Keeping It Grounded

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

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

SINK

Day 1

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

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

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

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

“Why were you laughing?”

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

“His father made a positive ID.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to Grab Them on Page One

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It’s first page week here at TKZ, and if you’re an unpublished writer you’ve been treated to some real gold. The instruction from our band of bloggers has been a valuable workshop on the art of what I call “the big grab” – getting the reader hooked from the start.

Last week, I wrote about what not to do on your opening page. Today, I want to suggest to you an opening strategy that works for any type of fiction.

At the outset, please note that what follows is not a formula. This isn’t painting by the numbers. But it is a principle, and thus has infinite possibilities for application. No matter what your style or genre, this principle will work its magic for you, every time.

Recall that last week’s post was triggered by something an agent said at a recent conference, to wit: “If you cannot write a compelling opening scene, from the opening sentence, I’m not going to finish your proposal.”

I assume you do want agents — and editors — to finish your proposal. If so, you must grab them on page one. How can you do that?

By beginning your novel with a disturbance to the Lead’s ordinary world.

Why disturbance? Because: Readers read to worry. They want to be lost in the intense emotional anticipation over the plight of a character in trouble. Only when that connection is made does reader interest truly kick in.

But in their opening pages many writers fall into what I call the “Happy people in Happy Land” trap. They think that by showing the Lead character in her normal life, being happy with her family or dog or whatever, we’ll be all riled up when something bad happens to this nice person, perhaps at the end of chapter one, or beginning of chapter two.

Or they fall into the “I’m the Greatest Literary Stylist of Our Time” trap. This is where a writers desires to display brilliance via pure prose before, somewhere down the line, something like a plot kicks in.

But that’s too long to wait. You need to stir up the waters immediately.

A disturbance is something that causes ripples in the placid lagoon of Happy Land. It can be anything, so long as it presents a change or challenge to the Lead. (It’s important to note that this disturbance need not be “big” as in, say, a thriller prologue. The opening disturbance can be a jolt, however slight, that indicates to the Lead she is not having an ordinary moment here).

And you need to have that jolt on page one, preferably paragraph one.

This is true for both commercial and literary fiction, BTW. Compare the following two openings, the first a commercial example, the latter a literary one.

They threw me off the hay truck about noon.

(The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain)

The world outside the window was in flames. The leaves on the pistachio trees shone fire-red and orange. Mattie studied the early morning light. She was lying on the side of the bed where her husband should have been sleeping.

(Blue Shoe by Ann Lamott)

Notice that Cain starts with a character in motion at a point in time that is obviously a disturbance to him. In this case, the disturbance is physical.

In Lamott’s example, we have two lines of description, then the Lead is introduced, and the last line is a ripple of disturbance, this one emotional: where is her husband?

Dialogue, if it indicates immediate conflict, is another way to create an opening disturbance. I’ve heard more than one agent say they like to see dialogue in the first pages. Why? Because it means you are writing a scene. Not exposition or description or backstory, but a real scene. Like this:

“The marvelous thing is that it’s painless,” he said. “That’s how you know when it starts.”

“Is it really?”

“Absolutely. I’m awfully sorry about the odor though. That must bother you.”

“Don’t! Please don’t.”

(“The Snows of Kilimanjaro” by Ernest Hemingway)

From these examples it’s plain to see that there are countless ways to grab readers right away through this wonderful thing called disturbance.

Now why wouldn’t you want to do that?

Perhaps you have a reason. Maybe style is what you’re after most of all. A mood. Or maybe you’re writing a grand epic, and want to “set the scene” as it were. But before you abandon the disturbance principle, look at the opening lines from a couple of “big” novels:

The boys came early to the hanging. (The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett)

The gale tore at him and he felt its bite deep within and he knew that if they did not make landfall in three days they would all be dead. (Shogun, James Clavell)

I don’t know about you, but that’s enough narrative energy to propel me through the next few pages. If I get a long weather report up top, or two pages on the sunlight over Rio (no matter how beautifully rendered) I will be sorely tempted to put the book down. If you tell me how the character got to the scene, via backstory or flashback, I’m definitely moving on.

