First Page Critique – Hell Hath No Fury

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by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

Please welcome today’s Brave Author with a submission titled Hell Hath No Fury. Take a look then we’ll discuss it.

Photo credit: Fernando Aguilar, Unsplash

A DROP OF BLOOD CLUNG PRECARIOUSLY to the tip of the chef’s knife. On the fluffy white carpet of Madeline Hawthorne’s bedroom, a nasty red stain was forming. The woman gripping the knife breathed in staccato gasps; the muscles in her arm twitching after her recent exertion.  Madeline lay on her stomach on the king-sized bed, wearing a silver silk nightgown with two ragged gashes in its back.  Blood welled up from the wounds and ran down her side onto the satin sheet.  Madeline groaned and moved her left arm.

“I said die, bitch!”

The knife sliced into Madeline’s back five more times in quick succession.  Blood spatter covered the woman’s face and arms as well as her blouse.  She was petite, but the muscles in her arms and shoulders were well-defined, honed by hours in the gym and the dance studio.  Her calves, visible below her dark skirt were lithe and slender.  She tensed for another lunge, but there was no need. She stood over the dead woman while her pulse steadied and her breathing slowed to normal.  A dark pool had formed on the bed and ran in two thin rivulets off the edge of the mattress and down onto the stained carpet.  After a few minutes of motionlessness, she calmly laid the knife down on a bloodless space near the foot of the bed and wiped the handle with a portion of the comforter, leaving bloody streaks.  Then she reached down and removed her shoes, which had mostly avoided the flying blood.  She carefully walked to the bathroom and set the shoes down on the floor, then walked around the bed, not stepping in the obvious patches of blood, until she reached a closet door.  She opened it and went inside, then reached up to the shelf over a row of dark men’s business suits and removed a wooden case.

John had shown her the box once, after they had sex in his bed while his bitch wife was away for the weekend visiting her mother. He was unnaturally proud of his Colt Python .357 Magnum with the 4-inch barrel. She removed six bullets from a cardboard box lying next to the gun inside its case and loaded each of the revolving chambers, then took the gun back to the bathroom.  She sat down on the edge of the marble bathtub to wait.

~~~

The title Hell Hath No Fury makes a great first impression. The familiar phrase is commonly attributed to Shakespeare. But the source is actually a 1697 play, The Mourning Bride by William Congreve.

Here’s the original version:

“Heav’n has no rage, like love to hatred turn’d,/Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn’d.”

No matter who said it, the quote fulfills requirements of a compelling title for a murder mystery. A female who’s suffered betrayal and rejection is consumed with passionate vengeance. Since titles can’t be copyrighted, Hell Hath No Fury has been used before. I suggest the Brave Author do a net search to find other books with that name and how recently they were published. If it’s not overdone, it’s an excellent choice for a murder mystery.

Now to deconstruct the first page.

At TKZ, we stress the importance of hooking the reader with action or a disturbance. Today’s first page kicks off with a gruesome stabbing, immediately followed by the promise of further violence as killer lies in wait with a gun for her next victim. The Brave Author sets up a tense situation that pulls the reader into the story in media res. Well done!

Let’s get into specific details:

Point of view – Keeping the killer’s identity secret is standard for mysteries.To accomplish this, the Brave Author starts in omniscient POV where the events unfold like a movie. The killer is described by an unseen narrator. The reader knows what she looks like but not who she is.  Except for her pulse steadying, the reader is not inside the character until the last paragraph, when the POV shifts to her thoughts.

The risk is the reader isn’t yet invested in the character therefore may not read further to learn what happens to her. This is the eternal balancing act for authors. How do you start with action but, at the same time, make the characters fascinating enough for the reader to turn the page?

Using deep POV, the author might go inside the killer’s head sooner to share her visceral reaction as she plunges the knife, feels the resistance of Madeline’s muscles against the blade and the warm blood spatter on her face, as well as her rage against her romantic rival. BUT, that technique takes a chance of exceeding the reader’s gore tolerance.

Personally, I don’t mind the camera-eye POV in the first three paragraphs. It’s gory but doesn’t sicken me enough to stop reading. But that’s only one person’s opinion.

The fourth paragraph hints at the killer’s motives. At first blush, the stabbing appears to be a crime of passion by a jealous other woman. Then it grows more sinister when the killer waits to ambush John. Will she succeed with a second murder? The reader turns the page to find out.

Analysis of the craft details:

The Brave Author uses a number of unnecessary adjectives and adverbs. Strong verbs and vivid nouns paint the picture. Modifiers simply dilute the impact.

A DROP OF BLOOD CLUNG PRECARIOUSLY to the tip of the chef’s knife. Clung is a strong verb that implies precarious so you don’t need the adverb.

The chef’s knife is specific but also a bit misleading. For a moment, I thought the chef was a character rather than an adjective to describe the type of weapon. Suggest you delete chef’s to avoid confusion or use a more generic term like butcher knife.

…a nasty red stain was forming. Blood by itself evokes a strong reaction in readers so nasty is unnecessary.

The knife sliced into Madeline’s back five more times in quick succession. Sliced doesn’t accurately describe the normal movement in a knife attack. Slashed, plunged, stabbed are better verbs.

Blood spatter covered the woman’s face and arms as well as her blouse. Confusing because you refer to Madeline in the previous sentence then use “the woman” in the next. It’s not clear right away that the woman is not Madeline. Better to say: Blood spatter covered the attacker’s face and arms as well as her blouse. More changes to this sentence in a minute.

Extra credit for using the correct terminology: spatter rather than splatter.

…thin rivulets. A rivulet is thin by definition. A specific noun doesn’t need to be modified.

…stained carpet. With the vivid description of blood spatter and dripping blood, the reader already assumes the carpet is stained without being told.

After a few minutes of motionlessness, she calmly laid the knife down. Calmly contradicts the anger and passion the murderer shows with repeated stabbing. Rewrite to clarify.

She carefully walked to the bathroom and set the shoes down on the floor, then walked around the bed, not stepping in the obvious patches of blood, until she reached a closet door. 

Suggest you replace carefully walked with tiptoed.

Delete obvious. Patches of blood are visible, therefore obvious.

Is the following action unnecessary? The killer removes her shoes, goes to the bathroom, and sets them on the floor. She returns to the bedroom to get the gun from the closet then goes back into the bathroom to wait. Is the first trip needed? Seems like wasted action that doesn’t add to the story.

Since the killer is covered with blood, a normal reaction might be to immediately wash her hands and face, suggesting a Lady Macbeth conscience. However, if she ignores the sticky spatter, that cues something entirely different about her. I suggest you exploit this opportunity to show more of her personality.

Overwriting – Tighten the prose and delete unnecessary words. Here’s some line editing:

A DROP OF BLOOD CLUNG PRECARIOUSLY to the tip of the chef’s knife. A red stain pooled on the fluffy white carpet of Madeline Hawthorne’s bedroom, a nasty red stain was forming. The woman gripping the knife breathed in staccato gasps; [replace semicolon with a period]. The muscles in her arm twitcheding after her recent from exertion.

[new paragraph] Madeline lay on her stomach on the king-sized bed,  wearing a silver silk nightgown with two ragged gashes in its the back of her silver silk nightgown.  Blood welled up from the wounds and ran down her ribcage side onto the satin sheet.  Madeline groaned and moved her left arm.

“I said die, bitch!”

The knife sliced plunged into Madeline’s back five more times in quick succession.  Blood spatters covered the attacker’s face, arms, and blouse.  covered the woman’s face and arms as well as her blouse.  She The woman was petite, but the with well-defined muscles in her arms and shoulders were well-defined, honed by hours in the gym and the dance studio.  Her calves, visible below her dark skirt [add comma], were lithe and slender.  She tensed for another lunge, but there was no need.

[new paragraph] She stood over the dead woman, knife hanging at her side, and breathed deeply while her pulse steadied and her breathing slowed to normal.  A dark pool had formed spread on the mattress bed and ran in two thin rivulets off the edge of the mattress and down onto the stained carpet.  When her pulse steadied, After a few minutes of motionlessness, she calmly laid the knife down set the knife down in a clean area at the foot of the bed. She wiped the handle with a corner of the comforter, . on a bloodless space near the foot of the bed and wiped the handle with a portion of the comforter, leaving bloody streaks.  Then she reached down and removed her shoes, which had mostly avoided the flying blood.  She tiptoed carefully walked to the bathroom and set the shoes down on the floor. then walked around the bed, not stepping in the obvious patches of blood, until she reached a closet door.  She opened it and went inside, then Avoiding patches of blood, she walked around the bed to the closet. Inside, she reached up to the shelf over above a row of dark men’s dark business suits and removed a wooden case.

John had shown her the box once, after they had sex in his bed while his bitch wife was away for the weekend visiting her mother. He was unnaturally proud of his Colt Python .357 Magnum with the 4-inch barrel. She opened the case to reveal the gun and a cardboard box of ammunition beside it. She removed six bullets from a cardboard box lying next to the gun inside its case and loaded each of the revolving chambers. Gun Revolver in hand, she returned then took the gun back to the bathroom.

[new paragraph] She sat down on the edge of the marble bathtub to wait.

