By PJ Parrish

This is my last post of the year before we take our annual holiday break. That means I have an excuse to post a picture of my dogs. Merry Christmas from Phoebe and Archie! Woof.

It also means I have the pleasure of reading my final First Page Critique of 2020, and offering it up to the TKZ hive for comments. It’s a medical thriller, and we’re off to the jungles of Jakarta. The plane is on the runway. Catch you on the return trip, crime dogs.

The Lazarus Outbreak

Republic of Nanga Selak, 650km Northwest of Jakarta

The scientists were late for their pickup.

Danni Lachlan swore and checked her watch again. She paced back and forth while staying in the shadow cast by her Cessna. The nose of the twin-engine plane pointed resolutely down the ribbon of dirt that barely qualified as a takeoff and landing strip.

Palm-leafed trees and vines dotted with colorful orchids still clung to the edges of the recently cleared space. Smells of rotting vegetation and jungle flowers hung in the air. The odd mix of scents reminded Lachlan of a perfumed burial shroud.

A shiver ran down her spine at the thought.

“Never should’ve taken this damn job,” she muttered under her breath.

She dug into a pocket before coming up with a cigarette and a lighter. She took a moment to light up before drawing breath and exhaling a cloud of smoke. The nicotine habit and the bush pilot company were all her ex-husband had left her. She’d made the best of both to keep sane and put food on the table.

Lachlan’s head jerked up as she heard a cry.

It could’ve been a human cry, but the jungle had a hundred ways of distorting sound. Her pulse started to pound as something made a loud rustle.

Suddenly, three people in silvery protective clothing tore free of the underbrush. The name CLARK had been stenciled in black across the chest of one, WIJAYA on another. The silver-suited one in the middle hung limply in the arms of the other two. The name HAYES was barely visible as the other two dragged their companion along.

A demented howl erupted from the tree line. Then a flicker of movement came from the bushes nearby. Clark and Wijaya traded a glance.

They dropped Hayes in the dirt and ran towards the plane.

“What is it?” Lachlan shouted. “What’s going on?”

The two scientists tore off their respirator masks and tossed them away as they ran. Wijaya’s coppery face stared blankly in fear. Clark’s was a mirror image in pale white.

“Start the plane!” Clark cried. “Get us out of here!”

Lachlan stared a moment longer.

Hayes’ body lay face down. It began to quiver. Arms and legs drummed mindlessly against the moist earth.

More flickers of moment in the underbrush. The sounds of something tearing its way through the underbrush. That finally broke Lachlan’s horrified stare and got her moving.

_________________

Let’s start with what works. We’re at a good dramatic moment, which is often a great entry point for a story. (Caveat: You needn’t always start with something this “action” oriented. A dramatic movement can be more subtle). The writer chose a good moment, just before the proverbial $%&^ hits the propellers.

I like how we get just the barest snippet of backstory — that she’s got a bad marriage behind her that makes her a bit bitter. I don’t mind that at all…it intrigues me, character-wise. Notice that the writer did not feel compelled to belabor Danni’s past or state of mind. Get the plot moving first! You can always layer in her past in “quiet” moments later.

A note: The writer could have opened right with the sound of the men breaking through the brush dragging their comrade toward the plane. That’s certainly more action-y. But I like the fact we get to “meet” the heroine first, as she waits for the rendezvous.

I like the location. Never been to Jakarta (closest I got to a jungle was my backyard in South Florida). The atmosphere and sense of isolation is nicely rendered. Good uses of senses beyond sight. Smell is oft-neglected in description. Wondering how the air feels, though. Like standing in a sauna, I would guess. Maybe she’s feel the press of her sweat-damp shirt? Brush away a wet strand of hair? The writer makes a point of saying Danni is pacing in the “shadow of her Cessna.” Good detail but it can be sharper by making the point that it’s the only shade from the searing sun?

Description is important, especially if you’re using a foreign locale. Don’t let any chance slip by to make us feel we are there. Description, used well, can enhance the sense of peril, fear, anticipation (whatever mood you’re going for).  But keep it razor-sharp, never over-wrought or too long in the early pages.

The writer is in firm grasp of basic craft, like dialogue, action choreography. We can tell pretty much what is happening here, so kudos there.

Something that confuses me. Danni is waiting for a team of scientists, as stated in the first sentence. Is she part of the team? Is she merely a pilot and thus doesn’t know them? Might want to drop in a clarifying hint. (See comments below about increasing tension)

About that first sentence. The writer sets it off all by itself in its own graph. When you do that, you’re telling the reader it is extra important. Yet the sentence itself is sort of flat and matter-of-fact. Like: “Well, damn, they’re late, so here I am again just cooling my heels.”  It lacks enough drama to set up what happens next. Especially since you make a big point of Danni’s impatience. Why is she pacing? Does she know there is danger in getting this team out? The word “pick up” is just sort of blah as well. Because we don’t know Danni’s exact role here, we can’t get the full effect of the urgency you’re trying to create with this scene.

I don’t know what might work better (ideas welcome!), but I think, given the excitement of this opening scene, you can come up with a better first line.

Let’s do a quick line edit so I can bring up some other points. My comments in red.

The Lazarus Outbreak The title works fine for a medical thriller. Even if you don’t know your Bible, that Lazarus rose from the dead, it’s interesting. I just hope the use of the biblical reference ties into the plot. Like, if you’re infected, you die then are reborn ie zombies? 

Republic of Nanga Selak, 650km Northwest of Jakarta I’m not a big fan of location tags but this one is okay because the action comes on so quickly, the writer doesn’t have an easy way to tell us where we are. 

The scientists were late for their pickup. As I said in comments, this is too blah for this good of a scene. You’d be better off just cutting it and opening with the second graph and finding a way to slip in the “scientists” info. Maybe something like:

Danni Lachlan swore and checked her watch again. She paced back and forth, careful to stay in the shadow of her Cessna, the only relief from the blazing sun. She looked down the ribbon of dirt in front of the plane, wondering again if there was enough room to take off. The landing had been hard enough. 

She came out of the shade and brought up a hand to shield her eyes as she peered into the dense jungle just ten yards away.

Where the hell were they? They knew they had only a half-hour window to get out of here.

A sharp crack made her spin to the other side of the brush.

Two men in silver hazmat suits stumbled into the open, dragging a man between them. 

Danni Lachlan swore and checked her watch again. She paced, back and forth while staying in the shadow cast by of her Cessna. The nose of the twin-engine plane pointed resolutely means admirably purposeful; too human for a machine and clutters things up. down the ribbon of dirt that barely qualified as a takeoff and landing strip. Do more with this image; ie she had barely made the landing…

Palm-leafed trees and vines dotted with colorful orchids still clung to the edges of the recently cleared space. This implies knowledge on her part, so she has been here before? Or is she a team member? Clarify if you use it. ALSO: how far away is the brush from the plane? We need to know to understand the action when the scientists come running out. Smells of rotting vegetation and jungle flowers hung in the air. The odd mix of scents reminded Lachlan of a burial shroud. Again, I love that you use smells here, but can you make this sing more, be specific? The still heavy air smelled of rotting vegetation and jasmine. (I checked; it’s common in Jakarta). The mixture reminded Lachlan of a burial shroud.  I don’t think this works. It sounds like YOU the WRITER describing something, not your character. Would this woman think in those images? Not unless it is in her specific sensory bank of memories. ALWAYS KEEP COMPARISONS, METAPHORS, SIMILES specific to your character’s experience. It feels more real and it helps you establish character traits. I can’t say what smell in her memory comes to her; that is for you to decide, but it has to connect to HER. 

A shiver ran down her spine a cliche at the thought. BUT…if that awful smell you describe above made her shiver then that means it RESONATES with something in her past. What in her memory made her shiver at that smell? It wasn’t a burial shroud, as they aren’t common anymore. 

“Never should’ve taken this damn job,” she muttered under her breath. I like this line here. 

She dug into a pocket for before coming up with a cigarette and a lighter. She lit up and pulled in a quick deep breath. took a moment to light up before drawing breath and exhaling a cloud of smoke.  Don’t waste words on routine actions. The nicotine habit and the bush pilot company were all her ex-husband had left her. Good! She’d made the best of both to keep sane and put food on the table.

Lachlan’s head jerked up as she heard a cry. The cry comes first, then her reaction. 

It could’ve been a human cry, but the jungle had a hundred ways of distorting sound. Her pulse started to pound as something made a loud rustle. Again, action causes her reaction. Also gives you a way to get rid of the clumsy “as.” You overuse the “as” construction. 

