Balancing backstory is a challenge for many writers. You have all of these awesome ideas about your characters’ histories and what brought them to this point, and you just want to share all of it with your readers. Most writers know that there’s a point where backstory becomes too much, but that point can be hard to identify. Here are some tricks to help you assess when backstory has become too much.
The Ratio of “Now” to “Then”
The “now” of your novel is anything that happens in the moment (regardless of whether the novel is in past or present tense). The “then” of your novel is anything that happened in the past, even if it happened moments before the start of the chapter. Identify everything in the chapter (or scene or section) that happened in the past, even if it’s just one line (For example: Elise had met Carol two years ago.) and highlight it or change the color of the text.
Now look at the ratio of “now” to “then.” You should never have a chapter, section, or scene that has more “then” than “now.” Marking sections in this way can be extremely enlightening. Many writers have no idea how much the past is dominating their writing. Leave the highlighting as you edit, and keep cutting down until at least 50% of the chapter is happening in the “now.” It’s normal to have a few chapters that are backstory heavy (up to 50%), but for the majority of chapters, you want the backstory cut down to far less.
The Importance of the Information
It can be hard for writers to make cuts to their work, but it’s vital that you be ruthless when it comes to backstory. Think critically about whether or not the information is important. Ask yourself: Does this truly enhance the reader’s understanding of the story? Will the reader’s ability to understand the story be damaged if this backstory is cut?
It can be tempting to include everything you know about your character in your novel, but readers don’t need long histories to explain superficial decisions or to justify every personality trait. So be realistic about whether the information is truly important.
The Value of the Chapter, Section, or Scene
Sometimes writers can create what looks like a chapter or a scene when really it is just a framework for the dumping of backstory. Analyze each section, scene, and chapter, and determine what purpose it serves other than revealing backstory. Each scene should have a purpose in the “now” – a purpose that moves the plot forward.
The biggest red flags are scenes where the character’s mind is wandering; where they’re looking out a window; where they’re eating, drinking, or smoking; where they’re waiting for someone or something; where they’re driving; and where they’re waking up or falling asleep. Pay close attention to these scenes and make sure that they are serving a purpose other than as a vehicle for dumping backstory.
Need help revealing backstory without info dumping? Check out this article.
First Page Friday #10! Woohoo! We made it to the double digits!
I took last Friday off due to Thanksgiving craziness and really missed it. I enjoy First Page Fridays so much, but I’ve been wondering how you feel about it. Is there any way I could change things up to be more useful? Do you like the grades? The surveys? Are there any sections you’d like to see me add? Please leave a comment.
Also, if any of my previous First Page Friday participants have any success stories or news they’d like to share, please get in touch. I’m sure the other blog readers would love to hear about it.
And lastly, I am opening up to new mentoring clients. You can read more about it here. It is on sale for the holidays – 25% off! You don’t have to use the time over the holidays, you just have to pay before January 1st.
This week’s submission:
Literary Fiction First 500 – By Carol Dunbar
FALL In the morning before Luvera came charging up the driveway, panicked and honking the horn, Elsa Arnasson is doing the laundry. She comes out of her little, unfinished house with her wild hair caught up loose and haphazard at her neck, wearing her son in a backpack carrier and holding a basket of wet clothes. She slides her feet into shoes and crosses the temporary porch. Still new to living in the country and the quiet it offers, she steps out into the sun and stops, to look out at the day.There is nothing about the scene before her that might suggest catastrophe. The yard is littered with yellow leaves, the poplar and birch nearly bare now, the oaks still holding onto theirs, rust colored and brown. A small wind turns leaves cartwheeling past her feet, past the fire pit he dug for them, past the folding chairs they put out within hearing distance of the baby monitor. Farther out across the yard stands a row of pine, their boughs heavy and dark, watchful and protecting.
