Insulting Your Audience – And Today’s Critique

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By John Gilstrap

My next book, Hostage Zero (July, 2010) features a new character who happens to be a veteran of the Battle of Fallujah, a 2004 gulf-war maelstrom that evolved into one of the great U.S. Marine urban warfare victories of all time. In relating a story from that time to another character, this very likeable guy refers to his Iraqi insurgent enemies as “Hadjis”—this war’s equivalent of Kraut or Nip. Hey, when you’re trying to kill them, insulting them doesn’t seem like such a big deal. At least I didn’t think so.

My copy editor, however affixed a yellow sticky with a rather passionate note that the H-word was offensive, and that if my character used it, the readers would stop liking him. She suggested that I eliminate all uses of the term. We agreed to disagree.

In a previous book, an early draft included a line of dialogue in which my protagonist (a cop) showed disrespect for the gay community via a throwaway line that dealt with slip-on shoes and reduced gravity. My then-agent’s assistant, himself openly gay, told me that that was a truly offensive reference within the community—I had no idea—and that the line changed his whole opinion of my character. I was stunned, and I deleted the reference without a fight.

The difference between the two instances was that the gay reference truly was a throwaway line that I probably would have trimmed anyway, just during the normal course of editing. Besides, I know a number of really fine people who happen to be gay, and I try not to make anyone uncomfortable.

On the other hand, the remark in Hostage Zero actually plays a part in the course of the story. And if readers don’t understand the honest place from which the epithet arises in my character, then they’re either way too sensitive, or I’m not as good at my job as I need to be.

My question to the blogosphere today is how far are you willing to go to appease readers’ sensitivities, especially when in the POV of a character? Is it possible in today’s literary environment for a good guy to retain the moral high ground even after he makes an insensitive remark?

Okay, now on to today’s anonymous writing sample:

AN EMPIRE LADY

I don’t usually poison someone on the first date, but this time I’m willing to make an exception. Dame Blanchard always said improvisation is a necessary part of espionage and, as Monsieur Hugo crosses the room to the mahogany sideboard, I sense the danger I’m in. His tall, taut frame appears sinewy and strong beneath the immaculately pressed evening suit – he could easily overwhelm me with his physical strength and so I reach out for the beaded purse dangling from the arm of the chair, ready to draw out the vial of arsenic I always keep on hand. Monsieur Hugo turns before I can extract it and I draw out a silver cigarette case instead. I place a Gauloise cigarette to my lips, staining the end with deep red lipstick, before offering him one with an arched look, designed to convey the kind of brazen audacity I hope masks my fear.

“Champagne, ma cherie?” he inquires, dark toad-like eyes bulging.

“Oui, merci,” I reply with my most calculated-to-charm smile. I wonder, was it my accent that tipped him off? Had I inadvertently betrayed the fact that I grew up in the gutters of Le Havre rather than the gilded drawing rooms of Paris? Dame Blanchard had cautioned me that, as a military attaché, Monsieur Hugo, had an uncanny ear for dialect. Had he suspected me all along?

I shift in my exquisite, hand sequined gown to reveal a peek of ankle, the merest flash of a jewel-encrusted silk shoe. Perhaps lust will entice him to draw out this little charade of ours. His eyelid’s flicker even as his traitorous smile remains rigidly in place.

Our glasses clink in a toast. “To the King,” I murmur, seeing my own blue eyes reflected in his black gaze. We may as well feign loyalty to King George – the French are supposed to be our allies after all.

“To the King,” he echoes, watching me closely.

The battle of wits – and my survival – begins.
===

This piece is a living example of a story with good bones under a heavy layer of fat. I enjoy the setting and I enjoy the character and her voice, but it’s all way too thick and chewy for me. Sentences meander and compound too much. The simple declarative sentence is a writer’s most important tool.

For me, the present-tense telling is a crippling burden here. When used even by experienced journeymen, the present tense is a contrivance; here it’s an albatross, made even albatrossier by the fact that it’s a historical piece.

At the risk of being presumptuous, I’ve taken a stab at a full re-write of the submission to illustrate some tightening and stylistic changes that I think make the piece more engaging. I kept to the original skeleton, and I tried hard not to screw up the voice. This just seemed like the most efficient way to offer constructive criticism and trim over 100 words in the process:

I don’t usually poison someone on the first date, but tonight was a night of firsts.

As military attaché Monsieur Hugo crossed the room to the mahogany sideboard, I sensed danger. Sinewy and strong beneath his immaculately pressed evening suit, he could easily have overwhelmed me.