Suddenly, three people in silvery protective clothing I think she’d recognize hazmat suits and you have to put the fact they are wearing masks HERE not later because that is what she would notice first. And a note about breathing masks: They are in a jungle, it’s as hot as hell and these guys are in MASKS? What might she think? Use this moment to increase tension. SOMETHING ISN’T RIGHT HERE. EXPLOIT THAT. tore free of the underbrush. The name CLARK had been stenciled in black across the chest of one, WIJAYA on another. The silver-suited one in the middle hung limply in the arms of the other two. The name HAYES was barely visible as the other two dragged their companion along. This is important: When choreographing action, you must keep the order of the character’s recognition logical. What would Danni notice first? Names? Nope. She’d notice the men struggling to drag the third guy. If they are dragging a man, who’s apparently dying, they’d be crouched over; impossible to see their names. Plus, is it important to name them right now? Does she know them? If not, why bother? 

A demented howl Not sure demented works here. It means angry or crazyerupted from the tree line. Then a flicker of movement came from the bushes nearby. Refract this through her POV somehow. Danni saw the fronds on the low palms behind the three men moving.

Clark and Wijaya traded a glance. Too casual sounding. Stay in action phrasing.

The two men heard it, too. They looked back at the jungle then at each other. They dropped the third man and ran toward the plane. 

They dropped Hayes in the dirt and ran towards the plane.

“What is it?” Lachlan shouted. “What’s going on?”

This stretch of action implies they have a lot space to cover, yet you said the “runway” was a narrow ribbon carved from the jungle. Clarify this. The two scientists men tore off their respirator masks and tossed them away as they ran. Wijaya’s coppery face stared blankly in fear. Clark’s was a mirror image in pale white. This could use some work. Coppery face? Is he foreign? And he’s running for his life so I don’t think he’d have a blank stare. At this point the name CLARK on his suit might register in her consciousness but ONLY at this late point. Which might be where you to drop in the plot point that she’s ferrying out scientists. Waiting to tell the reader until now that they are scientists is a way to increase intrigue…dole out your plot one bread crumb at a time. Sometimes you want to hold facts back to make more impact later. It all about layering…

His dark face was contorted with fear. She saw the name CLARK stenciled across the front of his suit. Clark…Duane Clark, one of the three scientists she had been hired to fly out here.

“Start the plane!” Clark cried. “Get us out of here!”

Lachlan stared a moment longer. At what? Where is the second man? Again, keep her impressions of the action in a logical order. They dropped the third guy so she can’t possibly see his name. Something simple like:

The second man stumbled to the Cessna, but Lachlan’s eyes were locked on the man they had abandoned. He lay twenty feet away, face down in the dirt. His body was quivering, arms and legs drumming in the red dirt. 

Hayes’ body lay face down. It began to quiver. Arms and legs drummed mindlessly against the moist earth.

More flickers of moment in the underbrush. The sounds of something tearing its way through the underbrush. That finally broke Lachlan’s horrified stare and got her moving. I think we’ve got too many “flickers” in the brush. Maybe save the howl for here so you get a fresh punch. And make it really awful. Then don’t TELL me she gets moving. SHOW me her moving. 

Danni jerked open the door of the Cessna. Clark half-carried the second men the final yard to the plane and together they pushed him inside. Jumping into the pilot seat, she pushed the throttle in and hit the master switch. The Cessna roared to life, drowning out the sound of…WHATEVER THAT AWFUL HOWL WAS.  

So, this is what I would call a good first draft. Nice action, an exotic location, an interesting protag. (assuming Danni is such) and lots of juicy unanswered questions. Don’t be discouraged by my bleeding red all over your pages, dear writer. As I said, this is good stuff and we all find ways to improve as we go through various rewrites. Mine is just one opinion.

Thank you, anon writer, for letting us share your work. I know how hard this is, to put your baby out there for scrutiny. I’ve had some tough editors over the years, and it took me a while to realize they were tough because they wanted me to succeed. We’re here for you.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, all, and may the next year be…well, let’s just say brighter, healthier and a helluva lot more huggable.

It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.” — Ernest Hemingway

By PJ Parrish

If you want to do it right, you need a good sharp knife.

I never believed this until recently. For decades, I struggled along with cheap knives picked up at yard sales or the sale rack at Target. Useless, these dull tools all eventually found their way to a sad dark drawer of my kitchen, leaving me dependent on one little plastic job and an old serrated steak knife to do everything I needed, from slicing a tomato to carving a turkey. (See actual evidence below).

Which leads me to my friend Peter. He was a terrific cook and believed in good knives. He had a set of Wüsthof knives, which I came to learn was the ne plus ultra of knives. He kept them whetted and ready. When he would come to my place for dinner, he would scoff at my pitiful duo. “You can’t be a serious cook without good knives,” he said.

Peter left me his knives when he died last spring. They came to me in a box, gleaming and razor sharp. They frightened me. I was sure I’d slice an artery if I tried to use them.

Well, I didn’t. I came to appreciate the way the paring knife could effortlessly slice a cuke paper-thin. I loved the way the 8-inch utility knife churned through an onion. Carving a roast with the 10-inch chef’s knife was an epiphany. The right tools have made me a better cook.

Life is like this. Sometimes, you’re tempted to make do with the inferior, to take the easy route, to tackle a task with less-than. You folks out there who do carpentry or gardening know what I mean. You buy shoddy tools, you get shoddy results. Or you have to work twice as hard. Or you slice off a finger.

You can probably tell by now that this is a metaphor. As in life, a writer can’t get the job done without acquiring the right tools. You have to learn the craft. And here’s something you’re not going to like to hear: What tool you seem to lack, that’s the one you need the most.

Where do you find the right tools? Well, there are a million how-to books out there in the ether. Not all are good. Most are dull, and many are useless and should be stuck in a kitchen drawer. So let me suggest you start with The Kill Zone archives. Our contributors are laser-focused on practical craft advice, and a couple of us have written some pretty good how-to books. See that search box at the right top of this page? Type in what you need and you’ll find the tools.

Don’t be afraid to face your weakness. Find the right knife for the job you need done.

Are you bad at plotting? Does your story have a thicket of sub-plots obscuring the true story? Does your plot lack dramatic arcs (“What’s an arc?”) Does your middle act sag? Well, type “plot structure” in the search box.  Great tips galore. Start with this one from James Bell, which is a basic lesson in why plot and character go hand in hand. Trouble coming up with a great ending? Debbie has it down. Type in sub-plots, or three-act structure, layering scenes or chapter transitions and you’ll find more knives.

Are your characters lacking? Are they stereotyped, unbelievable, wooden or one-dimensional? Every great story begins and ends with great characters. If this is your weakness, find the tools to help.  Start with this post from Jordan. Need to learn about motivation? Type in “man in the mirror” or “What does your character want?”

Does description leave you cold? We can’t all be Elmore Leonard. Most of us need at least a little descriptions to make our readers care. I love description so whenever my sister and I got to this, she’d shovel the football to me. Or she’d send me back a chapter she had worked on with big read capitals saying: INSERT DESCRIPTION OF MANSION HERE. I finally forced her to do it herself so she could learn. And she did. Start with this post for some great tips.

Stymied about your setting? You can’t tell a story without creating a world. Setting is, to my mind, one of the most neglected aspects of craft that I see in our First Page Critique submissions. If you struggle with this, check out Terry’s guide here. Or read Jordan’s inspiring take.

Is your dialogue tone-deaf? Dialogue is action. Dialogue is sleight of ear. Dialogue is hard to get right. It might be the hardest writing craft to master. Here’s a terrific primer to get you started. What point of view works best for your story? Let John Gilstrap clarify things here. Should you use a dialect? Read this first.  Does your dialogue sound fake? Try this knife. 

One last piece of advice. Knives get dull. Even the really good German ones. You have to get them professionally sharpened, at least every couple months. I go to Precision Sharpening & Key Shop where Jeff (that’s him and Bird at left) keeps me sharp.  Not sure where the metaphor is here, other than to say that even old dogs like me — even the most experienced writers, and especially the well-published — need to keep their craft honed.  Or they lose their edge. And as anyone can tell you, when you lose your edge, you lose your readers.  And now, I am off to pick up my knives from Jeff. Stay sharp, my friends.

This post is dedicated to my friend Peter, who loved food, knives and the Redskins. He is wearing a Dolphins shirt because he lost a bet.

