Category Archives: First page critiques

Keeping everything in balance: Today’s first-page critique

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For a scene to work well, there are so many elements that need to be kept in balance: a sense of place, tension, pacing, characterization. It can sometimes seem a little overwhelming to new (and even old) writers.
I think today’s first page is a good example of the writer doing a lot of these things right. My comments follow the asterisks.
Trouble Shooter by Largo Chimp

Chapter 1: The Death of Arthur



Monday, 7 January

California, United States of America

Turgenev rested his elbows in the tall, brown grass of the hilltop and propped his chin in his hands. The sky was blue and empty except for the dark speck of a distant bird. He sucked in a deep breath of warm air and smiled. In Moscow it would be freezing. Grass tickled his throat. Turgenev yawned. “You see him?”

Sally lay an arm’s length away, adjusting the focus on a fat Leupold spotting scope. “Not yet,” she whispered. Then her shoulders tensed. “There!”

Turgenev raised his binoculars. Four hundred meters away, a man carrying a rifle knelt at a chain-link fence outside a compound of cinderblock buildings and sixty-year-old Quonset huts. The chunky man wore a tan sport coat.

“He is stuck. He does not know how to work the bolt cutters,” Turgenev said.


Sally squinted through her scope. “He’s a scientist. I think he can manage the bolt cutters.”

“Don’t be so sure. My father knew a man once, a cyberneticist, who electrocuted himself because he did not know how–“

“Hush. There he goes.”

The man folded back part of the fence and crawled through. He trotted to the nearest building, zipped a card through a wall-mounted reader beside a door and ducked inside.

“Why didn’t you send him through the gate? He has a security card.”

Sally’s soft sleepy eyes hardened. “This is my operation. I want to see what he can do while under the influence. The fence is safer. If I sent him through the gate, he’d talk with the guards and they might notice his behavior.”

Turgenev sipped from a warm bottle of water. “Perhaps safer is better.”

* * *
I have to say I really like this first page, starting with the name “Largo Chimp.” I want to read anything by someone named Largo Chimp.

I immediately get pulled in because the location is California, and yet the first person being presented is Russian. The dialogue starts briskly, with clear tension between the two characters, who are at odds over the action that is unfolding.  Their dialogue is nicely differentiated so that you can tell the difference between the two people’s voices. One way the author accomplishes that  differentiation is through the use/nonuse of the contractions. Turgenev says, “He is stuck.” Sally comes back with an American-sounding contraction, “He’s a scientist.” It’s just what you’d expect from a non-native speaker versus an American. Very nice!

It’s taut, it’s lean, it’s compelling. I can’t think of a goshdarned suggestion to make. Except maybe it would be good to move Sally’s remark, “The fence is safer” to the end of her block of dialogue, so that it more strongly mirrors Turgenev’s comeback, “Perhaps safer is better.” It took me a second reading to realize that he was agreeing with her.

Based on this first page, I really want to read more. This one gets a gold star from me!

Establishing a Strong Sense of Place

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Today our first page critique raises an important aspect in making many a good mystery or thriller – a strong sense of place. I always think the challenge in creating a sense of place is to make it instantly fully realized as well as believable. A reader truly needs to ‘be there’ and to have full confidence that the author has done their research.

A strong sense of place can be a tricky prospect for a first page: too much and the reader starts to yawn; too little and the story can seem generic and bland. If the set-up seems too contrived or deliberate, a reader starts to feel awkward; if the writer gets crucial facts wrong, the reader immediately disconnects from the story.

I think the first page we are reviewing today manages to instantly capture a great sense of place. Although I might tighten it up a wee bit (see my comments after the piece) all in all this first page grabs me – in part because the place itself resonates and intrigues.
So here it is – the first page of the novel, 65 below.
Richardson Highway
East of Fairbanks
Alaska
17 December 1600 hrs
“Damn! When it gets dark out here, it is dark as death.”

Eugene Wyatt drove as fast as conditions allowed down the Richardson highway in his big beige Ford F250 Crew Cab Diesel pickup, with the brown and white Tanana Valley Electric Cooperative logo emblazoned on the doors. It was only four o’clock in the afternoon but the late December sun had already long descended, leaving the land in total inky blackness. His three-year-old golden retriever Penny sat on the passenger side of the wide bench seat. She ignored her master’s Oklahoma drawl and stared out the window as they drove along. The dog’s breath shot a burst of steam onto the frigid glass a few inches away every time she exhaled. Her tongue hung limply over the teeth of her open mouth.

On any typical evening, there would have been brightly lit signs atop tall poles in front of the gas stations, or neon beer advertisements pulsing blue, red, and yellow from within the windows of busy bars as he passed through the small city of North Pole then the even smaller town of Moose Creek. Tonight though only the glow of candles and oil lamps flickered dimly between the curtains of the handful of homes along the highway. The power was out, everywhere.

Eugene looked at Penny who stared transfixed at the truck window. The frost from her breath created a ring of ice crystals on the glass that she seemed to be studying. The area had warmed up significantly in the past few days though after an unseasonal cold snap that held the land at negative fifty for several weeks. The red mercury line on the thermometer now hovered at a livable zero degrees Fahrenheit.