From out of this, a puff ball comes floating along. She sees it first down by the garden. Like the white part of a dandelion only larger, it drifts up the hill and crosses the yard. It approaches, this airy jewel suspended in sunlight; it captures her full attention then because of the way it hovers there, right at eye level, lingering in front of her, sitting on a current of air. She watches it and it seems to watch her, friendly, interested even. Elsa forgets about the laundry basket in her hands and the baby on her back. A feeling of rightness buzzes inside her, this beautiful day, this house they are building and their two children, all of it exactly the way it should be and she cannot imagine a better life or feeling that things are wrong. Then without prelude, the puff ball whirls backwards and away, spinning into the trees.
Had she known what would be coming next, she might have made more of this, but as it happened, she stands there watching, and it blows away, and she smiles. She chalks it up to life in the country, something mysterious, maybe even silly. It made her happy, and now she had work to get back to.
She walks up the hill through the woods to the clothesline behind their house, her insides still buzzy, unhooked a bit from time. Finnegan on her back plays with her hair, wrapping strands of it around his fist and trying to fit that into his mouth. She wades through the leaves, approaches the clothesline, where it should be, and it is no longer there. The bears again, she thinks, and sets her basket down.
Again she looks up at the trees, through the nearly bare branches and the sky pressed bold and blue beyond. She goes to her basket, and hangs a towel on a branch. She smiles, and starts draping clothes, red and blue and striped kitchen towels.
Reader Participation – What Do You Think?
Before reading my take on this novel opening, please take a moment to record your thoughts in the poll below.
Your thoughtful critiques and suggestions for the writer are also welcome in the comments section. Explaining your vote gives the author even more insight into where they’re hitting the mark and where they can improve.
The Writeditor’s Feedback
Critique Key
Original Text is in italics.
Red is text I recommend removing.
Green is text I recommend adding.
Blue are my comments.
Literary Fiction First 500 – By Carol Dunbar
FALL
In the morning before Luvera came charging up the driveway, panicked and honking the horn, Elsa Arnasson is doing the laundry. < I find the mixing of tenses in this first sentence jarring. She comes out of her little, unfinished house with her wild hair caught up loose and haphazard at her neck, wearing her son in a backpack carrier and holding a basket of wet clothes. She slides her feet into shoes and crosses the temporary porch. <What is a temporary porch? A little more info here would help paint a stronger picture for the reader. For example: ..crosses the bare wood planks of the temporary porch. Still new to living in the country and the quiet it offers, she steps out into the sun and stops, to look out at the day. <I suggest cutting this. The next line implies that she is looking. Generally, you want to avoid outright stating that a character is looking at things or thinking about things because it is so easy to show/imply.
There is nothing about the scene before her that might suggest catastrophe. The yard is littered with yellow leaves, the poplar and birch nearly bare now, the oaks still holding onto theirs, rust colored and brown. A small wind turns leaves cartwheeling past her feet, past the fire pit he dug for them, past the folding chairs they put out within hearing distance of the baby monitor. Farther out across the yard stands a row of pine, their boughs heavy and dark, watchful and protecting.
From out of this, a puff ball comes floating along. She sees it first down by the garden. Like the white part of a dandelion only larger, it drifts up the hill and crosses the yard. It approaches, this airy jewel suspended in sunlight; it captures her full attention then because of the way it hovers there, right at eye level, lingering in front of her, sitting on a current of air. She watches it and it seems to watch her, friendly, interested even. Elsa forgets about the laundry basket in her hands and the baby on her back. A feeling of rightness buzzes inside her, this beautiful day, this house they are building and their two children, all of it exactly the way it should be and she cannot imagine a better life or feeling that things are wrong. <I find the wording of this sentence difficult to read and understand. Then without prelude, the puff ball whirls backwards and away, spinning into the trees.
Had she known what would be coming next, < This is considered a pretty cliche line in omniscient. It might bother some and not others, depends on the reader. she might have made more of this, but as it happened, < “as it happened” doesn’t really make sense in present tense because it’s actively happening, but I have a stricter opinion about the use of present tense than some other editors. she stands there watching, and it blows away, and she smiles. She chalks it up to life in the country, < She chalks what up to life in the country? The puff ball’s existence? The happiness she derives from it?something mysterious, maybe even silly. It made her happy, and now she hadhas work to get back to.
