by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell
Here’s a first page for critique. The title is Savage Gunman. Genre: Western. Have a look:
Matt Benson, a lefty, hit the massive Mexican, Juan Cortez, in the jaw with a hard right jab. Cortez’s eyelids fluttered and he took a few long steps backward on the hay-covered floor.
The crowd in the packed back room of the saloon roared. A drunken cowboy hollered above the rabble: “That was a lucky shot, hombre. You still got this.”
Benson crouched as soon as Cortez sprang back, charging at him. Whiffs of air swept by his ears as he imagined Cortez swinging high above his head in vain. He gripped his opponent’s tree-trunk thighs in a bear hug and used his body weight to shake the fighter until he tumbled onto his back. The thump was like an old oak thundering down from the final swing of a sharp axe.
“Get up, you bastard,” Milligan, the saloon owner shouted. “I got a fortune on you. Now ain’t the time to lose.”
Benson stood in a dizzy haze. It had been the longest fight of his life, and Cortez had worked him over pretty good for what had to have been at least a half hour at this point. His eyes couldn’t focus properly, but he took in the blurry crowd and wondered how much money in total they’d bet against him. He was half Cortez’s size and, once the men stripped shirts to fight, clearly had none of the etched muscles of the younger Mexican farmer. Years of hard work and probably even more fighting had carved those from stone.
Cortez bent his knees to arch his legs. He shifted his arms about the straw stained with blood and mud and lord knows what else. But he showed no signs of rising.
“Call it,” Benson said. “He’s knocked out. I won.”
A bald man in the crowd put spectacles on his face and hustled into the improvised ring. Down on one knee, he pinched Cortez’s cheeks and checked the eyes and face.
“His legs are up,” Milligan said. “He’s awake. Get on up now, son.”
Benson found his shirt on the ground, pulled it over his head, and started to button it.
“Not so fast,” Milligan said. “The doc hasn’t called the fight. Well, Doc?”
The bespectacled doctor stood. “He’s not out cold. He’ll be alright.”
“I’m no doctor,” Milligan continued, “but it sounds like the Mex can go another round. Hold your bets, gentleman!”
Another roar erupted.
***
JSB: There is much to like about this page. It opens with action. There’s no backstory dump to slow us down. (One bit is nicely woven in by inference: …the longest fight of his life.) The opening follows one of my axioms: Act first, explain later. It closes with the fight still in doubt, so I definitely want to turn the page to find out what happens.
Thus, my critique today is about one simple thing: cutting what Sol Stein called “flab.” Watch how a few simple cuts gives greater momentum to the scene.
Matt Benson, a lefty, hit the massive Mexican, Juan Cortez, in the jaw with a hard right jab. Cortez’s eyelids fluttered. and h He took a few long steps backward on the hay-covered floor.
The first tip here, especially for a genre like Western (or hardboiled), is that shorter sentences pack a greater punch. This goes double for a fight scene.
Now, it may be important that we find out Benson is a lefty, and I presume the author mentions it because his jab is with the right. But how essential is it to know that from the jump? Act first, explain later.
Further, that info takes us out of a close 3d Person POV (Benson wouldn’t be thinking about being a lefty. He already knows that) into Omniscient. Please note, there’s nothing “wrong” with opening in an Omniscient POV and then “dropping down” into 3d Person. It’s just that it seems more popular today to get in close and stay there.
I should also point out that a jab, hard as one may be, usually doesn’t back an opponent up a few, long steps. True, this could be a defensive maneuver by Cortez, but the way it’s presented feels like cause-effect.
The crowd in the packed back room of the saloon roared. A drunken cowboy hollered above the rabble. “That was a lucky shot, hombre. You still got this.”
I like this. The words roared, hollered, rabble are vivid. I cut the colon because I don’t like ’em in fiction. It’s not needed here where a simple period will do. A comma is also acceptable. (Just don’t get me started on semicolons!)
Benson crouched as soon as Cortez sprang back, charging at him.