Eugene remembered a line a comedian had said on TV the night before.
If it is zero degrees, does that mean there is no temperature?

The humor of the line dissipated fast. There had never been an outage like it in his thirty years in Alaska’s electricity business. At first, the authorities thought it was a local failure within the Tanana Valley Cooperative area. It was not long though before they discovered it was much bigger. The phone company went out at the same time. Cellular towers failed. The whole of the Interior region of Alaska, an area the size of New York State, was thrown back into the 19th century in an instant.

My comments:

  • First off, I liked how the author started the book with dialogue – it instantly set the tone and introduced us to the character.

  • The details (car type/age of dog) on the first paragraph might (perhaps) be tightened up but I thought this and the second paragraph set the scene really well. The success I think in this first page is that it establishes the scene with a minimum of backstory and explanation – we know all we really need to know at this stage: It’s Alaska, the power is out, the main character (an outsider from Oaklahoma) is out on the highway with only his dog and there is a sense of foreboding that promises much in the way of suspense.
  • I thought the final two paragraphs set up the problem well – that there had never been a power outage like this, that Alaska was now a total ‘frontier’ land, and the reader now gets a strong sense that something awful/shocking is probably about to happen – Just what you want the first page of a good mystery/thriller to set up!

So what do you think? Did you get the immediate, visceral feel of Alaska like I did? Did you feel the set up was there and, more importantly, would you read on?

I know I would.

The name game, and another first-page critique

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Before we get to today’s critique (I’ll explain McGruff later too), check out this fun toy that I heard about from my friend Sheila Lowe—it’s a name generator. They claim to be able to come up with “billions” of name combinations. I tried it and came up with a couple of new ideas by combining their suggestions.

So, here’s today’s first-page critique. My comments are in the bullet points that follow.

SHOPPING CAN BE DEADLY

     Shopping, taxis, suitcases, dogs, wine, antiques and Private Investigators don’t mix well together.  Separately, they’re okay; together they can lead to murder.  I know that now, but I had no clue on my first day.  You would have thought that I had a clue since I’m the Private Investigator mentioned above.  My name is Graff, Guy Graff.  I’m twenty-four years old, opened my own detective agency, Graff Investigations, and thought I was ready for anything; wrong again.  Let me start at the beginning. 
Detective Rule Number twenty-seven: Get to the point before something with a sharp point gets to you.
    It was Valentines Day.  Well it was for everyone else, not for me.  More about that later as I’m trying to get to the point.  
    I woke up that day with a bit of excitement in my stomach. Enthusiasm mixed with anxiety, like before a blind date when you haven’t been with a woman for a year.  I opened my agency two months ago and today was the start of my illustrious career.
    Pulling the handle of my small noisy refrigerator, I knew that I had made a complete break from my former opulent Philadelphian Mainline life.  We had money.  At least my parents did.  I turned my back on it. 


My critique:

  • This first page suffers from “back story blues”—it’s heavy on  background information, light on drama. It’s a cozy mystery, judging by the writing and the title, but like its hard-boiled cousin, a cozy must grab the reader’s interest with some kind of compelling opening scene or disruption (See Jim’s Sunday post on that topic). The narrator in this first page is so busy giving his back story and wandering off point that the reader’s attention wanders away, as well. All the information about opening the agency, breaking away from Mainline society, etc., can be presented after the opening scene. Take a look at how Elaine Viets opens her shopping mysteries—she’s an expert at setting up humorous opening scenes that draw in the reader.
  • I like your Detective Rule No. 27, but I would use it in a different way. I suggest putting a Detective Rule at  the head of each chapter as a framing device. Look at some cozy mystery series, and you’ll see that many of them use chapter-heading framing devices (such as Deb Baker’s Dolls to Die For mysteries, and my Fat City Mysteries). 
  • It’s refreshing to see a male character as the lead in a cozy. That will help distinguish this story from the cozy pack.
  • Speaking of name games, the name “Guy Graff” reminded me of McGruff. You might want to reconsider that name. You don’t want the reader to pause or get distracted.
  • I suggest that you locate the first scene  where the action or conflict starts for Graff—that will probably be the true opening of your book. Then weave in the background information contained on this first page. 
  • If you keep that first line in the story, I would rework the list–the list is too long, plus it sounds a tad awkward. The title could be stronger, too. 
  • Keep going! All the revisions that I’ve suggested can be easily fixed in the rewrite stage.

So how ’bout it, other readers? Do any of you read cozies? What suggestions would you make?

Keeping It Grounded

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James gave a fabulous run down yesterday on the principle of the ‘big grab’ needed on the first page of any novel. Today, I am going to focus on the issue of ‘grounding’ – a necessary aspect of ensuring a reader gets a strong sense of time, place, as well as character. Even if you are going to throw the main character’s life in total upheaval, a reader still needs to know (and care) about what that life was life to begin with. This doesn’t mean we need heaps of details – what we need is just enough for the reader to believe the world the reader has created and have some sensory point of reference that resonates as well as intrigues.

