Advanced Fiction Writing Blog

We have been critiquing first paragraphs of novels that my loyal blog readers have submitted over the last couple of weeks. Are you getting tired of this, or shall we continue a bit longer? If you want to switch, what topic is burning in you right now? What shall we talk about next?

I am coming up on a major deadline and have had to skip blogging the last couple of days, but hope to get time to blog tonight.

In today’s comments, Daan asked 3 questions, and since two of them are easy to answer, I’ll do so. Then I’ll critique another first paragraph that was submitted some time ago by Yeggy. But first, the questions. Daan asked:

1) What is a literary novel viz-a-viz novels such as Pillars of the Earth, The Firm, Transgression, etc.?

2) What is chic(k) lit(erature)?

3) What is a cy(?) yc(?) novel?

Randy sez:

1) A literary novel is a novel in which the usual “Four Pillars of Fiction” (StoryWorld, Character, Plot, and Theme) are supplemented by a Fifth Pillar–Style. A novel in which Style plays a leading role is a literary novel. Of the books Daan mentioned:

* THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH, by Ken Follett, is not a literary novel. I’d classify it as a blockbuster historical suspense novel. Follett is one of my favorite authors, and PILLARS is my favorite of all his books–it’s in my all-time Top Five list.

* THE FIRM, by John Grisham, is not a literary novel either. It’s a legal thriller, and a fine one. Grisham has been routinely mocked for writing fast-paced, workmanlike prose. The man had the #1 selling novel in America for roughly 8 years in a row, so I suppose a little mockery is all in the day’s work. I’ve enjoyed some of Grisham’s work, and my favorite is probably still his first, A TIME TO KILL, which was a little rough but it showed a lot of passion. Gotta love that.

* TRANSGRESSION, by that pesky Randy Ingermanson, is not a literary novel either. I have never aspired to write literary fiction. I always considered it a work of historical suspense (it’s a time travel novel in which a physicist tries to kill the apostle Paul). Oddly, it won a major award in the “futuristic” category. I never thought of it as remotely futuristic, but I’m not going to give back the award, either. Daan, by the way, has recently finished translating TRANSGRESSION into Afrikaans, and I hope he finds a good market for it.

2) “Chick lit” is fiction about young women looking for Mr. Right. Chick lit is generally considered fluffy and “not serious fiction”. Fer crying out loud, who cares if it’s “not serious?” Not everything in life has to be serious. “Chick lit” has long ago branched out into “mom lit” (young married women with brats on their hands–the natural fate of the lucky young gals who found Mr. Right), and “hen lit” (older women who like to have just as much fun as the chicks, but who found Mr. Right long ago and have got used to the fact that he is more Mr. Left than they had intended.)

To my knowledge, the parallel categories for guys don’t really exist, though there have been some novels written along those lines. But the fact is that American society doesn’t lay the same expectations on men as on women, and a guy just doesn’t believe that life will suddenly be swell if only he finds Miss Right. That’s my take on it, anyway.

3) I have never heard of cy or yc novels. A YA novel is for “young adults”, but I’m not sure if that’s what Daan is asking about.

Now, let’s turn to Yeggy’s one-paragraph submission:

“Mum!” Rissa yelled as Lauren ran up the staircase. “It’s just a photo album!”
“Not just a photo album, it’s your baby photos.”
Rissa turned to her dad and gave him the look. “You’re the one that got us into this in the first place. You and your stupid feud with Richard.”
Colin gritted his teeth. The knuckles of his hands whitened as he tipped his head back and shouted up the stairs. “Lauren, it’s nearly sunset!”
“No need to get agro. I’ll be down in a sec. You said they never attacked before dark.”
“The latest report had them down river fifteen minutes ago. With this cloud cover it’ll be dark in ten.” He slapped a hand on the banister. “We have to leave now!”

Randy sez: This shows a lot of promise, but methinks it’s a little crowded. I count somewhere between 4 and 6 characters, 3 plots, and 4 exclamation marks. That is 3, 2, and 3 too many. Let’s look at each in turn:

The characters: We have Mum, Rissa, Lauren (is Lauren the same as Mum?), Dad, Richard, and Colin (is he the same as Dad?) We also have an unnamed group called “they” who are likely to attack. I recommend using the same moniker for each character early on. If Mum is Lauren, then call her one or the other consistently. Ditto for Dad/Colin. We’ve just been introduced to these people and it’s hard to keep track of who’s who right now.