I reached below the arm of my chair to draw the vial of arsenic from my beaded purse, but when he turned unexpectedly, I withdrew a silver cigarette case instead. I placed a Gauloise to my lips, staining it with red lipstick before offering him one. I hoped my arched look masked my fear.

“Champagne, ma cherie?” he offered. His dark toad-like eyes bulged.

“Oui, merci,” I replied, praying that my accent did not betray my origins from the gutters of Le Havre. Dame Blanchard had cautioned me that Monsieur Hugo possessed an uncanny ear for dialect.

I shifted in my chair to reveal the merest flash of a jewel-encrusted silk shoe beneath my sequined gown. His eyelids flickered even as his traitorous smile remained rigid.

Our glasses clinked. “To the King,” I murmured. The French were supposed to be our allies after all.

His eyes remained locked on mine. “To the King.”

The battle of wits – and battle for my survival – had begun.

Pardon my french

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by Michelle Gagnon

During our first page critiques, we discussed the danger of incorporating strong language on page 1 of your manuscript. Encountering an f-bomb at the outset of a novel can turn off a lot of readers, so editors are understandably leery of acquiring works with it.

However, I think that strong language does have a place in novels- at least in mine. I frequently get emails or reviews from people who say things like, “I loved this book, but wish that someone had gone through and crossed out all the f-bombs for me.” Equally perplexing to me are the people who claim that they “didn’t mind the f-bombs, but at times Gagnon takes the name of the Lord in vain.”

Here’s the thing: I’m not the one doing it. My characters are, and they’re doing it because in real life, that’s how people in their particular professions and circumstances talk.

I understand that we don’t all approve of strong language- I certainly don’t use it frequently. But then, I’m rarely chasing serial killers, or trying to stop a domestic terror group from destroying Phoenix. When my characters are staring at the timer on a bomb, I don’t think “gosh” is going to be the first word to leave their lips. I try to be judicious with the swearing, but it’s most important to me to remain true to the characters spouting it. From my admittedly somewhat limited exposure to them, gang members and ex-con skinheads tend to have foul mouths. So do many law enforcement officers, especially when they’re talking to each other. I strive for accuracy in every other facet of my books. So why should I be expected to compromise on this one?

Maybe I’ve simply become inured. The places I’ve lived (including San Francisco), it’s rare to get through the day without hearing random swearing (and now that people are constantly talking loudly into their cell phones, they really seem to have lost their filter). I’ll join in on any bemoaning of what that means for us as a society. But since that experience informs my work, I can’t pretend it’s not the current reality, allowing my characters to speak as though they just stumbled off the Leave it to Beaver set.

I was raised a Unitarian, which is a religion that promotes tolerance of all beliefs. So I empathize with people who don’t condone taking the name of the Lord in vain. And yet, I can attest that my characters harken from a wide range of religious beliefs. Because of that, chances are they’re going to use such terms from time to time. And in the interest of realistic dialogue, I believe in letting them. If I were writing Inspirational thrillers, it would be an entirely different story. But I’m not.

I’m curious to hear what people think about this. Does strong language have a place in thrillers? Does it bother you, or not?

Writing For A Living

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We’re taking a break from our first-page critiques today to welcome my friend and fellow thriller author Mark Terry as our guest blogger. Mark and I shared the same publisher for a number of years and on many occasions we’ve discussed the ins and outs of this writing life. As a matter of fact, Mark maintains his own blog by the same name; This Writing Life. It’s worth your while to drop by and read his latest thoughts on life and literature.

fallenThis month Mark celebrates the publication of his latest thriller in his Derek Stillwater series, THE FALLEN. James Rollins said it was “blisteringly paced and unrelenting”. And Paul Levine called Stillwater “tougher than Jason Bourne and smarter than Jack Ryan”. If you like action and suspense all wrapped up in a tightly written bundle, grab a copy of THE FALLEN today.

——————–

Writing For A Living by Mark Terry.

For probably a decade now I have been on a quest. That quest is to get the answers to a two-part question. This question is one I have, off and on, directed at published novelists or, just as likely, guessed at. Here they are:

  1. Do you make a living writing novels?
  2. How much money do you make annually writing novels?

mark-terryThis is a question mostly dodged by novelists, I’ve found. I believe the rationale goes like this: readers want to believe in the mystique of the rich novelist, of the novelist who makes a lot of money writing their books; if a writer is not making a living from his novels, then he/she must not be a very good novelist, the books must not be worth reading, and hence, I’m going to lie and say yes.

Something like that.