Today we’re critiquing the first page of a novel called SINK and I think it illustrates the difficulty of grounding a reader. Here’s the first page – my comments follow as bullet points.

SINK

Day 1

Gold wire wrapped around a ruby. Almost like a star. The wire hides the center of a heart-shaped stone. Ayu wonders vaguely why gold always has a slight warmth. As if it retains the memory of being melted. The bottom of the pendant comes to a point so sharp she imagines a heart cutting flesh as it jumps out of the owner. Naoki’s heart. Ayu starts shaking, her throat bubbles and laughter explodes from her instead of tears.

The windowless interrogation room looks like the ones she’s seen on TV, except much smaller. Everything in Tokyo is. The damp air makes Ayu sneeze and Ms. Shimizu, her homeroom teacher, shifts her chair closer. Ayu didn’t tell her aunt and uncle that the police wanted to see her; she called Shimizu instead.

“We found that on the body. Are you sure you haven’t seen it before?” Across the table, Assistant Inspector Kameda presses her thin lips together. Her dull gray suit matches the streaks in her hair. This coloring and her small eyes give her a pigeon look.

Ayu takes a sharp breath. “No.” She weighs the jewel in her hand. It’s dense. Like the flat gold chain around her neck, the one that belonged to her mother.

“Why were you laughing?”

“I have no idea.” Ayu presses a fist against her mouth. She’d meant to take back yesterday’s words at homeroom. Except he hadn’t shown and she’d blamed him for that, too. “Maybe it’s not Naoki.”

“His father made a positive ID.”

It must be someone who looks like Naoki. Wears the same Diesel jeans and jacket. “Can I see the body?”

  • Starting off with the description of a pendant is an unusual choice and one I’d be fine with, if it didn’t leave the reader feeling totally ungrounded. Initially, I was intrigued but then ultimately I was just bemused as the first paragraph ended. I couldn’t visualize ‘a heart cutting flesh as it jumps out of the owner’. I also immediately didn’t like the protagonist – why laugh instead of cry? I needed to know more to feel both grounded in the story – at this stage I’m not even sure where Ayu is or the significance of the pendant. The memory of it being melted didn’t have any relevance to me- the memory of it piercing flesh, now that would have been at least sinister.

  • In the second paragraph we get some more details that ‘grounds’ the reader – we know we’re in an interrogation room in Tokyo. The observation, however,that ‘everything in Tokyo seems smaller’ seems incongruous – would a local really notice or think that? Then the reference to the homeroom teacher leaves me thinking that Ayu is a young teenager – but how young? Again, I have nothing with which to ground me as a reader. It doesn’t need to be much, but it does need to be there – even if it is something like. “At sixteen Ayu didn’t tell her uncle and aunt she phoned Shimizu instead.” It needs to clear whether this is a YA book or not – so the age of the protagonist may be important (depending on the rest of the book. I don’t know if this is YA or not).

  • “She’d meant to take back yesterday’s words at homeroom. Except he hadn’t shown and she’d blamed him for that, too.” This could be interesting but as a reader I was just mystified – we need more to care about these characters and the past fight they may have had.

  • “Can I see the body?” – By this point I was really confused about the main protagonist – she laughs at the thought of Naoki’s death, she obsessively notes details about a pendant (the relevance of which is unclear) and then she is in denial that the body could be Naoki’s (even though up to this point the reader suspects she was there – the first paragraph reference to Naoki’s heart jumping out certainly makes suggests it) – and now she asks to see the body? I’m at sea as to who Ayu really is as a character.

  • In short, although this first page offers some intriguing information I’m too ‘ungrounded’ to understand or care about either Ayu or Naoki. How do you all feel? For me it’s a grounding issue but others might feel quite differently.

Calling all Brave Pens: First-page critiques at TKZ

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By Kathryn Lilley 

[Update: We had a great response by Brave Pens and reached our max of 30 submissions, so we’re not taking more at this time. Stay tuned to this blog as we do the critiques that came in!]

Jim’s Sunday post about first-page blunders inspired an idea: We’re going to do some first-page critiques  here on the blog! You can send us the first page of your manuscript (anonymously, of course!), and we’ll critique it. Sound good?

Here’s how it will work: Send the first page of your manuscript (and title) as a Word attachment to the email address killzoneblog at gmail dot com. (We’ll take the first 30 “first pages” we receive this go round, first come first served.) The pages will be divvied up among the Killers; from time to time we’ll post each first page, and do a critique. Everyone will be able to comment as well.

I think this will be lots of fun, and hopefully helpful! I remember right before I found an agent, I got the first 30 pages of my manuscript critiqued by the P.J. Parrish sisters (I won the critique during an auction at Sleuthfest). Their comments were hugely helpful–I made a list of the comments and went back through my ms, applying the comments throughout. After I did that draft, I landed an agent and publishing contract in very short order.

It was also the first time I’d had “real world” feedback about my writing. Until that critique, my only input had come from my writing group and creative writing courses–all good feedback, but I was yearning for input from people who toil in the workaday publishing trenches.

So I’m looking forward to reading some of your pages! Let us know how you like the exercise, and we’ll probably do it again!