The plots: We’ve got The Mystery of the Baby Photo Album–what’s that all about? Then we’ve got Dad’s Feud With Richard–could be interesting, especially if machine guns or exploding cats are going to be involved. Then there is The Trip Past Them After Sunset–again, this could be scary, if Them turns out to be zombies or werewolves or politicians.

The exclamation points: The Rule of One applies here. The Rule of One says that “1 + 1 = 1/2″. I stole this from several brilliant people, all of whom think they invented it. (You know who you are, and you deserve the credit, you genius, you.) So the Rule of One says you can never do better than by limiting yourself to just one. The Rule of One applies to exclamation points, cheesecake slices, and wives. You violate the Rule of One at your Xtreme peril.

Yeggy, can you trim down this passage so there are 3 characters, 1 plot, and 1 exclamation point? I know you can. Do it!!!

Last week, I challenged my loyal blog readers to critique the first paragraph in Venessa’s novel. The paragraph is shown below:

“Riverside. 25 Kilometres”
The sign flashed by. No warm homecoming feelings surfaced. Only coldness filled Rik Chandler. Ten years failed to ease the pain this town had inflicted on his life.
He’d sworn he would never set foot here again. Seems fate wasn’t going to let him off the hook. Gossip surrounding one death a decade ago sent him packing; now another death drew him back.

Randy sez: My first comment is that there is only one rule: “Whatever works is whatever works.” For some readers, this paragraph will “work” and for others it won’t. As a writer, you have two goals:
1) Make it work for those readers who will want to read your book.
2) Make it work as well as possible.

I will do no good to write a slam-bang exploding-helicopter type beginning for a literary novel, for example. And it will do no good to write a stunningly evocative and beautiful beginning for a made-for-Bruce-Willis action-adventure kind of novel. Your opening paragraph must fit your novel.

This leads me to Parker’s question:

Do you see a distinction between genre fiction and literary fiction as it relates to how openings should be handled?

Randy sez: Yes. No matter what kind of fiction you write, the beginning should fit it. In Nessie’s case, I don’t think we’re looking at a literary novel. I may be wrong, but that’s what I see. Nessie, go ahead and correct me if I’m mistaken.

A number of my loyal blog readers posted excellent comments and suggestions on Nessie’s paragraph. In my view, there is too much “telling” in her submission and not enough “showing”. I’m not entirely sure how to fix this, since I would need to understand the story better to show how to show it. But Daan’s suggestion was a good one:

“Riverside welcomes you.” Rik Chandler regarded the sign with a wry smile.

His heart missed a few beats. Ten years failed to ease the pain this town had inflicted on me.

He parked his car in front of a drug store and looked at the newspaper headings:

“DAUGHTER OF STEEL TYCOON DIES IN SKI ACCIDENT”

Randy sez: This has the advantage that it shows more than tells, although we can’t be sure if this actually fits Nessie’s story. But I’ll bet it could show more. I would like to bring our character on first. This helps orient us and gives us a focal point for emotive experiences. So consider this a mere suggestion:

Rik Chandler walked past the peeling billboard without looking at it. Ten years ago, it had said, “Riverside welcoms you,” and he was willing to bet nobody in this rathole of a town had noticed the typo yet.

There was a new Starbucks on the corner where Ollivander’s Drugs used to be. Rik’s head was buzzing after driving all night and he desperately needed an infusion.

The chipped old newstand on the sidewalk hadn’t changed, except for the headline:

“DAUGHTER OF STEEL TYCOON DIES IN SKI ACCIDENT”

This brings us to Ginny’s question:

One other question: You say you write a lot of deep inner monologue. How do you keep your pace moving (action) with a lot of deep inner monologue?

Randy sez: Interior monologue is more appropriate to Sequels rather than Scenes, but you can have it in Scenes if you keep it short and blend it well with the action and dialogue. In the snippet I wrote above, you can see traces of interior monologue in paragraphs 1, 2, and 3. Note that phrases like “rathole of a town” and “infusion” are slightly unusual, and they indicate that we are seeing Rik’s thought processes, even if not part of real interior monologue. They let Rik’s personality shine through just a bit.

I have been on a tight deadline for the last week, and that will continue for another couple of weeks, so my blogs during this time will be shorter than usual.

