The Dos and Don’ts
Of A Great First Chapter

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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.

 

Use Color to Test Your Story

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It’s been months since I shared the saga of the injured raven vs. my beloved “pet” crows, but there’s a good reason for that. I didn’t have an ending till last Thursday. For a while I thought I did, but I needed to verify my suspicions. Ignore the colors as you read. I’ll show you cool writing trick at the end. 🙂

When the story left off, I was trying to figure out how to feed “Rave” without angering my beloved Poe and her murder. While I weighed my options, the crows scolded the raven from all directions.

I have a strict “no fighting” policy in my yard. When anyone breaks this rule, I reinforce my disappointment by withholding food till they smarten up. A wise crow doesn’t anger the human who controls a never-ending supply of tantalizing treats. Needless to say, the attacks stopped as long as Rave stayed within the property lines. If she crossed the dirt road to the woods, my rules were no longer in play, and they divebombed her.

Brilliant birds.

Two weeks later, Poe signaled for me to use her summer rock. I’d created two separate feeding areas so Dad (my husband) didn’t have to shovel the lower yard — affectionally named Animal Planet for its greenery, flowers, and throngs of wildlife who visit — and Mumma didn’t have to schlep through thigh-high snow all winter.

The change in feeding area reset Poe’s murderous hatred toward Rave. By feeding Poe and family on Animal Planet and Rave on the winter rock in the upper yard, I’d restored a modicum of peace.

Until about a week later when Rave thought Poe’s rock looked tastier than hers. Or perhaps, she remembered switching rocks in the warm weather with her dad, Odin. Hard to say for sure what prompted her to move to the woods near the summer rock when our new arrangement worked so beautifully.

Poe was NOT pleased about Rave’s decision.

For the umpteenth time I tried to capture Rave to bring her to a rehabber. And once again, she outmaneuvered me. Maybe she’d be okay on her own? The question replayed on an endless loop, followed by the grave reality of a fox, Great Horned Owl, Fischer cat, raccoon, or black bear crossing her path during the night.

Sleepless nights wore me down.

For two-plus-weeks I wrestled with what to do. Then one day I stopped looking at the situation through my eyes — human eyes — and viewed it from Poe and Rave’s perspective. Once I did, all the years of researching corvids flooded my mind with ideas.

One of crows’ amazing abilities is delayed gratification. Meaning, crows will wait for food if the food they’re waiting for is tastier than the scraps that await them now (Ravens can do this, too, but don’t when they’re injured).

With this theory in mind, I offered Poe a deal.  As the alpha, she’s the only crow I needed to convince. The others would fall in line behind her.

“Poe, if you let Rave eat, I’ll bring out your favorite treats after she’s safely out of sight.”

Now, I’d love to tell you Poe agreed right away, but the truth is, she wasn’t thrilled with the idea at first. Every time I served breakfast, lunch, or dinner, the crows emptied the rock within seconds. Just once I needed Rave to beat Poe to the rock.

It took about three days before Rave worked up enough courage to race Poe to the rock. Afterward, when Rave hopped back into her new wooded digs, I offered Poe raw chicken breast, her favorite kibble, and of course, I replenished the peanut pile.

Success!

Rave on her own special rock.

Day after day, Poe waited for Rave to eat and I made good on my promise. But then, Rave would climb up on this new rock at the tree-line to check out the menu before proceeding toward the summer rock.

The proverbial lightbulb blazed on. If I used both rocks — one for Poe and family and one for Rave — I could potentially decrease the animosity between them. And it worked. For the next few weeks, Poe never ventured near Rave’s rock at feeding time, and vice versa.

What happened next stunned me into submission.

Toward the end of nesting season, Poe sent the fledglings and elder siblings on patrol with Edgar. Shakespeare, known fondly as “Shaky” (Poe’s mini me), stayed with Mumma. Breath trapped in my lungs as Poe swaggered into the woods in search of Rave. Uh-oh. This can’t be good.

Moments later, “low-talking” indicated Poe and Rave were hashing out a few things. Shrubbery obscured my view. There’s nothing I could do but wait. Watch. Pray Poe wouldn’t morph into Hannibal Lecter or Buffalo Bill.

Seconds felt like years.

After several heart-stopping minutes, Poe sauntered out of the woods for a little worm-hunting while Shaky played lookout (since birds are most vulnerable on the ground, crows post a sentinel in the trees). To my surprise Rave lumbered right past Poe, so close the feathers on their wingtips almost touched. Rave climbed up the rock to the feast on chicken thighs, peanuts, sunflower seeds, and kibble. Poe even allowed Rave to eat the dead mouse!

That’s when it dawned on me — these two majestic animals had struck a deal.

Poe watching Rave’s six from the grass below.

With this new arrangement, Rave waited for the crows to tell her if it was safe to step into the open.

Many sharp-shinned hawks flooded our area, and an injured raven equaled easy prey.

In return for Poe’s service, Rave only ate half the food. She even tore off a piece of chicken and tossed it to Poe on the grass below. 

The good times didn’t last long.

Each year when the new fledglings leave the nest, Poe escorts the crowlettes to my yard to practice landing on branches and learn how to slalom through the maze of trees. Normally, it’s a special occasion filled with hilarity and awe.

Not this year.

When Poe brought the fledglings, trepidation surfed their wake. Rave still asked for permission to approach the rock, but Poe’s cutting glare indicated an emphatic, “Don’t you dare come near my babes.”

What could I do? I couldn’t scold Poe for protecting her young. I also couldn’t let Rave starve. A niggling sensation burrowed bone-deep for the next three weeks. Every time Poe, Edgar, and the elder siblings left to teach the fledglings crucial life lessons, I jogged down to the rock to feed Rave.

The situation wasn’t ideal for any of us, but we dealt with it. Until we couldn’t any longer.

Animal Planet turned menacing — dangerous — as a rebellious fledgling ventured past the rock into the woods, in line with Rave’s hiding spot, her home-away-from-home doubling as a hollowed bush.

Poe scolded the fledgling to back away, but he refused to obey. That tiny crow acted like he’d been sworn in as the new sheriff in town, a LEO hellbent on destroying the interloper in their midst.

The situation spiraled toward disaster.