But if you indicate there’s a character here facing change or challenge, uncertainty or conflict, I’m going to want to know why. I don’t need to know the background info yet. I’ll wait for that if trouble is brewing.

John LeCarre once said, “The cat sat on the mat is not the opening of a plot. The cat sat on the dog’s mat is.”

Mr. LeCarre has it right. The opening page of a novel has to draw the reader in with an indication of trouble to come.

Do that by disturbing your characters from the very start.

“Okay, here’s mine. Or somebody’s”

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THE BLADE OF ABRAHAM

April 30, 1945. Austrian Alps

“The Führer is dead.”

Dr. Kurt Heisenberg felt his heart stop. The words pierced his skull like an executioner’s needle. He pressed the phone receiver closer to his ear, hoping he had misunderstood. “I am sorry, Reichsminister Speer, would you repeat that?”

“Dead, Herr Doktor.”

A sheet of frigid rigor seemed to wrap around Heisenberg, colder than the ice and snow just outside the heavily fortified concrete bunker. No doubt he would have felt warmer standing in the glacial temperatures beyond the bunker’s blast-proof doors than he did here, at this moment. The Reichsminister’s words went way beyond causing a delay of Heisenberg’s prized Uranium Projekt. It meant its sudden termination. Without the ironclad authority of Adolph Hitler and his command to drop the weapon on the heart of the British Empire, there would be no debilitating strike against the Allies, no unconditional surrenders, no new world, no Aryan fulfillment. The demise of the Führer was a death sentence for the Projekt.

With a voice that sounded like air seeping from a deflating balloon, Heisenberg said, “What must I do?”

“You are ordered to execute emergency directive Mitternacht immediately,” Speer said. “Is that understood?”

Heisenberg nodded but then realized he must also verbally acknowledge the command. He pushed the choking words from his mouth. “Yes.”

“You’ve done well, Herr Doktor. All of Germany thanks you.” After a long pause, Speer said, “Good luck.”

Heisenberg gently placed the receiver in its cradle as if doing so might soften the blow inflicted by the Minister of Armaments. He felt like a bear emerging from a long hibernation only to find that winter was far from over. The Mitternacht or Midnight Directive meant only one thing: the Uranium Projekt was dead, and must be buried. Speers’ words were the equivalent of nailing the coffin shut. All that was left was to throw the dirt onto the casket. And that was what he must now do.

Okay. We know Hitler is dead. And we know that Herr Doctor (Or Mr. Doctor Kurt Heisenberg) is really bummed out about it. He wanted badly to screw up some unknown stuff or other. That in itself is hard to imagine, but okay this guy is bad–perhaps diabolical even. Seething badness, even though we don’t know anything about him, that isn’t truly bad because only Hitler would have allowed him to beear terrible fruit, and now he’s screwed I tell you. I mean this guy liked Hitler, which in the realm of things not to do if you are a good guy is 29 on a list of 30. And he talked to Albert Speer, who made him say, “he got it.” Speer would soon be off to Spandau to write books on toilet paper and smuggle them out, but I suppose this guy is off to do something truly horrible terrible monstrous.

Do I want to keep reading to see what Dr. Kurt Heisenberg is going to threaten to screw up? Do you want to know who will step up to smack his ass? I guess I’d keep reading for a few more paragraphs before I placed it on my”When-hell-freezes-over pile.

Page One Critique of The Storm Killer

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Here’s the sample:

Chapter One

August 10th, 1935

For the past ten years I’ve spent my nights exploring the darker side of humanity. In the morning I’d cleanse my soul with a shot of Four Roses before writing about what I’d seen. My job as a reporter for the New York Daily Post was my life. Helen’s murder made me realize that the story isn’t everything.

