First Page Critique: Stress Fractures

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Stress Fractures

Kevin let go of the boxcar and jumped, hit the ground hard then tucked and rolled down the steep bank. His arm throbbed and his head felt light. It was still too dark to see the blood, but he could feel it running down his arm, dripping off the fingers. He fought the dizziness, got to his feet and looked around. He should have stayed on the train, but when it slowed down he thought it best to bail out, before it picked up speed again.

His plans involved getting off in the State Park near Staatsburg around two a.m. It wouldn’t be that time yet, because he’d jumped off early. A look at the sky showed no sign of the sun yet. No kidding. Nothing there but the clear black sky, the pinpoint lights of the stars, with a few white clouds and a hazy ring around the half-moon. Something in the recesses of his brain told him that meant rain. Perfect, then he’d be wet and cold as well as hurt and tired. He scrambled back up the bank and began to walk along the tracks, following the long gone train. He twined the fingers of his left hand into the fabric of his tee shirt and grabbed the open wound on the arm with his right hand, applying direct pressure. That nearly caused him to pass out, but he fought it, kept his head above the rising tide of black nothingness, and made himself keep going.

He’d been alternating resting with walking, force a few steps, stop and breathe, take a few more steps, sit and rest, when he realized he could hear and smell running water. He took a deep breath, then slid down the embankment, off the railroad tracks, pushed through the brush and waded into a stream. The water came over the tops of his boots and filled them, cooling his feet. He cupped his hand and splashed some of the cold water on his face and neck, then began to walk in the stream.

***

What I liked:

There is nothing like a train to get things rolling. Yes, ha ha, but seriously. Besides that, it tells us quite a bit about Kevin in just a couple of sentences. If he is riding a train in a boxcar —- the rail equivalent of steerage — it demonstrates that he is not a person of means, either by poor choices, bad luck, or an unfortunate combination of the two. So we start out with Kevin, who is down so deep he has to have sunlight pumped down to him, is injured to boot, and is somewhere far from where he is supposed to be. Not good, not good. And it’s going to get worse for him, almost certainly.

What needs work:

1)Jumping off of the train well short of Kevin’s intended destination just because the train slowed down doesn’t pass the smell test. Trains on their way from Point A to Point B slow down frequently for a lot of different reasons. Why jump off a good distance from your destination? The train is going to slow down anyway at some when it gets to Staatsburg (state and local law mandate so), and almost certainly as it passes by/through the state park, so why impulsively jump off prematurely? The answer of course is that the author wants Kevin to jump early in order to get him into even worse difficulty. The trick is doing that without making the author’s intent too obvious. I would have been a lot happier if Kevin had a more immediate, better reason to exit the premises, to wit: 1) someone who Kevin is sharing the boxcar with doesn’t like sharing the accommodations and physically throws Kevin out; 2) Kevin doesn’t like the way a couple of guys with whom he is sharing the boxcar are looking at him (a mixture of longing, edged with some free-floating hostility) and decides to exit; or 3) he was told by a friendly fellow rider of the rails at some point that a really nasty yard bull or park ranger or whatever rules the roost in Staatsburg, and that Kevin should get off early and hoof it the rest of the way. Or something else. Anything else. But just jumping off the train ahead of time because the train slows down doesn’t pass the smell test.

2) On what did Kevin cut his arm? I’ve done tumbles down hillside myself (well, “bounce” may be a more accurate description) and have been bruised, but not bloody.

3) How does Kevin know it isn’t 2 a.m.? Maybe the train is running slow. Does he have a watch? And if so, what time is it? Did he break his watch on the jump and then cut his arm on the glass? There! That kills two birds with one stone!

4) Why does a guy who is worried about it raining, because he’ll get wet and cold, walk through a stream? I know, to cool his feet off. But he’ll find out that it will chill him to the bone as well by page two.

Anyway…it’s an interesting set up, and for the most part a good start. It leaves you with the feeling that Kevin is in for a really, really bad night. With just a little bit of touching up I think that readers will be happy to walk with him. Or maybe a safe distance behind him.

Lost in the Forest With He, Him, Them & Her

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By John Gilstrap
It’s my turn to take a stab at critiquing a first page.  In this one, we’ll see the downside of keeping characters’ names a secret from readers.  I’ll see you on the other side of the submission:
Darkness
Hunter, hunted? A simple matter of perspective. His perspective changed the instant the hunted vanished over the tree lined ridge fifty yards ahead. His chest tightened, his heart skipped a beat. He tightened his grip on the stock of his weapon.

The outer shaving of the moon had already gone down, leaving a black void in its wake. Like gauze, the Southern California smog absorbed the pin pricks of star light. Trees choked out what light was left, leaving the men in darkness. Silhouettes against the shadows.

Without words the five men, broad and rigid, assembled at the crest. Their weapons were poised like stone shadows standing sentry for the world. In his electronic ear piece he heard the hunt captain address them. “We can go in tight and drawn. We will have to lure it out to get it. Any other options?”

He peered into the blackness twenty steep yards below. Something stirred rustling the branches in the abyss. It was too dark to identify the myriad of shadows below. Most would be innocuous. Forest trees and shrubs. One would be a deadly predator. Hungry for them. His breath came shallow and tight. His hand sweat against the weapon stock.

Options? There were always options. An image of black curly hair and topaz eyes flickered into his mind. His chest constricted choking his lungs so he couldn’t inhale. No. She was not an option, he quelled the thought.

The men squinted in the dark to look at each other wordlessly. None of them had a better suggestion. It was settled then. He closed his eyes for the briefest moment and forced air into his clenched chest.