One sultry July morning he’d had about enough of Poe’s “rules” and swooped down in full attack-mode. Ear-piercing caws tornadoed through the trees. I raced toward the woods to intervene before the others joined their brethren.

Whether this incident had anything to do with Rave’s future plan, I couldn’t tell, but she disappeared for three days. Upon her return, she stocked up on food and rested for two days. Vanished for another three days, returned for two. She seemed to have a set route to a precise location. Two days on, three days off. The routine never wavered. Two days on, three days off.

Could Rave be a mother? What if the scuffle with Poe’s fledgling convinced her to find her own? Crows and ravens have similar nesting patterns. If Rave had chicks in the nest when she got hurt, they’d be fledging, too.

More and more I became convinced that she was searching for her family during those three days away. Though this theory filled me with warmth, I still panicked every time she left. Until the day Rave soldiered into the yard with more confidence than she’d had in months, and her shiny black plumage had regained its luster.

For hours she perched on a rock near the house and exercised the injured wing. She even attempted short, low flights, about two feet off the ground for ten feet at a time. Day after day for a solid week, she waited for Poe to soar out of sight before practicing her flying, each day gaining more lift.

When I bustled down the hill to Animal Planet the following day, one flawless raven feather laid on the rock — a thank you from Rave — and I wept, keening over my loss. I’d prayed for Rave to heal, to thrive, but I never got the chance to say goodbye.

Would I ever see her again?

All summer I searched the sky for Rave. Every now and then my husband said he heard gronking in the woods, which brought me some solace. Still, I longed to see her one last time.

Two weeks ago, I had an early appointment that forced me out of the house early on a Friday morning. As I hustled up the walkway, gronk, gronk, gronk emanated from the woods across from the driveway.

I darted across the dirt road. “Rave?”

“Gronk, gronk, gronk.”

“Rave! I missed you so much!”

A black silhouette peeked out from behind a tree trunk. “Gronk, gronk.”

“I wish I could stay, but I can’t. Please come back, baby. I need to make sure you’re okay.”

A week rolled by with no word from Rave. Last Thursday, she strutted across Animal Planet with her bill held high, chest out, confidence and pride oozing off every feather. When she stepped on to Poe’s rock, disappointment crossed her face. The crows had devoured every morsel.

Rave stared up at the window. “Gronk, gronk?”

“Rave,” I called back. “One sec, honey. Be right out.”

That’s all the reassurance she needed. With her spectacular black wings spread wide, Rave leaped into the air and flew to the branch overlooking the rock. I bustled down to Animal Planet, my gaze locked with hers, my emotions rising over the rims of my eyes, joyous tears spilling down my cheeks. Rave’s healthy, happy, and loved.

Now, pull the screen away and look at the colors. It’s a rose garden. Brown = soil (exposition/narration). Red = roses (action/dialogue). Green = leaves (emotion, inner dialogue, and foreshadowing). Too much soil, you’ll have gaps in your garden, wasted space. Too many leaves will overshadow your roses. With too many roses, you can’t see the beauty of each blossom.

This technique is easy to do in Word. I wouldn’t recommend it for a blog, as it’s labor-intensive to manually input colored highlights via CSS. You’re worth it, though. 🙂

One last note: If you come across sentences that contain emotion, exposition, and/or action, it’s fine to highlight it with one color. No need to nitpick. You’re looking at the story as more than the sum of its parts.

 

In other news, Pretty Evil New England released yesterday!  Congratulations to Priscilla Bettis for winning the giveaway!

 

Giving an Old Book New Life

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Gather round the ol’ cracker barrel, children. Let me tell you a story of long ago, when the only place you could get books was a bookstore. Yes! It’s really true! 

Now, a bookstore was a wondrous place. It was a building made of bricks and mortar, and it had shelves filled with books you could touch, take down and look at—right there in the store!

In this land the only way a writer could get a book into those stores was by entering into a contract with a publishing company and ceding the rights to his work. 

Those were perilous times, children. A time of heady highs and dismal lows. There was the excitement of that first novel showing up on a shelf in a Barnes & Noble. Sure, it was only a copy or two, and only the spine showed. But you were there! Along with John Grisham, Stephen King, and Dean Koontz!

Well, sort of. Those guys took up a lot of shelf real estate with their backlist titles. You, the new kid on the block, were going to have to prove your commercial worth over a period of years before you got that attention. After all, the bookstores were in business to make a profit. Every month thousands of books swept into the stores for their debut. Most of these were swept right out again on the tide of the next month’s releases. If yours was one of them, you kept your hopes of making a buck or two alive by working on your next project.

Until your publisher decided, well, it doesn’t look like you’re making enough money for us to keep you around. Sorry, it was a nice try, and good luck to you.

Your books became, in the jargon, OOP—out of print. If you had low sales numbers it was unlikely another publisher, unless it was dinky, would offer you another contract.

You would be out in the cold, and your books, your precious babies, were still under the control of the company that dropped you.

Hopefully, you and your agent negotiated a fair Out-of-Print clause which would enable you to request your rights back. 

But then what? Again, it was highly unlikely that another company would reprint books that didn’t do so well the first time. Your backlist was essentially a ghost town.

Then into this land came a wizard named Bezos. With one wave of his magic wand he changed the game forever. Now there was a way for a writer to make some dough without a big publishing company, physical bookstores, or sales reps! How could such a wonderful thing be?

But it was.

Many a midlist writer began seeking rights reversions so they could make their “dead” titles available again. Even more, they could control pricing and promotions. They could give their titles the attention they had long been denied. And do so in the world’s largest bookstore! Once again, right alongside Grisham, King, and Koontz.

Huzzah!

And “Huzzah” is exactly what I am saying as I bring back to life one of my books from the “old days.” In doing so, I have given it a light edit, a new cover and title, but in all other respects left it true to its time and place. I am happy to announce the pre-publication of Long Lost (formerly published as The Whole Truth). 

At the age of five, Steve Conroy saw his seven-year-old brother kidnapped from the bedroom they shared. His brother was never found. And the guilt of his silence that night has all but destroyed Steve’s life.