I was sleeping off a night of heavy drinking when someone started pounding on the door to my room. With a groan I pulled the pillow over my head. It didn’t help. The banging continued.

I forced open my eyes. The shade was drawn on the only window in the room. Diffused light combined with my bad eyesight gave the room a surreal appearance, as if a cloud had enveloped my world. The tick, tick, tick of the electric fan near the window did little more than shuffle the heat from one side of the room to the other. Summer in New York. Who the hell needs it?

Crawling out of bed, I squinted at the clock. It was past noon. I grabbed my Luckies. Shook one out. Lit it. While I set my lungs on fire my unknown caller started rattling the doorknob.

“Hold your fucking horses,” I shouted.

Although the cigarette took the edge off my headache, I knew from experience that only time or a shot of whiskey would quell the tempest in my gut. It didn’t help that my neighbor was playing “She’s a Latin from Manhattan” on his Victrola. The wall might as well not have been there. I ground my teeth and winced when the record skipped a beat. He’d played it so many times that I knew exactly where the scratches were.

First things first, I like the title. I don’t love it, but I like it. (By way of full disclosure, the from the formatting in which I received the sample, it wasn’t clear to me if “The Sorm Killer” is the title of the story or the heading for the chapter.)

I would kill the first paragraph in its entirety. As a reader, don’t burden me with your character’s last ten years before you introduce me to the present. From the drinking problem to the job as a reporter to the fact that someone named Helen was murdered, there’s no detail in that paragraph that couldn’t be more artfully introduced later in the story.

You wrote: I was sleeping . . . someone started pounding on the door to my room. This kind of passive sentence construction is toxic. Plus, the fact that the character is sleeping is rendered redundant in the next sentence where he pulls the pillow over his head. Is the issue really that someone started pounding, or is it that someone pounded at all? Consider something like this:

The pounding on my door drove the Four Roses ice pick further into my brain. For a second, I actually believed I could make it go away by pulling my pillow over my head. It was that kind of morning after that kind of night.

That’s not the most artful paragraph in its own right, but the point is to illustrate how a lot of information can be conveyed in relatively few words, even with the implied backstory of a drinking problem.

I think you convey a very nice sense of place and atmosphere in this piece, even if it does remain way too wordy. For example, I would condense “. . . gave the room a surreal appearance, as if a cloud had enveloped my world” to “. . . made the room look cloudy.“

I mentioned this earlier in the week with regard to a different piece: Avoid the F-bomb on the first page. It’s too off-putting to too many readers.

The final point I want to make is one that I considered not making at all because it has less to do with writing style than content choices. But, in for a dime, right?

I feel like I’ve seen this scene a thousand times in a thousand noir settings. There’s some great detail–I particularly like the bit of business about the Victrola and having heard the record so many time through the wall that he knows where the scratches are–but overall, it has the feel of a retread to me. That’s a problem. Perhaps what follows would knock me for a loop, but if that’s the case, then that’s the scene that should be moved to the front of the story.

Consider this: Can the story begin with whatever news the visitor is bringing? Rather than building up to it, just smash us in the face with it.

John Gilstrap

Anonymous First Page Critique: Stealing Genius

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by Michelle Gagnon
This week, TKZ is embarking on a new experiment. The first thirty people who sent us the opening page of their thriller WIP are receiving a critique. We’re keeping the authors of the submissions anonymous. I’ve posted a first page below, with my recommendations directly following.
STEALING GENIUS
Northern Waziristan
Pakistan/Afghanistan Tribal Region
Thomas watched the gathering crowd of Pushtun tribesmen from the tent’s relative cool. Some of the men were locals, but most were exhausted Afghani warriors and neighboring tribal militia gang members seeking sanctuary in the no-man’s land while they licked their wounds.