“Anderson, take two o’clock” he acknowledged his assignment with a slight nod and silently stepped into position.

He released his vice grip from the fiberglass stock of his cross bow and wiggled blood back into his numb fingers. He would have liked to lower the heavy weapon long enough to stretch his cramping neck muscles and rest his burning left arm. He’d been pointing the cumbrous weapon for eight straight hours.

***

Before we get to content, let’s talk a bit about formatting. It doesn’t show in the translation to blogger, but this piece came to me with some really funky fonts and bizarre line spacing. Folks, the only way to go is 12-point Times New Roman or Courier (though I think that Courier might have fallen out of fashion). In its original form, the piece was formatted with 1.5 spaces between lines, and then two spaces between paragraphs. I try to keep an open mind on these things, but I confess it’s hard not to think negative thoughts from the very beginning, along the lines of, “If the writer can’t get the simple stuff right, how on earth is s/he going to be able to handle the storytelling?

Little things really do matter.

Okay, now to the story itself. Maybe the best way to critique this piece is to recreate it below, and then comment. My comments are in bold type.


Darkness

Hunter, hunted? A simple matter of perspective. His perspective changed the instant the hunted vanished over the tree lined ridge fifty yards ahead. His chest tightened, his heart skipped a beat. He tightened his grip on the stock of his weapon.
I’m awash in pronouns. After presenting me with a choice between hunter and hunted—a choice that borders on cliché at its face—the author then presents me with a disembodied “his”. Whose? A beat later we learn that he sees the hunted disappear over the ridge. This is particularly confusing in light of the assertion that hunter vs. hunted all a matter of perspective.  If he can see the “hunted”, then isn’t he, by process of elimination, the hunter?

The outer shaving of the moon had already gone down, leaving a black void in its wake. Like gauze, the Southern California smog absorbed the pin pricks of star light. Trees choked out what light was left, leaving the men in darkness. Silhouettes against the shadows.

Full disclosure: When I’m in critique mode, I have a tendency to think too much, and maybe that’s what’s happening here, but this paragraph really doesn’t work for me. In order:

1. “The outer shaving of the moon had already gone down.” So, why report it? The author is describing something that isn’t there. And, just between us, didn’t the rest of the moon go down, too?

2. “. . . leaving a black void in its wake.” Wakes are left by movement. Doesn’t work for me here.

3. “Like gauze . . . absorbed the pinpricks of starlight.” To me, this means there are no stars showing. If there are no stars showing, then the image of pinpricks is superfluous and confusing.

4. “. . . men in darkness. Silhouettes against the shadows.” You need light for shadows, yet we’ve spent a paragraph describing profound darkness. Again, the images are battling each other and creating confusion.

5. Who are “the men”? Is OPKOAH (our protagonist known only as “he”) among them, or are the men in fact the hunted?
Without words the five men, broad and rigid, assembled at the crest. Their weapons were poised like stone shadows standing sentry for the world. In his electronic ear piece he heard the hunt captain address them. “We can go in tight and drawn. We will have to lure it out to get it. Any other options?”

I don’t know what broad and rigid men look like, but the sentence reads as vaguely pornographic. Weapons poised like stone shadows? Is the “he” with the earpiece the same he as OPKOAH? I don’t know what “tight and drawn” means, either.

He peered into the blackness twenty steep yards below. Something stirred rustling the branches in the abyss. It was too dark to identify the myriad of shadows below. Most would be innocuous. Forest trees and shrubs. One would be a deadly predator. Hungry for them. His breath came shallow and tight. His hand sweat against the weapon stock.

Sigh. Another unidentified he. At this point, I’m too busy triangulating POVs (since OPKOAH was watching people crest a hill, then this paragraph’s he must be with the he with the earpiece, right?) to pay much attention to the action. Part of me is beginning to think that OPKOAH might be the deadly predator who’s hungry for them. But, since I don’t know who them is, most of me has stopped caring.

I don’t toss out that last line to be mean, by the way. Reading is not supposed to be hard, and fiction is not supposed to require a decoder ring.

Options? There were always options. An image of black curly hair and topaz eyes flickered into his mind. His chest constricted choking his lungs so he couldn’t inhale. No. She was not an option, he quelled the thought.

Oh, good Lord, now we have a she. With eyes and hair that make a masculine pronoun choke. (Is the masculine pronoun OPKOAH, or a new one? I don’t know, but there’s an Abbott and Costello routine in here somewhere.)

The men squinted in the dark to look at each other wordlessly. None of them had a better suggestion. It was settled then. He closed his eyes for the briefest moment and forced air into his clenched chest.

Holy shit, now we’re back with the men. And they’re squinting. Together. A choreographed Gilbert Gottfried impersonation. I’m relieved, however, that the disembodied he was able to clear the hair ball and breathe again. Do chests really clench?

“Anderson, take two o’clock” he acknowledged his assignment with a slight nod and silently stepped into position.

 “Yes sir,” Anderson replied. “And what you like me to do with two o’clock after I take it?”

Okay, I added that part. Finally, one person has a name, but I have to take in on faith that the he who acknowledged his assignment is in fact Anderson, and not the nameless being who’s in charge.

Question: Are we to assume that the he who was introduced in the first paragraph—therefore establishing him as a point of view character—is somehow overhearing this conversation from 50 yards away?
He released his vice grip from the fiberglass stock of his cross bow and wiggled blood back into his numb fingers. He would have liked to lower the heavy weapon long enough to stretch his cramping neck muscles and rest his burning left arm. He’d been pointing the cumbrous weapon for eight straight hours.

Hmm. Anderson has a crossbow? No, wait, I bet we’re back with OPKOAH. The beast, maybe? Choke-hair with gender identity issues? Really, it doesn’t matter because I’ll not be reading any further.