Now thirty years old with a failing law practice, Steve agrees to represent a convicted criminal, Johnny LaSalle, who has ties to a notorious family—and some information that threatens to blow Steve’s world apart. 

Desperate for his final shot at professional success, Steve will do anything to find the truth. But Johnny knows far more than he’s telling, and the secrets he keeps have deadly consequences. Now Steve must depend on an inexperienced law student whose faith seems to be his last chance at redemption from a corrupt world where one wrong move may be his last. 

I’m doing something Crazy Eddie-ish with this book. When I was living in New York in the 70s there was an electronics store called Crazy Eddie. It hired a fast-talking disc jockey named Jerry Carroll, who did something like 7500 commercials for them, with a rat-a-tat riff that ended with the tagline: “His prices are IN-SANE!” Have a look:

All that to say, my pre-pub deal price is IN-SANE! Only 99¢. For an 87,000 word novel. Why? Simply because I want my supportive readers to have it for a song (I can’t sing, so this is the nearest I’ll get). After launch I’ll price it at a sane $4.99. But you can  reserve your copy at the deal price by going to:

Amazon

Amazon Canada

Amazon UK

Amazon Australia

(A print version will follow shortly.)

And just so you know, it got some excellent trade reviews upon release. If I may:

“James Scott Bell takes this intriguing what-if concept and weaves it into yet another page-turning, redemptive thriller.” — 
TitleTrakk.com

“
This gritty tale will have readers cheering for Steve as he desperately tries to put the pieces of his life back together. The scenes and characters jump off the page to create a startling, emotionally stirring story. Deliciously suspenseful.
” — Romantic Times

The novel begins, They put Robert in Stevie’s room when Stevie started having night terrors.

It ends with said.

Thanks for listening. And help yourself to the crackers.

Getting What You Want

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Photo by Fernanda Rodriguez from unsplash.com

Happy Halloween! You cannot get away from it. Websites like BloodyDisgusting and The Lineup, which are hardly sedate during the rest of the year, really kicked out the jams in October by letting everyone know about frightening books both new and old, as well what the streaming services are showing to commemorate All Hallow’s Eve (the answer: plenty). 

Out on the street, however, it’s been another story. Some folks have loathe to let their kids out for trick-or-treating for a variety of reasons. Others were concerned about passing out candy for a number of concerns.

I accordingly decided to go dark this Halloween for the first time since I became what I like to think of, probably self-deceptively, as a functioning adult. That raised another issue. What about the children on my street? They are each, to the smallest ankle-biter, uniformly kind, courteous, and in some cases sweet. A solution arrived in due course.

 I decided that I would distribute candy to the neighbor children at their homes before the official Halloween hours commenced. I was mindful that nothing will ruin a Halloween more for a child than finding a bunch of candy that they don’t like (or Apples. Or pretzels. Or anything made by Oral B) at the bottom of their bag at the end of the evening. 

The solution was simple: I did a little market research. I inquired as to the favorite candy of each child. I asked the parents, of course. The sight of an adult male who is elderly, stocky, and bald asking a child about their favorite candy does not make for a good look. Each kid, interestingly enough, had a different preference. I expected some consensus out of the fifteen little neighbors but none was to be had. I had never heard of some of the choices (Warheads? What the feck are Warheads?) but each of them was easily located, thanks to the local Dollar Tree. That, plus some baggies full of dog treats for the families with a Fido saved the day. It worked out fine. Everyone was happy, even (and maybe most of all) Grumpy Old Me. 

Market research. Remember that term.  Candy manufacturers (and manufacturers of just about everything else, really) sink all sorts of lucre into market research, focus groups, and the like before they roll out new products which then swim or sink in the ocean of commerce. Those that tread water and swim multiple laps get pride of place on the shelves of supermarkets. Those that go under three times (usually a product that I really like) don’t get so much as a lifejacket tossed to them. 

The publishing industry is really much more subjective. An author has to find an agent who likes the manuscript AND thinks that it can be sold to a publishing house. The agent finds an editor willing to stick their neck out, who takes it up the line and, well, sticks their neck out to get the book published. Again, it’s not enough for the editor to like the book. The ultimate determinant is whether they think that the book will sell. Editors don’t get in trouble because of the books or authors they miss. They get in trouble for the books they champion and usher to market that miss with the audience. The saying in such a case is, “We shipped twenty-five copies and got twenty-six back.” No one along the line, including the author in most cases, has any real research to back them up when they do this, other than that past performance will (hopefully) be the best indicator of future success. One major exception to this is Dr. Steve Hooley, an author who frequently comments on TKZ. Dr. Steve spends a lot of time at various stages in the writing process bouncing things off of his target audience, and to good effect. He is the exception rather than the rule on this. Authors want to write and finish. Publishers are looking for the successor to the last big hit, which has been at various points Harry Potter or The Da Vinci Code or girls with dragon tattoos or on trains. Older readers will recall when Stephen King first broke hugely, and the shelves and racks were full of horror novels. It looks as if that horror cycle is beginning again for a number of reasons. We’ll see. 

Photo by maounping at shutterstock

All of that sounds depressing. It might be. It might also actually be liberating if you are the writer slaving over their keyboard with high hopes of creating a bestseller, or any seller. While you do this, don’t aim to be next on the current trend line. You want to be first on the next trend. You want people to wonder who will be the next YOU. How do you get there? For starters, remember this bit of wisdom. An announcer who began his career on a low-watt radio station in western Pennsylvania eventually, through a lot of hard work and after experiencing years of failure, created a broadcast and merchandise empire by being himself. He did this in part by reminding himself each morning that “Someone is going to be successful today! Why can’t it be me?” Indeed. For seconds, don’t write like someone else. Someone has already done that. Tell yourself your story out loud until it sounds like something you would say. You’ve got a voice. Use it to sound like unique you, not someone else. And have fun while you’re doing it. If you’re not having fun you are probably doing the wrong thing or doing the right thing wrong.

Enjoy your day and evening. I hope you get exactly what you want in your candy bag. Be well, and thank you as always for being here. No you, no me. 

Photo by vishnuMK at unsplash.com

How Understanding Songs Benefit Novel Writers

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Songs are ancient storytelling forms. Thousands of years ago—long before scripted language evolved—indigenous people got their message across by vocally singing as well as orally telling structured stories. This primal people-connection still resonates and you, as today’s novel writer, can benefit by understanding timeless song-structured forms.