Today, I’ll continue a series that we began a couple of weeks ago–critiquing the first paragraphs of novels by my loyal blog readers. A couple of days ago, I challenged you all to take a look at Ginny’s latest version. Last night, my wife and I went out to hear a lecture by a friend of mine who was speaking in Portland, and we got back too late for me to blog, so I’ll pick up tonight:

Here is Ginny’s revised version:

Zinovy looked at his watch and groaned. Five more hours. (italics) I cannot stand the wait. I must leave this place. (italics) Not that returning to earth would solve anything. He was going back to nothing. No family, no friends, and if Special Security Services had anything to say about it, no future either. But anything was better than his exile on this dinosaur of a space station.

Several of my loyal blog readers had issues with the italics, as I do. I think this is better than Ginny’s original, but I also think she can do better. The main issue I see here is that we have only the one character here–Zinovy, and all he’s doing is thinking about something that’s coming in five hours. Zinovy is thinking that he can’t stand the wait, and that echoes my own thoughts. I don’t want to wait five hours to watch him go home. I want to watch what he’s doing right now.

The thing is that I don’t know Zinovy yet, so there’s no way I could possibly care about him enough to watch him wait. I don’t want to watch grass grow, either. Maybe later, when I know Zinovy and care about him, I’ll be willing to wait, but that’s never going to happen unless he starts out doing something. This paragraph has the feel of the beginning of a Sequel, and I want a Scene.

This is a good time to answer a question that Ginny asked: “What’s MRU?”

Randy sez: I’m so glad you asked, Ginny. An MRU is a “Motivation-Reaction Unit” and you can learn all about it in my article Writing the Perfect Scene, which is my short version of Dwight Swain’s book Techniques of the Selling Writer.

Ginny, I’d recommend that you bring Zinovy on in action, and make it conflict. Fiction thrives on conflict. Zinovy has only a few hours left on the space station. Why not have him racing to complete a task, knowing that he isn’t going to be able to leave until it gets done? Or have him looking for something personal and immensely valuable that he’s lost and can’t possible leave without? Or have him sharing a passionate moment with a fellow crewmember who is replacing him on the ship, and whom he’s going to miss terribly? Or have him arguing with his commander, who is threatening to report him for rank insubordination? Or . . . whatever.

There are a thousand ways to bring Zinovy on in action and conflict. Pick one. Make it fit Zinovy’s character. Make it relevant to the story. And make it blow up in his face when the explosion on earth changes everything. Do that, and you’ll have a story that rocks from Word One.

In any event, I think we’ll all be happy to see your next revision. Tomorrow, I’ll critique Nessie’s paragraph, which goes thusly:

“Riverside. 25 Kilometres”
The sign flashed by. No warm homecoming feelings surfaced. Only coldness filled Rik Chandler. Ten years failed to ease the pain this town had inflicted on his life.
He’d sworn he would never set foot here again. Seems fate wasn’t going to let him off the hook. Gossip surrounding one death a decade ago sent him packing; now another death drew him back.

If anyone wants to get an early start by critiquing this one, fire away!

I arrived back home from Idaho last night after a GREAT weekend in Coeur d’Alene. I was teaching a writing workshop with the Idaho Writer’s League and we had a wonderful time. A couple of my loyal blog readers came all the way from Canada, bringing another Canadian with them. Check out the picture on Val Comer’s blog. I am the one in green. The others are Viv, Val, and Bonne. (Bonne rhymes with Ron.)

While I was out of town, my loyal blog readers were busy commenting here on my last post, which critiqued Cate’s first paragraph of her novel. The main point I made was that Cate was smothering her start in backstory. Cate took the opportunity to revise her paragraph. In fact, she did it twice. Here are her two revisions:

Cate’s revision #1:

They brought him to me in chains, stood him in front of my cell. His lips were torn and bloody, face bruised, shirt crusted red. His eyes chilled when he saw me.

“David.” He shook his head. “No.” Looked to the guards. “I’ll tell you anything, let him go!”

Cate’s revision #2:

They dragged me through the door. Luc was there, shackled to a chair, face dancing with red rifle sights.

A woman stepped forward, Asen eyes locking onto me.

“You are Brenin Kynaston,” she said, and held up a pistol, pointed it to my forehead.

Randy sez: Both of these are great improvements over the original. I would say they are about equal in terms of potential, but I haven’t seen the whole story, so it’s impossible to say which is a better lead to the story. I think each can be tweaked to be a bit stronger.

