Fixing the First Page Feature #26

Photo credit: Cade Buchanan on Flickr

We are, bizarrely, just days away from September, which is actually great because I am so ready for the cool down. But more importantly, it means the time is here again, to critique another first page here on Writability.

As per usual, I'll start by posting the full first 250 excerpt, after which I'll share my overall thoughts, then my redline critique. I encourage you guys to share your own thoughts and critiques in the comments (because I'm one person with one opinion!), as long as it's polite, thoughtful, and constructive. Any rude or mean comments will be unceremoniously deleted.

Here we go!

Title: CONNECT THE DOTS

Genre/Category: YA Mystery

First 250 words:

"I opened my eyes, sat up, and immediately winced. Somehow I had moved from the Underworld to underneath the light board backstage. Plus I now had yet another bruise to add to my quickly growing collection of bumps on my head. I got out from under the light board and stood up. I started to reach for my backpack to get an ice pack only to realize that it was gone. Whoever had moved me had also taken my backpack for some reason. I reached into my pocket to check my phone to see what time it was. To my horror the screen of my phone was completely shattered. It must have been crushed when I was knocked out by the staff. My dad was going to kill me when I got home now. I walked out onto the stage and realized that the production was not going on. There was no one anywhere and it was pouring rain. Everyone must have been hiding in the museum. I decided to make a beeline over there so I pulled my cardigan over my head and ran to the door. I was soaking wet by the time I got across the museum courtyard. I pushed open the doors and saw the astonished faces of Xenia and Thanos look up at me from what looked to be a shipment of more pieces for the exhibit. 

Xenia ran up to me, 'Nancy! Where have you been? Are you alright?'"

Okay! Interesting opener. The biggest thing I'm noticing right away is there's a lot of wordiness especially in the form of filter phrases, which is inflating that paragraph quite a bit and creating some distance between the reader and the protagonist. I'm curious about what's going on, but the writing could definitely use some condensing and refining.

Much of which I'll do next, so let's dive into those line edits.

 "I opened my eyes, sat up, and immediately winced. Somehow I'd had moved from the Underworld to underneath the light board backstage. Plus I now had yet another bruise to add to my quickly growing collection of head bumps on my head. I got out moved away from under the light board and stood up. I started to reached for my backpack to get an ice pack only to realize that but it was gone. Whoever had moved me had also taken my backpack for some reason. A lot of these changes so far are condensing. Check out my "How to Condense Without Losing Anything Useful" post for reasons why these changes help. I reached into my pocket to check the time on my phone to see what time it was. To my horror  [Insert horrified description/reaction—what does this emotion feel like? How does she physically react? For more on this, take a look at "How to Write Emotion Effectively."] the my phone's screen of my phone was completely shattered. It must have been crushed when the staff I was knocked me out by the staff. Made adjustment to make the sentence more active. 

[Insert paragraph break—your intro paragraph was too long and visually weighed down the passage.]

My dad was going to kill me when I got home now. I walked out onto the stage but and realized that the production wasn't not going on anymore. Adjusted to remove filtering. There was no one anywhere and it was pouring outside rain. Added "outside" because at first I thought it was raining inside or the stage was outside. Everyone must have been hiding in the museum. I decided to make a beeline over there so I pulled my cardigan over my head and ran to the door. Removed the first half of that sentence to remove unnecessary filtering. I was soaking wet by the time I got across crossed the museum courtyard. I pushed open the doors and saw the astonished faces of Xenia and Thanos looked up at me, astonished, from what looked to be a shipment of more exhibit pieces for the exhibit. Bonus: instead of "astonished" describe what that astonishment looks like on Xenia and Thanos. 

Xenia ran up to me, 'Nancy! Where have you been? Are you all right?'"

So this is a really great start—I think plot and intrigue-wise, this opening is definitely on the right track. The main work it needs lies in the line edits, which is 100% doable. If I saw this in the slush, I'd probably pass because the line edits required are on the heavy side, but I'd certainly be interested if it went through more revision first.