I don’t pretend to be a songwriter or musician. I can barely play the radio, and my only rhythmic venture was a limerick unfit to print. However, I’m a moderately-skilled written storyteller who tries to improve by studying other storytelling venues including songs.

Novels are only one type of storytelling. We find stories in all sorts of artwork. Music, dance, songs, film, and plays come to mind. I think there’re stories to be found in abstract art like ice-sculpting and graffiti-painting. All art forms tell a story, and one of the most powerful connectors is a song.

This piece started the other day when I opened my inbox and Amazon offered me a free three-month subscription to their newest line called Amazon Music. I downloaded the app and checked it out. I was still up at 2 a.m. because this awesome and easy-to-use platform has stuff that took me back… a way, way back. Amazon Music is so good that it’ll make you want to throw rocks at Spotify.

Enough of pumping up the ’ZON. While listening to hours of songs with vocals ranging from Chubby Checker to Reba McIntyre to Celine Dionne to Brian Johnson, I felt a common thread. All their songs—as varied as their voices and lyrics are—have defined structures. I decided to explore this and see how understanding song forms could benefit me as a novelist. Hopefully, what I learned will benefit you, too.

The Three Main Song Forms

In songwriting, form and structure mean the same. They’re interchangeable terms that describe a framework for building time-proven and marketable products. Having said “for sale”, there are endless variations of the three song categories. It’s the same as breaking down the classic beginning, middle, and end novel structures into microcosms.

Think of a song—any song. Let’s go with Rock Around The Clock by Bill Haley and the Comets. It has a mix of all three forms in the tune, and it’s one of the catchiest dance pieces ever recorded. Jolene by Dolly Parton takes a classic form and reverses its structure. And Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody is in a form-league of its own. I found a Rolling Stone quote saying this rock opera was so unique that it could only be sung by an entity like Freddie Mercury with God doing backup.

As different as Bohemian Rhapsody, Jolene, and Rock Around The Clock are, they still conform to recognized structures. It’s no different than taking novels like Wuthering Heights, Fifty Shades of Gray, and Harry Potter. Where there’s story, there’s form and structure. Let’s do a dive into the three main song forms with a caveat that I am not a songwriter by any score.

Verse-Chorus Form

This is the simplest and safest songwriting structure, especially in pop music. It’s highly effective at getting the story across. However, verse-chorus is not the oldest form. We’ll get to that in a minute.

There are two distinct parts in a verse-chorus song. The verse is the story and the chorus is emphasizing the message or theme. Songwriters refer to this as the ABAB structure where A is the verse and B is the chorus (which is also called the refrain).

The same thing happens in a novel where the story (verse) unfolds in the narrative through exposition, dialogue, and the treasure-trove of devices available to the novelist while the theme (quiet chorus) unfolds through plotting, characterization, and whatever else a novelist can dream of.

A typical song verse contains lyrics that build on the story. Verse lyrics change as the song progresses. A typical chorus repeats itself. It’s here where the hook or earworm resides. You know. The catchy part—the one that pops-in while you’re having a shower. (Think “Chevy to the Levy” in American Pie)

Good verse-chorus song examples are Penny Lane (Beatles), California Girls (Beach Boys), and That’ll Be The Day (Buddy Holly).

Verse-Chorus-Bridge Form

This is an expansive form of the simple ABAB song structure. Songwriters term it the ABABCB form as it stretches the multi verse-chorus style by adding a musical or lyrical bridge to it. The bridge addition is often called a rift, solo, or a Middle 8.

Part of song structure expansion includes adding extras to the ABADCB form. They include an opening or introduction (intro) that is usually musical without lyrics. Then, songwriters go with one to three verses, throw in a single chorus, add a bridge/rift/solo/ Middle 8, and then finish off with a final chorus and an outro. The ABABCB outro is also known as a tag, coda, or conclusion.

Songwriters say they get more mileage with their music with the verse-chorus-bridge form. It allows a great change of pace from the twang-twang felt in the ABAB structure. Today, the ABABCB song form leads the pack of popularity.

Good verse-chorus-bridge song examples are Hot N Cold (Katy Perry), High and Dry (Radiohead), and What’s Love Got To Do With It (Tina Turner).

Strophic Form

Strophic form is by far the oldest song structure. It’s also the cleanest. It’s been around from the dawn of time and led to the early church hymns.

The only part in a strophic-structured song is the verse. That’s it. Sure, some songwriters clever it up with a hidden chorus built into the verse or slip in a rift as an interlude. But, purists stick with the strophic program when they really want to put story over strings, symbols, and saxophones.

Strophic songs can be simplex or complex. In pure form are children’s lullabies like Hush Little Baby. Put a little flare to a strophic structure and you get the incredibly annoying It’s A Small World. Or, you can stretch strophic style to the magnificent Amazing Grace.

Some of the finest songs ever written fall in the strophic category. They are timeless treasures telling tragedy and triumph. As a rule, strophic-structure songs are much longer than ABAB and ABABCB forms.

Good strophic song examples are Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald (Gordon Lightfoot), Maggie May (Rod Stewart), and Mack The Knife (Bobby Darrin).

Analyzing Actual Song Forms

This piece wouldn’t be fun without grabbing an ABAB song, an ABABCB song, and a Strophic song and having a look at what makes them tick. Doing this can make you relate to your novel structure, and we can always improve on that—at least I can improve on mine. Here are three highly-successful songs that use common songwriting forms.