From time to time someone really lets it all loose. Lynn Viehl, who writes under a number of pseudonyms and in several different genres, actually published one of her royalty statements for all to see, and discussed the print run and her advance ($50,000).

There are a number of things that shocked me, starting with her $50,000 advance. She’s a New York Times bestseller, so I expected a much larger advance, despite the fact she’s a paperback original author. Moreover, although I would welcome a $50,000 advance (with open arms, c’mon, I dare you, lay it on me!), after my agent took 15% and the federal government took 24% and the state took 4% (your mileage may vary), I wouldn’t exactly be rolling in money. I’d be looking to bring in some more income somehow.

Lynn Viehl brings in more. She publishes multiple books a year, she undoubtedly has foreign sales, and she has a nice backlist that continues to bring in income. So she’s doing fine.

Which brings me to another thing. Periodically someone invites me out to lunch so they can pick my brain about writing for a living. In fact, I’m going out to lunch next week on just such an occasion, and it’s happened 3 or 4 other times as well. A lot of times the individual wants to know how to either make a living writing or supplement their income writing. I invariably ask, “Well, how much money do you want to make?”

That’s an important question, because someone making $30,000 a year is going to have different goals and needs than someone already making $100,000 a year.

Okay, let’s back up a minute. For the last 5-1/2 years I’ve made my living as a full-time freelance writer, editor, and novelist. I make a good living, which is to say, usually somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000 a year. (Last year sucked, by the way; this year’s looking good). My wife has a good job and has excellent healthcare benefits, which is definitely helpful. The vast majority (a phrase I don’t like much) of my income comes from things other than novels.

Now, Ms. Viehl aside, I have over the years gotten to know a lot of novelists and even to get some idea of how much money they make a year (sort of). In 2007 SF novelist and freelance writer John Scalzi wrote an enormously honest blog entry about income. It’s illuminating. I have another writing friend, Erica Orloff who writes in several different genres in several different names and although she has not gone so far as to post a royalty statement that I know of, has been quite honest on her blog about bringing in somewhere over $100,000 a year annually. Joe Konrath recently posted on his blog about how much money his books have made and how much his e-books are bringing in and I’ve been sort of surprised by some of the numbers there, too.

So after talking to a lot of authors over the years and questioning my own assumptions about writing income, I’ve come to a couple conclusions. Your conclusions may be different.

  1. Just because a writer gets published doesn’t mean they make a living as a writer. It may just be one of the ways to make a bit of extra money when you retire.
  2. Many writers who write full-time as novelists have:
    • A well-paid, supportive spouse
    • Retired from a job and are on pensions and social security
    • Made a lot of money somewhere along the line and are now living on it
    • Write more than one novel a year
    • Supplement their novel-writing with other types of writing
    • Are lying.
    • Are Top 10 bestselling authors
  3. Just because their books says “bestselling author” does not mean they’re making tons of money. Point in fact, my for-Kindle novel, DANCING IN THE DARK, recently jumped onto two or three of the Amazon Kindle bestseller lists, allowing me for the rest of my life to call myself Mark Terry, Bestselling Novelist. Yay me! And with the money I’ve made so far off that novel, I can take you out to dinner—one of you and one of you only. Maybe in a couple more months you can bring a friend and we can afford appetizers.
  4. There’s money to be made, but it’s not very reliable.

My friend Erica and I had an interesting discussion a couple weeks on this very topic. Erica noted that she’s been steadily publishing novels for about 20 years now and that with her various pseudonyms and multiple genres, she could make a good living just writing fiction. But the nonfiction she writes—ghost writing, commercial copywriting, etc.—provides a level of stability and reliability that the fiction writing doesn’t.

Amen, sister. I don’t know if my novels will ever make so much money that I’m willing to stop writing nonfiction (and I honestly don’t know what that figure would have to be). One, I like writing nonfiction. And two, in my experience it’s been a hell of a lot more stable (not to mention lucrative) than my fiction. Not as much fun, certainly, but more dependable.

Anyway, for anyone interested, on my blog (on the right side) is a 12-part series I wrote titled Freelance Writing For A Living.

Thoughts?

Mark Terry is a freelance writer, editor, and novelist. The author of The Devil’s Pitchfork, The Serpent’s Kiss, Dirty Deeds, and a collection of mystery novellas entitled Catfish Guru, Mark lives in Michigan.