#1 starts with a reference to a “him” who is unknown. I would say to specify his name from the outset. As Ginny pointed out, “chilled” is not the best verb here. The second paragraph has three separate quoted snippets of dialogue. I think this is one too many, so would recommend combining into two blocks. Also, Luc sounds quite eager here when I would expect him to sound defeated. Here is my (quickie) shot at revising this paragraph:

They brought Luc to me in chains, stood him in front of my cell. His lips were torn and bloody, face bruised, shirt crusted red.

Luc’s eyes glazed when he saw me. “David.” His voice cracked. He shook his head and twisted his neck with agonizing slowness to look at the guards. “I’ll . . . talk. Just . . . let him go.”

As for #2, I like the first paragraph but I think it would be slightly stronger to backload the sentence with the clause about being dragged in. It personalizes the violence to the POV character.

Several of my loyal blog readers have already noted that “Asen eyes” are confusing. Also, the statement “You are Brenin Kastonen” seems to me to be designed to feed the reader information (although it seems to be misinformation, since his name is David). I’m not quite sure what’s the purpose of this misinformation, so I’ll make a guess that is likely wrong–Luc has lied about David’s name. So I’ll propose some slight revisions here:

Luc sat shackled to a chair, his face dancing with red rifle sights, when they dragged me through the door.

A woman stepped forward, cold eyes locking onto me. “You are Brenin Kynaston, yes or no?” She pointed a pistol at my forehead. And smiled.

Whenever you edit, there is a chance that you are doing nothing but “disimproving” it. What do you think, Cate? Have I made it better or worse? You are the one who knows your story better than any of us, so only you can say which of these options actually makes sense for your story.

Tomorrow, I’ll take a look at Ginny’s revision of her first paragraph, but I’ll be happy to let everybody take a shot first at revising it. Here is her latest version of the paragraph I critiqued last week:

Zinovy looked at his watch and groaned. Five more hours. (italics) I cannot stand the wait. I must leave this place. (italics) Not that returning to earth would solve anything. He was going back to nothing. No family, no friends, and if Special Security Services had anything to say about it, no future either. But anything was better than his exile on this dinosaur of a space station.

Go to it, loyal blog readers! Let’s hear what you think.

I’ve been working hard all day on getting ready for the writer’s workshop in Couer d’Alene. I leave tomorrow and will get back Sunday night. In between then and now, I’ll do 8 hours of teaching and about 12 one-on-one critiques. It’s gonna be busy!

I see that many of my loyal blog readers have taken up the challenge to critique Cate’s first paragraph. I’ve been critiquing first paragraphs for a bit more than a week now, and yesterday, I challenged you all to try the next one for yourself before I tackle it. I’m delighted to see all the excellent comments you made. Cate’s head must be buzzing.

Now it’s my turn. Here is the paragraph we’re critiquing, submitted by Cate:

They came for me on the fifth night of the hospital stay, when my arm had started to heal and I was restless to get back to my guardian, Luc. I cursed the rock, in my sleep, that had brought me down in the fields, brought the thirty lashes on both me and Luc, left him bloody and unconscious and me just alive enough to watch. Was he alive, was he dead? They wouldn’t tell me.

Randy sez: I see a great, terrific, hot opening line. Then I see backstory for the rest of the paragraph.

Where does the backstory begin? Hard to say, but I’d say it’s already begun with the phrase “when my arm had started to heal.”

A hard lesson that I’ve had to learn over and over again (including with my own current novel I’m working on) is this: The reader doesn’t care two cents about backstory. The reader cares about frontstory. The reader cares about now. When you give the reader some frontstory, she starts caring about the character. After a while, she starts caring about the backstory. Your reader is paying the bills, so you need to give her what she wants.

I would cut the first paragraph here:

They came for me on the fifth night.

This has a ton going for it:
1) “They” — who are these sinister people?
2) “came for me” — whoever they are, I’m in a boatload of trouble.
3) “on the fifth night.” — fifth night after what? I gotta keep reading to find out. And why’d they come at night? Are they some kind of death squad? I HAVE to read more.

8 words, and you’ve already set the stage for a strong, scary scene. There is just no good reason to stop the story cold with backstory. Cate, I know there is some info you want to work in about how our hero got here. But listen, there are some Bad Guys standing around my bed just now–they came for me. I don’t have time to deal with the past.

Here are the things to ask: what do “they” want now? Why am I not going to give it to them? What are “they” going to do to make me give it to them? How far am I going to resist?