The importance of POV cannot be overstressed. Confusion leads to frustration, which leads to early rejection.

Note to the author: Please understand that even in poking fun, I’m coming from a respectful place. It takes guts to submit stuff to a group like this, and I admire that. I also admire your desire to improve your craft, so I hope you take this ribbing in the spirit with which it was intended.

First Page Critique: The Puget Sounds

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by Michelle Gagnon

Part of our continuing series of first page critiques…

The Puget Sounds


The scar across his cheek was itching; he didn’t like what was happening. The waters of Puget Sound were surprisingly calm that night, but since the moon was hidden behind a thick layer of overcast clouds you couldn’t tell unless you were actually in a boat. Not that Ramtin could enjoy the night sky; he wasn’t keen on boat travel. In spite of his misgivings, everything on the boat was going smoothly. The diesel engine in the next compartment sat quiet. It was normally only used to charge the large compliment of batteries for the electric drive. The electric motors, which were currently in operation, whirred without incident. The hydraulic lines that seemed to go everywhere were holding their valuable fluid, to be used when called upon by the captain. Along the sides and roof of the hull tucked into races neatly arranged near the hydraulic lines were a myriad of stainless steel braided electrical wires painted an odd shade of off white for various control and sensor operations.

To say it was claustrophobic inside was an understatement. But this wasn’t first class traveling. This wasn’t even third class. This was travel under dubious circumstance. Even though they were running under electric power, the smell from the diesel engine hung in the air like a sort of omni-presence. In a submarine, because of the enclosed space, that smell permeates everything. And it only serves to aid the claustrophobic feeling inside knowing you’re surrounded by the cold blackness that is the water just beyond the thin plating of the hull.

Critique:

I’ll start by saying that I love the title, PUGET SOUNDS, in general, but it seems better suited to a literary novel than a thriller or other work of crime fiction. Still, I can picture it on a cover.

There’s a lot of great detail here. The reader gets a strong sense of what it’s actually like to be on a submarine. That being said, the writing is too dense. I felt at times that I was wading through it. A perfect example is this sentence: Along the sides and roof of the hull tucked into races neatly arranged near the hydraulic lines were a myriad of stainless steel braided electrical wires painted an odd shade of off white for various control and sensor operations.

I read that passage three times, and was still not exactly sure what I was supposed to imagine. Particularly when writing about something they know well, authors need to toe a fine line. You have to provide a layperson with enough detail that they can visualize something that is foreign to them, but not so much that it ends up confusing them. Some careful editing could resolve this problem.

There are also a few minor technical issues at work here. One is the double spacing between each sentence. There was a great article in Slate about this a few months ago (Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period: 1/13/11) that emphasizes why such use is dead wrong and worse, appears dated (which, considering the average age of a NYC editor, is never a good thing). Jim also wrote a fantastic post about semi-colons. His conclusion, “Semi-colons. For academics, yes. For novelists, no,” pretty much sums it up. And kicking off the first sentence with a semi-colon is a definite no-no. Always err on the side of starting a new sentence.

Another issue (and a common mistake among debut authors) is shifting between tenses and viewpoints. We start in the past with “was” and “were,” but in a few places slip into the present, with “serves” rather than “served.”
I’m also not a fan of employing the second person, ie, “…knowing you’re surrounded by…” In this instance, I think it’s better to stay with a close third, writing from the perspective of Ramtin.

Above and beyond these more nitpicky technical details, I have to confess that this opening didn’t grab me the way I was hoping it would (despite the fact that I’m a huge fan of anything set on a submarine). Based on what little we learn on this first page, it seems like it should. The reader ends up knowing more about how well the boat is running than what kind of situation Ramtin finds himself in. I have no idea if he’s stowed away in a tight compartment, or if he’s helming the sub from a captain’s chair. And depending on what his specific situation is, the writer could kick off with boots tramping past his hiding place, or orders given to subordinates. There needs to be something stronger and more compelling inserted here to keep me turning to the next page.
I fear that this is one of those cases where the book really needs to kick off a few pages in, when the story really gets going.

First Page Critique: Erased

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A first page critique by Nancy J. Cohen