“The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering. It cheapens and degrades the human experience, when it should inspire and elevate.” — Tom Waits

By PJ Parrish

To be, or not to be? Nah, that’s too mundane for a novel. Even though it did work for Dr. Seuss. How about “exist?” That’s a nice variation. On second thought, it sounds too Descartes-desperate for a thriller. Sigh. Well, that leaves me with…”I live.” Good grief, as I live and breathe, why is it so hard to find the right verb?

You’d think this would be easy. Pick a noun, pick a verb. Repeat until you’ve written oh, about 300 pages that might resemble a novel.

But it’s not easy. Verbs are the lifeblood of what we do. The good ones juice up our writing and help readers connect with our plots and characters.

Here’s something I’ve found: Inexperienced writers tend to be content with the first verb that pops into their head. Heck, experienced writers, in the blind heat of the first draft, do this. (my go-to crutch verb is “turned.”) Often, when you’ve latched onto a dull verb, your subconscious writer mind knows it and desperately tacks on an adverb. “He said” becomes “he said sagaciously.” Lipstick on a verb-pig.

I’ve been thinking a lot about verbs this week. Partly, because I have been trying to brush up on my French via Babbel online courses. My brain aches because of this. Verbs are  important to the French and they take their conjugations very seriously. One slip of the reflexive and you’re in deep merde. (More on that later).

But verbs are on my mind also because a friend, novelist Jim Fusilli, posted on Facebook a terrific article by music producer Tony Conniff called “In Praise of Bob Dylan’s Narrative Strategies…and His Verbs.”

Now, I am not a huge Dylan fan, but I do appreciate that he is a poet. (officially). And as I read Conniff’s analysis of the song “Tangled Up In Blue,” I understood how powerful the right verb in the right place can be. Take a look at just one verse of the song:

She was married when they first met
Soon to be divorced
He helped her out of a jam,
I  guess, but he used a little too much force

They drove that car as far as they could
Abandoned it out West
Split up on a dark sad night
Both agreeing it was best

She turned around to look at him
As he was walkin’ away
She said this can’t be the end
“We’ll meet again someday on the avenue”

Tangled up in blue.

Conniff says that most of the story is conveyed in vivid verbs — the action, drama, conflict and emotion. “The verbs tell the story,” he writes, “the story of how being with this other woman, probably for a one-night stand, led his thoughts back to the one he couldn’t forget or let go. Every verse, every chapter of the story, leads back to the same woman and the same impossible emotional place—Tangled Up In Blue.”

For my part, I love the title itself because in just four words and one great verb, Dylan captures the entire mood of his story. The man isn’t just upset about losing a woman. He’s not merely sad about an affair gone bad. He’s tangled up in blue, caught in a web of regret over the love he let slip away.

The right verb gives your story wings. The wrong verb keeps it grounded in the mundane.

Now here’s the caveat. (You know I always throw one out there.) Not every sentence you write needs a soaring verb. “Said,” as we’ve said over and over, is a supremely useful verb that, rightfully so, should just disappear into the backdrop of your dialogue. And in narrative, when you’re just moving characters through time and space, ordinary verbs like “walked,” “entered,” “looked” do the job. If you try to make every verb special, you can look pretentious and, well, like you’re trying to hard. Sometimes, smoking a cigar is just smoking a cigar.

Let me give you some examples off my bookshelf of verb-age that works:

Here’s the ending of Chester Himes’s short story “With Malice Toward None.” Himes’s verb choices convey the mood of a defeated man whose soul-killing WPA job is driving him to drink and to distance himself from his materialistic wife:

He wheeled out of the room and downstairs away from her voice but at the door he waited for her. “I’m sorry, baby, I — ” then he choked with remorse and turned blindly away.

All that day, copying old records down at city hall, half blind with a hangover and trembling visibly, he kept cursing something. He didn’t know what exactly it was and he thought it was a hell of a thing when a man had to curse something without knowing what it was. 

This is from John D. MacDonald’s The Deep Blue Goodbye, showing how strong verbs can spice up your descriptions. McD didn’t give us much description but when he did it came with sweet economy.

Manhattan in August is a replay of the Great Plague of London. The dwindled throng of the afflicted shuffle the furnace streets, mouths sagging, waiting to keel over. Those still healthy duck from one air-conditioned oasis to the next, spending minimum time exposed to the rain of black death outside. 

Verbs are important in action scenes. Here we are, in a good one from James W. Hall’s Off The Chart: 

On the top rung of the rope ladder, Anne Bonny paused and found her breath. Head down, crouched below the gunwale, she gripped her Mac-10, formed a quick image of her next move, then sprang and tumbled over the rail, ducking a shoulder, slamming into the rough pebbled deck, and rolling once, twice, a third time until she came to rest against an iron wall.

I like the mix of mundane verbs like “paused” and “formed a quick image” next to the hyperactive verbs like “sprang” and “tumbled.”

And here’s a paragraph from SJ Rozan’s novel Absent Friends, where a character remembers the September 11 attack:

Phil had been caught in the cloud on September 11, running like hell with everyone else.

His eyes burned, his lungs were crazy for air. A woman next to him staggered so he reached out for her, caught her, forced her to keep going, warm blood seeping onto his arm from a slash down her back as he pulled her along, later carried her. Somewhere, someone in a uniform took her from him, bore her off someplace while someone else pressed an oxygen mask to his face. He breathed and breathed, and when he could speak, he asked about the woman, but no one knew.

The lesson here is, the more intense your scene, the more measured you should be in your verb choices. Trust the reader to intuit, to imagine between the lines. “Running like hell” is cliche but it works because it is true to Phil’s voice. It sounds like his thoughts. Notice, too, SJ’s repeated use of the ambiguous words — someplace, someone, somewhere — to capture the chaos, rather than hitting the reader over the head with something like: “He felt confused and disoriented.”

And let me add one more quick example that James Bell quoted here on Sunday, in his post about deep back story, from a Stephen King short story. One line jumped off the page for me:

Sometimes they discussed children puddling along the wet sand with the seats of their shorts and their bathing suits sagging.

God, that’s great. It’s not even a real verb, but can’t you just see those kids on the beach?

Okay, an exercise! Let’s use the poor old verb “walk” as a lesson here. Your character is a sophisticated spy entering the Casino de Monte-Carlo to meet the evil villain Emilio Largo. He’s not just walking in; it’s a grand entrance that sets up the next plot point. How do you describe this?

1. He walked into the casino and paused when he spotted Largo at the baccarat table with his mistress Domino.
2. He walked haughtily into the casino but then came to an abrupt stop when he saw Largo at the baccarat table. He had to take it slow, assess the man and the situation.
3. He sauntered into the casino, like a king surveying his realm. But when he saw Largo at the baccarat able, he paused, and then ducked behind a palm and watched Largo, like panther eyeing his prey.
4. He strode into the casino, but when he spotted Largo at the baccarat table, he slid behind a pillar so he could observe him without being seen.

I like No. 1 for its spare feel. It imparts only the bare choreography. You’d have to find other ways to convey the tension and the hero’s intent. No. 2 relies on a tacked-on adverb to convey Bond’s attitude. It works okay, imho. No. 3 is tone-deaf and over-wrought. “Sauntered” is an okay verb but way too twee for Bond. And then we get hit over the head with the king metaphor, made even worse by the panther nonsense. If your verbs are strong, you don’t need to surround them in a thicket of thorny metaphors. No. 4 works, imho, but I’d try to make it better on second draft.

I will leave you with one last thought about getting your verbs right. When I first started learning French, my teacher warned us that French is filled with faux amis — false friends. Some verbs look correct but become something entirely else if you mess up the pronunciation or use the wrong tense.

One day in class a guy, speaking in halting French, said that last night his girlfriend kissed him goodbye. Our teacher laughed and we all just looked at each other, confused. In French, a kiss is “un baiser.” So the guy assumed the right verb was “baisser.” Which correctly means that last night he was…screwed.

A sigh is just a sigh, But a kiss isn’t always just a kiss.

By PJ Parrish

Okay, this is going to be old stuff for some of you. But after reading a couple of our First Page Critique submissions lately, I’m thinking we could all use a handy-dandy review of what needs to go into an opening chapter.

Consider this food for thought, no matter where you are in your writing process. If you’re staring at your computer screen and there are only two words on it — CHAPTER ONE — this is for you.  If you’re about 155 pages in and you’re stuck, maybe going back and reviewing your beginning will help you find your way out of the swamp. And if you’ve just typed those wonderful two words — THE END — then this review is really for you. Because THE END is never really the end. It is the beginning. (rewrite time!)

