By Elaine Viets

Another brave Anonymous Author would like us to evaluate this first page. Read it first, and then my comments. I’m looking forward to seeing yours. Here’s the offering:

JOLTED
From the window of the school bus, Hannah spotted her dad’s new black truck above the hay fields. A dry, cold Wednesday afternoon, the farm’s normal colors were today blanketed in shades of gray. The roof of the familiar BMW parked outside the horse barn seemed to glisten redder than usual.

Close to four o’clock—feeding time. Hannah skipped the steps and jumped from the bus before the creaky doors had fully opened, figuring that her impatient pony was already running circles in his stall, anticipating her kisses and treats, the appetizers to his half-quart dinner of grain. But hearing the rickety doors of the bus squeal again behind her, she quickly doubled back to get her books, which the driver was tossing onto the mud-stained snow.

Hannah sloshed her way up the icy drive and entered the barn through the tack room door, her wet-soled boots squeaking on the dry clay floor. She dropped the books on the nearest tack trunk and ran into the aisle past the horseback riding is a dangerous sport—ride at your own risk sign on the wall. When she got to Sparky’s stall, she threw open the door and wrapped her arms around his chunky neck, covering his muzzle and cheeks with damp kisses. The pony licked her from chin to forehead, the girl giggling as she wiped at her sticky face with her hands. “Yuck!” she said. “Pear juice!” A perfumed smell of ripe apples and riper pears drifted into her nostrils from next door, where the kindly owner of the BMW was slicing the fruit for a painfully thin mare.

“Hi, Mrs. Fields,” Hannah said, smiling. “Sparky says thanks!”

The pony nickered as though on cue. “You’re welcome, Sparky,” Mrs. Fields said, funneling a chunk of apple to the fat pony through the stall bars as the mare pressed against her and buried her wet nose in the grocery bag of fruit. “So, what do you think, Hannah? Does my girl look like she’s picked up any weight?”

Hannah held on to the stall bars, careful to keep her sleeves from riding up, and stood on tiptoes as she stared at the mare’s ribs, which were pushing up and out through the soft chestnut-colored hairs. “Yes, I think so,” she said, too afraid of her dad to tell Mrs. Fields why the mare had suddenly gotten so thin.

ELAINE VIETS COMMENTARY

The first paragraph is hardest part of any novel. Once you get that out of the way, you can introduce us to your characters and start your story. This first paragraph is confusing. It’s supposed to be an establishing shot, but we can’t figure out what we’re looking at. .
This Anonymous Novelist did an excellent job of creating young Hannah, eager to jump off the school bus to see her fat little pony. There’s a good sense of foreboding at the end of the section, when Hannah is “too afraid of her dad to tell Mrs. Fields why the mare had suddenly gotten so thin.”
But we’re missing opportunities to use that fear.

Consider the opening:
From the window of the school bus, Hannah spotted her dad’s new black truck above the hay fields. Fear gripped her heart. That meant her father was drinking and angry – and looking for trouble.
Give us some kind of reason who her father’s truck is in those hayfields.
And tell us where we are. So far, this farm is floating out in space: We don’t know if it’s in Kansas or Connecticut.
And why is her father’s truck “above the hay fields”? Is this hilly country, or are we seeing his truck from a distance?

The author sets the mood well: A dry, cold Wednesday afternoon, the farm’s normal colors were today blanketed in shades of gray.
(That’s a nice touch and the author could keep that mood going. Instead, the author introduces another vehicle.)
The roof of the familiar BMW parked outside the horse barn seemed to glisten redder than usual.

It’s obviously a bright spot in this bleak landscape, but tell us why. Who is the mysterious Mrs. Fields: Does she board her horse at the stables? Is she a riding instructor?
Give us more details about Hannah. She needs a first and a last name. How old is she? What color is her hair? These details can be supplied in a few words without slowing the pace of your opening. Here’s what I mean: 

JOLTED
From the window of Hannah’s (give her last name) school bus, she could see the normal (bright?) colors of her family’s farm (Is this correct?) were blanketed in shades of gray. She spotted her father’s new black truck above the hay fields. (Why is this truck important? How does make Hannah feel? Anxious, alarmed? afraid?)
The roof of Mrs. Fields’ (use her name here) familiar BMW parked outside the horse barn seemed to glisten redder than usual. (Who is Mrs. Fields? Why is she and her car a bright spot?) 

Close to four o’clock—feeding time for the horses. (You can give us Hannah’s age here) Twelve-year-old Hannah skipped the steps, and jumped from the bus before the creaky doors had fully opened, figuring that Sparky, (use the pony’s name here) her impatient pony, was already running circles in his stall, anticipating her kisses and treats, the appetizers to his half-quart dinner of grain.
But hearing the rickety doors of the bus squeal again behind her, she quickly doubled back to get her books, which the driver was tossing onto the mud-stained snow.