ERASED by Anonymous
“I’ll kill her! I swear to God I’ll blow her brains out!”
Special Agent Brandy Jackson stood just inside the apartment, her body half-shielded by the outer living room wall. Omar, the heavily tattooed ex-con at the far end of the room held his strung-out blonde girlfriend in a headlock, with the barrel of his .44 revolver pressed up against her temple. What was her name? Jennifer? Brandy thought so. Jennifer sobbed hysterically.
Omar stood with his back against the inside wall where he had a clear view of the front door and the windows. His eyes were wild, frenzied, darting around the room. They were moving too fast. His naked chest rose and fell in quick pants. He was dripping with sweat.
The idiot was high. What was he on? Crack, maybe heroin? Brandy hoped it wasn’t heroin. That drug could turn thugs like Omar into supersoldiers. She’d seen a bank robber high on the stuff who’d taken almost thirty rounds before he finally collapsed and died of blood loss. That was the first robbery that Brandy had ever investigated. She would never forget it.
“Calm down,” Brandy said in the most reassuring tone she could muster. “We’re going to talk about this.”
“Nothing to talk about. You make one move and I’ll kill this bitch!”
Brandy kept her eyes focused on Omar but she concentrated on the area at the edges of her vision. The hallway was a tall, rectangular blob. If agent Smith was in there, she couldn’t see him.
“It doesn’t have to end like that,” Brandy said. “You’re holding the cards, Omar.” She moved slowly, sliding her .40 caliber Glock 23 into the holster at her side. She showed her empty hands. “See? I just want to talk. What do you want? Money? You want a plane ticket?”
Omar’s eyes flickered. He hadn’t even thought about that. His whole plan had been to go out in a blaze of glory. Good. Slow him down.
Keep him talking, Smith had said. Give me time to get in there.
Great first line! It’s gripping and immediately captured my interest. Now for some questions. Omar’s girlfriend is strung-out. What does this mean exactly? She’s hysterical or she’s on drugs?
“Omar’s eyes were wild, frenzied, darting around the room. They were moving too fast.”  You’ve already implied his eyes are moving fast by saying they’re darting. You can delete this second line. And it’s more like his gaze is darting about the room, not his eyeballs. So I’d change these two lines to: “His wild, frenzied gaze darted around the room.”
The next paragraph contains a flashback. Here a guy is about to blow someone’s brains out and she’s thinking about a past robbery? Just have her think how many more rounds she’ll have to use to take him down.
“Calm down,” Brandy said in the most reassuring tone she could muster. “We’re going to talk about this.”  I’d like to hear her motivation here. You bring it in later: Keep him talking, Smith had said. Give me time to get in there.
Maybe move these lines up, so it reads like this: “Calm down,” Brandy said in the most reassuring tone she could muster. “We’re going to talk about this.”  Give me time to get in there, Smith had said. Keep him talking. (This works better with the following lines, about Smith approaching from the hallway.)
Then you’d end this section with “Good, slow him down.” That works fine, because we’ve already seen that she’s waiting for Smith.
It’s a tense scene and a great beginning. Just do a little rearranging, and it’ll read smoother. I can sympathize with Brandy’s situation and the possible outcomes, and that adds to the suspense. Well done!

First Page Critique: The Table

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By: Kathleen Pickering

It’s my turn to post the first page of a work and offer my opinion—of which, I will stress is merely that. One of my fantasies about reading new, anonymous work is that I would come to discover that I critiqued the next block-busting novelist. Could this one be he/she?

The Table

When Noa Torson woke up, the first thing she noticed was that her feet were cold. Odd, since she always wore socks to bed. It was bright, too—and she hated sleeping in a bright room, had even installed blackout curtains over her apartment’s sole window so that morning light never penetrated the gloom. She squinted against the glare, trying to make sense of her surroundings as her eyes adjusted. Her head felt like it had been inflated a few sizes and stuffed with felt. She had no idea how she’d ended up here, wherever here was.

Was she back in juvie? Probably not, it was too quiet. Juvie always sounded like a carnival midway, the constant din of guards’ boots pounding against metal staircases, high-pitched posturing chatter, the squeak of cots and clanking of metal doors. Noa had spent enough time there to be able to identify it with her eyes closed. She could usually even tell which cell block she’d been dumped in by echoes alone.

Voices intruded on the perimeter of her consciousness—two people from the sound of it, speaking quietly. She tried to sit up, and that was when the pain hit. Noa winced. It felt like her chest had been split in half. Her hand ached, too. Slowly, she turned her head.
An IV drip, taped to her right wrist. The line led to a bag hanging from a metal stand. And the bed she was lying on was cold metal—an operating table, a spotlight suspended above it. So was she in a hospital? There wasn’t that hospital smell, though, blood and sweat and vomit battling against the stench of ammonia.

Noa lifted her left hand: her jade bracelet, the one she never took off, was gone.
That realization snatched the final cobwebs from her mind.

Cautiously, Noa raised up on her elbows, then frowned. This wasn’t like any hospital she’d ever seen. She was in the center of a glass chamber, a twelve-by-twelve foot box, the windows frosted so she couldn’t see out. The floor was bare concrete. Aside from the operating table and the IV stand, rolling trays of medical implements and machines were scattered about like an archipelago of islands marooned in a grey sea. In the corner stood a red trash bin, “MEDICAL WASTE” blaring from the lid.

***

Wow. Now that’s a nightmare to which I NEVER want to awaken. Am I hooked? Hell, yeah! This catapults “The Perils of Pauline” to the stratosphere–and, she’s not even tied down.

First off, the first three paragraphs delivered so much information so incredibly (what seems) effortlessly, while ratcheting up the tension, that this writer is no amateur. We learn Noa is tough, opinionated, world-weary and intelligent. Noa gives us insight into a world (Juvie) with so much detail, that you can taste the coppery resentment she holds against society. And now, as if she hasn’t been “processed” enough through life, she is stretched out on an operating table for the final dissection.

Is she in danger, or was she hurt and being aided? Holy smokes. I WANNA KNOW!

A poet at heart, I’m hugely into symbolism. This page is loaded with it. For example:

1. The “sole” window apartment and sleeping in the “gloom”—As if living in a rabbit hole, Noa has seen enough. When she’s most vulnerable she wants safety from the world.

2. Her jade bracelet missing –Jade symbolizes justice, renewal, contentment and courage. She never took it off. It’s gone. Now she has to go it alone.

3. A 12 by 12 frosted glass box and concrete floor—a reflection of her view of the world: cold, confusing, hard, unwelcome.

4. Two people whispering –nothing is ever clear. She always has to be on guard.

5. The Medical Waste trash bin –Is that what her life has been reduced to?

Next, every action verb (installed, pounded, dumped, scattered, split, battling), every description (blackout, clanking, squeaking, metal, cold) was perfectly chosen to create mood and move the plot forward. Not a feat for the unfocused writer. This author knows exactly what she/he is doing with word choice to make the reader empathize and act with the character.