Keeping everything in balance: Today’s first-page critique

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For a scene to work well, there are so many elements that need to be kept in balance: a sense of place, tension, pacing, characterization. It can sometimes seem a little overwhelming to new (and even old) writers.
I think today’s first page is a good example of the writer doing a lot of these things right. My comments follow the asterisks.
Trouble Shooter by Largo Chimp

Chapter 1: The Death of Arthur



Monday, 7 January

California, United States of America

Turgenev rested his elbows in the tall, brown grass of the hilltop and propped his chin in his hands. The sky was blue and empty except for the dark speck of a distant bird. He sucked in a deep breath of warm air and smiled. In Moscow it would be freezing. Grass tickled his throat. Turgenev yawned. “You see him?”

Sally lay an arm’s length away, adjusting the focus on a fat Leupold spotting scope. “Not yet,” she whispered. Then her shoulders tensed. “There!”

Turgenev raised his binoculars. Four hundred meters away, a man carrying a rifle knelt at a chain-link fence outside a compound of cinderblock buildings and sixty-year-old Quonset huts. The chunky man wore a tan sport coat.

“He is stuck. He does not know how to work the bolt cutters,” Turgenev said.


Sally squinted through her scope. “He’s a scientist. I think he can manage the bolt cutters.”

“Don’t be so sure. My father knew a man once, a cyberneticist, who electrocuted himself because he did not know how–“

“Hush. There he goes.”

The man folded back part of the fence and crawled through. He trotted to the nearest building, zipped a card through a wall-mounted reader beside a door and ducked inside.

“Why didn’t you send him through the gate? He has a security card.”

Sally’s soft sleepy eyes hardened. “This is my operation. I want to see what he can do while under the influence. The fence is safer. If I sent him through the gate, he’d talk with the guards and they might notice his behavior.”

Turgenev sipped from a warm bottle of water. “Perhaps safer is better.”

* * *
I have to say I really like this first page, starting with the name “Largo Chimp.” I want to read anything by someone named Largo Chimp.

I immediately get pulled in because the location is California, and yet the first person being presented is Russian. The dialogue starts briskly, with clear tension between the two characters, who are at odds over the action that is unfolding.  Their dialogue is nicely differentiated so that you can tell the difference between the two people’s voices. One way the author accomplishes that  differentiation is through the use/nonuse of the contractions. Turgenev says, “He is stuck.” Sally comes back with an American-sounding contraction, “He’s a scientist.” It’s just what you’d expect from a non-native speaker versus an American. Very nice!

It’s taut, it’s lean, it’s compelling. I can’t think of a goshdarned suggestion to make. Except maybe it would be good to move Sally’s remark, “The fence is safer” to the end of her block of dialogue, so that it more strongly mirrors Turgenev’s comeback, “Perhaps safer is better.” It took me a second reading to realize that he was agreeing with her.

Based on this first page, I really want to read more. This one gets a gold star from me!

Establishing a Strong Sense of Place

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Today our first page critique raises an important aspect in making many a good mystery or thriller – a strong sense of place. I always think the challenge in creating a sense of place is to make it instantly fully realized as well as believable. A reader truly needs to ‘be there’ and to have full confidence that the author has done their research.

A strong sense of place can be a tricky prospect for a first page: too much and the reader starts to yawn; too little and the story can seem generic and bland. If the set-up seems too contrived or deliberate, a reader starts to feel awkward; if the writer gets crucial facts wrong, the reader immediately disconnects from the story.

I think the first page we are reviewing today manages to instantly capture a great sense of place. Although I might tighten it up a wee bit (see my comments after the piece) all in all this first page grabs me – in part because the place itself resonates and intrigues.
So here it is – the first page of the novel, 65 below.
Richardson Highway
East of Fairbanks
Alaska
17 December 1600 hrs
“Damn! When it gets dark out here, it is dark as death.”

Eugene Wyatt drove as fast as conditions allowed down the Richardson highway in his big beige Ford F250 Crew Cab Diesel pickup, with the brown and white Tanana Valley Electric Cooperative logo emblazoned on the doors. It was only four o’clock in the afternoon but the late December sun had already long descended, leaving the land in total inky blackness. His three-year-old golden retriever Penny sat on the passenger side of the wide bench seat. She ignored her master’s Oklahoma drawl and stared out the window as they drove along. The dog’s breath shot a burst of steam onto the frigid glass a few inches away every time she exhaled. Her tongue hung limply over the teeth of her open mouth.

On any typical evening, there would have been brightly lit signs atop tall poles in front of the gas stations, or neon beer advertisements pulsing blue, red, and yellow from within the windows of busy bars as he passed through the small city of North Pole then the even smaller town of Moose Creek. Tonight though only the glow of candles and oil lamps flickered dimly between the curtains of the handful of homes along the highway. The power was out, everywhere.