Answer those questions, and your scene will write itself. During that scene, you can sneak in a few things that hint at what happened in the last few days. Hero can demand to know where Luc is. “They” can threaten to break Hero’s other arm. Nurse Ratched can come in and demand that “they” leave. One of them can slap Nurse R. silly with an icepick.

As you do this, Gentle Reader will pick up that Something Bad happened a few days ago. But far more important, Gentle Reader will FEEL an iron terror that Something Way Worse is about to happen NOW.

NOW is what matters in fiction. If the backstory is so important that you have to start your book with it, then move your timeline back and make that the NOW of your story.

Randy sez: “Backstory bad! Frontstory good!”

Next week, we’ll continue with the next first paragraph. In the meantime, I’d love to see Cate post a new first paragraph that is ALL frontstory.

We’ve been critiquing first paragraphs of my loyal blog readers for the past week. Today, it’s Cate’s turn to be critiqued. Following a suggestion today by Camille, I think I’ll give you all a shot at critiquing Cate first. We’ll get to that in just a minute. First, I’ll respond to a few comments from today:

There was a question about Dale’s paragraph, which I critiqued yesterday. Some asked whether his use of the Rule of Three was a little lopsided, since the last sentence actually had a different form. Actually, that’s typical with the Rule of Three–the third time is different. This is true in fairy tales and jokes and many other situations. (Think of any fairy tale with three sons, where the youngest one gets the princess. Or think about those three nuns that went into a bar, and consider which one gets the punch line.) As the old cliche says, the third time’s the charm.

So I think Dale’s paragraph is fine just as it stands. Dale actually asked whether he shouldn’t explain just a little bit more, as follows:

“His first thought was that nothing had changed since he ran away.”

Randy sez: I vote against this idea. Now we’ve lost that big hairy “WHY?” that hangs over the whole first paragraph and impels us to read on. Don’t tell us! Make us wait!

One thing I like about Dale’s first paragraph is that we KNOW that something is about to change, just by the fact that Dale is saying so clearly that nothing has changed in the last year. The fact that he’s choosing to focus on the sameness is a signal to any intelligent reader that the sameness is ripe for a change, pronto.

Once again, good job, Dale.

Now we’ll move to Cate’s paragraph. Her first paragraph is:

They came for me on the fifth night of the hospital stay, when my arm had started to heal and I was restless to get back to my guardian, Luc. I cursed the rock, in my sleep, that had brought me down in the fields, brought the thirty lashes on both me and Luc, left him bloody and unconscious and me just alive enough to watch. Was he alive, was he dead? They wouldn’t tell me.

Want to play? Post your critique here. I’ll post mine tomorrow and then you can see how close you came to mine.

It’s been interesting to read the comments over the last couple of days. Sunday night, I critiqued Ginny’s first paragraph. (More on that in a minute.) Monday night, I went to a local writer’s group meeting (and got to see one my loyal blog readers, Camille, in person instead of on-screen) but got home too late to blog. Today I’ve been working on a special project on a tight deadline, so haven’t checked in to the blog until just now. In the meantime, my loyal blog readers have been busy making comments here. A few responses before I critique Dale.

Barb asked:

Are you still writing, Randy? You share about so many things you’re doing. I can’t imagine how you do it all. Do you keep a daily count of words or pages? I’m only asking because I’m waiting on your next book.

Randy sez: Yes, I’m working on a proposal now. Actually, the proposal is done and my agent loves it, but I’m still polishing up the first few chapters. Things are going slower than I’d like, because of course I’m doing a LOT of teaching these days, and also have some other projects going on that I consider important. That’s one reason I work so hard at managing my time better (not to mention managing that pesky money).

Ginny wrote, in response to my critique of her paragraph:

On the technical note, I used “nanosecond” because this “explosion” turns out to be something other than what we, in this four-dimensional world, call “nuclear.” It’s the “instant” (hence, faster than microseconds) re-making of the world that happens when Christ returns to set up His new kingdom.

A TECHNICAL, SCIENTIFIC QUESTION FOR YOU, RANDY, IF YOU HAVE TIME TO ANSWER: CAN THERE BE MORE THAN ONE TYPE OF “NUCLEAR” RADIATION? IF MY “EXPLOSION” ORIGINATES FROM OUTSIDE THIS FOUR-DIMENSIONAL WORLD, COULD THE RESULTING RADIATION BE CALLED “NUCLEAR”? OR IS “NUCLEAR” TOO SPECIFIC A TERM?