Now, I know when given the chance to read on, I will learn her age (though I suspect she’s either still a juvie or a recent graduate), occupation, where she lives, why her bracelet is so important, why her chest hurts and what she was doing before awakening on this Table. But, let me point out, this page was so expertly crafted with concrete (not vague) impressions in this woman’s mind, that these questions created a need to know more; hence, a page turner.

Excellent writing. When can I read the book?

Recording the Past

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by Clare Langley-Hawthorne


I was up at my Mother-in-law’s house this weekend in the historic gold field town of Maldon, and one night we got talking about the importance of recording the stories of many of our, now very elderly, relatives. This conversation was prompted by my husband reading a book about a famous Australian landscape architect by the name of Ellis Stones who had designed his grandmother’s garden in the early 1960s. As we read some excerpts out aloud we realized how little any of us really knew about the details of her life. It turns out the garden she designed with Ellis Stones was considered one of his finest but, apart from photographs, the garden no longer exists (destroyed after redevelopment) -yet another piece of history consigned to the rubbish heap.

Tim’s grandmother is now 97 years old and imagine the stories she must have to tell – about her life in a country town before the second world war when, despite her talents, her father refused to let her go to university; her recollections of a brother who was taken away; her trials during the war as she struggled to bring up two boys alone; and her despair when her husband was declared missing and no news of was received for 2 years (during which, it turns out, he was a Japanese POW). Imagine the insights she would have into the way people lived and worked then – yet no one has chosen to record her story, and, I fear, she is now too frail to be interviewed at any great length about her life.

As a writer of historical fiction, I draw upon the stories of ordinary people to be able to paint an accurate, detailed picture of what it was like to live during a particular era. Thinking about all the lives that go unrecorded has made me realize how much ordinary day-to-day history we may be losing. Hardly anyone writes letters or keeps hard copy records anymore – still fewer probably take the time to ask and listen to people tell their stories of the past. Much of our world is consumed with the here and now or the latest and greatest innovation. Thinking about my husband’s grandmother has made me realize that we all need to become keepers of the stories of the past. Interviewing our relatives and friends may become an important first step in ensuring that these ordinary lives do not get forgotten.

So have you talked to anyone ‘of a certain age’ about their lives lately? How do you think we can preserve these stories so writers like me will be able to read them (perhaps even hear and see them as well) in the future and be able to recreate the past in all its ‘ordinary’ detail?

Give Us the ‘Tude

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We’re all about helping writers here at TKZ. We can do that on the blog, of course, but every now and again one of us will show up in person at a conference.
Or, we’ll throw one ourselves. That’s what I’ll be doing in Los Angeles, June 4th and 5th. Two solid days of getting your writing to the next level. Wall-to-wall instruction on what you can do to rise above the slush, get noticed, get sold. Click here if you’d like more information.
Of course, we’ll talk about openings and POV, which brings me to today’s first page entry:
THE FEN
The surveillance van stank. That wasn’t unusual. Put two or more people in a confined space for hours on end and the scent fallout will inevitably be a combination of stale sweat and funyuns with the desperate hint of pine from a cardboard tree hanging on the rearview mirror. 
           
 “…so I told her that’s how it would be irregardless of what she wanted,” Johnson said.
           
The words registered, but I hadn’t paid the slightest attention to the context. “Uh huh.”
           
“You’re a woman, what do you think the problem is?”
           
“I don’t know. Your use of the non-word irregardless?”
           
Surveillance work was the closest I’d been to the field since being shot three months earlier. I thought it would be better than desk duty. I was wrong.   
           
I popped the lid off a bottle of ibuprofen and dry swallowed three. Getting shot hurt. What was done to keep me alive hurt more. The company in the van and our location wasn’t helping. Ed Kowalczyk once wrote a song called “Shit Towne,” about York, Pennsylvania. I’ve been to York. Ed wrote a good song. He needs to write one about Reading.
           
“Do I have to go outside?” asked Johnson, changing topics. At least, I thought that’s what he was doing.
           
“What?”
           
“When I’m on surveillance with a guy,” he put too much emphasis on that gender specific word, “I can just pee out the back door of the van.”
           
“If I see your penis, I will shoot it,” I said.
           
He grumbled, but left in search of a public restroom, or a bush. I didn’t care as long as the smell from the contents of his bladder didn’t reach my nose.
***
The voice of the narrator in this piece is strong. When writing in First Person, that’s the main goal. Give us an attitude. The narrator should sound like someone specific, and someone who might be worth listening to. 
This narrator has a good, irreverent, spunky style. We like protagonists who have a bit of the rebel in them. Why? Because that promises conflict, which is the engine of fiction. In that regard, the repartee is promising. We know this Lead is going to run afoul of those she has to work with.
I also like the crisp attention to detail. The desperate hint of pine from a cardboard tree is excellent. And it’s mixed with Funyuns (note: capitalize product names). That’s specific. It’s almost always better to use actual names than generic categories.
The main way I’d strengthen this opening is to root us in the POV right from the start. I see this kind of opening a lot—a sensory description, but from a voice we have not identified yet. Could this be the author’s omniscient voice? A third person “in the head” voice? Or is this First Person? If so, who is the person?
We don’t get clued in until the third paragraph.
Thus, I strongly urge writers to make that opening paragraph clear about the POV. My suggested reworking is below. It’s by no means the only way, but it’ll give you an idea of what I mean.
****
I popped the lid off a bottle of ibuprofen and dry swallowed three. Getting shot hurt. What was done to keep me alive hurt more.
“…so I told her that’s how it would be irregardless of what she wanted,” Johnson said.
           
The words registered, but I hadn’t paid the slightest attention to the context. “Uh huh.”
           