Do: Create a Good Hook

• The first chapter is where reader makes a decision to enter your world.
• Needn’t be fast or fancy. But it must make you care about a character and what is happening to him.
• Large hooks can disappoint readers if the rest doesn’t measure up. If you begin writing at the most dramatic or tense moment in your story, you have nowhere to go but downhill.
• If hook is strange or misleading, you might have trouble living up to its odd expectations.

“A cheesy hook drives me nuts. They say ‘Open with a hook!’ to grab the reader. That’s true, but there’s a fine line between an intriguing hook and one that’s just silly. An example of a silly hook would be opening with a line of overtly sexual dialogue.” — agent Daniel Lazar

Do: Come Up With a Juicy Opening Line

• Your opening line gives you an intellectual line of credit from the reader. The reader unconsciously commits: “That line was so damn good, I’m in for the next 50 pages.”
• A good opening line is lean and mean and assertive. No junk language or words.
• A good opening line is a promise, or a question, or an unproven idea. It says something interesting. It is a stone in our shoe that we cannot shake.
• BUT: if it feels contrived or overly cute, you will lose the reader. Especially if what follows does not measure up. It is a teaser, not an end to itself.

“The cat sat on the mat is not the opening of a plot. The cat sat on the dog’s mat is.”       – John LeCarre

Do: Get Into Your Story As Late As Possible

Begin your story just before the interesting stuff is about to happen. You want to create tension as early as possible and escalate from there. Don’t give the reader too much time to think about whether they want to go along on your ride.

Where do you CHOOSE to enter your story time-wise? Think of yourself as a paratroop commander. You’re pushing your jumpers (readers) out of the plane. Where do you want them to land for maximum suspense? Too early you bore your reader (throat clearing) Too late you confuse the reader (coma syndrome).

Do: Introduce Your Protagonist

Never wait too late in the story to give us the hero. And readers have to care about him or her right from the start. And be careful not to give the early spotlight to a minor character because whoever is at the helm in chapter one is who the reader will automatically want to follow. If it is someone minor, reader will feel betrayed and annoyed when you shift the spotlight.

Now, I hear you:  But my first chapter shows the serial killer at work! Or: But I need this world-building prologue first! Okay, okay. So maybe you can wait until chapter 2 to have your heroine walk on stage, but don’t play around too long. The reader won’t wait forever to bond with your main man or woman.

“Sometimes a writer will create an interesting character and describe him in a compelling way, but then he’ll turn out to be some unimportant bit player.”
— Ellen Pepus, Signature Literary Agency

Do: Open With A Disturbance!

Our own James Bell preaches this all the time. Something has to be amiss. Depending on what kind of book you are writing, or your genre, the disturbance can be earthshattering (a thriller about a killer comet heading our way!) or cozy-mild (the owner of  a florist shop finds a corpse in her orchid house!). But you have to tilt the protag’s world off its axis.

• Conflict drives good fiction. It disrupts the status quo. Your first chapter is
  not a straight line. It’s a jagged driveway up a dark mountain and the
  shadows are full of danger.
• Don’t fall into the “happy people in Happy Land” trap. Don’t think that if you
  first show the lead character in her normal life, being happy with her family
  or dog, we’ll be all riled up when something bad happens to this nice person.
• Don’t fall into the “I’m the Greatest Literary Stylist of Our Time” trap. This is
  where a writer tries to display brilliance via pure prose before, somewhere
  down the line, something like a plot kicks in.

“Too much ‘telling’ vs. ‘showing’ in the first chapter is a definite warning sign for me. The first chapter should present a compelling scene, not a road map for the rest of the book. The goal is to make the reader curious about your characters, fill their heads with questions that must be answered, not fill them in on exactly where, when, who and how.” — Emily Sylvan Kim, Prospect Agency

Do: Establish Your Time And Place

This is small but important. You have to tell the reader where we are in the world (or universe) and at least a hint of the time (year, era). If you don’t, the reader flails around, gets coma syndrome and then usually gets aggravated. Also, if you aren’t writing in current day, you need to tell reader. Because details about the culture, police procedure and forensics will be in question.

A word about time and place taglines on your chapter headings: Try to avoid them. They smell of amateurism and say that the writer does not know how to gracefully slip this info into the story – or that they are too lazy to do it. But sometimes, a complex plot needs tags, like if you are jumping around in time and geography.

CHAPTER ONE
Goa India, 1889.

CHAPTER TWO
Paris, France, 1945

Do: Get Your Characters Talking As Soon As Possible

Dialogue is the lifeblood of your story and you need it early. Too much exposition or description is like driving a car with the emergency brake on.  Remember: Dialogue is a from of ACTION.  I’ll let the experts tell you:

“My biggest pet peeve with an opening chapter is when an author features too much exposition – when they go beyond what is necessary for simply ‘setting the scene.’ I want to feel as if I’m in the hands of a master storyteller, and starting a story with long, flowery, overly-descriptive sentences makes the writer seem amateurish. — Peter Miller, PMA Literary and Film Management

“I don’t really like ‘first day of school’ beginnings, ‘from the beginning of time,’ or ‘once upon a time.’ Specifically, I dislike a Chapter One in which nothing happens.”
— Jessica Regel, Foundry Literary + Media

“What I hate are characters that are moving around doing little things, but essentially nothing. Washing dishes & thinking, staring out the window & thinking, tying shoes, thinking.”- — Daniel Lazar, Writers House

Now the next two Dos are up for discussion. Because while both are very important, you might not be able to get this done in your Chapter One. But you must lay the groundwork for both of these elements in the first couple chapters.

Do: Define The Stakes And Your Hero’s Journey 

What is at play in the story? What are the costs? What can be gained,
what can be lost? Love? Money? One’s soul? Will someone die?
Can someone be saved?

What is the journey you’ve set up for your hero or heroine? What is their PERSONAL ARC. How will they change and/or grow?

The first chapter doesn’t demand that you spell out the stakes of the entire book in neon but we do need a hint.

Do: Establish Your Tone And Voice

From the get-go, your reader should be able to tell what kind of book he is reading – hardboiled, romantic, humorous, neo-noir. Everything in your book should support your tone, but the first chapter is vital to inducing an emotional effect in your reader. Edgar Allan Poe’s wrote of something he called the UNITY OF EFFECT. Which means that every element of a story should help create a single emotional impact.

Make your own voice loud and clear. This is where you are introducing your story but also yourself as a writer. Your language must be crisp, you must be in complete control of your craft, you must be original! No self indulgent description, no bloated passages, no slack in the rope. Don’t try to be “writerly.” Good writing does not call attention to itself. The reader must feel he is being led by a calm, confident storyteller.

“I hate reading purple prose – describing something so beautifully that has nothing to do with the actual story.”  — Cherry Weiner, Cherry Weiner Literary

“Someone squinting into the sunlight with a hangover in a crime novel. Good grief — been done a million times.”  — Chip MacGregor, MacGregor Literary

Okay…let’s talk about a few DONTS for your first chapter

Don’t: Open With A Prologue (Unless You Really Know What You’re Doing)

Yeah, yeah…I know. This opens a big can of gummie worms. But I am going on record here that 99 prologues out of a 100 are not needed. Prologues, especially if they are nothing but exposition, put a deathly brake on your story.  They force you to start your story twice and most of us can barely get it right once. When bad or even merely okay, a prologue makes the the reader think, “Get on with the story already!”

EXERCISE: Cut your prologue and see if your story opens faster. If you haven’t lost any clarity, you probably don’t need the prologue. Or just label it Chapter 1.

I’m not a fan of prologues, preferring to find myself in the midst of a moving plot on page one rather than being kept outside of it, or eased into it.” — Michelle Andelman, Regal Literary

“Prologues are usually a lazy way to give back-story chunks to the reader that can be handled with more finesse throughout the story. Damn the prologue, full speed ahead!”— Laurie McLean, Foreword Literary

Don’t: Lard In Too Much Backstory Or Exposition

The first chapter is not the place to tell us everything. Exposition kills drama. Backstory is boring. Incorporating backstory is HARD WORK, but you must weave it artfully into the story not give us an INFO-DUMP in chapter 1.

ACT FIRST, EXPLAIN LATER. In other words, something has to happen! Then you can reflect on it. (This is another homily from Brother Bell)

I’m turned off when a writer feels the need to fill in all the backstory before starting the story. A story that opens on the protagonist’s mental reflection of their situation is a red flag.”  — Stephany Evans, FinePrint Literary Management

“One of the biggest problems is the ‘info dump’ in the first few pages, where the author ties to tell us everything we supposedly need to know to understand the story. Getting to know characters in a story is like getting to know people in real life. You find out their personality and details of their life over time.”- Rachelle Gardner, Books & Such Literary Agency

Don’t: Confuse Readers or Use False Starts 

One of the biggest pitfalls in starting a story is to begin with an opening line that is confusing but might make perfect sense once the reader learns more later. But once confused, few readers will venture further.