Once fortified and re-armed, they would return to their personal battlefields to kill again. Unless they found Thomas. He knew the languages of the region and wore the appropriate garb, but his blond hair, blue eyes and pale skin would betray him as much as his Australian accent. If anyone noticed Thomas, the killing would start much sooner.
He backed deeper into the dark as he checked his watch and hunkered down by the cases he’d humped into the village hours ago when it was still dark. His patience and cool exterior were growing thin. The lunatic was late. Again.
Thomas had asked for permission to end this particular arrangement — end it with the slice of his bowie knife. But the old man denied his request.
Sweat beaded on his clean-shaven face, the robes he wore over his Kevlar unibody armor providing little relief from the hellish conditions. Thomas longed for his uniform — any uniform. He would be even hotter and by now as damp as a fish, but he’d still be more comfortable. Thomas had spent most of his life in one uniform or another and missed the security it gave him.
His last official uniform was Australian military, his homeland. He hadn’t seen the shores down under in almost three years. But even as an Australian commando, he’d rarely seen them, spending most of his time in East Timor or Papua New Guinea as a Peacekeeper.
The shouts from outside the tent rose in volume and frequency. Thomas eased his six-foot frame back towards the mouth of the tent. The shouts had changed in tone and temper. Anger was more prevalent now, as were mentions of Americans.


_______________________________________________________________________________


There are the bones of a truly amazing opening here. I love the setting, the detail, and the situation Thomas is facing.
That being said, you really need to grab me. The first few paragraphs succeeded in that regard. But then the bulk of the rest of the page is exposition. I find out way more about the protagonist (I’m guessing that Thomas is the protagonist) than is necessary at the outset of the story. All I really need to know is that he’s waiting for someone, and that he’s in imminent danger of being killed. Paragraphs five and six could be condensed into a single sentence about him wearing robes over Kevlar.

Personally, I’d stop right after, “The lunatic was late. Again.” and jump into some action. I’m going to hazard a guess that somewhere in the next few pages either the lunatic will show up, or Thomas will be discovered. Take me there. Then fill in the rest of the backstory more gradually in terms of his military past. It’s even more interesting if I’m not sure whether or not Thomas is a good guy at this point, he could just as easily be the villain. Not telling me about his military connection adds an element of ambiguity to the scene.

Also, if possible I like to see a little dialogue on the first page–personal preference, so take it with a grain of salt. But instead of “the shouts from outside the tent,” maybe you could cast those shouts as dialogue. Then I could find out what language they’re speaking, how much of it the main character understands, and what he’s afraid of.
One more suggestion: this is still a fairly passive opening in terms of Thomas. You write, “He backed deeper into the dark as he checked his watch and hunkered down by the cases he’d humped into the village hours ago when it was still dark.” So right now he’s waiting, which isn’t the most exciting activity. Why not start with him humping those cases? That actually seems like the time he faced the greatest danger of discovery.
But either way, there’s a lot of potential here. Just be wary of exposition at the outset. You have another 399 pages to tell us about Thomas. I’d recommend doling out the details more gradually.


First Page Critique

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By Joe Moore

ITW_Award_black_72dpi Yesterday, the nominees for the 2010 ITW Thriller Awards were announced. Congratulations to our Kill Zone blogmate, John Gilstrap! His thriller NO MERCY was nominated for Best Paperback Original. This is a great honor and we all wish John the best of luck in taking home that award next July.

This past Sunday, Jim posted a blog about the importance of the opening pages of a manuscript submitted to an agent or editor. He pointed out some common pitfalls that new authors make, and which ultimately can result in rejection. Clare continued the theme on Monday by listing additional sins committed by first-time writers. And yesterday, Kathryn invited our visitors to submit the first page of their manuscript for a free critique. Unless otherwise requested, the authors will remain anonymous. So to start things off, here’s our first submission and my critique, page one of the manuscript THE CASSIOPEIA EFFECT

Marcus had never seen a dead body before. No, that’s misleading. He had seen a dead body—two of them in fact. That came with burying his wife and daughter eight years earlier. What he’d never seen before was a dead body lying in the streets. It was common enough in the part of the city he found himself living, where the homeless turned up dead from time to time, but up until a few moments ago, he’d been lucky.