I hope that helps! Thanks for sharing your first 250 with us, Emily!

Would you like to be featured in a Fixing the First Page Feature? Keep an eye out for the next giveaway in September!

Twitter-sized bite:

.@Ava_Jae talks condensing, removing filter phrases, & showing emotion in the 26th Fixing the First Page Feature. (Click to tweet) 

Fixing the First Page Feature #15

Photo credit: Dominic's pics on Flickr

So tomorrow is October and I, for once, am so ready for the new month (September, I'd like to say it was nice knowing you, but I musn't tell lies). And! End if September means a fixing the first page critique for you guys so here we go! 

As per usual, I'll start by posting the full first 250 excerpt, after which I'll share my overall thoughts, then my redline critique. I encourage you guys to share your own thoughts and critiques in the comments (I'm just one person with one opinion!), as long as it's polite, thoughtful, and constructive. Any rude or mean comments will be unceremoniously deleted.

Let's do this.

Title: SAMANA'S FLAIR

Genre/Category: YA Fantasy

First 250:

"Music beckons the soul from its darkest places. That’s what Demeriz, Samana’s Wanderer-Sister had told her yesterday. Silence surrounded Samana now. The meager glow of the scratch glass torch held by the Flairian warrior behind her and the other slaves couldn’t penetrate the vast cavern’s black corners or the hatred in her heart. 

Scrape, scrape, scrape. The wide bone plate she held in both hands rubbed the dry cave bowels, and grit showered her bare toes. She imagined the caverns sheer side as the face of Chief Highest Skies. Since when did Wanderers get dragged into these mines and put to work with Oonans? Anger locked her jaw and clogged her throat; her fingers tight on the tool. She wiped away bits of her black hair and the fine dust that clung to her temples and neck with the back of her wrist. 

A triumphant shout rang out and a flash of pure light filled the space. Samana twisted to look for its origin, and was promptly shoved back around by rough hands. 

'Keep working flairmaid,' growled Great Claw, her guard. The name suited the way he treated his squad of workers; like a sharp talon digging into their flesh. 

Samana snarled under her breathe. How dare he lay a hand on a fellow Flairian. She may be an orphan, but Demeriz had been her family. Tears welled up Samana’s eyes. Where was Demeriz now? Was she forced into these spirits-abandoned shafts of nothing?"

Interesting! I'm definitely getting a lot of world building without info-dumping upfront, which is fantastic, but I do think the first thing I'm noticing is there are a lot of names/proper nouns: Demeriz, Samana, Wanderer-Sister, Flairian, Chief Highest Skies, Wanderers, Ooonans, Great Claw—all on the first page. I'm wondering if maybe there's a way to spread these out a little more, because by the end of the excerpt, it all felt like a ton at once to me.

Still! I do think this is an interesting start. Let's take a second look:

"Music beckons the soul from its darkest places. That’s what Demeriz, Samana’s Wanderer-Sister had told her yesterday. This is a nice image, but honestly I don't see how it relates at all to the rest of the page. My guess is it'll get referenced again later on, but because I'm not seeing an immediate connection, it makes me wonder if maybe another hook would be more effective. Silence surrounded Samana now. The meager glow of the scratch glass torch (Very cool image) held by the Flairian warrior behind her and the other slaves couldn’t penetrate the vast cavern’s black corners or the hatred in her heart. So this here is emotional telling. I've already written a post about how to write emotion effectively, and this is definitely a situation where I think we'd benefit from seeing the emotion and how it affects her rather than being told it's there.

Scrape, scrape, scrape. The wide bone plate she held in both hands rubbed the dry cave bowels, and grit showered her bare toes.  So great! Love this imagery. She imagined the caverns sheer side as the face of Chief Highest Skies. Since when did Wanderers get dragged into these mines and put to work with Oonans? Anger locked her jaw and clogged her throat; her fingers tight on the tool. This is close! If you could rewrite this sentence without using "anger" you'd have a great example of shown emotion here. She wiped away bits of her black hair and the fine dust that clung to her temples and neck with the back of her wrist. 