She walks up the hill through the woods to the clothesline behind their house, her insides still buzzy, unhooked a bit from time. < “unhooked a bit from time” does not hold any meaning to me. It’s not an experience I can relate to. Not that that makes it inherently a problem – others may completely disagree. Finnegan on her back plays with her hair, wrapping strands of it around his fist and trying to fit that into his mouth. She wades through the leaves, approachesing where the clothesline, where it should be, and it is no longer there. < This rewording makes more sense because she can’t approach the clothesline and then have it not be there. The bears again, she thinks, and sets her basket down.
Again she looks up at the trees, through the nearly bare branches and the sky pressed bold and blue beyond. She goes to her basket, and hangs a towel on a branch. She smiles, and starts draping clothes, red and blue and striped kitchen towels. <Wording of this sentence is a bit awkward. Are the clothes she’s draping kitchen towels? That’s how I read it initially, but I think what you mean is that she’s draping clothes as well as red and blue and striped kitchen towels, but then that still has a clarity issue – are some of the towels red, some blue, and some striped or are they red and blue striped?
My Overall Thoughts
I don’t doubt your ability to write. This has a nice, pretty sound to the language. However despite the nice writing, too little was going on to draw me into the story, but the writing carries my interest enough that I would give you another few pages to hook me.
Key Places to Improve:
Clarity comes first. Always. If you have to write an ugly sentence that readers can understand, that’s better than a pretty one they can’t. Lovely language can get you pretty far, but clarity and substance will still trump it every time. So read your sentences carefully. Make sure they make sense.
The puffball had such a prominent position in this opening that I would expect it to have a major impact on the catalyst of the story. If this is not the case, you may need to downplay it.
Some sort of conflict had better be introduced within the next few hundred words or you’re going to start losing readers.
The present tense combined with a few past tense omniscient phrases (“as it happened,” “in the morning before,” “had she known”) kind of made my head spin, however it is not “wrong.” It’s just a matter of preference.
My biggest concern is that perhaps none of this opening matters, that you are just trying to be poetic by including the puffball, when really it does not tie into the story arc. If that’s the case, it makes this opening a bit too meandering and you might want to start a bit later.
The Writeditor’s Grade (out of 5): 3
This is a tough one to grade because it depends a lot on where the story goes from here. If these opening paragraphs tie in well with a conflict that begins within the next few hundred words, I’d probably bump this up to a 4. If no conflict occurs and these paragraphs are style without substance, I’d probably bump it down to a 1 or 2. If you focus on clarity and substance (no pretty words just for pretty’s sake), I think you’re probably on the right track with the novel as a whole.
A note on the grading scale: The rating of the first chapter does not indicate the rating of the novel as a whole nor does it indicate the writer’s overall ability.
Submit to First Page Friday
If you’d like to submit your novel for First Page Friday, please send the following to ellenbrock@keytopservices.com:
The name you want me to use in the blog post (real name, alias, or anonymous).
The genre of your novel.
The first 500 words (give or take, don’t stop in the middle of a sentence) pasted into the body of the email.
Any links (Twitter, Blog, Goodreads, etc.) that you’d like included in the post (not required).
Please do not submit if you are not okay with your first page being posted, critiqued, and edited on my website.
Ellen Brock (AKA The Writeditor) is a freelance novel editor who works with self-publishing and traditionally publishing authors as well as e-publishers and small presses. She owns the editing company Keytop Services and the writing and editing blog The Writeditor. When not editing, she enjoys reading, writing, and geocaching. Check out her freelance novel editing services and mentoring.
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The difference between omniscient point of view and head hopping is something that stumps a lot of writers. But there are big differences between the two, in this article, I outline the basics.
To be clear, this article is about head hopping in omniscient POV. It is not about third limited POV (changing perspectives at chapter or section breaks). I recommend reading this article first if you aren’t familiar with third limited POV.
Omniscient POV is Only One Viewpoint
One of the biggest misconceptions about omniscient point of view is that it allows you to go into the viewpoint of any character in your story at any time. This is not true. Omniscient point of view only has one viewpoint – the viewpoint of the narrator. This narrator stays the same throughout the entire novel.