~~~

Overall, this first page has action, tension, and conflict with a promise of more to come. With a little line editing, this works well at drawing the reader to turn the page. Well done, Brave Author, and thanks for submitting.

 

As an aside, my recent thriller Stalking Midas starts with a murder, too. The killer, also female, is immediately identified. The story question is not “Whodunit?” but rather “Will she get away with it?” Please check out the Look Inside feature at this link and let me know what you think.

 

 

 

TKZers, what are your opinions about starting a book with a murder on the first page?

Do you have suggestions and feedback for our brave author?

 

Warmest holiday wishes to everyone in the TKZ family. I’m honored to be a part of this creative, supportive community. Looking forward to seeing you in the New Year!

First Page Critique: The Great German Escape

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This is my last blog post for 2019 before we head to our holiday break, and I have a first page critique for a novel entitled The Great German Escape for you to enjoy and provide feedback. My comments follow – as always, thank you for all your great comments and feedback to our brave submitters this year. I think we all learn from these critiques:)

The Great German Escape

As the American army captain exited the front gate on July 2, 1943, Wehrmacht Major Kurt Jaeger’s heart raced. The accountability formation confirmed the presence of eighty-three officers. All recently arrived. All from Rommel’s Afrika Korps. All adjusting to a zoo life existence.

Jaeger’s gaze shifted to the southwest guard tower. Behind it, a thin brown haze curtained the southern horizon. Hanging in front, a makeshift plywood placard branded him a failure. Stomach acid burbled as he read A – 12, B – 2.

Out of the corner of his right eye, he spied the German Commander step forward. The man set two marred futbols on the ground. As his routine, Oberst Heinrich von Richter’s gaze swept left to right first.

Biting the inside of his cheek, Jaeger focused straight ahead. Outside the interwoven wire fence, American soldiers clustered, anticipating the day’s entertainment.

“This morning,” von Richter said. “We demonstrate endurance … resistance … expected by our leaders … our countrymen. This current state is not static … though some of you believe it to be.” Again, his gaze traversed the formation, stopping periodically, then continuing. “War is dynamic. Today’s vanquished … becomes … tomorrow’s victors. Preparedness is imperative.”

More American soldiers appeared, some jostled for a better view. A clamminess broke out on Jaeger skin.

“In combat,” von Richter said, “two critical skills are speed and agility. The footrace I’ve designed test these attributes. Barracks commanders, choose your representative.”