This is not to say you can’t include info in your opening that acquires additional meaning once the reader learns more. That technique is often a highly rewarding tool. But the opening should make sense.

You describe something awful but then someone wakes up and reader finds out it was just a dream. DON’T DO IT! Or you kill off someone in first chapter and it is someone we never really hear or care about again. If you begin with an on-camera murder, you must then use the rest of the story to make this person come back to life in our memories and maybe even make us mourn this person.

“I don’t like it when the main character dies at the end of Chapter One. Why did I just spend all this time with this character? I feel cheated.” — Cricket Freeman, The August Agency

“I dislike opening scenes that you think are real, then the protagonist wakes up. It makes me feel cheated.” — Laurie McLean, Foreword Literary.

Miscellaneous Don’ts

• Introduce too many characters too early (See illustration above)
• Use excessive description The [adjective] sun rose in the [adjective] [adjective] sky, shedding its [adjective] light across the [adjective] [adjective] land.
• Use bad weather symbolism (gathering storm clouds)
• Rely on clichés (detective wakes with hangover)
• Write: “Years later, Monica would look back and laugh…”
• Give the spotlight to whiny or disgusting characters
• Have character directly addressing the reader
• Open with “Twenty minutes before she died…”
• Write this: “Little did she know the killer was watching her…”
• Open with a dream (Bobby in the Shower syndrome)

And that, crime dogs, is my sermon du jour. Don’t get discouraged. Do keep writing. Don’t let the bastards get you down. Do take good care of yourself and your loved ones.

By PJ Parrish

As I’ve often said here, I am not well read in YA fiction. In my day, A Separate Peace was the big young adult hit, and I recall really liking S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. And a couple years back, stranded in a vacation house, I plowed through three Harry Potters and liked them all. But anything newer or edgier than that, well, I’m at a loss.

That caveat thrown out there, I offer today’s First Pager, and suggest that I have to judge it purely on its own merits as successful storytelling for any age group. And pose the question: Is Lord of the Flies seminal YA? Back in a flash…

Prey For Love

Sean

Eddie passes out before I can dive into the official breakup convo. Now he lies, naked, sprawled on his unmade twin bed that never felt big enough for two. Loud snores fill the apartment while I hunt through his ramshackle studio trying not to forget any small scraps of my life. Once I leave I’ll never be back.

It would be easy to lose something important amidst the piles of record albums, turntables, and DJ equipment—including three giant disco balls—that clutter his tiny apartment. Luckily I didn’t arrive with much.

“Goodbye, Eddie,” I whisper as I brush a lock of hair from his handsome brow.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this. My first summer love. My first serious love. My first shattered heart. Four months ago I thought I’d I’d never had a boyfriend. Ever. I mean, I’m no catch.

Antisocial? Hell, yeah. I’d rather snuggle with a book than a boy. Pretty? With my various disabilities, eyebrows as dark as thunderclouds, and a jaw too brickish to look feminine I vote—definitely not. Yet Eddie thought I was gorgeous. But he is, well he is Eddie. Say no more.

Backpack slung over one shoulder, guitar the other I leave. Gently shutting the door, I lock it and slide the tarnished key he gave me beneath. I rummage through my handbag to make sure I have my wallet and phone.

Don’t stall. Get moving. Go before you change your mind.

When I moved to NYC from upstate New York for the summer I moved for him. Well, for him and to take the apprentice exam at the Institute for Magical Conservation. It is there that I will study Lore. My lifelong dream. However, my apprenticeship doesn’t start until the fall. I didn’t need to be in this big, stinking city for any reason except for love.

Now that love is gone. Mostly. Eddie killed it. I turn and hobble down the five flights of stairs I’ve come to know well over the past two months.

“Kat? Kat!” Eddie’s voice rings down from the top of the stairs just as I reach the landing. I dart out the door and into the East Village side street. I limp down the block fast as I can manage. Grabbing my phone I call my aunt.

__________________

We’re back. Well…well, well, well. What can I say? Except that I would definitely read on. And from this old set-in-her-reading-ways wombat, that’s probably the best compliment I can give.

There is so much going on here that’s right in this submission. So, let’s use it as an object lesson to talk about how a good writer tosses the craft balls in the air and keeps them juggling.

Start with voice. (character’s, not author’s…subtle but important difference. More to come on that in a sec.) The narrator’s voice is clear as a bell. We know this girl right from get-go. She’s smart and self-aware, but also very human in her self-deprecation. I’d guess she’s late teens, early twenties, but we needn’t know exactly yet. I like this girl, too, like the fact she’s faced a broken heart and has the gumption to get up and leave. Even though she’s a bit of a coward sneaking off in mid-snore, but that’s human, too, no?

Re character voice vs author voice. Character voice is the speech, thoughts, and actions of your people, conveyed in a consistent and believable narrative pattern so readers buy into the idea they are encountering a “real” person.  When it’s done well, like here, it’s a powerful sleight of hand, maybe the writer’s most powerful tool because it creates the crucial empathetic bond for the reader. Now, author voice refers to a writer’s style, the quality that makes their writing unique, a sort of summation of your view of life and the world. Your writer’s voice should be singularly yours, so much so that your book can’t be mistaken for anyone else’s. Not every novel achieves this. But the best ones always do.  In this short sample, we can’t get a true sense of the writer’s voice, but I suspect over 300 pages or so, it might be there.

Let’s talk now about structure. Notice how the writer varies their use of short and long sentences and graphs. It scans well to the eye on the page; that increases interest. The snippets of dialogue are given their own lines to breathe. (with one small exception).

The first graph is juicy. We’re dropped in mid-drama here, Kat sneaking away from a flamed out love. The opening line is good, and I like the last line of the opening: “Once I leave, I’ll never be back.”  (I wonder if that’s true!)

Note how adroitly the writer slips in Kat’s backstory — just enough to intrigue us, ground us in her current status, yet not enough to clog up the narrative. Backstory should tease, never bore.

Okay, let me bring out the red pencil and do a line edit.

Prey For Love I like the title. Double entendres often work well.

Sean the submission came with this tacked on; I assume it’s a subtitle? Not sure it’s needed but would need to see more chapters to say.

Eddie passes out before I can dive into the official breakup convo. I tripped over this but I’m older than dirt and finally figured out it’s slang for conversation. Duh. Now he lies, naked, sprawled on his unmade twin bed that never felt big enough for two. Very nice for two reasons: Goes to character voice and backstory Loud snores fill the apartment while I hunt through his ramshackle studio small and fixable redundancy trying not to forget any small scraps of my life. Once I leave I’ll never be back.

It would be easy to lose something important amidst the piles of record albums, turntables, and DJ equipment—including three giant disco balls—that clutter his tiny apartment. Luckily I didn’t arrive with much. More backstory but also tells us something about the girl herself. She travels light in life. 

“Goodbye, Eddie,” I whisper as I brush a lock of hair from his handsome brow. Dialogue should always be set off by itself. 

It wasn’t supposed to end like this. My first summer love. My first serious love. My first shattered heart. Four months ago I thought I’d I’d never had a boyfriend. Ever. I mean, I’m no catch. More backstory, but the writer stops before it gets turgid. Big thing for beginners to learn: Less is more with backstory in early going. Also, notice how the line “I’m no catch” works as a bridge to the next graph.

Antisocial? Hell, yeah. I’d rather snuggle with a book than a boy. Now, this is important so pay attention: With first person POV it is really hard to give readers a portrait of your narrator because you can only describe her through her own consciousness. Notice how much this character tells you about herself via quick thoughts. She’s no empty-brain Barbie. Pretty? With my various disabilities, should writer be specific here as to what kind of disability? I didn’t get it was physical on first read. See later comment eyebrows as dark as thunderclouds, and a jaw too brickish to look feminine SO HARD to give a physical idea of a protag. But I betcha you can see this girl in your mind. I vote—definitely not. Yet Eddie thought I was gorgeous. But he is, well, need an extra comma here he is Eddie. Say no more.

Backpack slung over one shoulder, guitar the other another character crumb slyly dropped in. This is how you SHOW us she’s a musician rather than having her TELL us with something clumsy like: “I had always wanted to play the guitar…” I leave. Gently shutting the door, I lock it and slide the tarnished key he gave me beneath. I rummage through my handbag to make sure I have my wallet and phone.