ABAB Song Form — Bad Moon Rising (John Fogerty)

(verse)
I see the bad moon a-rising
I see trouble on the way
I see earthquakes and lightnin’
I see bad times today

(chorus)
Don’t go around tonight
Well it’s bound to take your life
There’s a bad moon on the rise

(verse)
I hear hurricanes a-blowing
I know the end is coming soon
I fear rivers overflowing
I hear the voice of rage and ruin

(chorus)
Well don’t go around tonight
Well it’s bound to take your life
There’s a bad moon on the rise, all right

(guitar bridge/rift/Middle8)

(verse)
Hope you got your things together
Hope you are quite prepared to die
Looks like we’re in for nasty weather
One eye is taken for an eye

(chorus)
Well don’t go around tonight
Well it’s bound to take your life
There’s a bad moon on the rise

(chorus)
Don’t come around tonight
Well it’s bound to take your life
There’s a bad moon on the rise

ABABCB Song Form — Hotel California (The Eagles)

(horn/guitar/drum intro)

(verse)
On a dark desert highway
Cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas
Rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance
I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night

(verse)
There she stood in the doorway
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinkin’ to myself
‘This could be heaven or this could be hell
Then she lit up a candle
And she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor
I thought I heard them say

(chorus)
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year any time of year
You can find it here

(verse)
Her mind is Tiffany-twisted
She got the Mercedes Benz, uh
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys
That she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard
Sweet summer sweat
Some dance to remember
Some dance to forget

(verse)
So I called up the Captain
“Please bring me my wine”
He said, “We haven’t had that spirit here since 1969”
And still those voices are calling from far away
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say

(chorus)
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
They livin’ it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise what a nice surprise
Bring your alibis

(verse)
Mirrors on the ceiling
The pink champagne on ice
And she said, “We are all just prisoners here of our own device”
And in the master’s chambers
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives
But they just can’t kill the beast

(verse)
Last thing I remember
I was running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
“Relax”, said the night man
“We are programmed to receive
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave”

(long guitar bridge/rift/outro)

Strophic Song Form — The Times They Are A Changing (Bob Dylan)

(short harmonica intro)

(verse)
Come gather ’round, people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
And you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’ (chorus)

(short harmonica bridge)

(verse)
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’ (chorus)

(long harmonica bridge)

(verse)
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin’
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’ (chorus)

(short harmonica bridge)

(verse)
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’ (chorus)

(long harmonica bridge)

(verse)
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’ (chorus)

(short harmonica outro)

Let Song Forms Benefit Your Novel Writing

Songwriters, like novelists, know rules need followin’. The three-form rule is basic to writing gold-record songs as the three-act rule is to penning blockbuster novels. Some things work, and these three forms or structures are proven.

The basics—guidelines more than rules, they say—and they say it’s okay to break the rules as long as you know what you’re doing when you break them. I agree, and from what I observed in the three ABAB, ABABCB, and Strophic styles, they are full of rule breaking. And I think Fogerty, Felder/Frey/Henley, and Dylan knew exactly what they were doing when they did so.

Your novel writing is your personal craft. It’s your expression and it’s your freedom of individuality. Go ahead and break the rules if you want. Just like the songwriters do. But, understand what conventional structures are before you color outside the lines.

What about you KZ writers? What’s your experience with story form and how songwriting applies to your work? And you KZ readers? What do you see in similarities between songs and novels? Please feel free to comment!

———

Garry Rodgers is a retired homicide detective and exhausted coroner, now an energetic crime writer and indie publisher. He’s also an avid song-writing student and wishes he could write like Bob Dylan instead of sing like him.

Check out DyingWords.net which is Garry’s website and popular personal blog. He’s also out there on Twitter. Garry Rodgers lives on Vancouver Island in beautiful British Columbia on Canada’s west coast where he spends non-writing time putzing around the Pacific Ocean.

Tips for Distant Settings

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Things I’ve learned about setting a book in real places, especially distant ones.

Distant SettingsWhen the Hubster and I decided to celebrate our 50th anniversary with a trip to the British Isles, of course I had “book” in the back of my mind. However, an international setting wouldn’t have worked with any of my existing series, and since I never plot in advance, I decided to enjoy our tour, taking pictures and notes of what we were seeing and doing and just wait and see what might bubble to the surface.

Distant SettingsOur trip began in Northern Ireland with a visit to our daughter, who had pointed out that she moved there 12 years ago and we’d never visited. From there, we had a couple days in London where I got to meet one of my critique partners face to face for the first time. Given we’d been in our little group for about 15 years, that was another “it’s about time” moment.

From there, we visited Scotland, and then Ireland. When we got home, I decided I’d write a short and sweet romance. Write it quickly, understanding that it’s not my true “brand” but that I had to publish something to justify writing off at least part of the trip.

Well, I soon discovered I’m not a short and sweet romance author, and mystery elements insisted on working their way into the story. What I ended up with is Heather’s Chase: an International Mystery Romance which is closer to my brand, although it’s a stand alone and still a bit of a one off. Nevertheless, it was an educational experience.

My Tips

Distant SettingsLess is more. My first drafts went into phenomenal detail about absolutely everything. Airports. Train stations. Hotels. Food. All the places we stopped, what we saw on the drives. Given we were traveling for well over two weeks, that would have been a LONG book. A sense of place is good. Overwhelming readers is not. I had to keep reminding myself to make sure everything related to the plot and characters. I wasn’t writing a travelogue.

Stay true to time. Readers familiar with the area will know that you can’t get from A to B in two hours, or that when you’ve had your characters on their bus for five hours, it’s really a twenty-minute drive.

Distant SettingsYou’ll always miss something. Unless you’ve got your plot mapped out before your trip, once  you start writing, you’ll have a scene to write and—lo and behold—you missed taking a picture, or didn’t take the right notes. I spent a LOT of time on the internet rechecking facts, looking at maps, and refamiliarizing myself with some of the attractions we visited. If I couldn’t find exactly what I needed, I reminded myself I was writing fiction—another reason not to name real places. On the occasions where my characters were eating in real, named places, I made sure I had pictures and menus. Same for attractions.

Distant SettingsDon’t make up real stuff. One of the reasons I made this book a stand alone was because our trip didn’t include visits to police departments (although I snapped a picture of a vehicle in Ireland, “just in case”). Also, it would be unrealistic for my American characters to have any access to law enforcement in several different countries.

Be nice. I also opted not to name the specific hotels or restaurants (mostly). For one thing, it gave me the freedom to change the décor, layout, amenities, or the restaurant menus. And, if something “bad” happened, I wasn’t going to incur the wrath of those establishments.