Eugene looked at Penny who stared transfixed at the truck window. The frost from her breath created a ring of ice crystals on the glass that she seemed to be studying. The area had warmed up significantly in the past few days though after an unseasonal cold snap that held the land at negative fifty for several weeks. The red mercury line on the thermometer now hovered at a livable zero degrees Fahrenheit.

Eugene remembered a line a comedian had said on TV the night before.
If it is zero degrees, does that mean there is no temperature?

The humor of the line dissipated fast. There had never been an outage like it in his thirty years in Alaska’s electricity business. At first, the authorities thought it was a local failure within the Tanana Valley Cooperative area. It was not long though before they discovered it was much bigger. The phone company went out at the same time. Cellular towers failed. The whole of the Interior region of Alaska, an area the size of New York State, was thrown back into the 19th century in an instant.

My comments:

  • First off, I liked how the author started the book with dialogue – it instantly set the tone and introduced us to the character.

  • The details (car type/age of dog) on the first paragraph might (perhaps) be tightened up but I thought this and the second paragraph set the scene really well. The success I think in this first page is that it establishes the scene with a minimum of backstory and explanation – we know all we really need to know at this stage: It’s Alaska, the power is out, the main character (an outsider from Oaklahoma) is out on the highway with only his dog and there is a sense of foreboding that promises much in the way of suspense.
  • I thought the final two paragraphs set up the problem well – that there had never been a power outage like this, that Alaska was now a total ‘frontier’ land, and the reader now gets a strong sense that something awful/shocking is probably about to happen – Just what you want the first page of a good mystery/thriller to set up!

So what do you think? Did you get the immediate, visceral feel of Alaska like I did? Did you feel the set up was there and, more importantly, would you read on?

I know I would.

How to Write Your Last Page

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James Scott Bell

It’s been a heady couple of weeks doing first pages here at TKZ. So I thought, just to catch our breath and balance things out, maybe we should go the other way for a moment.

What about your last page?

I love the Mickey Spillane quote: “The first page sells your book. The last page sells your next book.”

How true that is. How many times have we begun a novel or movie, only to be let down when the book is closed or the credits roll?

I love beginnings. Beginnings are easy. I can write grabber beginnings all day long. So, I suspect, can you.

But endings? Those are hard.

Why? First, because with each passing day another book or movie has come out, another ending has been rendered. So many great endings have already shown up. We who continue to write have the burden of trying to provide satisfactory surprise at the end when so much ending material is already out there.

Second, our endings have to tie things up in a way that makes sense but is also unanticipated. If the reader can see it from a mile away, the effect is lost.

I like what Boston University writing teacher Leslie Epstein said in a recent Writer’s Digest piece (“Tips for Writing and for Life,” WD March/April 2010). When asked if a writer must know the ending before he starts, Epstein says, “The answer is easy: yes and no. One must have in mind between 68 and 73 percent of the ending.”

Epstein’s having a bit of fun here, but his point is solid. If you have the ending 100% in mind, you’re in a straitjacket, unable to let your story sufficiently breathe, or twist, or turn.

OTOH, if you don’t have any idea where you’re going, you could easily fall into the meander trap, or the backed-into-a-corner trap.

There are some very helpful techniques for writing a great ending. Joe Moore discussed some of these last month. Type “endings” in the search box in the upper left of the blog, and you’ll get other thoughts by my blog mates. And I’ll humbly mention that I have also treated the subject in Plot & Structure.

But rather than focusing on principles, today I want to offer you my own personal approach to writing endings. It’s called Stew, Brew and Do.

Why is it called that? Because I made it up so I get to name it.

Here’s how it goes:

Step 1: Stew.

I spend a lot of time at the end of a manuscript just stewing about the ending. Brooding over it. I’ve got my final scenes in mind, of course, and have written toward them. I may even have written a temporary ending. But I know I won’t be satisfied until I give the whole thing time to simmer. I put the manuscript aside for awhile, work on other projects, let the “boys in the basement” take over.

I tell myself to dream about the ending before going to bed. I write down notes in the morning.

Step 2: Brew.

When I am approaching the drop dead deadline, I continue to outline ending possibilities. I will have files of notes and ideas floating in my head. When I know I have to finish I use Brew in both a practical and metaphorical way.

I take a long walk. There is a Starbucks half an hour from my office. (In fact, there is a Starbucks half an hour from anyplace in the world). I put a small notebook in my back pocket and walk there and order a brew—a solo espresso. I down it, wait a few minutes and then start writing notes in the notebook.