The narrator does not “go into” the viewpoints of the other characters, because it doesn’t have to. The narrator already knows everything about all of the characters. This may seem like splitting hairs, but it’s a very important distinction: The narrator does not go into different viewpoint, it simply chooses which information to convey about which characters at which moments.
Omniscient POV Only Has One Voice
Probably the most glaring error in omniscient point of view is when the voice changes when describing the thoughts and feelings of each different character. This is a blatant giveaway that the work is head hopping rather than omniscient. Since omniscient sticks to only one viewpoint – one narrator – it must always stick to one voice.
This means that the vocabulary, sentence structure, and word choices should not change when different characters are explored. Margo may speak like a stuffy old woman while Tom swears like a sailor, but when their emotions and thoughts are described in omniscient, the narrative should read with the exact same voice unless it is italicized as a direct thought.
There are some cases where it can be very clearly implied that the narrator is describing the thoughts of a character and some writers will choose to add a bit of the character’s own “flavor” to the writing in this circumstance without using italicized text. If done well and sparingly, this is okay. The important thing is that it be clear 100% of the time whether an opinion is the narrator’s or the character’s.
Omniscient POV is Strategic
The omniscient narrator is a storyteller who chooses when to reveal emotions and thoughts of characters as it is important and relevant. There is a strategy there. A strategy to build suspense, to engage the reader, and to focus the story. It does not delve into the thoughts and emotions of characters on a whim. There is a logical and important reason for switching the focus to different characters.
Head hopping, on the other hand, often has switches that are erratic, that serve no purpose, and are put there simply because it’s easier to switch perspectives all the time than it is to convey things without going into the heads of different characters. While omniscient POV feels strategic, head hopping often feels lazy, sloppy, or accidental.
*ETA: As a few commenters have pointed out, there are writers who use head hopping strategically (rather than sloppily) and are able to “hide” the head hopping by switching at key moments in a scene. If you are fully aware of what you are doing and have a strong grasp of POV and feel that this is necessary in your novel, you might be able to get away with this. But since it’s difficult to pull off well, a section break is generally clearer, and publishers tend to view it as a sign the writer is not knowledgeable about POVs, I personally would not advise taking the risk.
Omniscient POV is Omniscient
Omniscient means “all knowing.” It does not mean “jumping into the heads of different people.” The omniscient narrator knows everything – not just the thoughts and feelings of the character it’s currently delved into – it knows the thoughts and feelings of everyone, at all times, including before the story started and after the story ends. The omniscient narrator knows what’s happening halfway across the world. It knows the temperature outside, the exact time of day, and how many buttons are on the mailman’s jacket. It knows everything.
Well…most of the time. It is possible to have an omniscient narrator with limited knowledge, but this is typically only in cases of first-person omniscient narrators who are characters that gained the information through supernatural means or after the fact.
Knowing everything does not mean the omniscient narrator does or should reveal everything (again, it must be strategic). The narrator may choose to omit things to make the story more interesting or exciting. In many cases, omniscient narrators seem “God-like.” But head hopping does not evoke the God-like, all-knowing feel of the omniscient narrator, it reads like we’re simply jumping between the brains of ordinary characters. In other words, in head hopping there is no sense that there is one consistent voice “behind the camera” directing the novel and pulling the reader through the story.