Jaeger read the sign, hesitated, gulped, faced about. Thirty-six pairs of eyes focused on him. Scanning the first rank he spied a thin, leggy Oberluetnant. The man’s gaze averted his. Afraid? The Barracks B leader thought. Stand here and choose a competent winner.

In the second row, a lithe Hauptmann puffed his chest out, his head nodding left.

Another movement captured Jaeger’s attention. His counterpart, Major Heinrich Weiss, Barracks A, stood in the middle of his platoon, talking to a soldier.

“We ain’t gots all day,” an American shouted. A ripple of laughter emitted from their side of the fence.

Weiss tapped the man’s shoulder, and they moved up front.

Jaeger studied the man next to the twitching Hauptmann.  “Luetnant Fogel, step forward.”

Eyes wide, the man blurted, “Herr Major, I’m no runner.”

Jaeger’s stomach acid roiled. To change his decision would suggest him weak, indecisive. Through clenched teeth, he said, “Do not shame us. Run the race.”

My comments:

Overall

I enjoyed this first page and can definitely see, from both the title and first scene, this turning into a great war-time adventure novel, focusing on the German experience (and escape I assume from the POW camp). However, I do think this first page could benefit from some overall revision, as well as some minor tweaks to address specific concerns.

First, I think this first page would benefit from additional description/sensory details to help firmly establish both the setting and the main characters. A first page should ground a reader with a sense of place and introduce enough details regarding the main character to get a reader invested – so far this page is almost there, but not quite. I also think that some tweaks to the dialogue would help. I’ve provided my advice on these overall comments below:

Grounding setting and characters:

I felt like there were a lot of names and specifics but, despite these, I found it hard to visualize the scene or get invested in the characters. In terms of characters, just in this first page we have five characters identified by name: Wehrmacht Major Kurt Jaeger, Oberst Heinrich von Richter, Major Heinrich Weiss, as well as an Oberluetnant (unnamed) and a German soldier called Hauptmann – that’s a lot for a reader to digest, especially as, at this stage, the reader doesn’t know who is going to be a major or minor character (apart from Jaeger, who I’m assuming is the main protagonist).

Despite all the names, we get only a a few visual cues so it’s hard (for me at least) to visualize all these people, or to know who is likely to become crucial to the plot. My recommendation would be to cut down on the names/titles at this early stage so the reader can concentrate, and become invested in, a key character from the get go.

Likewise, although we get specifics like the date (July 2, 1943), barrack numbers (A – 12, B – 2.) and some hints as to composition of the POW camp (All from Rommel’s Afrika Korps), apart from a vague reference to a ‘thin brown haze’ on the horizon, I can’t really visualize the camp. Where are we? Europe? North Africa? Given the Americans are in charge of the POW camp it’s important for me to understand the greater context – were the Germans captured after a particular battle or American victory? How long has Jaeger been at the camp? Why is this competition/race so important to him (and it doesn’t make a lot of sense, given his stress levels, why he would chose a random soldier who isn’t a runner – surely, for something this important, Jaeger would have been better prepared??)

In addition, I think some further background on Jaeger on this first page would help establish his motivation and character. I was a little confused by: ‘Hanging in front, a makeshift plywood placard branded him a failure’- – I’m assuming he feels a failure because he was captured but then I wasn’t sure why his ‘stomach acid burbled’ as he saw the barrack numbers. Has his barrack lost previous races? The more we know what’s at stake here, the more we can be invested in both Jaeger as a character and the outcome of the race.

Dialogue

I wasn’t completely sure why von Richter’s speech seemed so disjointed but I found it  distracting and it confused me as his words didn’t seem to match the ‘entertainment’ that was being organized (namely a race between the barracks). If there is a hidden meaning or wider implications of his speech I think we need more context to understand this.

Other specific comments.

I also had a few smaller, more specific ,comments about elements in this first page that I found distracting or confusing. These are easily rectified but important nonetheless.

  • The number of times left and right identified was distracting: Just in one page we have ‘out of the corner of his right eye, he spied the German Commander’ followed by ‘Oberst Heinrich von Richter’s gaze swept left to right first’ and then ‘Hauptmann puffed his chest out, his head nodding left’. For me this was too repetitive on one page.
  • I was confused why the ‘two marred futbols’ were placed out for a running race – at first I thought there was going to be a football match between the barracks or between the Germans and the Americans.
  • Using specific numbers became distracting: eighty-three officers; thirty-six pairs of eyes…I started trying to do the math as to how many people were there when I should have been focusing on characters and plot.
  • “We ain’t gots all day,” an American shouted – I assuming this was supposed to be “We ain’t got all day.” Be careful of even small typos like this on your first page.

As you can see from my comments, I think this page would benefit from further revision – but the key elements are there. A race in a German POW camp where there is clearly more at stake than the reader first believes – with some revisions, I think this first page could create some great tension to get this story off and running! (Pardon the pun!)

So TKZers what advice would you offer our brave submitter?

On Curling Up With a Good Book

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

One of my favorite comedies from the 1940s Is The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer. This little gem (with an Academy Award-winning screenplay by Sidney Sheldon) stars Cary Grant as the bachelor, Shirley Temple as the bobby-soxer, and Myrna Loy as a judge who happens to be Shirley’s big sister.

The plot is simple. Grant gives a speech at Shirley’s high school, and Shirley becomes infatuated with him. Grant has to fight her off even as her suspicious sister brings the arm of the law down upon him. I’ll bet you can guess who Grant ends up romancing. It’s all great fun, especially a scene where Grant takes on the persona of a teenager for a little bit of payback.

There’s one scene I’ve always found of quaint historical interest. Grant is alone in his apartment. It’s evening, he has on a comfortable robe. He mixes himself a highball and turns the radio to soft music. Then he happily settles into a chair and takes up… a book! He has looked forward to this all day—an uninterrupted hour or two of reading pleasure. Of course, that’s when Shirley interrupts things, having sneaked into his apartment to be near him!