“You’re a woman, what do you think the problem is?”
           
“I don’t know. Your use of the non-word irregardless?”
The surveillance van stank. That wasn’t unusual. Put two or more people in a confined space for hours on end and the scent fallout will inevitably be a combination of stale sweat and Funyuns with the desperate hint of pine from a cardboard tree hanging on the rearview mirror. 
Surveillance work was the closest I’d been to the field since being shot three months earlier. I thought it would be better than desk duty. I was wrong . . . .
***
Now, I know the thinking is that the author wants to establish the setting first, the van, then get to the scene. But readers will wait for setting information if something is happening, like dialogue with a little spice (with all due respect to Brother Gilstrap.) So putting in description after action is often the better choice for the opening page.
Establishing POV and voice right away are:
Janet Evanovich in Two for the Dough:
I knew Ranger was beside me because I could see his earring gleaming in the moonlight.
James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice:
They threw me off the haytruck about  noon.
J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye:
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.
And so on. I know immediately we are in First Person, and that lets me understand better the descriptions that follow, because it’s coming through a particular perspective. And there is an attitude apparent in each narration as they move along.
Main point: it’s the voice of the narrator that’s the number one thing I look for in First Person. This piece has a good voice, so I would keep reading. 

More important than writing what you know, is knowing what you write.

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Critique by John Ramsey Miller


STORM RISING
Author Unknown

Tuesday December 14th 7:53 A.M.

West 164th and Broadway – Alleyway

Detective Kelli Storm ducked under the yellow crime scene tape as her partner, Bob Jenkins, held it up for her. She spotted the M.E., Jack Hastings, kneeling next to the body of a nun.

“So what do we have, Jack?”

The portly grey haired man spun his head and looked up at her. “Caucasian female, mid-forties. I noted ligature marks around her neck and petechial hemorrhaging. My preliminary COD is asphyxiation. She’s also missing her right hand.”

Kelli leaned in for a closer look. “Son of a bitch. What kind of sick shit would do that to a nun?” She stood back up, feeling a chill run down her spine.

Jack shook his head. “You got me, you’re the detective. From the looks of it, whoever did this is a pro,” he said, examining the arm. “No jagged edges, a clean cut.”

Kelli could swear she caught a hint of admiration in his voice. “Got a time of death?”

“Hard to say. It’s pretty cold, but judging by lividity, I’d put it somewhere around midnight. I’ll know more when I get her back to the morgue.” He motioned for two assistants who had been standing a few feet away.

Kelli watched as the two swooped in like vultures, a body bag unfolding as they closed on the corpse. She stepped back and bumped into Bob.

“Sorry,” she said, sidestepping.

“What’s wrong, Kelli? This isn’t your first crime scene.”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the way she died. The way this monster mutilated her. I mean a nun for Christ sake.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty sick. Are you going to be okay?”

She nodded. “Who found the body?”

Bob tilted his head toward the street. “The elderly woman over there. Name is Mrs. Kilpatrick.”

Kelli turned and spotted the woman standing next to a uniformed officer. “Let’s go and talk to her,” she said, and headed for the street.


Okay, let’s begin at the beginning.

1- I would make this opening chapter the second chapter. The two-line time and place slug that opens the book is no substitute for description that sets time, place and mood. Movie scripts open like this. Draw the reader in. Where is the texture? I want to be there. What does it smell like? What does it sound like? How many people are there? If you aren’t going to start off with action to pull in the reader, then put us at the place. It’s a flat opening and doesn’t say anything interesting, show any compelling action, set a mood, describe or or introduce characters effectively.

2- M.E.’s head spins and he looks up? What is this, The Exorcist?

3- Too much too soon. The nun is the punchline. I would withhold the fact that the victim is a nun until later in the scene. If she is wearing a habit nobody has to say that she is a nun. Until the word is used, she’s just another corpse, who becomes a strangled woman and her right hand missing.

4- The detective likely wouldn’t say, “What kind of sick shit would do this to a nun?” Obviously the same kind of sick shit who would do this to any other human being. Unless you are Catholic, nuns are just religious women wearing a monochromatic outfit. This makes Kelli look like a rookie, (or perhaps she is a failed nun who became a detective due to priest friskiness or something). A missing hand is nothing. New York City homicide detectives see hollowed out heads, tortured children, limbs torn off, people with crowbars sticking out of their chests.

5- How about some black humor in introducing the fact of the victim being a nun. Kelli might say, “Who would do this to a nun?” Her partner, Bob, might reply, “Looks like she wouldn’t give up the ruler.” Kelli might frown at the retort, since vic is a nun. I think this would be more upsetting to Kelli if the victim were a child, a pregnant woman, or a young mother.

6- Lividity would be one indicator of time of death, but that is only accurate (color and intensity wise) for the first six hours or so. It tells if a body has been moved. An M.E. would use a liver temp (The organ that holds heat the longest) weighed against outside temperature and rate of cooling to get an approximate time of death. He would also rigor and the stage of blood coagulation.

7- A body bag doesn’t unfold itself and I wouldn’t use “vultures” to describe their motion. Vultures circle and land carefully, alert to danger. These guys are professionals and move fluidly because they do this all the time.

8- What about a cleanly severed hand points to ta professional? Would that be a professional killer, butcher, biologist, doctor, or an upholsterer? With a sharp instrument, anybody can remove a hand cleanly. If organs have been removed surgically, or the corpse skinned, or tattooed, that might indicate involvement of a person with medical knowledge.

9- Confusing use of tense. “Kelly could swear” right after “Kelly leaned in”

10- How does Bob know the woman’s name who found the body? Reading this, I assumed Kelli and Bob got there around the same time since they are partners. He’s been behind her since they arrived, I thought.