Here’s a little thing, but crucial. This violates the stimulus-response equation. (See my post on the subject here.) We have Benson crouching before we know Cortez is charging. Simple to fix. Just put the stimulus up front:
Cortez sprang back, charged at Benson.
Benson crouched.
Notice I changed charging to charged. Be very careful about violating the laws of physics by putting in simultaneous actions that don’t go together in real time. Springing back up is one action; charging ahead is another. (Yeah, I see the semicolon. Very helpful in nonfiction.) This is a common mistake and one you should train yourself to spot.
The above also offers another tip about short sentences in an action sequence: you can occasionally make separate paragraphs out of them. That conveys fast motion.
Whiffs of air swept by his ears as he imagined Cortez swinging high above his head in vain.
I’m having a little trouble picturing this. If whiffs of air are by his ears, plural, that implies at least two missed punches. I can’t see one missed punch followed by another, especially “high” above Benson’s head. And I don’t get the whiffs being by the ears unless Cortez is punching up and not over Benson’s head. Fight scenes like this can benefit by the author walking through the action physically.
I’m also not sure Benson, in the moment, would be imagining anything. Further, we don’t need to be told the punches were “in vain.”
So my advice is to rework this sentence with stimulus-response in the right spots. E.g.,
Cortez threw a right at Benson’s head. Benson ducked. A whiff of air swept the back of his neck.
Next:
He gripped his opponent’s tree-trunk thighs in a bear hug and used his body weight to shake the fighter until he tumbled onto his back.
Every style needs variety, a changeup from time to time. So a compound sentence every now and again is a good thing. The only thing I’d say here is that the he is ambiguous. It could refer to either fighter, so just change it to until Cortez tumbled onto his back.
The thump was like an old oak thundering down from the final swing of a sharp axe.
I’d like to see a little more work on this simile. I get what you’re going for. It just seems a bit cumbersome to get there (e.g., do we really need to be told the axe is sharp)? With metaphors and similes, it’s important to tweak them to get them “right.” So play around with this one. Maybe try some alternatives for the same effect. What else thumps?
“Get up, you bastard,” Milligan, the saloon owner shouted. “I got a fortune on you. Now ain’t the time to lose.”
I’m not against exclamation points in dialogue. So if this is the guy shouting, make it “Get up, you bastard!” Milligan, the saloon owner, shouted. “I got a fortune on you Now ain’t the time to lose!” [Note the grammatically required comma after owner. Also note that technically shouted is redundant in light of the exclamation point, thus said is fine. But I’m not going to call a foul.]
Benson stood in a dizzy haze. It had been the longest fight of his life, and. Cortez had worked him over pretty good for what had to have been at least a half hour. at this point. His eyes couldn’t focus. properly, but He took in the blurry crowd and wondered how much money in total they’d bet against him. He was half Cortez’s size and, once the men stripped shirts to fight, clearly had none of the etched muscles of the younger Mexican farmer. Years of hard work and probably even more fighting had carved those from stone.
I took out the last line because carved from stone is a bit of a cliché. And Benson, in the condition described, wouldn’t be wistfully pondering how Cortez got his abs.
Cortez bent his knees to arch arched his legs.
Choose one or the other. The latter is more specific.
He shifted his arms about on the straw stained with blood and mud and lord knows what else blood-and-mud soaked straw. But he showed no signs of rising.
We’re in Benson’s POV, so lord knows what is a bit much. And also the wrong tense. Plus, it takes away from the image of blood and mud, which is vivid enough.
“Call it,” Benson said. “He’s knocked out. I won.”
A bald man in the crowd put spectacles on his face and hustled into the improvised ring. Down on one knee, he pinched Cortez’s cheeks and checked the eyes and face.
“His legs are up,” Milligan said. “He’s awake. Get on up now, son.”
Benson found his shirt on the ground, pulled it over his head, and started to button it.
“Not so fast,” Milligan said. “The doc hasn’t called the fight. Well, Doc?”
The bespectacled doctor stood. “He’s not out cold. He’ll be alright.”
“I’m no doctor,” Milligan continued said, “but it sounds like the Mex can go another round. Hold your bets, gentleman gentlemen!”