(This seems unusually mean. Was the driver cranky? Was there a grudge against Hannah’s family? Let us know. Or remove and relocate for later.
And the doors are confusing. Why do they “creak” open and then later “squeal again behind her” It sounds like the doors were closed before she could get her books.)

Hannah sloshed her way up the icy drive and entered the barn through the tack room door, her wet-soled boots squeaking on the dry clay floor. She dropped the books on the nearest tack trunk and ran into the aisle past the HORSEBACK RIDING IS A DANGEROUS SPORT—RIDE AT YOUR OWN RISK sign on the wall. (The sign adds a nice touch of menace.)

When she got to Sparky’s stall, she threw open the door and wrapped her arms around his chunky neck, covering his muzzle and cheeks with damp kisses. The pony licked her from chin to forehead, the girl giggling as she wiped at her sticky face with her hands. “Yuck!” she said. “Pear juice!”
A perfumed smell of ripe apples and riper pears drifted into her nostrils from next door, where the kindly owner of the BMW was slicing the fruit for a painfully thin mare. (Good details about the smell of the fruit.)

“Hi, Mrs. Fields,” Hannah said, smiling. “Sparky says thanks!”

The pony nickered as though on cue. “You’re welcome, Sparky,” Mrs. Fields said, funneling a chunk of apple to the fat pony through the stall bars as the mare pressed against her and buried her wet nose in the grocery bag of fruit. “So, what do you think, Hannah? Does my girl look like she’s picked up any weight?”

Hannah held onto (one word) the stall bars, careful to keep her sleeves from riding up, and stood on tiptoes as she stared at the mare’s ribs, which were pushing up and out through the soft chestnut-colored hairs. “Yes, I think so,” she said, too afraid of her dad to tell Mrs. Fields why the mare had suddenly gotten so thin.

 This last line is a critical detail. Build on it before you get here. I can’t wait to read the rest of this book. Good luck, Anonymous Novelist – Elaine Viets

By Elaine Viets

English is a constantly changing language, which is its delight and its difficulty. Old words are constantly being refurbished and given new uses.
One is troll, a word once associated mostly with fairy tales, as in “The evil troll lived under the bridge.”
Thanks to the internet and computers, troll has a whole new usage. As a noun, the Urban Dictionary says a troll is: “One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument.”
As a verb, to troll means to fool someone. Sasha Baron Cohen is the current Troller in Chief. He pranked sheriff Joe Arpaio into saying he’d have oral sex with Donald Trump.

Unpacked is another refurbished word. Unpack used to be something you did with a suitcase. Now it means to analyze. How many times have you heard a radio host on NPR say,
“There’s a lot to unpack here in this story on . . . ”
What refurbished words are you seeing, TKZers?

By Elaine Viets

I can’t read my novels when they’re hot off the presses. That’s when I see the parts that sag and the phrases I wish were more graceful.
But when I finally read Shop till You Drop, the first Dead-End Job mystery I wrote in 2003, it almost seemed like it had been written by someone else.

I had to reread all my Dead-End Job mysteries. I have four mystery series: the Dead-End Job series is a collection of funny mysteries set in South Florida. There’s the cozy Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper mysteries. Plus the Francesca Vierling newspaper mysteries. Right now, my current series is the forensic mysteries with death investigator, Angela Richman.
I am “backlist rich,” as my agent, Joshua Bilmes says. Joshua is president of the JABberwocky Literary Agency in New York, and he wanted to re-release my backlist. JABberwocky represents award-winning authors including Charlaine Harris, Brandon Sanderson, Toni Kelner and Tanya Huff, and has made books available from two dozen of the agency’s clients within its e-book program.
Done right, re-releases are expensive: re-releasing my 23 books in the Dead-End Job and Josie Marcus mystery shopper series can cost a solid five figures, and JABberwocky fronted the money. The novels will get new covers and fresh cover copy. We started with the first 13 Dead-End Job mysteries. Jenn Reese at Tiger Bright Studios designed clean, bright covers with a different symbol and color for each novel.
Meanwhile, I had to read all 13 Dead-End Job mysteries, and correct the small errors that happen when the files are converted to book format, plus the occasional typo. I was blessed with good copyeditors for this series, but one was crazy for semicolons. I have a deep, abiding hatred for semicolons in novels. They should be banished to term papers. I rewrote to get rid of the pests.
I recommend rereading your own work. I shouldn’t have waited 15 years. Reading your work will teach you a lot about your writing. Here’s what I learned:

(1) I needed a bible. Not the Good Book, but a list of every character and place I used in the series. I never expected this series to last for so many books. How long did Helen’s deadbeat husband live off her without getting a job? In some books, it was five years. In others, it was seven. I settled on a biblical seven years. And Helen’s age ranged from 41 to 42. She became 42 forever. Even if you have a two-book series, start a bible.
TKZ writer Kristy Montee, one half of PJ Parrish, says she has a high-tech method: She keeps a handwritten notebook. “We started it with the first book. It’s a dossier with a page(s) for every character we have ever created. To be honest, it’s easier to use than a computer file.
“On Louis’s page, for example, we have such strange facts as:
“Foster father was wounded in left leg in Korea.
“Joined Ann Arbor PD Jan. 1981
“His badge number in Loon Lake was #127
“Got college girlfriend pregnant in Feb. 1980.
“Takes 3 sugars in black coffee.
“Refurbished his vintage Mustang in the book Paint It Black.
“We do this for every character. It’s saved us MUCHO grief.”
This is what I should have done.

(2) I was overly fond of certain phrases. Never mind which ones – they’re gone.

(3) I insulted an ethnic group. I described a Caucasian woman who’d had too many eye jobs as having “Chinese eyes.” More than one reader said that was insulting to Asians. They were right. Never mind that I didn’t mean to insult anyone. That phrase is gone.

(4) The novels I thought were the best turned out not to be. I didn’t rewrite them – they got good reviews. But I learned another lesson: don’t overload the first few chapters with too much information.

(5) Some lines made me laugh. In Clubbed to Death, Helen’s co-worker says this about their hated boss: “Her heart is as hard as her fake boobs.”
When Helen meets her future husband in Dying to Call You, she notices, “His nose was slightly crooked. Helen liked that quality in a man.”
The novels were wistful at times. In Murder with Reservations, Helen wonders, “How come when you finally got what you wanted, it wasn’t what you needed?”
After reading all the novels, I liked them. They’re mysteries with a sharp look at Florida life.
But from now on, I need to woman up, and get booking. I’m taking my own sharp look at my writing.

Thirteen Dead-End Job mysteries are being re-released as e-books by JABberwocky Literary Agency. Buy the whole set or treat yourself to the books you missed. Prices start at $2.99 and go up. Check them out here. http://awfulagent.com/ebooks/elaine-viets

Critiqued by Elaine Viets

Another intriguing offering from an Anonymous Author. This one seems to be science fiction. Read it first, and then I’ll add my comments.

**********************************************************************************
He had no memory from before waking up inside the tank. A bespectacled face peered at him through the water, which flashed red at set intervals. A worried smile played across her features as the water flushed from the tank. With a soft hiss the glass panel in front of him slid open and he fell forwards into her arms. He shivered against the cold air as she helped him further out of the tank. She inhaled, the sound sharp in his ear.
“It feels so good to hold you. I know you don’t know who I am,” she placed her hand on his shoulder as she pulled back. “I’m your mother, in a manner of speaking.”
Her hand felt cold and trembled as it grazed his naked skin. The red lights were still flashing and he noticed the sound of an alarm now, like a deep throbbing pulse to accompany the light.
She pointed down the hallway behind her, “You have to go now son, quick, I’ll try to give you time.”
He opened his mouth as if to speak but she shook her head, then she cocked it sideways and ran her hand through his hair and peered into his eyes. “Blinking seems OK, you understand what I’m saying . . . The memory engrams were integrated then,” she muttered under her breath. Then she pecked him on the cheek. “Go now,” she whispered in his ear.
He nodded and ran in the direction she pointed. The alarm shifted in pitch. He could hear voices, loud and sharp. Were they coming for him?
“Go!” his mother repeated.
He ran and stopped as soon as he heard several loud bangs behind him. A woman screamed and then fell silent. Was it his mother?
His heart pounding in his ears, he ran faster. Pushing through a door, he felt snow crunch underneath his bare feet. His shivering became more intense as his teeth began to chatter. Small branches hit him as he crashed through the bare trees, but he kept going, not knowing where. With no light to guide him this far from the building he let his eyes adjust to the night. The moon slid in and out of view behind clouds above, providing scant illumination to guide him. A gust of biting wind blew across his skin and he stifled a sharp cry.
Something roared in the distance below him and he came to a sudden halt as the ground dropped away in front of him.
**********************************************************************************
Wow! I’m impressed. This grabbed me from the first sentence. The unusual opening, creepy setting, and plenty of action kept me reading to the last line. Now I wonder what’s going to happen to our “newborn” man.

Sure, I can nitpick this offering.
In this sentence, I’d take out the word further: He shivered against the cold air as she helped him further out of the tank.

And the punctuation for the dialogue is odd. In this sentence I’d put a period after “who I am” and make the next part a separate sentence. “It feels so good to hold you. I know you don’t know who I am,” she placed her hand on his shoulder as she pulled back,” so it looks like this: I know you don’t know who I am.” She placed her hand on his shoulder as she pulled back.