Don’t stall. Get moving. Go before you change your mind. Generally, put a stand alone thought like this in itals. 

When I moved to NYC chance to be more specific — you tell me later it’s the East Village. I’d put it here. BUT: take note that the writer has easily told us WHERE WE ARE in the first 400 words. Nice. from upstate New York for the summer I moved for him. Well, for him and to take the apprentice exam at the Institute for Magical Conservation. As far as I can tell, this is made-up but I love it because it poses questions. What kind of world are we in where magic needs to be conserved? When I Googled this, I did find there is an actual course at Lund University in Switzerland called “Fantastic beasts and why to conserve them: animals, magic and biodiversity conservation.”  Is our Kat character is off to study some such esoterica? Again, I would read on…It is there that I will study Lore. My lifelong dream. However, my apprenticeship doesn’t start until the fall. I didn’t need to be in this big, stinking city for any reason except for love.

Now that love is gone. Mostly. Eddie killed it. Not unsure this doesn’t need one more thought. Did she have any role in this bad turn? I turn and hobble Stumbled on this at first then realized you told me earlier she has a disability. Does it need to be more clear? Just asking for the hive here down the five flights of stairs I’ve come to know well over the past two months. Writer has grounded us in time.

“Kat? Kat!” This is a different character talking, so set it off by itself.

Eddie’s voice rings down from the top of the stairs just as I reach the landing. I dart out the door and into the East Village side street. Be specific. Out on to Third Ave or head toward Tomkins Square? I limp down the block fast as I can manage. Grabbing my phone I call my aunt.

So, to sum up, take a read through the submission again and see how the writer juggles these balls in less than 500 words:

• Told us the first person narrator’s name.
• Gave us a hint of her appearance and age-range
• Identified where we are
• Dropped us into a decisive moment that is impelling the character toward change.
• Provided enough backstory to define the narrator
• Gave us a good snapshot of Eddie
• Told us what the character is striving for — something to do with magic conservation.

Thanks, writer, for a good time. So..would you guys read on?

By PJ Parrish

When I was in the newspaper biz, part of my job was writing headlines. Great headline writing is a real art because you have to boil a story into maybe ten words that capture the story’s essence but also lure the reader in.

Great headline writers were the royalty of the copy desk. Or maybe the court jesters. The headline writers I knew were always trying to sneak in puns or a double entendre. My husband, an ex sports editor, still loves to talk about his glory days. When the Houston Oilers practiced without their best wide receiver Warren Wells before their game against the Dolphins, he wrote: OILERS DRILL WITHOUT WELLS. But his classic came when Dolphins cut their tight end Jim Cox:  DOLPHINS WAIVE INJURED COX.

I know, I know…men.

The undisputed all-time best headline award, though, goes to the New York Post, which is infamous for its ability to pull readers into their stories:

A psycho had invaded a Queens after-hours joint, shot the owner to death and then — on learning a female customer was a mortician — ordered her to cut off the victim’s head, which cops later found in the madman’s car. The headline was written by Vincent A. Musetto. In memorializing Musetto after his death, a writer noted that the headline was “as witty as it was horrific, it expressed with unflinching precision the city’s ­accelerating tailspin into an abyss of atrocious crime and chaos.”

Which gets me to my point today.  All great stories can be summed up in just a couple words. And if you can’t boil your own story down to a juicy headline, then maybe you don’t really know what your story is about at its heart.

If you’ve ever had to write a concept or produce your own back copy, you know how hard this is. Or if you’ve ever tried to convince an editor at a writers conference to read your manuscript. This is known as “the elevator pitch” — you have to sell an agent your story in time it takes to go up four floors in the hotel elevator.

And when you do get published, it’s useful if you ever find yourself at a book signing and someone asks you, “So, what’s your book about?”

You don’t regurgitate plot. You give them the elevator pitch. And if you can’t answer in three sentences or less, chances are you’ve lost a sale.

Think about advertising. A pithy pitch sells the product. Take the slogan “A Diamond Is Forever,”  which has appeared in every De Beers ad since 1948. Diamonds are inherently worthless. Your ring drops in value 50 percent the moment you leave Zales. But with one slogan De Beers made a diamond into a symbol of wealth and romance. It perfect captures a deep sentiment — a diamond, like your relationship, is eternal.

Coming up with a headline or slogan for your story is a great clarifying exercise. It makes you think beyond mere plot and deep into that sweet spot where story, character and theme mesh.

Okay, enough lecture. Let’s have some fun.

Here is a cool little exercise to get your brain moving to think about story slogans. It was created by screenwriter Nat Ruegger. Take any common advertising slogan, like for Kentucky Fried Chicken or Volvo. Put it into the past tense and make it the first line of your book and see where it takes you.

I struggle coming up with opening paragraphs so I was leery. But I tried this with the Lays Potato Chips slogan — “You Can’t Stop At Just One.” (later changed to “Betcha can’t stop at just one.”)

I couldn’t stop at just one. Believe me, I tried. Maybe it was because I was so hung up on blonde hair, especially when it was braided, falling down a girl’s back like a piece of rope. My first had braided blonde hair. I strangled her with my bare hands, but for all the others after that, I used a yellow rope. I guess because I wanted to get the taste of that first one back again. The first is the most delicious, you see.

I almost went with Nike’s “Just Do It.”  It was inspired by the death row words of murderer Gary Gilmore — “Let’s do it.” Seems to me there’s a good serial killer first-person thriller that opened with “I just did it.”

Then I thought of Taco Bell’s slogan “Head for the Border!” That made me think of consummate storyteller Bruce Springsteen and his song “Highway Patrolman.” It opens with these lyrics:

My name is Joe Roberts, I work for the state
I’m a sergeant out of Perrineville barracks number 8
I always done an honest job as honest as I could
I got a brother named Franky and Franky ain’t no good
Now ever since we was young kids it’s been the same comedown
I get a call on the shortwave, Franky’s in trouble downtown
Well if it was any other man, I’d put him straight away
But when it’s your brother sometimes you look the other way

The song ends with Joe in squad-car pursuit after his brother, who has stabbed a man and is on the run. I could see a story beginning late in the scene with this line: “He headed for the border.” Here’s how Springsteen ended his song:

Well I chased him through them county roads
Till a sign said Canadian border five miles from here
I pulled over the side of the highway and watched his taillights disappear

One more. I next tried Clairol’s famous slogan “Does She Or Doesn’t She?” (Only her hairdresser knows for sure). It seemed ideal for a cozy set in a hair salon:

Did she or didn’t she? No one would ever really know. Because when Marcel Marseau, the owner of the chi-chi Palm Beach salon To Dye For, was found floating in the water hazard of the  17th hole of the Everglades Golf Course, we all suspected Lily Van Pulletzer.  But then her body was found stuffed in the butler’s pantry at Mar-a-Lago, and I knew this was going to be the toughest case of my career. 

Okay, now you see why I don’t write humor. But you get the point. A great slogan can get your motor running when you’re stuck in neutral. And maybe if you can write a great slogan or headline for your story, you can figure out what you are really trying to say.

Now it’s your turn. Think of a good slogan and put it in the past tense. Pick first person or third and give us a great opening paragraph to a fabulous crime story. Here’s a list of slogans you can use or come up with your own. I’ve switched the slogans to past tense.

It kept going…and going…and going. Energizer batteries always make me think of The Tell-Tale heart.

Every kiss Began With Kay. Nice start for a romance?

American By Birth, A Rebel By Choice. I love this one by Harley Davidson. I’d change it to “She was American by birth, a rebel by choice” to introduce a vigilante heroine maybe.

There Was No Tomorrow. Past tense and Fedex becomes dystopian YA.

It was the happiest place on earth. (Disneyland) And of course, it was really hell on earth.

What happened there, stayed there. (Las Vegas)

Sometimes he felt like a nut. Sometimes she didn’t. (Almond Joy)

By PJ Parrish

A good Tuesday morning to you all out there. Hope you are well and sane. Hope you are getting some writing done. Me, I’ve managed to grow a couple tomatoes. So it was fun to see someone else’s creative juices are flowing nicely. I’m referring to today’s First Page Critique. Let’s give it a read together and then we’ll discuss. Thanks, writer, for submitting.

Carrie’s Secret

I thought I would never see Carrie Genesen again and then she gets admitted to this hospital, where I work. I thought I would never see Carrie Genesen again and then she gets admitted to this hospital, where I work. WHERE I WORK!!! I knew she might talk and that would be a problem, a big problem.