There used to be a time when an evening’s entertainment was sitting in a chair with a drink or a cup of tea and reading a book. The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer came out in 1947, just before the explosion of television. How many people even think of a book as an option for prime time anymore?

These thoughts came to me recently when I was knocked flat by a 24-hour bug. It was a nasty sucker. I spent an entire day in bed doing absolutely nothing but moaning and drifting in and out of sleep. There was a junkyard tire fire in my stomach. My head felt like a mastiff’s chew toy.

The next day I was marginally better, but certainly not ready for Irish folk dancing. I managed to get a little writing done, but then just wanted to go back to bed. Only I didn’t want another day of pitiful do-nothingness. What about reading a book?

I’d recently purchased the massive biography of Cornell Woolrich, First You Dream, Then You Die. I considered it a sign of recuperation that I could lift it. And actually open it and begin to read. Ah! I’d forgotten what a pleasure it is to read a physical book in bed when it isn’t nighttime. (When I try this at night I can manage only three or four pages before the sandman does his thing.)

This time I was into a book for a couple of hours, occasionally closing my eyes and dozing, but waking to read again.

These days I (and, I suspect, most of you) have to snatch time to read a book. Too many other things demand our attention. Speed and the false god Multitask have killed contemplation. We have sacrificed the aesthetic on the altar of the frenetic.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate (and still with awe) the magnificence of the ebook. Having innumerable electronic volumes available on my phone (via Kindle app and Overdrive) means I can read anything I want at a moment’s notice. No more flipping through last May’s issue of Working Woman in the waiting room! No, let’s see how big a bite I can take out of Martin Chuzzlewit…just open the complete works of Dickens!

Yet I still like holding a physical book, and my recent indisposition reminded me how much I miss a good, long stretch of pure reading time. It’s my fault, of course. Almost always my first choice in the evening is something on the flat screen.

But do I really need an hour of what used to be called “news” but is now little more than an oral version of Friday Night SmackDown? How much of must is really there in “must-see TV” (not much!). How many hours of my life are unredeemed by tuning into the latest “can’t miss” series which, once I’ve taken in an episode or two, I wish I’d actually missed?

Okay, there’s football three or four nights a week, but that’s what the DVR and pause button are for (I can skip time outs, commercials, and halftimes—with apologies to Phil, Curt, Michael, Terry, Howie, Coach, Boomer, Jimmy, Tony, Spanky, Fozzie, Gonzo and whoever else expands time with erudite comments like, “The defense really needs to step up.”)

So, dear friends, why don’t I just get into the habit of reading a book after dinner?

If it was good enough for Cary Grant, it should be good enough for me!

When was the last time you curled up with a good (physical) book for at least an hour? How have your reading habits changed over the last couple of decades? Do you have a favorite “curl-up-with” book?

***

BTW, if your preferred method of curling up these days is audio, and you’re a writer, you might be interested to know that I have another of my writing books available through Audible. Narrated, natch, by me. The Last Fifty Pages: The Art and Craft of Unforgettable Endings.

READER FRIDAY: Confession Time: I have never…(finish it).

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Call it overly sensitive, but I don’t like to see any movie where humans ARE FOOD. Gives me the shivers. My confession?

I have never…SEEN JAWS.

I have never…seen the Grand Canyon. (I hope to remedy this in 2020.)

As 2019 comes to an end, it’s time to come clean with your TKZ family. Share something you have NEVER DONE that we might find surprising.

Keys Ways to Begin A Story – First Page Critique: The Young Lieutenant’s Dog

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Jordan Dane
@JordanDane

National Archives and Records Administration [Public domain]

One of my last First Page Critiques for 2019 and of course it is about a dog. Please enjoy this anonymous submission for your consideration – The Young Lieutenant’s Dog. My feedback will be on the flip side, after my thoughts on book introductions.

***

The history of humanity is held in the fragile palm of our stories. When they are lost, a part of us leaves with them. Perhaps that is why, even as a young child, I treasured the stories my father told us. Although a born raconteur he was, however, oddly reticent to discuss the most dramatic story of his life: his role in WWII.

With an older brother and sister on the cusp of adolescence and I still engrossed in childhood, we were too young to understand the brutality of war. Thus intrigued and naive, we cajoled him mercilessly to tell us about his life in the army during those years, especially when the tales spoke of life-and-death adventures.

Unlike his other stories, which were invariably charismatic and often humorous, those from the war were meant to serve, like Aesop’s Fables, as a moral lesson for his children to learn. I didn’t grasp this until many years later when it was too late and my father was gone, felled by a heart attack. By then, the stories he’d told were either forgotten or punctured with holes, the remaining threads barely clinging to our fragile childhood memories. But one remains, fixed with absolute clarity as if it had been related just moments ago.

I always assumed that I remembered this one because it was about a dog. But, of course, it was much more than that.

In light of the horrendous events of WWII, many have forgotten that in the early years of the war, the United States stood staunchly isolationist. Our country was still struggling to recover from WWI and a cascading depression. On September 3, 1939, Great Britain declared war on Germany. Our President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and his staff, watched with mounting concern the steady onslaught of Hitler’s armies and knew that it was not a question of “if” the United States would enter the war, but “when.”

***

Keys Ways to Begin a Story

There are many techniques to begin a novel – from an intriguing first line that triggers questions in the reader’s mind, to the paragraphs that draw the reader into a mystery or suspenseful action or a compelling story.

A good hook gets to the point quickly to raise a question or shock the reader into reading on. If a story begins in the voice of a narrator, that voice must be intriguing from the start. Successful openings raise unanswered questions or they describe intriguing actions/events or they highlight odd or troubling scenarios of intrigue or suspense.