I’d make some of the dialogue into separate sentences instead of running them together: “You have to go now son, quick, I’ll try to give you time” would become: “You have to go now, son. Quick! I’ll try to give you time.”

But these are minor quibbles. Sometimes, the art of editing is knowing when to leave something alone. You have a terrific piece of writing here, AA. You say that “Squenced Humanity” is a working title. Give it a better title, and you’ll have a winner.
**************************************************************************
Win my 10th Dead-End Job mystery, Pumped for Murder, in hardcover. Click Contests at www.elaineviets.com.

By Elaine Viets

Another courageous writer has volunteered a First Page Critique, Legacy in Blood. This first page gets off to a such a rip-roaring start, I think the submission only needs light jiggering. Read Legacy in Blood. My comments follow it.

Legacy in Blood

The first time I met Shauna Kelly, she’d come to my rescue and over the years since, that never changed. That time my cantankerous temper and heaping passel of pride teamed up to push me over a line I shouldn’t have crossed.

The whole second grade class of boys surrounded me in the playground with nary a teacher in sight. Not even my colory imagination could conjure me walking away without my ration of lumps. Fat Eddie Langtree had stolen his last lunch from a scrawny kid who looked like he could use the meal and I’d had enough of his bullying.

I lowered my chin and raised my fists as the jackass wall closed in tight. When someone moved to my right, I turned to take a swing, but Shauna Kelly shoved through the line of idiots and stood by me—the prettiest girl in school.

‘You don’t need to do this,’ I’d told her.

‘Shut up.’ Pretty Shauna had her game face on. ‘You’re not the only one who hates bullies.’

It should’ve been ‘game on,’ but something hit me hard—a thing that came from inside me. No one had ever taken my side before. I knew about standalone fights. I’d grown up in the ‘throw away kid’ system and never knew my mother or father. I was on my fourth foster home and I had more in my future. When Shauna stood by my side, the adrenaline came in a rush and I felt the warm sting of tears. No way would I cry in front of Fat Eddie.

For the first time, someone had fought…for me.

I lost a tooth that day and Shauna scored her first black eye. ‘No one wins in a fight like that,’ she told me, but I had to disagree. I’d found my first real friend and I had Fat Eddie and a peanut butter sandwich to thank for that.

That memory of Shauna made my heart ache even more as I wandered through Lafayette Cemetery in the dark. Lost, I’d come to find her again—like a dog missing the only human I ever loved. A rumbling thunder cloud started to cry and I welcomed its fury and its tears. I knelt by Shauna’s headstone and touched her name with my fingers and let my tears fall. As the menacing storm closed in, I drowned in the flood of lifetime memories of me and my best friend.

Not a day has gone by that I haven’t missed her. Now I had to have her back—in the only way I could. I had to find her killer.
______________________________________________________________________

Anonymous Author sets an intriguing scene: Two second-grade classmates fight a schoolyard bully and become lifelong friends. As an added twist, one fighter is a girl, and we learn at the end of the first page that she’s dead. Bravo! I’m hooked.
A few tweaks would improve this already good submission.

(1) Is the narrator a man?

I assume he is, but let us know. Introduce him. Give us his name. You can do that early in the selection. Here’s an example, but I’m sure you can find a better way:

No one had ever taken my side before. Me, Billy Smith. I knew about standalone fights. I’d grown up in the ‘throw away kid’ system and never knew my mother or father.

(2) Put this first page in simple past tense:

The first time I met Shauna Kelly, she came to my rescue and over the years since, that has never changed.

(3) Consider making that first line into two sentences. Then simplify the second sentence to “over the years” or something similar:

The first time I met Shauna Kelly, she came to my rescue. Over the years, that has never changed.

(4) Where are we? Please tell us.
Where is this happening? What country or region? What year is it?
I assume this scene is set in recent times because the narrator talks about “growing up in the ‘throw away kid’ system” and “never knew my mother or father.”

(5) If the selection is set in modern times, why use the archaic language?
Why does the narrator use such 19th century terms like “heaping passel of pride,” “nary a teacher in sight,” and “not even my colory imagination could conjure me”? Is this scene set in an isolated community and that’s how people still talk in that part of the world?

(6) Are you British, AA?
The quote style seems to be British English, which uses single quotes around dialogue and other terms. If you’re not, switch to US punctuation.

(7) Fix a confusing phrase in the last line.
The section ends dramatically: The narrator is lost, alone, crying over Shauna’s grave in a cemetery.
He vows to avenge Shauna’s death, but the phrase “have her back” is confusing. At first, I thought you meant “have her back” as in “have her back alive.” On second reading, I realized you meant “protect her” or “save her memory.” You might want to recast that phrase:
Not a day has gone by that I haven’t missed her. Now I had to have her back—in the only way I could. I had to find her killer.

That’s it. Congratulations on an inventive, well-written work. I look forward to seeing this published.