Randy sez: OK, that’s a bit of an unexpected twist. It’s quite possible for physics to get screwed up and change everything, and that would be something like an explosion. It would presumably move at the speed of light. Physicists years ago did consider the question of whether some sort of phase transition could happen that would propagate at the speed of light, throwing us into a different vacuum and thoroughly rearranging reality in the process. That’s a disaster! But it’s not much of a story, because no characters would survive it.

In your case, you’re not talking about a nuclear explosion, but neither is it exactly a phase transtion to a new vacuum. I’m not sure what it is, but I’m wondering if it’s limited to earth, and if so, why? If it can extend out into space, then it would presumably whack our heroes in the space ship at roughly the same time the cutoff in the transmission happens. (That pesky speed of light again.) I would say you can do whatever you want here, but just figure out the rules and be consistent.

Now, on to critiquing Dale’s first paragraph:

Jeremy Crowther turned the corner onto Freeman Drive and saw his house for the first time in a year. His first thought was that nothing had changed. The same cracks ran down the edges of the same beige stucco walls. The same wet magnolia leaves overflowed the same sagging, moldy gutters. The same brown patches of dirt fought the same brown patches of grass for control of the same brown yard.

Randy sez: This is very good! We are in Jeremy’s head from the get-go. There is no cheating here–Dale is not withholding information from us. But he’s doling it out to us at a speed that makes us want more. That’s not easy to do. It’s very easy to tell too much or too little at the start of a story. Let’s look at what we know:

1) We know Jeremy’s been away for a year.
2) We know the house isn’t in great shape.
3) We know Jeremy knows he’s not going to win any Architectural Digest awards.
4) In short, Jeremy is a very ordinary-sounding guy, except for that missing year that’s been mysteriously taken out of his life.

But we don’t know why he’s been gone. That’s good. It arouses the reader’s curiosity in a natural way. This is a hard balance to strike, and Dale struck it well. If I opened this book in a bookstore, I’d absolutely read the whole first chapter. This is good writing, and I can’t see one single thing to gripe about.

Notice Dale’s use of “The Rule of Three” here. “The Rule of Three” says that if you’re going to repeat something, say it three times, not just twice. If you say it twice, it feels like you made a mistake. When you say it three times, it’s clear you meant it. Dale has three sentences that start with “The same . . .” It has a good strong rhythm to it.

Dale, you get an A for this paragraph.

I’ve been critiquing first paragraphs for the last few days here and today I’ll do the next one in the list, Ginny’s. Before I do that, a few comments and answers to questions.

First the comments:
1) Be aware that I am not actually infallible (at least not yet, though I’m trying to get approved by the relevant authorities ) and so some of my critiques may be wrong.
2) Dissent is good. If some of you disagree with my opinion, I don’t mind at all. Feel free to say so (as many of you do already). In most cases, because of space and time constraints, I can’t continue discussing points where we disagree. I’d like to, but I generally want to keep moving forward.
3) I’m not able to critique material that’s emailed to me. As you can imagine, if I ever started doing that, I’d be unable to do anything else.

Now the questions:
Pam asked:

Should you start with the main character’s POV or can it be anyone’s?

Randy sez: It can be anyone’s.

Daan posted a new version of his first paragraph. As several of you noted, it is much better because now we’re experiencing it through the eyes of a character. Waytogo, Daan!

Camille asked:

Do you find yourself rereading first paragraphs in books after you’ve read a bit because it doesn’t really click until you get a little more info, or is it just me?

Randy sez: It’s just you, Camille. OK, I’ll admit that sometimes a first sentence is just incomprehensible to me. Then I have to decide whether I want to keep reading or put it back in favor of an author who is willing to be comprehensible in the first paragraph.

Also, Camille, nice job on tweaking the first few paragraphs of the submission that I critiqued last week. I think it reads better now. I also think you have a potential winner here.

Mary asked:

Could you comment on when to use Italics for thoughts? I’ve heard conflicting advice.

Randy sez: The trend is to use italics as little as possible. My own personal style is to write a lot of deep interior monologue that is clearly in the voice of the character. And I don’t see any reason to use italics for all that.

Sina’i asked:

My technical question is: the way your blog is set up, do you see comments for older entries as they come in, or do you only look at the comments for the newest entry?