Here’s a few types of intriguing opening lines:

1.) Teaser Line:

“I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.” Jeffrey Eugenides – Middlesex

2.) Autobiography

“Whether I turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.” Charles Dickens – David Copperfield

3.) Dialogue

“‘Where’s papa going with that ax?’ said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.” E. B. White – Charlotte’s Web

4.) Announcer/Omniscient POV

“The year 1866 was signalized by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and inexplicable phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten.” Jules Verne – Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

5.) Scene Setting

“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.” Sylvia Plath – The Bell Jar

The Next Paragraphs – Following a solid first line or a quick and compelling intro, the next paragraphs must draw the reader deeper into the story with more questions. This is where storytelling comes in and patience. Make the reader ask, “Who? What? When? Where? Why?” Think about an interesting, seemingly unimportant detail of a character or setting that can become symbolic to your story’s larger themes. In the case of our story for submission, that detail is brilliantly the dog.

No matter how great the first line is, if the paragraphs that follow don’t draw the reader deeper into the story, that great opening is deflated and reads like a gimmick.

Below is an example of an intriguing opening line from Paula Hawkins – The Girl on the Train, followed by paragraphs that draw a reader into the story as questions are raised by the author.

Excerpt

She’s buried beneath a silver birch tree, down towards the old train tracks, her grave marked with a cairn. Not more than a little pile of stones, really. I didn’t want to draw attention to her resting place, but I couldn’t leave her without remembrance. She’ll sleep peacefully there, no one to disturb her, no sounds but birdsong and the rumble of passing trains.

#

One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl . . . Three for a girl. I’m stuck on three, I just can’t get any further. My head is thick with sounds, my mouth thick with blood. Three for a girl. I can hear the magpies—they’re laughing, mocking me, a raucous cackling. A tiding. Bad tidings. I can see them now, black against the sun. Not the birds, something else. Someone’s coming. Someone is speaking to me. Now look. Look what you made me do.

This introduction leads into a morning where the reader meets the narrator – Rachel. It’s a short intro written with patience that raises lots of questions and paints a mystery in the reader’s mind. There are ominous visuals like a secret grave, the disturbing rumble of passing trains, the muddled mind of the narrator, and the bad tidings of magpies. There’s no real action, but since the intro is short and very much to the point, without diversions into backstory, this opening works well.

FEEDBACK

My notion of critiquing is to provide feedback that’s in keeping with the essence of the story the author submitted. I don’t want to rewrite lines as much as I want to give a 30,000 ft view of the overall beginning and analyze it for impact.

I liked what the author submitted. It was well-written and unfolded a story I would be curious to read, but I wanted to provide an alternative way to take the essence of this story and reorganize it to tell a tighter narrative. I truly want to know about this man and his dog story. I also like the title. It hints at the mystery of the story. Who doesn’t love a dog in wartime story? There are so many ways to parallel the innocence of a dog with the horrors of war and the potential for the redemption of humanity through the eyes of man’s best friend.

My thoughts, without knowing where this story is going, is to intrigue the reader’s mind with questions about the mystery. I also love stories that start in the present, but delve into the past for answers to a mystery. Hence, the ending that implies a grown child had been intrigued enough to dig into his father’s most memorable story to uncover the truth. That definitely would hook me. Why is the dog story the one this narrator couldn’t forget? How will the mystery unfold? Whose life will be changed by the reveal? What’s the journey of this book? The author has teased us with a wonderful mystery with lots of promise. Kudos.

Tighter Narrative for Mystery Setup

Although a born raconteur, my father was oddly reticent to discuss the most dramatic story of his life: his role in WWII. His tales of life-and-death adventures in the army became an enticing mystery for my brother, sister and I, as curious children. His stories from the war held even more significance after he died of a heart attack years later. After we realized his stories were meant to serve as moral life lessons for his children to learn–like Aesop’s fables–they became a message from the grave that kept him alive in our minds.

One treasured story remained, fixed with absolute clarity as if it had been related moments ago. I never forgot it and always assumed that I remembered this one because it was about a dog. But, of course, it became much more than that–after I uncovered the truth.

As rewritten, this rearranges the original submission to a first line I thought held a particular mystery to pique the attention of any reader. It focused on a story-telling father who played a particular role in WWII that he held back. Why? What role?

I then picked out a tighter narrative with a flow that is more direct and leads quickly to the point of the introduction – to set up the mystery of the dog. I added my own interpretation of the narrator uncovering a truth about the story so the reader gets hooked faster. I also chose to leave out the history lesson in the last paragraph. After the author has the reader focused on a mystery about a dog during wartime, the back story deflates the mystery and slows the pace. That morsel could be saved for later, along with the character development of the surviving children.

As written, this story may leap back into the war to tell the story of a young Lieutenant’s dog. That’s fine too, but if that’s true, why begin with a child’s memory and a son as a narrator? I made an assumption that this story will be woven between the past and the present. I don’t have enough to go on with the first 400 words, but my intention is to show an alternative intro that perhaps is more complicated by weaving in a mystery that straddles the line between past and present.

This story could be like Bridges of Madison County where surviving children uncover a mystery in the life of a deceased parent and the story unravels that truth. That’s my assumption.

The rewrite is similar to the Paula Hawkins excerpt for The Girl on the Train. It’s laser focused on the essence of the story and creates questions in the reader’s mind, before it starts telling the actual story through the eyes of the storyteller.

DISCUSSION:

Please provide your constructive criticism of this compelling submission, TKZers. How do you see this story unfolding?

 

I Hate Being Caught Being Wrong

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By John Gilstrap

I’m writing this on Monday evening, December 2, 2019.  This morning, I submitted my copy edited manuscript back to my publisher, having endured my annual pity party centered around the theme, “If you know so much, write your own damn book.”  It’s the constant picking at the niggling details that make me crazy.  Yeah, I get that “which” vs. “that” is a real thing, as is “farther” vs. “further”.  And, as I discussed last time in my epistle about my comma conundrum, I’ve accepted that I’ll never get certain things right.