It’s about flavor. Although my characters didn’t visit Northern Ireland, I did include a character from the same town we’d visited when we stayed with my daughter. I made sure she vetted all his dialogue. For example, people in Northern Ireland use the word “wee” as a meaningless adjective. I was asked for my wee credit card, given a wee receipt, offered a wee bag for my purchases. My British critique partner was very helpful with vocabulary as well.

All in all, I had a great time ‘revisiting’ my trip to the British Isles while I was writing the book, and being able to incorporate my experiences into Heather’s Chase.

Want to see more pictures? Click on the book cover below, then scroll down to “Special Features.”

Heather's ChaseMy  Mystery Romance, Heather’s Chase, is  available at most e-book channels. and in print from Amazon.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.” Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

First Page Critique – Murder for the Sleep Deprived

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@burke_writer

 

Please welcome today’s Brave Author who submitted Murder for the Sleep Deprived – a dark comedy mystery.

Enjoy this excerpt then we’ll discuss.

~~~

NOW

Kevin Mills-Greene wasn’t a nice young man when he was alive.

He wasn’t exactly any nicer when he was dead, either.

The sun was beating down and reflecting off the pool in the Harding’s back garden, the sky a swathe of pale blue that was dotted with fluffy clouds, as the dappled sunlight fell through the leaves of the trees that brushed the edges of the garden.

Nice weather.

The sort of weather that the first thing you’d think as you sat down outside would be – “Ah, this is lovely.”

The weather was nice the morning after Kevin Mills-Greene was murdered, even if he wasn’t. The teenager was lying on his back, unblinking, unmoving, and utterly, entirely dead. To be fair, dead people aren’t exactly famous for moving and blinking. You mustn’t hold that against him.

The twitching of a curtain from inside the Harding household.

No blood-curdling scream.

Not yet.

The grass was soft and a luscious emerald shade – the entire garden practically radiating elegance, overlooking the corpse – even the small shed in the corner has neatly painted a shade of chestnut brown, the brightly colored plastic bottles creating as stained glass effect through the frosted windows as the sun reflected through. The burnished wood of a bench under the cover of a tree glinted in the sunlight.

One of those rare, perfect days; the kind of day that makes people forget to worry.

Perfect and worry-free, for everyone except Kevin Mills-Greene, obviously.

The buzzing of flies was a thick blanket of sound as they swirled like a rain-heavy cloud around the body, the twittering of birds in the trees overshadowed. The flies crept over his stiff limbs, his purpled, blueish skin mottled and paling.

Believe it or not, Kevin had been a relatively handsome young man.

~~~

The Brave Author categorized this as a “dark comedy mystery” and it certainly fills the bill. The ironic, understated humor has a tone that might be British. The idyllic description of the Harding yard and lovely weather contrasts effectively with the ugliness of the crime. A beautiful, peaceful setting is not where you expect to see the dead body of a teenager with flies feasting on him. That juxtaposition works well because it’s unexpected and surprise is a necessary component of humor.

Title: Good job! It caught my attention, which is a title’s main task. It establishes the genre and tone and piques the reader’s curiosity. Who’s sleep deprived and why? How does that connect to murder?

Time period: Now indicates a contemporary story.

First line: We’ve talked at TKZ about starting a story with a body.

It’s an attention grabber.

But it’s also a risk because the reader doesn’t know anything about the character yet. At this point, he is a two-dimensional being without personality, loves or hates, flaws or strengths. Why should the reader care if he’s dead?

However, I think the author pulled it off because of the intriguing opening line:

Kevin Mills-Greene wasn’t a nice young man when he was alive.

Why does that line work? It immediately raises a reader’s curiosity. Why wasn’t he a nice young man? Why is he dead?

What not-nice thing did he do that provoked someone to kill him? Who was that person?

There’s a hint at revenge, a very human, relatable theme for anyone who’s ever dreamed of retribution against somebody who wronged them. If this is a story of the ultimate comeuppance, what motive is behind it? How did an angry thought turn into murder?

The author took a risk and I think it paid off. I’ll keep reading to find those answers.

Point of View: The author took another risk here. The POV is omniscient which is difficult to pull off successfully. An all-seeing being floats above the scene and describes it, directly addressing the reader:

…the first thing you’d think as you sat down…

and

You mustn’t hold that against him.

Many readers dislike when an author uses “you” and talks directly to the audience. Personally, I don’t mind it. But it’s a matter of taste. In the comments, maybe TKZers will weigh in if they like “you” or not.

Back to the omniscient POV. Here, it sets the scene and gives context that would not otherwise be known to the reader. The narrator informs the reader that Kevin was not nice. How does s/he know? Is the narrator the god of the story issuing divine proclamations with dark wit? Or will the narrator soon become a character in the play?

Omniscient is not a popular choice for POV because readers don’t identify with a detached voice. They generally want to get inside the skin of characters, to experience the senses and emotions more directly. Omniscient is also difficult to sustain through an entire book.

This may be an introductory chapter where the problem is laid out, similar to the stage manager in the play Our Town. In this submission, perhaps the narrator makes the introduction then steps back and turns the rest of the story over to the characters and their POVs. If handled well, that could be an effective technique.

Does this POV work for the first page? Because of the humor, I think mostly it does. But the author should be wary of trying to maintain omniscience through the rest of the story because of the reasons mentioned above.

Here’s my biggest problem with the submission:

Where’s the body?

The statement about Kevin’s death is immediately followed by a detailed description of the pool. That led me to believe the body was floating in the pool, like William Holden at the beginning of the classic film Sunset Boulevard.

 

But, in the sixth paragraph, Kevin is lying on his back. That stopped me because generally bodies float face down in water. That sent me on another false trail: why is he floating face up?

In the tenth paragraph, there is a detailed description of a lush lawn and a beautifully landscaped back yard.

Okay, does that mean the body is lying on the grass?

No, wait.

The next sentence reads:

…the entire garden practically radiating elegance, overlooking the corpse.

How is the garden overlooking the body? Does the garden have eyes? Or is the body lying below the garden? If so, where? What or who is overlooking?

The last paragraph is a good, vivid description of the thick cloud of flies around the body.

But…I’m still not sure where the body is.

The author led me to several assumptions that turn out to be wrong. After going down false trails, I feel disoriented. Now I don’t quite trust the author. Do I really want to embark on a journey deeper into this book when I’ve been misled?