A triumphant shout rang out and a flash of pure light filled the space. Samana twisted to look for its origin, and was promptly shoved back around by rough hands rough hands promptly shoved her back (adjusted to make the sentence more active). 

'Keep working flairmaid,' growled Great Claw, her guard. The name suited the way he treated his squad of workers; like a sharp talon digging into their flesh. Nice.

Samana snarled under her breathe. How dare he lay a hand on a fellow Flairian.? She may be an orphan, but Demeriz had been her family. Right now, I have no idea what this means. What does Demeriz have to do with the way she's being treated? How does Demeriz being her family change anything? I know this is something you'd probably explain later, but I have trouble sympathizing with her in the next sentence when I don't really understand the connection. Tears welled up Samana’s eyes. Where was Demeriz now? Was she forced into these spirits-abandoned shafts of nothing?" That said, this is written really well. I like the balance between Samana's emotion and her thoughts. I think we just need a tad more clarification so that the readers understand what's going on and thus can really feel for Samana.

As I said above, I think this is really well done and just needs a tad more so readers can really delve into the story and connect with your protagonist. You're almost there! If I saw this in the slush (and, you know, it fit what I was looking for) I'd keep reading. Overall, great job.

Thanks for sharing your first 250 with us, Emily!

Would you like to be featured in a Fixing the First Page Feature? Keep an eye out for next month's giveaway!

Twitter-sized bite:

.@Ava_Jae talks showing emotion and gradual world building in the 15th Fixing the First Page critique. (Click to tweet) 

How to Write Emotion Effectively

Photo credit: Robert Scoble on Flickr

I’ve mentioned my editing philosophy when it comes to emotions in the past, namely, if I see a told emotion (i.e.: he looked furious), I mark it with a note along the lines of stop telling and show us.

But showing emotion is sometimes a little easier said than done. Where do you even begin? If you’re having trouble, it may help to use these four steps:

1. Identify the emotion you’re trying to show. For the purpose of the example, let’s go with fear. But of course this could be anything. 


2. Write down some associated words/common traits of that emotion. There are two sources you can use to try to figure these out—your experience, and The Emotion Thesaurus (or, ideally, both). The idea is to develop a list of related words or descriptors of an emotion. You'll want to draw on your experience to determine how exactly that emotion will affect your character. For fear, that might mean feeling cold, increased heart rate, clammy palms, prickling, jumpiness, hyperventilating, etc. The nice thing about The Emotion Thesaurus is that the list is developed for you, so you can skip right on over to the next step...


3. Choose a couple best suited for the situation and your character. Emotions affect everyone differently, and different levels of emotion (nervousness versus outright terror, for example) may affect the same person in different ways. Once you have your list prepared, you want to take a couple traits or reactions that you think best fit the scenario and your character, and use them together. For the sake of the example, I’m going to use feeling cold, an increased heart rate and shaking. 


4. Rewrite using your new words. Taking the words you've chosen from step three, rewrite the emotion with more impact. 

So, for example, you may have started with…

I was terrified as I grabbed my phone.  

Using the steps above, you could end up with something like...

My heart rammed against my ribcage. Ice breathed down the back of my neck as I snatched my phone. My fingers were shaking so badly that I hit the wrong number and had to start over...

You get the idea. The goal, in the end, is to write emotion without explicitly stating it. With the right combination of characteristics, imagery, thoughts and actions, your readers should be able to infer the emotion through context.

What other tips do you have for showing emotion effectively?

Twitter-sized bites: 

Having trouble showing emotion in your writing? Here are four easy steps to get you on the right track. (Click to tweet)

Do you have trouble writing emotion? Writer @Ava_Jae shares four easy steps to showing emotion effectively. (Click to tweet)