Randy sez: I CAN look at the most recent comments, but when there are a LOT of them, I don’t necessarily read the ones that are responding to posts written long ago. I do try to read every single comment for the most recent post. I have not yet read through all the one-paragraph submissions from last week (there are 83 of them right now, and last week was Xtremely busy). Of course, I read all the spam, and some of is, um, amazing.

By the way, this blog had its first birthday last week! It whizzed past without me noticing or buying a birthday cake or anything like that. So Happy Birthday to the Advanced Fiction Writing Blog, and thanks to all of you who’ve made this place a really fun place for me to hang out. I appreciate all of you!

On to critique Ginny. She posted this first paragraph:

The seven astronauts stood stunned and silent in the command room of the International Space Station, Galaxy Gaia. But it was not the explosion that held them frozen in disbelief. The blinding flash below them, over in a nanosecond, hadn’t even registered. It was the video monitor that held their attention. A split second ago the screen had been filled with the contorted face of the earth’s first great leader, the speakers blasting his strident, triumphant voice. Now they stared at a dark screen, and the shock of his announcement, cut off in mid-sentence, reverberated off the cabin walls. The invisible flash and the blackout had come at once.

Randy sez: You have a terrific scene in the making here. I think we are coming in on it too late to have the emotional impact that you want, though.

Have you ever come across a horrifying accident on the freeway–there’s a burning Volkswagen Bug upside down with its roof crushed in; there are bodies being loaded into an ambulance. And you crawl past it in stop-and-go traffic and think, “Wow, that’s horrible!” And then, because you don’t know these people and because you can’t stop and go back, you just drive on. And every couple of years, you remember it and wonder who those people were and what happened and what their story was.

That’s a little bit of what I’m feeling here. Something incredibly awful has just happened to this planet, and I don’t know the people involved enough to care. And now I don’t want to get emotionally involved with them because I know they don’t end well.

So I would suggest that you start the story a little sooner. Your location is fine. Your characters are fine. Pick one of those astronauts and put us inside her head. Show us her excitement at the forthcoming speech. What are the stakes? What’s she feeling? What does she want to happen? Build it up for five or ten pages. Make a whole scene out of it. Give us time to develop feelings for these characters, their hopes, dreams, loves, hates, their future.

THEN yank the rug out from under them. Show us the screen going blank. Show us our POV character’s confusion. Show us the crew racing to fix the glitch. Show us their horror as they realize that this is not a technical problem–this is the destruction of a planet (I think it is). Show it to us blow by blow and bit by bit and make us feel how awful it is.

When you do that, you’ll have a very fine disaster for your first chapter and you’ll have your reader RUNNING to the checkout stand at the bookstore to take this baby home, because no way is she going to stand in the aisle reading another chapter when she could be enjoying this book at home.

One technical note: I’m not sure what kind of explosion we have here, but it’s unlikely to literally be over in a nanosecond. Light travels only about one foot in a nanosecond. I forget the timescale for nuclear explosions, but I’m pretty sure they are quite a few microseconds. You could look it up. If you do, then don’t put it in the book, because you are telling the reader something the POV character doesn’t know.

I think you have the setup for a very strong story, here. Take advantage of it and give us the full power of it, Ginny! If you want to post another shot at your first paragraph, go right ahead and do that.

We’re continuing to critique first paragraphs of my loyal blog readers which were posted here as comments a couple of days ago. Yesterday, we critiqued Patty and John, and there was a question worth answering from a reader today on that:

Andra asked:

I have a small comment. I found starting with 2nd person then jumping to 3rd person a bit jarring. Maybe that was the intent?

Randy sez: The first sentence was the following:

Balancing a live goat on the back of your bicycle has its challenges

This is not actually second person. Instead it’s simply an observation that is a truism, and using this form is common. We are zooming in to the POV character from the author’s POV, so this actually is in danger of being authorial intrusion. I’m OK with it however, since it’s fairly common to do this at the very beginning of a novel. Janey Austen did it in Pride and Prejudice, and it still works, as long as you keep it short. I think it works here, which is what really matters.

Now, let’s critique Camille. Here is her first paragraph:

Ian MacLean nearly escaped.

He made it to the edge of the lamp-lit street with only four hard strides bridging the gap between him and his freedom: Maggie’s farm truck. Even in the pallid streetlight, his Granny’s old rattletrap never looked so good.

“That’s far enough!”