Then I walk another half an hour, to another Starbucks (I’m not kidding). There I make more notes. If I have to, I have another espresso. I am a wild-eyed eccentric at this point, but I do have ideas popping up all over the place.

Step 3: Do.

I go back to my office and write until finished.

Well, it works for me. I like most of my endings, but they were very hard work to get to. But hey, that’s good. If this gig was easy, everybody’d be doing it, right? Be glad it’s as hard as it is. Your efforts will pay off.

So what works for you? Do you find endings hard? Or do they roll out of your imaginary assembly line fully functioning and ready to go?

What are some of your favorite endings? Or better yet: what endings, to movies or books, would you change?

This First Page Thing Of Ours

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By John Ramsey Miller

Here’s the first page of an anonymous author’s submission entitled, JOBE’S PRIDE. The first question is: Would you read more if this went beyond the first page? How do you think it could be made better?

Chapter 1: Dumpster Diving

Wed., April 21, 2:39 a.m.

They had conducted rescue missions in seedier areas. Ellie was sure of it. She just couldn’t place any of them at the moment.


The GPS in her aging minivan confirmed this as the address she’d received. This was it: this dumpster-lined alleyway in a part of L.A. that had never been trendy.

Ellie jumped down from one trash container and climbed to the rim of another. Across the alley, she could just make out Zoe’s slim, black-clad form raking through the debris from a construction site.

What if they were too late? Ellie’s instructions had been frighteningly specific: be at 2675 East Winston Rd. between 2 and 2:15 Wednesday morning. But traffic on the 5 had been worse than she’d expected and they had arrived late.

She nearly fell in the dumpster when an engine roared to life on a nearby street. Everything about this rescue made her jumpy. She reached her rake into the garbage. If she had her way, they’d just go home and forget this ever happened. But she couldn’t. And that disturbed her most of all. She reached and raked. Reached and—

She almost missed the foot when she uncovered it, but the small lamp on her headband brought it into relief against the chicken carcasses and other restaurant refuse. It wasn’t a dog. Or a lion. It was human. What had she gotten them into?


Her heart stopped long enough to hurt, then began pounding with fervor to make up for lost time. She must have yelled out, though she didn’t remember doing so. Then she plunged into the dumpster and began pawing through the slop in a frenzy to uncover the owner of the foot.

Okay, I think this opening is very well done. I know where I am, I’m there with Ellie and her (animal-rescue) partner, Zoe, and that she was expecting to find an animal in distress, not a human being in the garbage. The first thing that I stumbled on was the line about the GPS puts me in the van, but right after that I realize she’s already been through one dumpster, and is headed for another. I’d solve that by adding “had” in front of “confirmed.” The other point (and I’m being picky because there’s so little here to criticize) is that Ellie should almost fall “into” the dumpster, not “in” it. I might also add an exclamation mark after “It was human.” And instead of, “What had she gotten them into?” , I would go with something more along the lines of “What had she stumbled into?” How can she know this is even what the caller had sent them to rescue. There could still be a starving cat pinned under the human, or a lion in another container. And I’d go with “the message had said, ‘Be at 2675 East Winston Rd.in one hour.’ ” The way it is written, the message might have come in hours or days before she went there.

Problems require light editing. I have to say, I’d keep right on reading. I can’t tell if this is the opening of a thriller, mystery, supernatural, horror, or a cozy, since it would work with any of those genres. I say, “Good job on Jobe.” Jump right in, guys n’ gals.

Different Rules for Reading–And a Critique

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By John Gilstrap
http://www.johngilstrap.com/

We’ve been doing this critique thing for a week or so, and it occurs to me that a one-page critique may be unfair to the writers. I want to make sure that they don’t get discouraged by the input they receive. I don’t know that I speak for everyone, but when I read these one-page samples, I find myself entering the exercise with the well-meaning intent to find a way to make the piece better. That’s fundamentally different than the way I read a book that has been published. When I read a book, I presume that the author knows exactly what he’s doing. If I become absorbed in the writer’s voice, I’m not going to parse words that occur mid-sentence.

This is not to say that there’s not real value in the critiques that are offered here–particularly those that deal with structure, passive voice and weak openings; but I worry that writers who are insecure with their skills will actualy start thinking too much. Never lose sight of your vision for your story, and never lose your ear for your own voice. If Stephen King and George Pelicanos and James Patterson were to set out to write the same story, the styles and structures would be entirely different, and I’m confident that all of them would be really good.

As with any critique, make sure you have the courage to reject input that you believe is wrong.

Now, for today’s sample (more from me on the flip side). Note that the italics are all mine, not the author’s.