It seemed his luck had changed. Whatever streak he’d been riding was coming to an end at an alarmingly fast rate. In the last twenty-four hours he’d lost a small fortune to his bookie, been given a notice of eviction from his apartment, and crashed his computer. Now there was a dead guy leaning against his car. It really didn’t surprise him, though.

For him, Good Luck came and went like a five dollar whore giving head while parked next to the curb. Bad luck, on the other hand, was like a bad love affair he couldn’t put an end to. No matter how many times it left, it always showed back up knocking at his door. All the other stuff had been Bad Luck knocking; finding the dead guy next to his car was it breaking down the door and rushing back into his life.

Marcus stepped off the curb and walked to his car and the waiting dead man. The filthy trench coat, ripped pants, and mismatched shoes left little doubt that the guy was one of the many homeless who wandered the streets. The amount of blood splattered across the car door made it pretty apparent the homeless guy was dead. But Marcus was still going to check. There was no way he was going to let a man die if there was still a chance to save him. He already had to live with too many things he wasn’t proud of and wasn’t about to add another.

Careful to avoid the blood pooled on the oil stained pavement, he knelt down next to the body, pulled back the collar of the coat with one hand, and with the other, checked for a pulse. Nothing. Whoever he had been, he was nothing but dead now. Marcus’ eyes played over the strange pattern of blood spray on the car door as he tried to decide what to do next.

There wouldn’t be any calls to 911 or the police. Moving him off the car and leaving him in front of his building for someone else to find wasn’t an option either. He didn’t need a dead guy connected to him in any way. What he could do, Marcus decided, was take him a few blocks where he’d be found and, hopefully, get the burial he deserved.

One of the main issues raised in Jim’s post on Sunday was what he called “Exposition Dump”. Unfortunately, that’s what we have in this example—the first 3 paragraphs contain a great deal of backstory with little “here and now”. This information should be saved and revealed later.

The best method for a reader to get to know a character is through their actions and reactions. Telling me about the bad luck Marcus has had does not engage me emotionally or spark my interest.

But all is not lost. In addition to cutting back on the “telling”, the writer might want to consider shifting the story into first person. Doing so could cause the reader to be pulled up close to the character and perhaps have a bit more feelings for Marcus. Here’s an example.

The first couple of sentences read:

Marcus had never seen a dead body before. No, that’s misleading. He had seen a dead body—two of them in fact. That came with burying his wife and daughter eight years earlier.

Now, here it is in first person:

I’d never seen a dead body before. No, that’s not true. Eight years ago, I had to bury my wife and daughter. But this was different.

Suddenly, the scene questions that pop into the readers mind—questions that were weak before—are now personal and tantalizing. The most intriguing: What happened to his wife and daughter? The straight exposition didn’t cause me to consider the questions in the same manner.

The second point I need to make is that if Marcos is the main character (and I have no idea if he is or not), I don’t like him very much. Why? He shows bad judgment. He’s into $5 whores, illegal gambling, and not willing to at least call the police—even anonymously—to report what he’s found. He quickly comes to the decision that for his own best interests, he should gather up the dead man and dump the body in another location. Granted, we don’t know why he would react this way, but having a number of negatives with little positive doesn’t make for a very likeable character. The reader needs to feel something for the character pretty much from the start. All I feel about Marcus is negative.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing objectionable about a character with those attributes as long as there’s a reason for the reader to sympathize with him and respect or at least understand his judgment. Right now, there’s nothing here I was able to latch on to.