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The Submission:
Literary First 500 – By Nicola
Before my mother died, Kenny was not my friend. He didn’t have any friends. No one even hung around with him much. He was okay, sometimes, if there was no one else to play with, but mostly we tried to ignore him. He lived in another part of the street and didn’t belong to our gang. There were lots of Catholics in our neighborhood so there were enough kids to go around without him joining in; we thought he had a snotty nose and big freckles and his clothes were handed down way too many times. He had straight, mousy-brown hair that hung down over his eyes in the front and knotted up like a bird’s nest in the back. We would leave him out on purpose, when we didn’t need him for a game, which was almost always. He would stand a little way back and watch, his hands deep in his pockets, trying to look like he didn’t care, and didn’t really want to join in. He stood, or kept himself busy with the stone beneath his shoe, or the coins in his pocket. And I thought he must have just gone home when the rest of us did at five o’clock on Saturdays, when our mothers stood on the back steps and called out “Dinner! You’ve got five minutes or your father’s going to hear about it.” People still said things like that then.Except, after the excitement of my mother’s death had died down, and after the social workers who made us dinner and did our laundry had stopped coming, then there was no one calling me home. There was no dinner. And then I found something out: Kenny didn’t go home like the rest of us. When all the other kids ran home, he stayed there still, with his tennis ball, or soccer ball, or empty handed, watching the other kids run back up the hill from the park and disappear around the backs of houses.The first time I realized no one was calling Kenny, I was waiting to hear my name, and when I didn’t I waited a bit longer, then ran home anyway. No one called him either, and when I turned at the top of the path to look back, he was still there, looking down at his sneakers.
A couple of weeks later, I didn’t go home either, and Kenny talked to me then. He asked me if it was because a dog bit her—her dying. I told him it was, and I wondered for a long time after that if it was true. I was eight years old. Before my mother died, I had never known anyone who had died. And, I had never even thought how many ways there might be to die. Dying from a dog bite seemed as good a way as any other. And there were some pretty mean dogs around.
But I didn’t know for sure how she died. And didn’t want to. No one had told me the details. I didn’t know what day she died, or what time it was, exactly. I never visited her grave; I didn’t know where she was buried. No one told me, and I didn’t ask.
The thing is: it was important not to know. Not knowing the truth made my fictions all the more reliable.
Reader Participation – What Do You Think?
Before reading my take on this novel opening, please take a moment to record your thoughts in the poll below.
Your thoughtful critiques and suggestions for the writer are also welcome in the comments section. Explaining your vote gives the author even more insight into where they’re hitting the mark and where they can improve.
The Writeditor’s Feedback
Critique Key
Original Text is in italics.
Red is text I recommend removing.
Green is text I recommend adding.
Blue are my comments.
Literary First 500 – By Nicola
Before my mother died, Kenny was not my friend. He didn’t have any friends. No one evern hung around with him much. < “Much” is a weak way to end a sentence. I would rephrase. He was okay, sometimes, if there was no one else to play with, but mostly we tried to ignore him. He lived in another part of the street and didn’t belong to our gang. < This sentence feels disjointed and unneeded. I would cut it. There were lots of Catholics in our neighborhood so there were enough kids to go around without him joining in < The flow would be better without this sentence. ;we thought< There’s no reason to say that it’s what they thought. It just weakens the sentence. he had a snotty nose and big freckles and his clothes were handed down way too many times. He had straight, mousy-brown hair that hung down over his eyes in the front and knotted up like a bird’s nest in the back. < Personally, I would also cut this sentence for flow and because it doesn’t connect as nicely to the next sentence. Kids might not want to hang out with a poor, snot-nosed kid, but I don’t think they’d care what his hair looked like. We would leave him out on purpose, when we didn’t need him for a game, which was almost always. He would stand a little way back and watch, his hands deep in his pockets, trying to look like he didn’t care, and didn’t really want to join in. He stood, or< Not needed because we already know he’s standing. kept himself busy with the stone beneath his shoe, or the coins in his pocket. And I thought he must have just gone home when the rest of us did at five o’clock on Saturdays, < This sentence feels disjointed from the rest of the paragraph because it seems unlikely that the narrator actually put any thought into whether or not the kid went home in the evenings, especially since this is a kid they ignored and didn’t like. Rephrasing would help. For example: “I guess I just assumed he went home when the rest of us did…” when our mothers stood on the back steps and called out “Dinner! You’ve got five minutes or your father’s going to hear about it.” People still said things like that then.
Except, after the excitement of my mother’s death had died down, and after the social workers who made us dinner and did our laundry had stopped coming, then there was no one calling me home. There was no dinner. And then I found something out: Kenny didn’t go home like the rest of us. < This sentence is telling as well as vague. How did the narrator figure that out? When all the other kids ran home, he stayed there still, with his tennis ball, or soccer ball, or empty handed, watching the other kids run back up the hill from the park and disappear around the backs of houses.