But I am systematic. I am in control. And I will deal with it.

When she was admitted to Danton, Carrie was considered both a flight risk and a suicide risk so that day she was taken directly to the locked ward on the first floor. I had just stepped into the lobby as she came through the front door. She was flanked by an ambulance attendant on one side and a woman from the admitting office on the other, each holding an arm. Her parents, Noah and Marlene Genesen, followed close behind her. Carrie was older surely, about fifteen now, and a little taller with longer hair, but it was her. There was no doubt. I watched as the group turned to my left and entered the locked ward. None of them noticed me then, but I stopped cold.

The situation was urgent. Critical. Carrie would soon be in therapy and she could reveal the truth any time in the course of treatment. I could not let her say anything. Louise Ponte would probably be her therapist. She works with most of the kids. How long could Carrie keep the secret bottled up inside her here? It will tear her apart, I’m sure. A good shrink like Ponte will pull it out of her. And if Carrie said what she knows, would that fucking bitch of a psychiatrist believe her? Yes. Would her parents believe it? Definitely. I cannot take the risk.

So I had to adjust quickly and as soon as I had the opportunity that first afternoon, I confronted Carrie. Change-of-shift had just started so most of the staff were meeting behind the closed door to the nursing office. I went right to her room.

There wasn’t much time. I stood in her doorway, blocking her exit. She was sitting on her bed and she looked up at me. Her big brown eyes were unfocused. She was holding her bandaged arm and dressed in a tight red tank top and extremely short cut-off jeans. I could not help looking at her naked legs for an instant. Then I looked up to her face.

___________________________

There’s some nice things going on here. As we often say here at TKZ, it’s always good to start with a nifty action scene. As James always says, do first and explain later. In other words, show something intriguing going on and then, later, tell us what it meant. Notice that I put two words in red there?

Show, don’t tell.

I love the fact this writer opened with something happening. A person (unnamed and no gender identified…more on that later) is confronted in the hospital where they work by an old “friend.” Or maybe a foe. But at the very least, this person from the past has a secret that our narrator does not wish to be known. Nice set up!

But I think the writer missed a chance to ramp up the tension factor by telling us too much when, with a little restructuring, it could be shown and thus have more dramatic impact.

Plus, we have here a problem with tense. It wavers between past and present, and the overall style is an odd hybrid of action and reminiscence.

The first paragraph, for instance, is refracted through the narrator’s thoughts rather than pure action, and thus feels more like a memory. “I thought I would never see Carrie Genesen again and then she gets admitted to this hospital, where I work.”  And with the capitalization and punctuation of the next line — WHERE I WORK!!! — it’s almost as if the writer subconsciously understood the first line was weak and she or he had to add caps and three exclamation marks to hit us over the head with the narrator’s intensity of emotion.

Might it not have been more effective to go right with action? I don’t know if Carrie, as she is being brought in, is fighting or half-comatose. So I am guessing here when I offer this suggested approach. I give it not as an attempt to rewrite this person’s style but to make a point about how, as an alternative, narration can be reshaped into a pure action scene.

The girl was screaming and kicking, her long dark hair flying around her face. The ambulance attendant had a hard grip on her right arm and a nurse jumped up from the desk to grab the girl’s right arm.  I was standing by the admitting desk, and as they lurched past, the girl’s head shot up.

Her wild brown eyes locked on mine. It was only for a second, but in that moment, I saw her.  

Carrie…

The only person in the world who knew what I had done.

Carrie’s head swung back and she gave me a questioning look that darkened into a glare. Then, with the wheeze of the ward’s door, she was gone.

Seconds later, a man and woman hurried in, not giving me a glance. Carrie’s parents. They didn’t recognize me, thank God.

My heart had stopped but now it was pounding. I took three deep breaths.

I am systematic. I am in control. And  damn it, I will deal with this.

See the difference? Get the action moving first and then start explaining things. And when you do go into the character’s thoughts, make it powerful, pithy and put it in italics.

Because this is a mixture of direct action scene and remembered narration, there are other problems. The narrator, upon merely seeing Carrie come into the hospital, cannot possibly know — yet — that she is suicidal and a flight risk. She cannot know either that a certain doctor Louise Ponte will be assigned to her case.  But these issues are easily resolved by continuing the action forward logically. For instance, the narrator, who apparently works at this facility, can immediately begin inquiries, maybe talk to the EMT when he comes back out? He could relate that she tried to kill herself.  Show us, via action and dialogue, don’t tell us.

Suggestion: Use the first scene — maybe the whole first chapter — to flesh out your great set-up. Play up the narrator’s shock and the fear of what this might bring (why is Carrie here? What happened? Will she tell someone our terrible secret?) You’ve done a good job of creating a sense of peril, so why rush it? Build your tension! Then you move on, logically, to the narrator going to Carrie’s room and confronting her.  That is probably worth a chapter all by itself. A third chapter could be a meeting with Dr. Ponte, wherein you can add some more background on why Carrie is there and why the narrator hates Ponte so much. Layers…it’s all about creating layers.

One problem many writers have is trying to figure out where to begin a chapter. This writer picked a great moment. But an equally vexing problem is figuring out where to END a scene or chapter. This is something this writer needs to work on. End one scene (in the lobby of hospital) and transition to the next scene (Carrie’s room).

Each scene and/or chapter needs to have its own beginning, middle and end. And you must DECIDE what the dramatic point of each individual scene is.  For this story, the point of the first scene is to introduce the protagonist via their shock at seeing someone who harbors a bad secret. This opening scene must also have an ending that then connects (via a smooth transition) to the next scene.

A small thing but important: Don’t bother to introduce character names until it is important. We don’t need to clutter up this great action moment with Carrie’s parents’ names.

Ditto the shrink.  Don’t give us Dr. Ponte’s name until she becomes an actual character in the action rather than in the narrator’s thoughts. Show us Dr. Ponte’s entrance, don’t tell us. I could see a great scene later, maybe chapter 3 or 4, where the narrator reads Carrie’s chart and finds out Dr. Ponte has been assigned to the case. Then maybe she goes and talks to the doctor? Show us, don’t tell us that Ponte is, ahem, a “fucking bitch.”  Remember the great movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest? We didn’t “meet” Nurse Ratched through Randall McMurphy’s thoughts. We met her on the ward, in all her terrible glory, interacting with the patients. Action is showing.

That’s my main points. I’d like to do a line edit to bring things into sharper focus.

I thought I would never see Carrie Genesen again and then she gets admitted to this hospital, where I work. WHERE I WORK!!! I knew she might talk and that would be a problem, a big problem.

But I am systematic. I am in control. And I will deal with it. This submission came to me with a couple graphs in italics, so that’s how I left it. But I see no need for it.

When she was admitted to Danton, This lapses into past tense and sounds like the narrator is remembering this. It disrupts the tension. Carrie was considered both a flight risk and a suicide risk The narrator has no way to know this. And “flight risk” is a legal term meaning a person is thought likely to leave the country before a trial or bail hearing. so that day she was taken directly to the locked ward on the first floor. I had just stepped into the lobby as she came through the front door. Again, the past tense construction “I had just” sounds like she’s recounting something that happened a while ago. She was flanked by an ambulance attendant on one side and a woman from the admitting office on the other, each holding an arm. Her parents, Noah and Marlene Genesen, followed close behind her. Carrie was older surely, about fifteen now, and a little taller with longer hair, but it was her. There was no doubt. I watched as the group turned to my left and entered the locked ward. None of them noticed me then, but I stopped cold.

The situation was urgent. Critical. This is a classic example of the writer TELLING us what the character feels rather than letting the emotions emerge through SHOWING the urgency. Carrie would soon be in therapy and she could reveal the truth any time in the course of treatment. I could not let her say anything. Louise Ponte would probably be her therapist. She works with most of the kids. How long could Carrie keep the secret bottled up inside her here? It will tear her apart, I’m sure. A good shrink like Ponte will pull it out of her. And if Carrie said what she knows, would that fucking bitch of a psychiatrist believe her? Yes. Would her parents believe it? Definitely. I cannot Again, we are shifting between past and present tense. Doesn’t work. take the risk.

So I had to adjust quickly and as soon as I had the opportunity that first afternoon, This is so confusing. Are we in the present day or is this character relating something that happened in the past? This construction suggests the latter. Which is not where we want to be opening a story. I confronted Carrie. Again, you’re telling us; show us. Change-of-shift had just started so most of the staff were meeting behind the closed door to the nursing office. I went right to her room.