Chapter One

Comedian Frankie Doyle was in a piss-poor mood. His Friday-night gig at the Improv had bombed, thanks to a couple of jack-weeds in the front row who kept heckling his setups. Then his agent had called with bad news: Frankie’s sitcom had been canceled. After just two episodes the network was replacing Frankie’s Nuts with a reality series, some asinine thing about hookers on Sunset Boulevard. The timing couldn’t be worse. Recently he’d been blowing through major dough while chasing the dragon. During his last high he’d paid cash for a BMW 8 Series.
Same old Frankie, his ex-wife’s voice echoed through his head. You’ll wind up on the street before you’re 30.

“Fat bitch.” Frankie addressed this comment to his waning head of beer. It was his fourth since he’d settled onto his regular stool at the Hook.

Once he finally settled behind the wheel of his car, Frankie began to cheer up. He inhaled the new-leather fragrance, feeling himself absorb some of the BMW’s mechanical testosterone. No one who drove such a magnificent machine could be called a loser, he thought. If his career went completely south, he’d simply move into the car.

Frankie goosed the accelerator down the California Incline and merged south onto the Pacific Coast Highway, a curving ribbon of asphalt wedged between the mountains and the sea. By now the booze had clobbered his senses. Shaking his head to stay awake, he failed to notice when the BMW began to drift. The left front tire edged over the double-yellow line, into the northbound lane.
* * *

Wow, there’s a lot to like here. I love the voice–mechanical testosterone, jack-weeds. I’m not sure I even know what chasing the dragon means, but it works. There’s a lot of energy in this writer’s voice. C’mon, “the booze had clobbered his senses”? That’s really, really good.

Here’s my problem with the piece: It’s not a great beginning. But it could be. Look at the first line: “Comedian Frankie Doyle was in a piss-poor mood.” Then it goes on to tell us why. My suggestion would be to open with the conversation–something really snappy and with attitude–in which Frankie learns that his sitcome is being canceled in favor of some stupid reality show. It’s the basic show-don’t-tell challenge. By giving us a POV scene where he feels his world coming apart, we’ll be instantly invested in the character.

First Page Critique: Trimming the Fat

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Next week I’ll be subjecting you all to another one of my rants…but today, we’re going to take a gander at another anonymous first page submission:

     Harvey Rodriguez waited till daybreak before he ventured out to look at the body. He wanted to make sure that the men with the guns were long gone before he turned himself into a target, so he’d spent most of the night lying still in his tent among the trees, trying his best to remain invisible.

            If he’d had a brain in his head, he’d have used the cover of darkness to scoot out of here, but every time he’d flexed his legs to move, he’d talked himself out of it. He’d used the time to plot his strategy.

            On the one hand, he’d been living out here long enough to be running pretty low on everything, and even if the killer had stripped the dead man’s pockets clean, the corpse was likely to have something of value, if only a pair of socks that actually covered his whole foot. Or maybe a watch. Harvey’s ten-year-old Timex had crapped out a month ago.

            On the other hand, when you’ve got no home and you make your living—such as it is—off the sometimes unwilling largesse of others, the last thing you need is to get yourself wrapped up in a murder case. It wasn’t as if he had people who could vouch for his alibi, you know? He could almost hear the interrogation in his head:

            Where were you last night?

            I was at home.

            And where’s that?

            Wherever I make it. Last night, it was in the woods out by Kinsale.

            Right where a murder happened?

            Yes, sir. That’s a hell of a coincidence, ain’t it? I was just lying there in my tent and I heard somebody in the woods. I started to peek out and then I heard a gunshot, and I ducked the hell back in.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

All in all, I think this opening is pretty darn impressive. A lot of the typical mistakes we’ve been discussing aren’t present here. Great first sentence, it really grabbed me. We get a little bit of information about Harvey, but not his entire life history. There’s some dialogue–imagined, but it’s there. We get a sense of the setting, the predicament that Harvey finds himself in…I really wanted to turn the page to find out what happens next. So the main goal has been accomplished: I was hooked.

The only constructive criticism I can really offer is that it needs some tightening up. I’m currently revising my fourth book in the series, and I see a lot of my own mistakes here. I’ve been forced to trim approximately ten-to-fifteeen thousand words from every one of my manuscripts during the editing process. And the majority of those removed words were superfluous fat clogging up the flow. The main culprits for me are “just,” “that,” “the,” “started to,” and “began to.” I’m also a sucker for overusing pronouns.

