Yes, ’tis the season for catching up on first page critiques from our TKZ “In” box. Today we’re reviewing the first page of PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN. Please add your feedback for today’s brave writer in the Comments.

Portrait of a Young Man

I picked up the dead man about twenty miles west of Columbus. I stopped to take care of my business and grab a soda at a Pilot gas station at mile marker seventy-nine. When I returned to my car I found him in the passenger seat. He was the one I’d seen frequently in the weeks before, but I’d seen him then in my dreams, not in the waking day, and certainly not in my Civic. I went back into the station and milled about for a solid fifteen minutes, examining overpriced sunglasses and t-shirts, hoping the dead man would wander off. But when I went back, he was still there.

So, I got in the car and I drove. I still had some miles to cover. I had a job waiting in Cleveland. Not too much rough stuff, Maxwell had promised.

My passenger was, as he had been in my dreams, clad in a Prussian blue Union greatcoat with a small cape. The double-bar insignia on his lapels showed his rank to be that of a captain and the crossed sabers on his slouch hat meant he was cavalry. In my dreams, I’d seen him only from afar, charging on horseback across some remote fog-blurred field of battle with his sword raised, into a fusillade of Confederate musket fire. In my dreams the wounds he suffered were but specks in the smoky distance. Up close and sitting beside me I saw them as jagged, fleshy holes, one above the left eye and one through the throat. They bled, as he sat, but not so much as to seem to distract him.

My car was old, built before smoking had become unofficially criminal, and the dead officer spent several minutes inspecting my lighter, pressing it in and waiting for it to pop out again. He inspected the glowing coils closely and returned the thing to its slot to repeat the process. He made a quick examination of the glove box, taking no apparent interest in the ‪1911‬ .45 caliber pistol I kept there, then he just stared out the window, watching the cornfields of central Ohio glide slowly by.

Unlike Larry, and most of my other visitors, he never said so much as a word. He began to fade around mile marker one-fifty, heading north on I-71. He was totally gone before we passed through Mansfield, twenty-five miles later.

My feedback: I’m intrigued by the underlying notion here: a dream image suddenly materializes in the passenger seat of the narrator’s Honda Civic in the form of a Zombie Yank officer, who calmly proceeds to rummage through the glove box. Who wouldn’t want to hear more about that?

That being said, I was confused about what type of story to expect here. The narrator’s lack of reaction to his bizarre driving companion is puzzling, for example. If I suddenly encountered a hitchhiker plucked from a recurring dream, I’d immediately assume that someone had slipped a spiked mushroom into my breakfast casserole. Here, however, the narrator displays little reaction to the bizarre passenger. That muted response muffles the dramatic impact of the scene, making the opening seem a tad flat despite its compelling setup.

The title doesn’t help the reader anticipate what  type of story to expect. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN sounds like a Joycean, literary title rather than mystery or suspense.

Craft-wise, the writer should pay heed to punctuation rules and edit with an eye to avoiding run-on sentences and an overuse of commas.

Overall, the writer grabbed my interest with the opening image, but he needs to add “more”: more narrator reaction is needed to punch up the drama and set the stage for this story; more context is also needed to clarify certain details as the scene progresses (who is “Larry”, for instance?).

Update: After rereading the page, I realized belatedly that this story is in the zombie mystery category. I never read that genre, so I missed a couple of cues that might  have been obvious to fans of that genre. (The reference to “other visitors”, in my case). It’s generally a good idea to write a scene so that even newbies to a genre can “see” clearly what is going on in a scene during the first reading.

Please share your thoughts about PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN in the Comments. And we thank today’s brave anonymous writer for submitting this first page!

Must be the season for First Page Critiques here on KZ.  My last post was a FPC, several others followed, and here we are again.

As usual, here’s the call to chip in with your feedback. Which I will do after presenting today’s Brave Writer Submission.

It was always about the water.

Trina hacked through saw palms, ducked under spider webs, and climbed over fallen oaks and loblolly pines. She passed an overturned, rusted out SUV. It guts and doors removed, used for another purpose now. A mountain of garbage blocked her way—a baby stroller, plastic CD cases, kitchen utensils, plastic bottles everywhere. She picked her way around the mess—remnants from a previous life, a previous time. The brackish, sulfur-tainted saltwater tickled the hairs in her nose and she gagged, stifling a sneeze. She paused in the semi-darkness, aware to the dangers of walking through the forest, long enough to listen to her surroundings.