Randy sez: This is a pretty strong opening. The first sentence hooks us right away in only four words, telling us who the POV character is and setting up the first part of this scene by telling us in advance that Ian is going to fail. That’s normally a little dicey, but you have to jumpstart a story somehow, and it’s common to “cheat” a little at the beginning.

However, I think Camille is “cheating” a bit too long. We need to know pretty quickly who or what he’s escaping from, and we don’t. The modern reader is impatient. You can hook her curiosity and make her ask “Huh?” but you are not allowed to be coy with her. If Ian is “escaping” then we need to know (from within his POV) what he’s escaping from. We don’t need the whole meal, of course, but a little snack would be good.

OK, so Ian is striding along, which is good, but now we get two more characters introduced in quick succession: Maggie and Grannie. Or are Maggie and Grannie the same person? It’s not clear, and clarity is what you need here.

Understand that there is a time and place for being slightly mysterious and obscure. But references to people is not the place, and the first introduction of characters is not the time. We need to know RIGHT NOW how Maggie and Grannie are related.

I’m reminded of an example from an old Writer’s Digest that spoofed a Tom Clancy novel, in which a particular scene had somewhere between 2 and 7 characters. It wasn’t clear, because the author kept calling them “Mr. Smith” and “Chuck” and “the Executive Officer” and so on, all in an apparent attempt to avoid repetition. But lack of clarity is worse than repetition. Clancy often lacked clarity on this score.

Final point: The closing sentence really needs a tag. Is it Ian who speaks? That is the normal convention when you have an unattributed quote–the dialogue is understood to refer to the last character shown in action, (in this case, that’s Ian).

But a moment’s thought immediately tells you it can’t be Ian. Somebody is talking to Ian, and we need to know who it is. Why? Because we barely know this character and we’re confused, and dad-gummit, there are 99,999 other books in Barnes & Noble, and if THIS book is fuzzy and unclear, well the one next to is likely to be better. So that first paragraph better be a snapper.

I won’t revise this opening. It’s quite strong, but it needs a bit of sharpening to bring it into focus. I will say that I read the first 20 pages of this book on the plane coming home from my last writing conference, and I thought it was stellar writing. So it sharpens up pretty quickly. Good job, Camille! Go ahead and post your revision here if you get it sharpened up.

Now, we’ll turn to Daan’s submission:

11 February 1990 - Thousands of people were gathered outside the gates of Victor Verster Prison just outside Paarl, a town surrounded by the vineyards of the Western Cape. The air was filled with excitement and anticipation as Nelson Mandela was about to be released after he was sent to prison 27 years ago.

Randy sez: I’m delighted to see that Daan is writing what he knows. Daan lives in South Africa. It makes great sense to write a novel about one of the most influential South Africans of all time–Nelson Mandela. At least, I hope Nelson is a key character in this novel. Since this is all I’ve seen, I’m going to guess that he is.

First point that needs rethinking: This paragraph is “telling.” One can get away with “telling” if it is excellent. See the beginning of A TALE OF TWO CITIES or HARRY POTTER #1 or countless other books that start off with a fresh and new way of “telling.” But this example isn’t.

How can Daan improve this? There are a thousand ways to “tell.” Here are a couple:

Focus on Place. One simple way is to focus on interesting and unique details in the place itself. The scene in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS in which Clarice Starling visits Hannibal Lecter is a prime example, in which the prison comes alive in stark detail. Tom Wolfe brought the world of aeronautical engineering alive in THE RIGHT STUFF by doing this also–beautifully rendered detail.

Focus on Character. See Book #1 of Harry Potter, in which J.K. Rowling spends the first page telling about the horrible Dursleys. By the bottom of the page, when you discover that they have a secret that they’re terrified people will learn, you want nothing more than for that secret to make Time Magazine.

Personally, I prefer not to start with telling. OK, honestly, I do it all the time myself, but then I kick myself and fix it in the second draft or the fourteenth, or whenever it is that the fumes of the first draft fade away and I realize that I’m fooling myself and really I should have started this book by showing, instead.

So if this were my novel, I’d focus in on one person in that crowd, show us what he sees, make us hear what he sees, make us feel what he feels. Within a few paragraphs, I’d let my reader know what my POV characters desperately wants. I’d show why he can’t have it, and isn’t likely to get it. And the story would be launched.

That’s what I’d do. Daan, what are you going to do? I’ll be interested to see if you can turn this from “telling” into “showing.”