For example, take the first sentence. If I was fine-tuning this manuscript, I’d say, ” Harvey Rodriguez waited till daybreak before venturing out to look at the body.” It’s a minor change, but the sentence flows better. I’d do a similar thing in the following sentence: [the bracketed words and passages would be removed] “He wanted to make sure [that] the men with [the] guns were long gone [before he turned himself into a target], so he’d spent most of the night lying [still] in his tent among the trees, trying [his best] to remain invisible.” (I’d also consider changing “remain invisible” to “become invisible.”)Beware of slipping from first person to second (“you know,” and “On the other hand, when you’ve got no home and you make your living…”). In fact, those two middle paragraphs could be combined:

      Harvey had been living out here long enough to be running low on everything. Even if the killer had cleaned out the dead man’s pockets, the corpse was likely to have something of value. A pair of socks that covered his whole foot, or maybe a watch to replace his crapped-out Timex. Making his living —such as it was—off the sometimes unwilling largesse of others, the last thing Harvey needed was to get wrapped up in a murder case. It wasn’t as if anyone could alibi him. He could almost hear the interrogation in his head…

I’d recommend that this writer go back through the manuscript with a fine tooth comb. Be merciless. Trim any and all fat, because the meat here is nice and juicy.


The demise of free advertising and a first-page critique of The Birds

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By Joe Moore

Have you ever seen someone reading a novel at the beach, on a plane, train, doctor’s office, subway, or just noticed a book sitting on a coffee table in someone’s house? Next to having a friend or trusted colleague recommend a book, seeing someone else reading a book is a great product endorsement. After all, that stranger on the plane paid good money to buy it, and you can tell even from a distance just how much they’ve read. If it’s more than half way, that’s a great indicator that the book is worth your time. And what’s really cool is that every one of those books come with free advertising. It’s called cover art. Not only is seeing someone reading a book a good indication that it’s worth reading, but the cover helps reinforce the sell.

Now comes a new dilemma, a byproduct of the emergence of e-books. With the advent and growing popularity of e-readers like the Kindle, Nook, and iPad, there’s no more free advertising. Seeing someone reading from a Kindle on a plane or in a Starbucks tells you absolutely nothing about the book. How far have they read? Who knows. And what genre is it? After all, isn’t that the job of the cover art? Even in this era of the emerging e-readers, publishers still believe that books need graphic representations, if only for online marketing. But what about all that free advertising those authors got when their books showed up at the beach or on a train?

If the trend continues, someday it might be gone.

imageAnd now for my critique of today’s first-page submission to TKZ. I don’t know what the author’s WIP is called, so I’ll refer to it as The Birds. You’ll soon see why.

As I maneuvered through the after-work crowd and weaved between the tents of the farmer’s market in Daley Plaza, children clambered up the spine, mounted the wings, and slid down the belly of the 50-feet Picasso sculpture. At the market, people mused over smoked cheddar and peppercorn; heirloom, beefsteak and roma tomatoes; red and black raspberries; white and sweet potatoes; red, green, and yellow peppers and orchards of every variety.

Wild shadows cut across the sky and a gust of wind whooshed into my ear. I stopped cold. Lying at my feet, a seagull quivered. His wings were crooked and bones protruded through his gray feathers. Blood saturated his white underbelly and painted the ground, then the trembling ceased.

“Are you alright?” a man asked, “Did it hit you?”

Forming words seemed impossible. I shook my head.

“Poor thing,” said a woman.

The man tilted his head to the sky. “Never seen seagulls this far inland. Mostly pigeons around here.”

Hundreds of seagulls flying in disarray blocked out the fading evening light. Their cries reminded me of a maternity ward, when one newborn’s cries started up the rest of the babies. A great swoosh of wings stirred up the still air and reverberated across the sky. Something brushed against the back of my neck. Another, against the top of my head. I crouched, covering my ears. One by one the birds rained down on us. Bones snapped against the pavement. Bones crushed underfoot. People panicked and ran into each other. A man elbowed me in the side.

This is a dramatic opening. In fact, it’s verging on melodramatic. It’s also over written and somewhat confusing. Obviously, there’s some scary stuff going on in this scene. Something is making flocks of seagulls fly in disarray and crash into the ground. The problem for me was that the writing is way over the top and exaggerated. And the character is in no real danger, only the birds are. Still, it has some intrigue. An apocalyptic event or environmental situation is causing animals to fall from the sky right into the beefsteak tomatoes. That’s not to be taken lightly. I’d be interested in knowing what it is, but if I were an agent, I’m afraid I’d be hard pressed to keep reading. My advice to the writer is to pull back, distill the essence of this scene and proceed with an economy of words.

What do you think? Would you keep reading?

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