There wasn’t much time. I stood in her doorway, blocking her exit. She is on suicide watch. Her door would be locked. She was sitting on her bed and she looked up at me. Her big brown eyes were unfocused. She was holding her bandaged arm and dressed in a tight red tank top and extremely short cut-off jeans. I could not help looking at her naked legs for an instant. Then I looked up to her face. She already looked at her face, her unfocused brown eyes specifically.

Okay, this is important. Whenever you describe something, be it a room as a character enters, or seeing a person, always start with what is first-impression logical and move on to other details from there. What you would logically see — IN ORDER OF YOUR SENSES PROCESSING THINGS?

Carrie was slumped on her bed. Her lank hair covered her face, and she was rubbing her bandaged wrist. For the first time, I noticed what she was wearing — a tight red tank top and short cut-off jeans. I was staring at her long legs when Carrie looked up. 

See the difference in the order of the description? It has to be logical. And use it to up the tension. Also: Never let a chance go by in your description to make it specific and thus salient to character. You said she was “sitting on the bed.” Is she slumped? Curled in a fetal ball? Sprawled? Each suggests something specific about character and mood. And the bandage on her arm. What kind of bandage and where it is? A wrist gauze suggests a slit wrist and is a way for the narrator to get this knowledge of a suicide attempt via showing instead of telling. 

One last thing. We don’t known a thing about the narrator and presumptive protagonist of this story. When working in first person, it’s hard to get in names and such. (Forget description in the early going!).  But it becomes annoying, the longer your scene goes on, for the reader not to have a clue who they are listening to.  We don’t even know the sex of our narrator.  Such “busy work” can be dropped easily in dialogue, maybe as the narrator stands there in shock at seeing Carrie, someone calls out, “Dr. Rogers, are you okay? Jane? Jane, did you hear me?”  A simple “trick” like this would give us A.) the protag’s sex B.) name  C.) profession.

Okay, that’s about it.  Again, I want to give kudos to the writer for picking a good dramatic moment to drop us into the story. I really like the set-up, a teenager from the protag’s past harbors a bad secret that terrifies the protag enough to make them spring into action.

But, dear writer, you need to slow down a tad and give more thought to the structure of each individual scene and/or chapter and to hone in on the dramatic point of each. Good luck and thanks for letting us share your work.

By PJ Parrish

Back in my newspaper days, I applied for a job at the Miami Herald. I was working at the rival Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, but was flattered to be courted, so down I-95 I went. My portfolio was filled with sample clips. Great honking investigative stories. Profiles of the rich and famous. Thoughtful think pieces. Sitting in a big office overlooking Biscayne Bay, I watched the two big cheese editors as they flipped through the pages. Then they stopped and read. One guy looked up:

“I love this story. Was it your idea?”

I craned my neck to read the headline: TEN PLANTS EVEN YOU CAN’T KILL.

I nodded. “I’ve got a brown thumb.”

“We need more of this kind of stuff in our features section,” big editor said. “We’ll definitely be in touch.”

I didn’t get the job. But the experience did teach me that when it comes to getting someone’s attention, keep it short and sweet. Or as Jeff Goldblum says in The Big Chill about his job as a writer for People Magazine: “We only have one editorial rule. You can’t write anything longer than it takes your average person to take an average crap.”

So today, for a change, I’m going to write a short post. But I hope you find something useful in it. You don’t have to read it in your bathroom.

FIVE EASY THINGS THAT WILL IMPROVE YOUR MANUSCRIPT

1. Use More Paragraphs. Many of us, when we write, let the words just flow and flow onto the page. It’s emotional, that first draft. But slow down and take a hard look at what your sentences look like on the physical page. A page that is full of big similar-looking blocks of type looks old-fashioned and well, intimidating. That’s okay if you’re Dickens or Donna Tartt. The rest of us should keep things more eye-appealing. On the other hand, a page of one-sentence paragraphs can look contrived, like you’re trying too hard to be neo-noir or the next James Patterson. (But please don’t ask me to explain what compelled William Faulkner to include a chapter in As I Lay Dying that consisted entirely of one line: My Mother is a Fish.) Be in charge of your readers’ emotional reactions to your prose. Use the occasional longer contemplative graph but break it up with short ones. Writing is like music — one note, either long or short, is boring. I wrote about this subject in length a while back. Click here. 

2. Don’t Use Stock Character Descriptions. Getting readers to picture characters the way you do in your head is important. And it’s hard. Heck, all good description is doubly hard because it comes from your own consciousness AND it has to be filtered through the prism of your characters’ consciousness. Whenever I read something like this: “She looked like a young Elizabeth Taylor” my teeth ache. That’s lazy and obvious. Plus, you can get in trouble if you use culture or age-specific references. ie: He was as hunky looking as Ansel Elgort (That’s Ansel above. Who knew?). You must find a fresh and point-of-view-specific way to describe your people. And if you ever EVER use “handsome,” “sexy” “gorgeous” or, God forbid, “green-eyed vixen” I will hunt you down and confiscate your Acer.

3. Get Rid of Useless Dialogue. The exact words you put in your characters’ mouths is precious. But it’s hard to write because great dialogue is essentially a sleight of hand. (or ear?) You have to convey the FEELING of real conversation but without all the dumb and dull stuff we say in normal life. So to that end, never waste space on mundane stuff that is best conveyed in simple narrative. Don’t write:

“Haven’t seen you in a while, Joe.”

“Yeah, I know,” Joe answered. “It’s been a while since I felt like coming back to the station.”

I nodded. “Things been tough?”

“Yeah,” Joe answered. “Had some family issues and been a little under the weather.”

{{{Yawn}}} Sometimes, narrative works better, especially if you can convey some backstory via a character’s thoughts (and illuminate your narrator!).

Word around the station was that Joe had some problems at home. I knew his wife Clara. We had dated years ago and I knew that when it came to men, she had the attention span of a five-year-old in a McDonald’s ball pit.  I knew Joe, too, and in the red of his eyes I could see the bottom of too many glasses of Jim Beam.

4. Ferret Out the Weasel Words. We all have them — awful crutch filler words that seem to come unbidden from our fingers as we type that first draft. They take up space, make our narrative wishy-washy. Here’s a quick list: Just. Some. Most. But. Very. And my personal favorite — Suddenly! Take the word out, and if the sentence still makes sense, well, you’ve killed a weasel. (Caveat: Sometimes a weasel word is needed in dialogue). Watch, too, for wasted action phrases or words i.e. She raised a hand and slapped him across the face. No, she slapped him. Also, look out for weasel words in description or feelings.

Don’t write this:

He saw the car coming toward him down the dark alleyway. He realized there was no room to move, maybe only ten feet wide, and there was no time for thought. He could only react.

Write this:

Headlights coming fast toward him, blinding him. A screech of tires, the crash of the fender as it hit the trash cans. Two second at most, that was all he had.  He jumped for the fire escape above.

5. Don’t Overstate The Obvious. This is a common problem I see in many of our First Page Critique submissions. The scene is full of tension; something dire is going on. Good! But you have to then trust the reader to GET IT the first time. The more emotional or action-packed the scene is, the more you need to keep things under control. Sure, you can write this:

The sailboat was being tossed by the churning green waves like a bottle lost at sea. Maggie gripped the tiller harder, her heart racing. She squinted into the driving hard rain, trying to make out what Chuck was doing up at the bow, but she could barely make out his form in the darkness. She thought he might be trying to pull the jib down, but she couldn’t be sure. She shivered and was afraid for a second she was going to be sick. She was so afraid, and she thought again that they never should have ventured out two hours ago when the sky had been so dark and threatening.

First, note how this looks on the page: one long paragraph composed of equal-length sentences. But this is an action scene! Time for short and choppier rhythm, right? (See No. 1) And don’t gild the emotional lily. Maybe something like this:

Maggie couldn’t see a thing through the knife-slashing pelt of the rain. Two hands on the tiler now, too afraid to risk even a quick wipe across the face. She squinted toward the bow but Chuck was just a blur of gray against the mad-flap white of the jib. The sailboat groaned and pitched to starboard and she choked down another rise of nausea. Why the hell had they been so stupid? She had seen the low black clouds as they set out two hours ago. She had been stupid. Stupid to trust Chuck.   

Remember: The more emotional or tense the scene, the more controlled the writing should be. Don’t let your writerly emotions swamp your story boat.

And after that awful last sentence, I should probably add a Number 6 tip here about straining for metaphors, but I promised I’d be short and sweet today.