The lack of the natural sounds—birds chirping, frogs grunting—still offended. But she tightened her core, felt the weight of the automatic on her hip, brushed sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand and swallowed hard. Then she stomped on a No Trespassing sign. The tattered faded sign had been X’d out, another stark reminder that she wasn’t in Louisiana anymore. Or anywhere else familiar. A reminder that the laws that once governed the United States of America no longer applied. But she wasn’t deterred. Nor was she afraid.

Trina moved at a faster pace now, aware of the emerging predawn light, the guards and the Exiles—the unfortunate people who, once the tsunami hit the Gulf coast and changed the land they once knew, were neither afforded a place in academia, or could find work in Texicana. Those underprivileged, uneducated people who had it bad before The Big Rise, are now worse off. If that’s even possible. Recent rumor in the lab said Exiles are uniting and gathering strength.

The iridescent glow from the activity on and below the surface of the water illuminated the morning—thousands of tiny moon jellies and hopefully shrimp fry—made the risk of being caught worth the monthly trip. 

I lean into liking this, though it confused me a bit. Delivering a sense of confusion on a first page is not necessarily a bad thing, provided the confusion compels the reader toward forward movement toward clarity from a sense of intrigue. Which for me, this does… in spite of rather than because of the confusion I’ll describe below.

But I suspect that may not be true for all readers here. So the confusion that troubled me may end up being on the problematic side for others, as well.

But first, the nit-picky stuff. There are a couple of grammar things to clean up. These nits are like flies on frosting, they always deter more than they should, but deter nonetheless. Here they are:

Second paragraph, second and third sentences: …rusted out SUV. It guts and doors removed… should read – It’s guts and doors removed. Probably a typo, but if so, then consider better proofing before you submit, or in this case, hold this up in front of a few thousand readers. But before that, I’d recommend not using the period after “SUV” and, with a comma, conjoin those two sentences into one. The second sentence, as used, is a fragment anyway, so this solves that problem, as well.

Then, first sentence in the third paragraph: The lack of the natural sounds… This would read better if you lose the word “the” here, to read as – The lack of natural sounds…

Okay, now a few words about the aforementioned confusion.

Your first line… what is the object of this, the “it” of it? Really, if you pose this question – as you’ve done – then your next line should begin to address the explanation. As presented, the shift is kind of a jolt that leaves the opening question hanging and unattached to anything, and as such, renders the opening line… confusing rather than compelling.

After that you open in a forest. Trees and stumps and such. And “loblolly pines”… huh? As a guy who grew up in Oregon, where there are as many pine trees as anywhere else on the planet, and who didn’t major in botany, I have no idea what a loblolly pine. When an author summons obscurity with no real upside to it, it screams “look at me, I’m a smart writer who is trying too hard to demonstrate that fact!” You don’t want to elicit a WTF? moment from readers, and this one might.

Back to the forest. Now we have the gutted carcass of a car, some garbage, and assorted plastic stuff from a house, and then the smell of brackish salt water. In a forest? What, is the forest flooded? And how can this be salt water, unless there was a tidal wave that reached an inland forest? Maybe that’s precisely what you mean, but in one short paragraph you’ve got the reader on unsure footing at this point.

Is the forthcoming disaster natural, social, military, or something else that ends up with a forest deluged with salt water? Political or criminal mischief would not accomplish that, but that feels like where you might be going… so its confusing.

I just think you can clean this up a bit, and the read will be better for it.

The next paragraph is good stuff. A girl with a gun, always interesting. A sign on the forest floor… did it float here? Was it a camp? Not sure. Still somewhat confusing, but hopeful.

Here’s the whopper moment on the confusion scale: “…she wasn’t in Louisiana anymore. Or anywhere else familiar.” Unless she was brought to this place in a coma and then awakened, I think she’d know where she was. But to suggest she has no idea where she is… really, this makes too little sense. An easy fix, because surroundings feeling unfamiliar is perhaps clear, while literally not being in Louisiana but not being sure where you are… isn’t.

This feels like a speculative and/or futuristic thriller, and if so it’s a good start. It’ll be a better start, though, when the vagaries are given a little more resolution. It would be good, too, to have her stumble into something truly baffling (to her) and frightening on the next page, which would complete a pretty strong hook overall.

One more thought. Wherever this premise goes, it needs to circle back to actually being about the water (aka Chinatown) as the underlying McGuffin or ultimate prize. If it doesn’t – and because it’s salt water, which isn’t a commodity with either economic or political value, I’m fearful it won’t – then you probably need to rethink that opening line.

Okay KZers, share your thoughts on this one. In any case, congrats to this author on going out on an edge early.