I like to use my “Dirty Harry” example of how to establish a reader/viewer and character relationship fast. The first scene of the movie, Harry helps a little old lady cross the street. Then he goes into a coffee shop that’s being robbed and blows the bad guy away. I like Harry right from the start even though I know he’s rough around the edges, dangerous, cocky, and kind-hearted.

The truth is that most manuscripts get rejected by the end of the first page—or at least the first couple of pages. This is reality. No agent is going to persevere for fifty or a hundred pages in hopes that things might get better. And no reader will either.

What I’ve expressed is my personal opinion. If I were an agent or acquisition editor, I would probably reject this manuscript and move on to the next one in line.

So what do you think? After reading the first page, are you compelled to read the second page?

Download FRESH KILLS, Tales from the Kill Zone to your Kindle or PC today.

Calling all Brave Pens: First-page critiques at TKZ

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By Kathryn Lilley 

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

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

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

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

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

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

The First 50

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By Clare Langley-Hawthorne

First an apology for missing last week’s post – I was in Australia and entered an internet black hole in rural Victoria from which I could not emerge until Tuesday!Now, I’m back and apart from a wee bit of jetlag (I never get over the confusion that it’s tomorrow in Australia already!), I’m also back online.

James’ great post yesterday on the importance of the opening line prompted me to think about the next crucial thing an agent usually looks for – a slam-dunk first 50 pages. When I was submitting manuscripts that was what agents typically requested after they had initially viewed a query letter and (possibly) the first chapter or detailed synopsis. How well I remember sweating over those first 50 pages when my agent asked for them to be sent.

Today, I still believe the first 50 pages are critical. Accounting for roughly the first 3 chapters or so, they are the vehicle by which the writer demonstrates his or her mastery of voice, plot and character and they establish the promise of the story to come: the hook that draws a reader in, the tension between the characters that will help propel the plot forward and the pace of how the mystery is likely to unfold. I have no doubt that agents can tell on the first page whether the writing is up to snuff but (in my opinion) it’s the first 50 pages that shows them whether the writer is likely to be able to deliver on the promise displayed on that first page.

In a classic novel ‘pyramid’ structure the first 50 pages (or so) help establish the status quo as well as the conflict or situation that is about to upend all of that. It is essential in these first chapters that the characters’ relationships and conflicts are brought into play. I also view these first chapters as the key to grounding the story – not by bogging it down in back story or exposition – but in drawing the reader into the world you have created so they are committed and compelled to continue reading. I need to have a clear sense of time and place established, be able to visualize and care about the main characters and understand their motivations. Achieving all this can be a challenge. Here are some of the pitfalls that inexperienced writers should try and avoid in those first 50 pages.

Packing it all in

Too much back story and character exposition can grind the story to a halt and nothing is more disappointing than reading a terrific first chapter, full of action, only to find the second chapter mired in explanations, background and description. The key is to continue to intrigue a reader with partial disclosures – everything doesn’t need to be revealed in one second or third chapter informational dump.

Plot takeover

Equally well, a breakneck plot that charges through the first 50 pages without stopping for breath can leave a reader disorientated and confused. I still believe a balance is needed in the first few chapters so that the reader can receive enough grounding in terms of the key characters to care about their circumstances. Thrills and spills are not enough.

Voice confusion/lack of strong POV

As James noted yesterday POV confusion can destroy an opening page – it can equally well derail the first few chapters. Writers need to beware of introducing multiple POVs in the early chapters that dilute the ‘voice’ or which confuse a reader. I think the strength of a great opening lies in establishing the voice that will move the story forward – and that counts for every chapter not just the first one.

So what do you think needs to be achieved in the critical ‘first 50’? What other pitfalls do you see, as writers and readers? What can you tell about a manuscript in the first 5o pages?