I don’t believe this was intentional misdirection on the author’s part. More likely, s/he saw the scene vividly in his/her head but something got lost between brain and keyboard. It happens to all of us! 

Details:  The twitching curtain raises the reader’s curiosity more. Who’s behind the curtain? Why doesn’t s/he react to the dead body? A blood-curdling scream is foreshadowed. These all increase tension and suspense. Well done.

There are several passages of detailed description of the setting–the shed, colored bottles, the burnished wood bench glinting in sunlight. Do these details play a significant role in the murder? If not, readers may become impatient because they want to know more about Kevin’s death.

…even the small shed in the corner has [typo-should be was] neatly painted a shade of chestnut brown, the brightly colored plastic bottles creating as [typo-should be a] stained glass effect through the frosted windows as the sun reflected through [repeated word]. The burnished wood of a bench under the cover of a tree glinted in the sunlight.

How much detail is enough? How much is too much that bogs down the story? This is a tightrope for authors. Because the author does a good job seducing the reader with the title and first line, I hope these details have significance.

But, if they’re not important, would the space be better used to describe what killed Kevin? Gunshot? Rodent poison? Garden trowel? Unknown cause?

Beware of –ly: In one page, I counted nine modifiers that ended with –ly.

Exactly, utterly, entirely, exactly, practically, neatly, brightly, obviously, relatively

Perhaps it’s a stylistic choice but they occurred often enough to be distracting.

Precision of language: The word choices sometimes don’t work.

…dappled sunlight fell through the leaves

Fell doesn’t accurately describe rays of sun.

I already mentioned the garden overlooking.

The twittering of birds in the trees overshadowed…

Does that mean the twittering overshadowed? Or the trees?

Small punctuation nit:

…the first thing you’d think as you sat down outside would be – “Ah, this is lovely.”

 Normally, quotation marks are used for spoken dialogue. Since this line describes a thought, what if you use italics instead, like this:

…the first thing you’d think as you sat down outside would be: Ah, this is lovely.

 Humor: For humor to work well, it needs to be tack-sharp and spot on target.

The narrator’s statement:

One of those rare, perfect days; the kind of day that makes people forget to worry.

Perfect and worry-free, for everyone except Kevin Mills-Greene, obviously.

Since Kevin’s dead, he’s free of worries, so the line doesn’t quite work.

Here are a couple of suggestions but you can do better:

Perfect and worry-free. Kevin was no longer perfect but his worries were certainly gone.

Or:

Perfect and worry-free. At least, until the discovery of Kevin Mills-Greene’s body.

Overall, the Brave Author did an excellent job of teasing us. The reader wants to learn why Kevin wasn’t nice. Who is looking out from behind the curtain? Why the lack of reaction to a murder?

The fixes are small: sharper wit, more precise word choices, and pinning down the actual location of the body.

I’ll be interested to hear how the author handles POV through the rest of the story.

I would keep reading. How about you, TKZers?

What are your suggestions for the Brave Author?

First Page Critique: Oh By The Way

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It’s seems a while since I did a first page critique  (though it probably isn’t) but time this year has been running in very strange ways – but it feels good to get back down to the nitty gritty of what makes a first page work. Today’s submission, ‘Oh By The Way’ provides a great introduction to the role of humor and setting the tone for a POV right from the start. Enjoy – my comments follow.

Oh By The Way

I didn’t go out with a bang. It was more of a thud. When the car hit me, all I could think  was, “Oh, great.” My body lifted ridiculously out of my shoes on impact, then fell to the ground so quickly that the rest of me didn’t follow. Thud.

I watched my crumpled body from above and thought, “I’m going to be late for work.” I  floated higher into the London sky, past the smog and into the clouds before realizing the whole cartoonish scene had been my death. “Lovely,” I folded my arms across my chest and rose into the heavens a bit pissed off.

Without any transition at all, I found myself standing in front of a bland sort of train station. It sat under a hazy orange sky surrounded by nothing at all. I turned in all directions and noted not a tree or a bird. The only sound came from my shoes crunching tired-looking pebbles beneath my feet.

“Well, my shoes are back. That’s clever,” I thought. But, the rest of it was quite disappointing. I mean, there was no ceremony to it. I didn’t exactly expect trumpets, but a  kazoo perhaps could have been spared.

I let out a frustrated giggle and noticed a card hanging from my neck by a lanyard. It had a mortifying picture of me with an astonished look on my face and the words “DISTRACTED  DRIVER” bolded in red.

“Bloody hell,” I said out loud.

My ears perked at the sound of pebbles crunching to my right as a plump little woman came walking toward me out of seemingly nowhere. She reminded me of my middle school  English teacher, except with better shoes.

“Oh, my dear,” she reached her hand out to me and I awkwardly took it. “How are you?”  she asked.

“Incredulous,” I blurted out. I was still gripping the photo around my neck and lamely held it up to her. “I was a pedestrian, not a distracted driver,” I said. As if getting my name tag right was what really mattered.

“Oh, not to worry. That’s just a conversation starter,” the woman smiled.

The sound of footsteps suddenly surrounded us on all sides. Beings began taking shape out of the orange haze and we were no longer alone.

General Comments:

I enjoyed this first page for its breezy tone and humor, setting the scene (I assume) for a story set in some kind of afterlife. My favorite line – ‘I didn’t exactly expect trumpets, but a  kazoo perhaps could have been spared.’ – provides a great illustration for how a POV can really come to life in just one sentence. This first page was a little less successful in other ways – mainly because of some uneven writing and lack of real imagery (there seemed to be a lot of non-descriptions like ‘bland train station’ or ‘not a tree or a bird’ which didn’t really add much to the story). Given that most of my specific comments are more directed at these kind of issues, I’ve copied the first page below with my notes embedded, as this illustrates what I’m trying to say a bit better. Despite these issues, though, I do think that this first page has a lot of potential. Starting with an ‘out-of-body’ death experience has been done before, however, so I would urge the writer to really hone those humor skills and make every word, in every sentence count. I love the Douglas Adams style of humor, which is hard to pull off, so overall I think with some more revising, this could be a very successful, wryly funny, first page.