By Debbie Burke

Given a choice between an MFA program and TKZ blog, I’ll show up here every morning, and not just cuz the tuition is cheaper!

Right here is where I experienced a slow but critical epiphany about villains, thanks to posts by P.J. Parrish, Jordan Dane, James Scott Bell, and former KZer Joe Moore (still miss ya, Joe!).

For years, my mystery novels won contests and attention from agents and editors…and rave rejections. Despite study, hard work, and persistence, my books remained unpublished. A key element was missing. But what?

Several years ago I started following TKZ about the same time I began a new novel titled Instrument of the Devil.

My previous books had been traditional whodunits told from first person or close third person points of view, completely inside the head of the main character. That meant a continuous struggle between what she could know (not much) vs. what was needed to solve the mystery. In addition, the plot required red herrings and false suspects thrown in, all without giving away the villain’s identity.

I wrote mysteries like I read mysteries, from a state of ignorance, constantly trying to figure out what was going on.

I had a general idea of the bad guy’s motive, but never paid much that attention to the schemes and machinations happening offstage. All action took place onstage because the first or close third POV required the sights, sounds, smells, and emotions be filtered through the protagonist only. My focus stayed stuck on the hero.

The bad guy hid in the shadows behind the curtain until the big reveal at the end. Unfortunately he’d been hiding from the writer too!

Finally, thanks to the wise folks at TKZ, I recognized the big fat blind spot in my books.

Here’s the epiphany:

In crime fiction, the antagonist drives the plot. Unless a crime has been committed, or is about to be committed, there’s nothing for the protagonist to do. The antagonist acts, the protagonist re-acts.

I’d been following the wrong character around all these years!

My realization probably seems like a big DUH to many crime authors. But I’m sharing it in hopes of helping others like myself who overlooked the obvious.

It’s fun to think like a villain! When I started writing from the bad guy’s POV, a whole new world opened up—a world without conscience, constraints, or inhibitions.

Jordan’s great post from last May says, “The best villains are the heroes of their own stories.”

Actor Tom Hiddleston says, “Every villain is a hero in his own mind.” Most actors would prefer to sink their fangs into the role of a great villain than play the good guy.

The baddies in my earlier books had been flat and dull because I’d never gotten inside their heads. Finally, the missing element became clear and…my book won a publishing contract!

Why is the villain willing to steal, cheat, and kill? What rationalizations justify the harm done to others?

A sociopath comes up with perfectly logical justifications and excuses for abhorrent actions.

Irresistible influences like greed, power, and lust can seduce an ordinary person over to the dark side.

Misguided righteousness can lead to horrendous consequences.

A law-abiding citizen may be forced into a corner where he commits acts he would never do under normal circumstances.

If an author roots around in the antagonist’s brain for a while, background, reasons, and rationalizations for antisocial behavior bubble up. Armed with such knowledge, it becomes impossible to write a two-dimensional character. Jim Bell offers a great technique—try to imagine the villain delivering the closing argument to the jury that will determine his fate.

Do you show the villain’s POV in the story or not? That choice is contingent on subgenre.

In a whodunit mystery, the identity of the villain is typically a surprise at the end. Therefore, that POV is generally not shown to the reader, although some authors include passages from the villain’s POV without revealing the identity.

Suspense and thriller novels often are written from multiple POVs, including the villain’s. When the reader knows early on who the bad guy is, the question is no longer whodunit, but rather will s/he get away with it?

The author can choose to show the antagonist’s POV or keep it hidden. But either way, you need to be aware of it because that’s what’s driving the story forward.

Even if you never show the villain’s POV, try writing scenes inside his/her head. You don’t need to include them in the book, but the act of writing them gives you a firmer grasp on that character’s deep desires and how those desires screw up other people’s lives. Once you really understand what the antagonist is striving for, that provides a solid framework from which the story hangs.

If you’re in a corner and your hero doesn’t know what to do next, check in with the villain. While the hero is slogging through steps A, B, and C to solve the crime, the bad guy is offstage setting up roadblocks D, E, and F to keep from being caught.

If you get lost down a rabbit hole, ask questions to get back on track:

Where is the villain?

What can he do to make the protagonist’s life miserable?

Does she need to commit another crime to cover the first?

How can she elude capture?

The best answers can be found inside the bad guy’s head.

How about you, TKZers?

What is your villain doing right now?

Do you prefer to show the antagonist’s POV or keep it hidden?

P.S. A BIG THANK YOU to everyone at TKZ for helping me to raise my writing from rave rejections to publication.

Debbie Burke’s thriller Instrument of the Devil is now available on Amazon for pre-order and goes on sale October 10.