Garlic Breath, or What Not to Do on Your Opening Page

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“If you cannot write a compelling opening scene, from the opening sentence, I’m not going to finish your proposal.”
– Agent, speaking at a recent writers conference

The opening page of your novel is your big introduction. It’s what an agent will read with most interest, to see if you can write (which is why page 1 is often the first thing read in your proposal. You may have spent 100 hours on a killer synopsis, 50 on an irresistible query, but if the writing itself is not up to snuff, the busy agent can save time by tossing the whole thing aside without reading the rest of the proposal).
Think of it this way. You are at a party and the man or woman of your dreams is across the room. The host offers to introduce you. You walk over. There is great anticipation, even from Dreamboat, who is there to meet people, too. So Dreamboat extends a hand, you take it, and say, “Nice to meet you.”
Only you have a horrendous case of garlic breath. Dreamboat winces, whips out a phone and walks quickly away, muttering, “I have to take this.”
Well, that’s what it’s like for an agent reading your first page. He or she wants to like you, but if you’ve got garlic breath, it’s all over. Bad first impression. See you later.
I taught at a writers conference recently, where attendees were invited to submit the opening page of their manuscripts – anonymously. We then put these on two transparencies. The first one as is, the second I had marked up as a tough editor might.
It was quite educational. I got 12 first pages in all, and none were ready for prime time. There were several items that should be avoided at all costs on the first page. Here they are, in no particular order:
Characters Alone, Thinking
This was in the majority of the first pages I reviewed. We did not get a scene, which is a character in conflict with others in order to advance an agenda. We got, instead, the ruminations of the character as he/she reflects on something that just happened, or the state of his/her life at the moment, or some strong emotion. The author, in a mistaken attempt to establish reader sympathy with the character, gave us static information.
Such a page is DOA, even if the character is “doing” something innocuous, like preparing breakfast:
Marge Inersha tried to mix the pancake batter, but thoughts of Carl kept swirling in her head, taking her mind off breakfast and back to Tuesday, horrible Tuesday when the sheriff had served her with the divorce papers. Tears fell into the batter, but Marge was powerless to stop them. She put the mixing bowl on the counter and wiped her eyes. How much more could she take? With two kids sleeping upstairs?
Marge is certainly hurting, but you know what? I don’t care. I hate to be piggy about this, but I really don’t care that Marge is crying into her pancake batter. The mistake writers make is in thinking that readers will have immediate sympathy for a person who is upset.
They won’t. It’s like sitting at a bar and guy next to you grabs your sleeve and immediately starts pouring out his troubles to you.
Sorry, buddy, I don’t care. We all got troubles. What else is new?
Don’t give us a character like that on page 1.
Dreams
Agents and editors hate it when you open with a dream. And so do most readers. Because if they get invested in a cool opening, and then discover it’s all been a dream, they feel cheated. So you may have a gripping first page, but you’ll ruin the effect when the character awakens.
Yes, I know some bestselling authors have done this. When you start selling a gazillion copies, you can do it, too. Until then, you can’t.
Exposition Dump
In most of the first pages I reviewed there was entirely too much exposition. The author thinks that this is information the reader has to know in order to understand the character and the scene.
In truth, readers need to know very little to get into the story. They will wait a long time for explanations and backstory if the action is gripping, essential, tense or disturbing. My rule, ever since I began writing and teaching, is act first, explain later.
This rule will serve you amazingly well your entire writing career.
Weather Without Character
Another complaint you’ll hear from editors and agents is about “weather openings.” This is a catch all phrase for generic description. Chip MacGregor, agent, described his opening pet peeve this way: “The [adjective] [adjective] sun rose in the [adjective] [adjective] sky, shedding its [adjective] light across the [adjective] [adjective] [adjective] land.”
If you’re gong to describe weather on the opening page, make sure you’ve established a character on whom the weather is acting. And make sure that character is not alone, thinking.
Point of View Confusion
Another big error was a confusion about Point of View. This comes in several guises.
1. We don’t have a strong POV character. Who does this scene belong to?
2. We “head hop” between different characters on the same page, losing focus.
3. We have the terrible sin of “collective POV.” That is, we get a description of two or more characters who think or perceive the same thing at the same time.
John and Mary ran from the gang, wondering where they were going to go next.
The 300 Spartans turned and saw the Persians approaching.
4. We have First Person narration without a compelling voice. First Person needs attitude.
5. We don’t have a POV at all until the second or third paragraph. We have description, but no idea who is perceiving it. We need that information right away.
So these are some very big don’t’ on your first page. Care to add more to the list?
And next week, I’ll tell you how to write an opening page that works . . .every time . . .in any genre . . .