It feels more like a quickly written, rough first draft. The author’s notes in the margins might say:

*check out an alley in NYC for dimensions, lighting, etc…

*what would a female NYC detective wear? What is her rank? What precinct is she with? How does she carry her weapon? Does she wear sneakers or flat sole leather shoes?

*Check out steps M.E. would take and in what order. Would M.E. check lividity on the scene by undressing a nun? How would he figure time of death. Would the M.E. be there ahead of the detectives? Who rolls the body? What would the M.E. need to know in situ, and what would he do back at the morgue?

I think a large problem here is that there is nothing fresh, different or compelling here. It feels stale, and not well visualized or thought out.

Reading this, I didn’t get the feeling that the author knew as much as they should about what makes up this scene. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that their knowledge of police procedure comes in large part from watching TV. You can tell when an author knows a subject whether it’s from doing their research or first hand knowledge. This chapter just doesn’t feel real to me. I think you can tell when an author knows more than he or she puts on the page.

I think the author should take a deep breath and start over.




Government Funding for the Arts (?)

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Fair warning: This post wanders into the realm of political discourse, but I assure you that I’m coming from a very honest, confused place.

Earlier this week, Ron Schiller, National Public Radio’s (NPR’s) senior vice president for development (read: fundraising) accidentally went on the record stating that Republicans were ““radical, racist, Islamaphobic, Tea Party people . . . not just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic, I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it’s scary. They’re seriously racist, racist people.” He made this statement during an amateur sting engineered by filmmaker James O’Keefe, in which Mr. Schiller thought he was speaking to representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, whom he believed would be donating funds to NPR.

Skirting the perceived truth or untruth of the statement, there’s no denying the leftward leaning political orientation of the speaker, whose parent company, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is supported by something north of $400 million in taxpayer funding. Mr. Schiller went on to say, “it is very clear that in the long run we would be better off without federal funding.” This at the very time that the newly-elected Republican majority in the House of Representatives is hunting for a reason to cut billions of dollars from the federal budget.

From a strictly business perspective, Mr. Schiller is a moron. There’s a time and a place for bigoted statements, and the moment when you’re under a microscope by people who are trying to shut you down is exactly the wrong time. He resigned, as did his boss (also name Schiller, but no relation), and that’s exactly as it should be, as far as I’m concerned.

All of this raises a larger question in my mind: Should taxpayers be compelled to pay for art?

I’m really on the fence on this one. On the one hand, I’m a big believer in the arts, and I fully subscribe to the notion that without art, there can be no civilization. On the other hand, I am as pure a capitalist as one could imagine, and I abhor the very thought of state-run media and state-rung propaganda campaigns. An independent media is our primary safeguard against totalitarianism.

There’s a huge part of me, as a resident of the Greater Washington Metropolitan Area, that loves the millions of dollars in subsidies that go to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (The Kennedy Center). To the degree that Lincoln Center in New York, and the Buttscratch Community Center in Middle America get federal funding (thanks to recently-prohibited earmarks), part of me supports the introduction of “culture” into areas of the country that would otherwise not see it. There’s real value to federal grants that help artists find their voice.

On the other hand, we are a free-market economy—and economic model that I believe in 100%. Every dollar I’ve made in my lifetime has been paid for by customers who decided that the products and service I represented were better than those represented by our competitors. I’ve never received a penny in grant money (I’ve never applied). For me to succeed in the book business, I have to produce compelling stories that people want to read, and I need to convince them that spending money on my imagination is at least as rewarding and an identical investment in the works of my competitors. The marketplace will decide whether I am financially successful or not. If I crash and burn, there you go. A bitter part of me questions why I should subsidize with my hard-earned income on art that I will never see in a part of the country that I will never see.

What do you think, dear Killzoners?  Should the United States government be subsidizing art?

DEAD GIRL Visits TKZ (It could happen…)

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DEAD GIRL – Chapter 1

The Shadow Lands

Dahlia felt rough cotton beneath her fingertips. She clenched her fist, wadding the sheet in her hand. Took a deep breath of cold air and caught the scent of ammonia.
And the smell of something else. Something thick and coppery.


Dahlia opened her eyes and stared up at a gray rectangle of pebbled plastic–a fluorescent ceiling panel. Unlit. She brushed her hair out of her eyes. Her face felt greasy.

She sat up, but a wave of dizziness hit her. She put out her hands to steady herself and felt a tug. A clear tube was taped to one wrist.
Dahlia heard a low smacking sound. Smelled salt and copper. She looked up. A wide metal door stood shut on her right. To the left, a gauzy curtain hung from a track on the ceiling. Beyond the fabric, gray light seeped through a window on the far wall.
Something moved on the other side of the curtain, but it wasn’t close enough to make a silhouette.
Dahlia shifted and a fat cockroach ran from under the blanket. She jerked. The bed creaked.
The smacking sound paused. Dahlia held her breath. The sound resumed, wet and crunchy, like someone eating celery.
Dahlia swung her legs off the bed. The cold tile floor shocked her bare feet. Still sitting, she grabbed a handful of curtain and yanked.
Eight feet away a thin, bald man lay in a bed identical to hers. A hunchbacked monster the color of pus straddled the old man, its head buried in his open stomach. Pink-tipped ribs and quivering organs lay revealed. Blood dripped from the bed frame to the floor.
Dahlia tried to scream but only hissed.
The old man’s head turned. His eyes found Dahlia’s. His lips moved. “Help me.”
The monster drew its bloody head out of the man’s ribcage. Its head rotated on a boney, elongated neck. Small, hard eyes glared at her. A ribbon of intestines hung from its teeth. The monster’s mouth widened in a red smile.
This time Dahlia screamed.
* * *

In the next scene, I’m really expecting Woody Harrelson to burst through the door with his shotgun blasting, Zombieland revisited. And before you ask – YES, I did see the movie. Bill Murray was the best part.