But come on.  “We can’t take this argument any further/farther.”  They both make sense.

Copy editors make me think too hard, that’s the problem.  (See that friggin’ comma splice?  Boy, did we hammer on comma splices at my last critique group meeting!)  Even I–the passionate purveyor of the principle that there are no rules in writing–admit that there are rules to grammar, and I try very hard to stay out of the way of those who understand these things.  But then there are the stylistic choices.  Such as . . .

In my original draft, I wrote, “Sid asked for a Maker’s-rocks”.  (By the way, that comma is properly positioned.  You know, in case someone asks.)  The copy editor changed it to “. . . Maker’s Mark Bourbon on the rocks”.  My first instinct was to ignore the comment, but then I wondered if maybe I was unclear.  Sid is in a bar, for crying out loud. Doesn’t the context fill in whatever blanks there might be?  The word, Bourbon, was a non-starter, but should it be Maker’s Mark on the rocks?  On the first pass, I accepted that part of the change, but on the second pass, I switched it back to my original.  That sounded best to my ear.

Shouldn’t “God-forsaken” be capitalized?  The copy editor lower-cased it, and for the life of me, I don’t understand why.

And then I stumbled upon The Big One.  The.  Big.  One.  How I missed this in my own editing passes is beyond me, but miss it I did: A nighttime shootout sandwiched between two daylight scenes.  Wait.  What?  Holy crap!

My stories are all told on a pretty tight timeline, with the events of one scene having ripple effects through other subsequent scenes.  The shootout couldn’t be moved from its slot in the story, and the results of said shootout have a massive impact on the next 250 pages of story.  Have I said holy crap yet?  Well, here it is again: Holy crap!

So, I had to re-engineer the shootout to happen in the daytime.  From a tactical perspective, that changes everything.  Different gun sights, different approach to the building.  Different everything.  But I fixed it.  I made it work, and I think I was able to stitch the downrange damage back together.  I think.

Actually I’m sure.  Well, pretty sure.  Damn.

It looks like I’ll be reading the page proofs more carefully than usual in a couple of months.

Meanwhile, here it is for the record: Thank you, Mr. Copy Editor for catching The Big One while there was still time to fix it.

I hate being caught being wrong.

What Is This Historic Mystery Stone?

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By Sue Coletta

One of my recent research trips led me to the New Hampshire Historical Society and Museum. I went there to copy two diaries — one from 1880, another from 1881 — written by a close family friend of the victims and female serial killer, a man who gave a fascinating firsthand account of daily life before, during, and after the murders. Reading the handwriting is a challenge that I’m still working on.

Quick research tip: if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, it helps to photograph the handwritten pages so you can enlarge the chicken-scratch at home.

After I finished photographing the diaries, my husband and I toured the museum, and we stumbled across an intriguing unsolved mystery.

In 1872 construction workers unearthed a suspicious lump of clay near the shore of Lake Winnipesaukee (also in New Hampshire). The clay casing hid an egg-shaped stone with nine carvings, depicting a face, a teepee, and an ear of corn, along with strange geometric designs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amateur and professional archaeologists have speculated about the “mystery stone” ever since. At the time, the American Naturalist described it as “a remarkable Indian relic.” In the 1880s and early 1890s, sources claimed, “this stone has attracted the wonder of the scientific world, European savants having vainly tried to obtain it.”

A geological study of the stone conducted in the 1990s found it to be made of quartzite or mylonite, material not known to be otherwise present in New Hampshire. The “mystery stone” is perfectly shaped and unblemished by any distortions or markings other than the pictogram carvings. Recent examinations with a microscope suggest that the hole bored through the stone may actually have been drilled by a machine. Whether carved by hand or power tools, the stone’s manufacture indicates it lands somewhere in the mid to late 19th century. But does it?

The stone quickly gained public attention, with the New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette, the leading newspaper in the Granite State at the time, running a piece on July 17, 1872, announcing the stone’s discovery.

With such publicity, word of the stone reached far and wide, even to European scientists, who could not discern any more about the stone’s history than the Americans. In succeeding years, newspaper stories about the stone popped up at random intervals. In 1895, the Manchester Union reported that “the strange relic has attracted much attention,” even from the likes of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC. A geological survey conducted by the State of New Hampshire in 1994 failed to shed much light on the stone, either.

To this day, amateur and professional archaeologists have speculated about the Mystery Stone’s origins.

NH Historical Society writes…

The most prevalent explanation has been that the Mystery Stone is a prehistoric Native American artifact. The discovery of an unusual Indian relic was not unprecedented at the time, encouraged by a highly romanticized view of America’s native heritage developed in the mid-19th century, especially in the East where fears of Anglo-Indian conflict were generations in the past.

An increasing reverence for the power of nature combined with nostalgia for a pre-industrial America combined to elevate Native Americans to the role of “noble savages” for many Americans. Indians’ perceived ability to commune with a pristine and unspoiled environment lent an air of mystery to the natural world, suggesting that natives could somehow unlock the secrets of the universe in a way that “civilized” men and women were no longer able to do, bound as they were by an overreliance on logic and reason and wholly cut off from their more intuitive and emotional natures by the standards of society.

The anomaly of the stone’s alleged “machine-made carvings” and the fact that it was composed of a rock type not found in New Hampshire could never be explained, nor does it support the idea that the stone is of Native American origin. The native culture depicted on the stone bear no resemblance to the Abenaki, New Hampshire’s native people. The face on the stone likens more to Eskimo or Aztec culture, and the carved teepee leans more toward natives in the American West.

Some Mystery Stone enthusiasts have suggested that the stone has spiritual significance for a prehistoric native culture that once covered most of North America. If that’s true, the stone may depict the forging of a treaty between two different tribes, or it may have been part of a ritual that accompanied a water burial for a native figure of importance in New Hampshire.