“I Already Have A Gold Watch.”

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By William Word Smith (AKA John Ramsey Miller)

A friend of mine once told me, “You should always quit when you’re on top, but most everybody will know your career is over before you do.”

At some point you might feel the loose rocks shifting under your boots, and you will perhaps be able to hear the young turks gaining on you. Your incoming calls, letters, and emails will slow down, and you will go longer and longer between hearing from your contemporaries. I get emails almost daily from a fan from somewhere asking when my next novel is coming out. I answer the same way––I have one making the rounds to editors and another half written. That is all true. What I haven’t said publicly is that I wrote this last book under an assumed name and so the editors who are seeing it think it’s a debut novel by an unpublished author. As a debut author I’ve gotten a lot of thoughtful comments and outright compliments, but in the end my novel just doesn’t seem right for anybody’s list. I’ve been right here before but I never thought I’d be here again. It’s enlightening and disappointing. It’s like going to a costume party and being able to hear things about yourself that are not shaded by the fact that you are there.

Every publisher is looking for a book that will stand up on its own and take off, just like they have since the first book took off on its own by word of mouth and sold a million copies with no effort or expenditure on the publisher’s part. Can’t blame them for wanting to hit a home run every time they swing a bat. Every coach knows you take the home runs when you get them, but it’s runs batted in that win games. They don’t have any idea what they are looking for, and mostly they won’t know it when they let somebody else buy it. It really is funny, this business. Nobody knows anything …and how.

I was thinking about Cormac McCarthy the other day and how his career has ebbed and flowed, but he has always been there. You can see why he’s still around and remains the heavyweight champion. Almost years ago Shelby Foote told me to read McCarthy because he was my generation’s William Faulkner. Shelby was right. It is often hard to read McCarthy’s books, but also impossible to turn away. Pain under McCarthy’s pen is so matter of fact, evil so banal and death so frigging random that it astounds. Everything about his writing astounds. He’s only lately become a best-selling author. Most people would think it started with “All The Pretty Horses”, but “Outer Dark” was where it started for me. I’ve been a fan ever since, patiently waiting for every new book. When “Suttree” came out I was waiting for it at the book store.

In my opinion, nobody writes description, dialog and defines characters like that man. He draws blood and tears with those keystrokes. Only in a McCarthy book can a backwoods, murderous necrophile give a toddler a baby bird to play with, and watch impassively as the child snaps off the creature’s legs. Only in one of his books do a group of scalp hunters spend the night playing with an Indian child then kill and scalp him before breaking camp. Cannibals will eat a newborn for him. Some author’s books will make you laugh or cry. A McCarthy book will make you wince and sweat and your eyes hurt.

I’m no Cormac McCarthy. I’ve been tempted a lot lately to walk away from this craft of ours before I make a fool of myself, standing at the door with my hat in hand, looking at the floorboards while I beg for work. I’m thinking that, since 1995, I’ve made my living writing fiction and maybe it is time to set my keyboard aside and find an “otherwise” employment opportunity. Trouble is, I’m sure I’ve got a dozen books left in me, and if that’s what it takes, I will write them under some name or other even if you don’t ever get to read them. It’s about the writing, not the publishing, after all.

I’ll tell you this: I won’t ever quit typing stories, that’s for sure. I just might write some books that I want to write and maybe in the process I’ll just reinvent myself one more time.