This section is fine. Continued isn’t quite right, because Milligan addressed the Doc, and now the crowd. Again, no foul, but once again said does its job and gets out of the way.
Another roar erupted. The crowd roared.
A change from passive to active tense here.
So, author, I hope you take all this not as picking nits, but showing the value of small cuts at the sentence level. I hope it will help make your story a knockout.
Comments welcome.
Jim,
Thank you for these profound and practical insights to show us how writing less has far greater impact for our storytelling.
Terry
author of Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success (Revised Edition) [Follow the Link for a FREE copy]
Superb advice, Jim.
The thump was like an old oak thundering down from the final swing of a sharp axe.
If you didn’t want to fight with this simile, you could use an onomatopoeia word.
Thud.
Thanks for submitting, brave author. Mr. Bell mentioned a lot of good points. A few things from me:
I was totally thrown out of the story by the phrase “Whiffs of air swept by his ears”. Trying to picture that visually didn’t work for me and the sentence further goes on to say “as he imagined Cortez swinging”. In the middle of a fight, how is he going to have time to visualize some imaginary swings? Things are happening too quickly for his mind to be taking such trips.
My other points of feedback, take with a grain of salt because I love westerns, yet I realize that what I look for in a western isn’t necessarily what others are looking for. To that end, I ask “What about this first page clues me in that this is a western?” If I’m in a bookstore picking this book up off the shelf, I’ll have the advantage of a quick look at the book cover, which will decide if I pick it up or not. But I didn’t really see anything that set the tone and feel of a western. But of course this is further complicated by the fact that widely, the western genre could be modern or historical. Even so, I didn’t get a strong sense of intended genre–perhaps I was supposed to imply it by the use of the word “cowboy” or a hay-covered fighting floor (but I’d argue there might still be places like that in an economically struggling area).
My honest reaction when I started reading was, “Yeah yeah. Some dudes fighting. Whatever.” But when the first page began to engage me was when the doctor, whom you typically expect to be trustworthy, says “He’s not out cold. He’ll be alright.” Here it becomes clear that some people are trying to fix the fight in Cortez’ favor (i.e. giving him what appeared to be extra time to get up off the floor.). THAT was when I decided I would flip the page to see what happened next & why they’ve got it in for Benson.
So with Mr. Bell’s suggested edits, you can cut the unnecessary stuff and bring the interesting fact of the fight—that the people around Benson seem to be trying to stack the odds against him–to light more quickly on the page.
Thanks for submitting!
Great critique, Jim. The only thing I would add is about the simile, “The thump was like an old oak thundering down from the final swing of a sharp axe.” The old oak isn’t going to “thunder” until it hits the ground.
Terrific advice, Jim. Getting stimulus-response right and being careful to sequence actions when they are not simultaneous are so important–that was something I needed to learn, and still need to be mindful of.
Thank you, Brave author, for sharing this compelling opening with us.
Thank you, BA, for sharing your work. I would definitely turn the page. Incorporating Jim’s great suggestions would make this even more compelling than it already is.
Brave Author, a compelling start and Jim’s incisive critique makes it even better. Out of order cause and effect confused me several times but those are easy fixes. Nice work and best of luck.
I’d buy de book.
A good start, Brave Author, and the ‘out’ promises more conflict. Mr. Bell has done his usual thorough job of showing exactly where to improve the story: It’s an action scene and calls for sparse prose, minimal detail, no wondering, no imagining, no similes, just broad-brush action description. Not much remains to be said, but consider:
Matt Benson’s jab to Juan Cortez’s jaw sent the massive farmer back-pedaling across the straw-covered floor, blinking. (hay is animal feed)
“You still got this” tells me this is modern. If it’s not, the title is confusing, since in old West parlance, “savage” more often means “Indian” than vicious. “Gunman” could be old or modern, but is better than “gunsel.”
Why not simply Benson found his shirt and started to put it on?
“I’m no doctor” can be deleted. The speaker probably doesn’t really want to remind people that what he’s saying is not backed up with expertise. And I still prefer “all right” to “alright.”