Over the years, other theories as to the stone’s origin have been posited. In 1931 a letter-writer suggested to the president of the New Hampshire Historical Society that the Mystery Stone was actually a thunderstone (rocks that fall from the sky during lightening storms), calling it “the most perfectly worked thunder-stone ever discovered.”

Another more recent theory argues that it is a lodestone, a natural magnetized mineral used for navigational purposes in the 16th century as an alternative to a compass. Other theories link the Mystery Stone to numerology, aliens, massive planetary shifts, or a worldwide apocalypse.

Facts 

We know the stone was found encased in clay in 1872 at Lake Winnepasaukee. The stone is either quartzite or mylonite, neither rock type found in New Hampshire. There is a hole bored through both ends, done with different sized bits — 1/8″ at the narrow end, 3/8″ at the broad end. Each bore is straight, not tapered. Scratches on the stone’s lower bore suggests it was placed on a metal shaft and removed several times (which might make sense if it’s lodestone and was used as a compass). There’s a notch or divot in the bore. Perhaps it’s some sort of “key” for mounting the stone?

The mystery…

Who made the stone?

Who carved the stone?

For what purpose was the stone made?

How old is it?

How was the stone carved, by hand or machine?

No one else has ever reported finding another stone like this anywhere in the United States. The one thing that most Mystery Stone interpreters can agree on is that it’s an “out-of-place artifact.” Meaning, it should never have been discovered in New Hampshire.

Any guesses what the Mystery Stone might be?

 

Learning From the Movies: The King’s Speech

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush in The King’s Speech

Imagine a hungry young screenwriter getting invited to a pitch session on a studio lot.

“What’ve you got for me, kid?” the producer says.

“Okay,” the screenwriter says, “we have this guy, see, he’s a king, see, and he’s got to make a speech. Only the guy stutters.”

“What’s the rest of it?”

“The rest of what?”

“The movie!”

“That’s it. That’s the movie! And at the end, see, he makes the speech.”

“Security!”

And yet The King’s Speech (2010) won Oscars for Best Picture, Actor, Director, and Screenwriter. How did they pull that off?

Through the power of character bonding and the magic of story structure. You can do just about anything with your novel so long as you have a reader intensely and emotionally invested in your Lead and put him through the beats of a well-crafted tale.

Let’s talk about emotional investment first. In Plot & Structure I discuss various ways a writer can join reader and character in the bonds of holy storytelling. One of the strongest bonding agents is hardship—at the beginning we are introduced to a character who faces a physical or emotional challenge.

In The King’s Speech, the hardship is both physical and psychological. Prince Albert, the Duke of York (Colin Firth) has a severe stammer which not only prevents him from delivering a simple speech; it also keeps him locked in a prison of self-doubt.

As the movie opens we see Albert nervously stepping up to a microphone to speak to a crowd. His stuttering talk bombs. People look embarrassed and disappointed. Prince Albert’s hardship has caused him massive public humiliation.

We’ve all been embarrassed, though not on so grand a scale. So we have immediate sympathy.

But that’s not all. There’s another powerful bonding agent I call the Care Package. This is a relationship in place before the story begins, showing that the Lead is not merely self interested. If we see someone who cares about someone else, it gives us hope for his ultimate redemption.

Early in Act 1 there is a lovely scene that gets me every time. Prince Albert, all done up in a tux, comes to say good-night to his two daughters. They want a story! “Can’t I be a penguin instead?” he asks. Clearly, he doubts even his ability to tell his children a simple bedtime tale. But they insist!

And so, out of love and fatherly duty, he makes the attempt. He tells a story about two princesses whose papa was changed by a witch into a penguin. This made him sad, for a penguin does not have arms to embrace his children. Not only that, the witch banished him to the South Pole. It’s obvious he is talking, metaphorically, about himself. The story ends with a restored father hugging his daughters. We can’t help but wonder if Albert will be healed, too. By now we hope so, because we are firmly invested in him.

The Duchess (Helena Bonham Carter) arranges a meeting for Albert with an eccentric speech therapist named Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush). Here we get another structural beat: The Argument Against Transformation. Unconvinced Lionel can help him, Albert is about to leave when Lionel asks him to try something. He puts headphones on the prince and plays classical music while having the prince read the famous soliloquy from Hamlet. After a minute or so Albert rips off the headphones and shouts, “Hopeless!” Then: “Thank you, Doctor. I don’t…feel this is for me.”

This sets up the arc of transformation that pays off at the end. (In Casablanca, Rick argues against his ultimate transformation by saying, “I stick my neck out for nobody.” At the end, of course, he does that very thing.)

The First Doorway of No Return

In a movie we need to get into the death stakes of Act 2 by the 25% mark (for novels, I advise 20% at the latest). That happens when the Lead is forced—either physically or emotionally—through a doorway that slams shut behind him (meaning he can never go back to his ordinary world). In The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind, it’s physical (a tornado and the start of the Civil War, respectively). In Casablanca, it’s emotional (the arrival of Rick’s lost love, Ilsa).

In The King’s Speech, Albert is emotionally thrust through the doorway by his domineering father, King George V. Sitting his son down in front of microphones he says, “With your older brother shirking his duties, you’re going to have to do a lot more of this.”

Albert tries, but can’t get started. “Do it!” the king demands.

Later, in emotional torment over what he must be—and firmly believes he can never be—Albert puts on the recording Lionel made. And to his astonishment he’s read the soliloquy perfectly. Now he must place his trust in Lionel or “die” inside by letting down his entire country.

Mirror Moment

In the dead center of great stories the Lead is forced to look at himself, as if in a mirror (usually metaphorical, but it’s amazing how often there’s a physical mirror involved). Sometimes this is caused by another character forcing the issue.

That’s what happens in the middle of The King’s Speech. Albert is terrified at the prospect of being king (which will happen soon, for his brother is going to marry a divorcee). Lionel knows this fear is what’s holding Albert back as a speaker, a royal, and a person.