Here is the version of this first page with my specific comments embedded in bold:

Oh By The Way [odd title but could work]

I didn’t go out with a bang. It was more of a thud. When the car hit me, all I could think  was, “Oh, great.” My body lifted ridiculously out of my shoes on impact, then fell to the ground so quickly that the rest of me  [bit awkward as reader left wondering what is the ‘rest of me’ is if not the body…maybe say my consciousness or my brain or my thoughts?] didn’t follow. Thud.

I watched my crumpled body from above and thought, “I’m going to be late for work.” I  floated higher into the London sky, past the smog and into the clouds before realizing the whole cartoonish scene had been my death. “Lovely,” I folded my arms across my chest and rose into the heavens a bit pissed off. [this works well! Like the tone/POV]

Without any transition at all [clunky], I found myself standing in front of a bland sort of train station [?? bland feels like a non-description that doesn’t add anything] . It sat under a hazy orange sky surrounded by nothing at all [except a colored sky…so this seems again more of a non description]. I turned in all directions and noted not a tree or a bird [so why say this? Again doesn’t add anything]. The only sound came from my shoes crunching tired-looking pebbles beneath my feet [so there are pebbles – not nothing at all].

“Well, my shoes are back. That’s clever,” I thought. [I’m assuming the narrator is also dressed – maybe an observation about clothes would also help reader visualize the person] But, the rest of it was quite disappointing. I mean, there was no ceremony to it. I didn’t exactly expect trumpets, but a  kazoo perhaps could have been spared. [Love this line!]

I let out a frustrated giggle [I can’t visualize what that looks like…] and noticed a card hanging from my neck by a lanyard. It had a mortifying picture of me with an astonished look on my face and the words “DISTRACTED  DRIVER” bolded in red.

“Bloody hell,” I said out loud.

My ears perked at the sound of pebbles crunching to my right as a plump little woman came walking toward me out of seemingly [redundant] nowhere. She reminded me of my middle school  English teacher, except with better shoes. [nice line! Love the repetition of shoe issue]

“Oh, my dear,” she reached her hand out to me and I awkwardly took it. “How are you?”  she asked.

“Incredulous,” I blurted out. I was still gripping the photo around my neck and lamely held it up to her. “I was a pedestrian, not a distracted driver,” I said. As if getting my name tag right was what really mattered. [love this line too – clever way of giving insight into character]

“Oh, not to worry. That’s just a conversation starter,” the woman smiled. [love this!]

The sound of footsteps suddenly surrounded us on all sides [awkward]. Beings began taking shape out of the orange haze and we were no longer alone. [Again feels more like a non-description. I would like something to visualize as a reader]

Hope this feedback helps – TKZers, what do you think? What suggestions do you have to our brave submitter??

Write Awesomely

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

JSB, Grand Canyon

In last week’s post I mentioned I would be driving all day, and that was quite true. Mrs. B and I needed to get out, get away, do something different. Cindy suggested we motor to the Grand Canyon, just to spend a day looking at something big, majestic, unsullied and quiet.

Turns out my wife’s instinct was right on the money. Scientific research suggests that several benefits flow from the experience of awe—“from happiness and health to perhaps more unexpected benefits such as generosity, humility, and critical thinking.”

In The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative, Florence Williams emphasizes the need to get away from anthrophone. This refers to the soundscapes created by things like cities, cars, planes, machines, lawn mowers, sirens, neighbors with a teenager who is taking up the drums, and such like. The thing is, that noise goes into our brains and triggers our “fight or flight” receptors. Over time this can create chronic stress, a very real danger to our collective health and well-being.

On the other hand, natural sounds like a gentle breeze, flowing water, and singing birds are interpreted by our brains as relaxing and rejuvenating. In this state we are more creative and less hostile toward other human beings (hmmm…maybe people should only be allowed to tweet when in a forest).

Photo by JSB

The Grand Canyon is something to behold. If you’ve never been there, put it on your bucket list. Plan to spend at least four hours just looking at it. You can drive to various viewpoints, or take a shuttle bus tour, a helicopter flight, or even ride a mule for an overnight stay at the bottom. We opted for the viewpoints.

Grand Canyon = Awesome. Good for the soul.

Writing awesomely = Good for the reader.

What does it mean to write awesomely? At the very least, it means giving your readers more than a by-the-numbers story. Help them feel something beyond numbers. Tap into the inspirational. After all, that’s what the great myths were for. A hero overcomes tremendous odds so that we, the audience, might exhibit the same courage on our own journey through life.

Heracles kills the Hydra. He does so with a mixture of courage, strength and thought. Since cutting off one of the Hydra’s heads means two more heads replace it, Heracles has his nephew, Iolas, put a torch to each cut to cauterize it. And thus he dispatches the monster. Hey, maybe you can do the same when it seems your bills are like Hydra’s heads.

Or maybe you face a seemingly insoluble problem. If you approach it wisely, like Theseus in the Labyrinth, you can kill your personal Minotaur and find a way back to the world.

In our modern storytelling, we have mythic heroes of various stripes teaching us valuable lessons. Charlotte Vale (Bette Davis) in Now, Voyager, shows us that inner strength and beauty can be developed even under the worst of circumstances. Atticus Finch teaches us that sometimes a losing battle is morally imperative. Heck, even Dirty Harry Callahan shows us that sometimes you have to do whatever it takes to save the innocent—especially a busload of children in the grip of a mad killer. Do you believe that? “Well do ya, punk?”

Driving home with Elixir in the trunk.

So one of the ways to be awesome is to be intentional about the meaning of your story. In my book, The Last Fifty Pages, I talk about the idea of a “life lesson learned.” My friend Chris Vogler, in The Writer’s Journey, calls this the “Return With the Elixir.” It’s what takes a story from tale to myth, from entertainment to exaltation. Why not go for it, every time out?

To prepare, take a little time each day to get away from the anthrophone. There are abundant apps and sites with nature sights and sounds. A fifteen-minute break every now and then seems almost a health mandate these days. So get quiet, forget about Twitter, and maybe the boys in the basement will mix you some elixir.

What is awesome to you? What natural sites have lifted your soul? 

What works of fiction have elevated you, given you a takeaway that is more than entertainment?