the lobby sounds strange – even though I understand what the writer was trying to get at and how the main character moved to the ‘core’ of the lobby – It didn’t work for me in the context of this story. In addition, the clock and thermometer ‘waned’ didn’t seem quite the right expression either – as the clock ‘waning’ would surely mean going backwards if the numbers got smaller (?).
I also found it odd that Mr Merryweather would call Adam by his first name but Adam didn’t reciprocate, but called him the more formal ‘Mr Merryweather’ in return. I’m assuming they are on the same social level and know each other well enough (as Merryweather calls him a friend) so the formality of Adam’s response doesn’t seem to ring true.
Also when Adam says: ‘ But as to his character, you are very mistaken’, I feel that this should be either ‘very much mistaken’ or just ‘mistaken’ (‘very mistaken’ sounds weird to me).
So TKZers, what comments do you have for our brave submitter today?
I enjoyed the playful banter between Mr. Merryweather and Adam. Very curious to meet this Charles Goodword character through the eyes of Mr Merryweather. It appears to be a series novel with Mr. Merryweather as the protagonist or at least the start of a series? At any rate, I am not here to critique, but as as a reader, I was engaged and would buy this book. Well done to the author!
I enjoyed that too – I think with a few tweaks this could be an an engaging series.
I don’t read a lot of historicals, but I do appreciate the writer’s voice here. It feels authentic and true to the times. I dislike historicals that are so slavish to dialects that they are near-unreadable. So when I read something like this that captures the spirit of the era, I have to applaud. Clare makes some good points about credibility and the fact that we don’t really have a moment of disturbance yet, or even a hint of it. If the write can find a way to dribble in some intrigue, we have lift-off!
But like Phil above, I enjoyed reading this.
I agree – very close to lift off here:)
I find the idea of a handwriting expert quite engaging. Merryweather does come off as very pompous for a guy selling handwritten cards, and, like Clare, I found it odd that he treated Adam like a subordinate. Sherlock Holmes gets to come off as obnoxious because he’s a brilliant detective. And was he really in a foul mood? He actually comes off as quite jolly.
I’d like to see this story begin a bit further in, rather than at Merryweather commenting on a random signature. I want him active and alert for Charles Goodward in the first paragraph, if not actually already intrigued by him. The slow lead-in feels authentic, but in imitation of stories written in the period. By starting with action, and an image of Merryweather as already on the case, the telling of the story becomes modern and compelling.
I dislike the word gravitas, but I think Merryweather needs more of it to be a character worthy of solving a long series of crimes. I think the writer has a rough diamond in Merryweather, and with some polishing he could be a formidable series character!
There is a lot of telling – for example, Adam showed us by his words that he is familiar with Chaucer. Then you tell us that he is familiar with Chaucer.
Merryweather tells us he likes to analyze handwriting and then he shows us by analyzing the handwriting. I think we could get by with just having Merryweather show us.
Adam expresses surprise in his dialogue, then you tell us that he was surprised.
Repeating things takes up a lot of room on the page. Trust your readers to get it the first time. That will leave more room for something exciting/intriguing to happen on page one.
I enjoyed this. I got the feeling a great many of the questions brought up about page one might be answered by page four.
I found it interesting that most folks cited the improbability of Merryweather’s feats, along with the lack of intrigue, as what was missing. I found the improbability of his feat as the very source of the intrigue, and was curious to know more. Bottom line… first 400 word critiques are a crapshoot, at best. Unless they’re very bad, you can’t tell what you’re signing up for that soon.
I’m coming a bit late into this – I just got the notice for this post in my e-mail this morning. I agree with Edward Giambalvo – I find the improbability of his feat intriguing. In fact, I think that Clare stumbled upon it with, “…or that he is deliberately masquerading as someone he isn’t”.
My thought, reading this, is that Mr. Merryweather is NOT a man of low station, or of formerly high station falling on hard times, but that he’s something of a rogue himself. I think he happens to know exactly who Charles Goodword is. And I have a deep suspicion that neither Merryweather nor Goodword are the names these men were born with.
Unlike most folks here, I don’t read a lot of mysteries, but I’d definitely keep reading this one. The only technical problem I had with it were the words in the parentheses. Parentheses usually take a reader out of a story (I personally don’t think they have a place anywhere in fiction, though in comments they are fair game 🙂 ). I think you could do away with them completely. If it’s important to say he’s a ‘man of letters’, you could bring it up in conversation, if you want. Or place it outside of parentheses, even like ‘Adam, the hotel’s unofficial man of letters, said’… or something.