What I liked from this excerpt:
The author does a fine job of using all the reader’s senses and “shows” some of Dahlia’s feelings through her actions and reactions, rather than “telling” the reader. And by keeping the sentences relatively short, the focus is on the suspenseful build up. Also, the metaphoric description of celery really grossed me out, but it also described the scene in a way that brought it home for me, without more graphic wording.

Areas for possible improvement:
This is a great framework to start, but in my opinion and my personal reading taste, I would like to see more “meat on the bones,” pun intended. I want to know what is really in her head as the scene unfolds. The author does a fine job of describing the setting, almost like doing an inventory, but until Dahlia is really made human for the reader by giving her an opinion and “voice,” the reader doesn’t feel as connected as they could be to her plight. More of her needs to be layered into this scene to make her more human. And here are a few ways to do that.

Questions for Dahlia – Rather than me saying what I would do, I like to ask questions for the author to answer for Dahlia if they choose. And by infusing these answers into the story, you can see how this might add the layering of other emotions or senses into this section of the book. This is not an invitation for backstory. Stick with the action of the scene, but choose your words carefully and frugally to keep the pacing.

(As an exercise, it might be helpful for the author to switch this scene into first person point of view for Dahlia, just to get into her head more. I’m not suggesting this story should be in first person, but rewriting a short scene into 1st person POV is a good way to look at one scene in a different way.)
• What makes Dahlia wake up? Does she wonder that? Do buzzing flies awaken her? Does a steady dripping (of blood coming from behind the curtain) awaken her? What does she think of the reason that forces her to open her eyes?
• Does she struggle with the memory of what she was doing before this? Does she remember being taken or attacked? Who is Dahlia? And besides the big bad flesh eating monster about to have seconds, why should the reader care about her? Is she a continuing character or just a second helping? (She may be the DEAD GIRL or a secondary character, but either way, this scene could be enhanced if the reader knows more about her, even if it’s a quick glimpse.)
• Once she gets her first look around, does she wonder where she is? It’s human nature to react to what she sees. Given her past experiences, what is she thinking as she sees where she is?
• Is she completely alert when she first opens her eyes or is she fuzzy? When she stands, is she nauseous? Does she wonder why?
• Does she wonder what is going into her veins? Did she wake up because the drugs used to sedate her had run out?
• Does Dahlia like cockroaches? Does she want to cuss? (By giving more of a reaction that readers can relate to, this humanizes her.)
• Before she sees the monster, she’s scared about what is behind the curtain or door number 2. Does she look for a weapon…or even pull out the tube attached to her wrist? How would she defend herself?
• I would imagine someone being eviscerated would really stink. Does Dahlia want to gag or puke? How does she see the scene, given she’s in shock? Does she see it in one narration with lots of details, or does she see it in horrific snapshots, one more grotesque than the last?

I once wrote a scene where the reader was in the head of a guy getting his throat cut. He was an assassin and deserved his fate, but he was hunted in the dark by men more cruel. At the beginning of that scene, I had him thinking one more job would allow him to retire to a beach. He was smelling coconut oil as he entered the warehouse to meet a new client, when he should have been more guarded. He wasn’t used to being prey. But instead of graphically describing the scene as if I was a third party looking on, I wondered if he would go into shock like a rabbit does in the jaws of a wolf. So after his throat was cut, his mind drifted to the beach. And as he drowned in his own blood, he was under the waves trying to swim for the surface and just misses it. I chose that way to describe it so the reader was spared the graphic violence and I also tied in the assassin’s ego being his downfall.

In a similar manner, Dahlia could sense or hear something that the author continues to the end reveal, tying the scene together a little more too. The reader needs to see this scene from inside Dahlia’s head. And wrapped in her brain are all her life’s experiences that her opinions filter through. The reader needs to get a glimpse of this in order for her to be more real for them. As the scene is written, she is only a prop to the monster. Nothing is really known about her.

Overuse of name – Dahlia’s name is overused, in my opinion. It makes the writing sound stilted and formal. She is the only woman in the scene. The name of Dahlia is stated NINE times in this short intro, when “she” would suffice for most of them. Consider using her name at the beginning and end of this scene, with “she” used in between. And why not use her full name at the beginning? Does she have a last name? Even a throw away character can benefit from a last name. That can humanize her for the reader.

Words that Threw Me Out – Also, the door “stood shut” and “quivering organs lay revealed” took me out of the story. A door is shut or closed, but we assume it is standing and is not on the floor. And the “lay revealed” is too stilted and formal and passive, compared to the other vivid descriptions. I’m not sure the old guy who is serving as an appetizer would be awake and asking for help the way he is, with his ribs cracked open like a smorgasbord, but I’d still like to see what Dahlia thinks of what she sees.

Conclusion – In order for an author to completely get into the head of a character, even a secondary one or a victim, the writing should be layered with the inner emotions, life experiences, and opinions of that character. This is their motivation. Editors often use the term TSTL, which means a character is “too stupid to live” like the babysitter who answers the door in the middle of the night in a slasher flick. Even if Dahlia is a victim, she needs some history to make the reader care more about her and she needs enough smarts to do everything she can to defend herself. By adding the right depth to this scene, the reader will care whether she gets away, and be less grossed out by the graphic violence. Editors will be looking for this. Writing is about stirring all the emotions, not just fear.