Lionel: I’m trying to get you to realize you needn’t be governed by fear.

Albert: I’ve had enough of this.

Lionel: What are you so afraid of?

Albert: Your poisonous words!

Lionel: Why did you come to me? You’re not some middle-class banker who wants elocution lessons so you can chitchat.

Albert: Don’t attempt to instruct me on my duties! I am the son of a … king.

And the brother of a king.

Albert: You’re the disappointing son of a brewer. A jumped-up jackeroo from the outback. You’re a nobody!

That last line is a knife through Lionel’s heart. In Casablanca, the same thing happens when Rick basically calls Ilsa a whore. Both Rick and Albert must now “look at themselves” and wonder, “Is this who I have become? Is this who I will always be?” (In film, these thoughts are rendered visually; in a novel, you can also use interior monologue.)

The Second Doorway

To get into Act 3, where the final battle takes place, we need another doorway. It’s going to be a clue or discovery, or a major crisis or setback—something that makes the ending possible and/or inevitable.

In The King’s Speech it’s a major crisis: Hitler invades Poland. A state of war exists. And Albert has just been crowned King George VI! Now it is his duty to address his kingdom, and in such a way as to inspire iron resolve for what is coming.

No pressure.

The Q Factor

Just before the climax, the Lead takes inspiration from an emotional jolt, giving him the courage to fight. I call this The Q Factor (named after the Bond character who sets up in Act 1 the gadgets Bond will need to escape in Act 3). In story structure, it’s an emotional connection that pays off by providing the last bit of courage the Lead needs. In Star Wars, for example, Luke hears the voice of his beloved mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobe, reminding him to “use The Force.”

In The King’s Speech, just as Albert steps to the microphone, Lionel tells him, “Say it to me, as a friend.” Not simply a teacher, a friend! That trust which began in Act 1 now enables the victory as Albert delivers an inspirational speech. The movie ends by proving the transformation: Albert—King George VI—steps out on the balcony with his wife and daughters and confidently waves to the adoring crowd.

Character bonding, the right structural beats (and great acting!)—that’s how a movie about a man who stutters became a huge, award-winning hit. (I discuss the fourteen super structure beats in my book of the same name. End of commercial!)

You can think about these beats before you write; you will develop a solid outline that way. Or you can think about them during revision as you try to figure out why your editor or beta readers aren’t as enthusiastic about your story as you are.

Either way, they are here to help. Because, after all, story and structure absolutely love each other!

Giving and Receiving

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Photo courtesy of Gregor McEwan on unsplash.com

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. The following took place in the weeks leading up to it. You will please note that I am still sorting it all out. 

I received on Thursday, November 7 an invitation to an email casting call for extras to be used in a feature film. The invitation requested a headshot, a full-length photo, my name, telephone number, height, and weight. I was advised that if I were chosen I would receive an email on Monday, November 11, with instructions for the time and location of the scene shoot on November 12 and 13. 

I didn’t receive an email. That’s okay. It wasn’t my first rodeo. Anyone who has ever been involved in the arts in any capacity either gets used to receiving rejections or finds something else to do. Life goes on. 

Flash forward a week or so. It was a cold and rainy day, the type where Churchill’s black dog runs off its leash. I was coming out of my local supermarket of choice and walking to my car when I saw a guy sitting forlornly on one of those motorized shopping carts which was stopped by a car, parked in a handicapped spot, with its trunk open. The shopping cart contained, among other things, a fifty-pound bag of dog food. Folks were hurrying by in both directions with their heads down. I couldn’t blame them. We’re all in a hurry even on the best of days and that day wasn’t one of them. There was also something about the tableau that was a little off. I’m still not sure what it was. But. But. I walked over anyway and asked the gent if he needed some help. “I sure could,” he said. The guy was disheveled. He looked like he’d been living rough. He also had a speech impediment which made him difficult to understand. I picked up the bag and put it into his trunk, placing his other smaller purchases in there for good measure. He got off the cart seat, took a couple of steps, and hugged me. Closely, cheek to cheek.  I hadn’t really signed up for gratitude, particularly of this nature,  but I kind of hugged him back and started to politely disengage. Just before he let go he whispered in my ear — no speech impediment present — and said, “What you wanted will be yours. Thank you.” I nodded and smiled — the type of smile you give to a stranger who you are attempting to politely leave behind — before walking to my own car and driving home.

I spent the remainder of the day working. UPS did not deliver a five-pound box of money. Sandra Bullock did not call to ask me to drive down to New Orleans and keep her company. A soon-to-be-published, world-wide best seller-to-be did not materialize on my computer in “Joe’s Manuscripts.” The phone, however, did ring at 10:20 PM. It was a representative of the talent agency which had sent me the email on November 7. They had another shoot scheduled for the same film-in-progress on November 27 and they wondered if I would be available. 

I told the representative “no.”

I’m kidding of course. I told him “yea, yea, and yea again” and found myself on the day appointed driving to Cleveland at 3:30 AM so that I could demonstrate my acting skills by pretending for several hours to act cold, wet, and forlorn on a suburban Cleveland street corner on a rainy and windy day. And yeah. What I wanted was mine. 

I believe in coincidences in the sense that a coincidence is a higher power acting anonymously. Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe not. My younger brother told me that it was nothing more or less than me helping a stranger on the same day that the agency decided it needed what my brother called “an affable fat f**k” for the scene in question. A very wise friend of mine, however,  said with all of the assurance in the world that I had been tested by an angel. That conclusion is above my pay grade but he may be right. Or not. 

I have the foregoing — and so much more — to be thankful for this week and every week. As always I am thankful for friends like you and for family. I couldn’t ask for any more than that at this stage of the journey.

That’s all I have today. Thanks for dropping by. Enjoy your weekend. And don’t be surprised if you’re tested as well.