The first time I realized no one was calling Kenny, I was waiting to hear my name, < There is not a clear connection between this and the previous paragraph. Is this after people stopped calling her home? Is it the first day she wasn’t called? If so, you could restructure this so that the first sentence of the previous paragraph leads into this paragraph (cutting out telling and creating a better flow). For example: “Except one day, after the excitement of my mother’s death had died down, and after the social workers who made us dinner and did our laundry had stopped coming, no one called me home. I waited to hear my name, and when I didn’t, I waited a bit longer, then ran home anyway. No one called Kenny either, and when I turned….”and when I didn’t I waited a bit longer, then ran home anyway. No one called him either, and when I turned at the top of the path to look back, he was still there, looking down at his sneakers.
A couple of weeks later, I didn’t go home either, and Kenny talked to me then. He asked me if it was because a dog bit her—her dying. I told him it was, < I would like a stronger indication at this point that she doesn’t actually know how she died. Restructuring this paragraph and combining it with the next one would be ideal. For example: …dog bit her – her dying. Dying from a dog bite seemed as good a way as any other. And there were some pretty mean dogs around, so I told him it was. But I didn’t know for sure how she died. And didn’t want to… and I wondered for a long time after that if it was true. I was eight years old. Before my mother died, I had never known anyone who had died. And, I had never even thought how many ways there might be to die. Dying from a dog bite seemed as good a way as any other. And there were some pretty mean dogs around.
But I didn’t know for sure how she died. And didn’t want to. No one had told me the details. I didn’t know what day she died, or what time it was, exactly. I never visited her grave; I didn’t know where she was buried. No one told me, and I didn’t ask.
The thing is: it was important not to know. Not knowing the truth made my fictions all the more reliable.
My Overall Thoughts
You said you weren’t sure of the genre. From this sample, I’m going to have to go with literary. You suggested this may be YA, but unless the bulk of the story is told from the perspective of a teenager and contains issues relevant to teen readers, it’s most likely not YA.
Your voice is very engaging and easy to read, which is great, however it does seem structurally disorganized at times.
Key Places to Improve:
Make sure that the structure makes sense. That’s really your only issue here. Some tips on structure:
Make sure the right information is conveyed at the right time. Don’t wait to convey clarifying information because it requires the reader to untangle preconceived notions, which is hard to do.
Don’t break up information of the same topic with other sentences or paragraphs. Group sentences making the same point together so that it doesn’t feel like a point is left and then returned to – this creates a sense of redundancy.
Cut out sentences that aren’t needed. Be ruthless. Unneeded sentences really disrupt the flow. Consider carefully what the reader needs to know.
Also, watch out for sentences that make the same point as another sentence, even if in a slightly different way. This gives the sense that the plot is stagnating.
The Writeditor’s Grade (out of 5): 3
Though there were some major structural issues, I really liked your voice. I could definitely see the potential in this. It felt like a diamond in the rough, rather than just a hot mess. Focus on line editing as you move forward, and do research into literary fiction if you aren’t familiar with it.
A note on the grading scale: The rating of the first chapter does not indicate the rating of the novel as a whole nor does it indicate the writer’s overall ability.
Submit to First Page Friday – Pretty Please! I’m out of Submissions!
If you’d like to submit your novel for First Page Friday, please send the following to ellenbrock@keytopservices.com:
The name you want me to use in the blog post (real name, alias, or anonymous).
The genre of your novel.
The first 500 words (give or take, don’t stop in the middle of a sentence) pasted into the body of the email.
Any links (Twitter, Blog, Goodreads, etc.) that you’d like included in the post (not required).
Please do not submit if you are not okay with your first page being posted, critiqued, and edited on my website.
About the Editor
Ellen Brock (AKA The Writeditor) is a freelance novel editor who works with self-publishing and traditionally publishing authors as well as e-publishers and small presses. She owns the editing company Keytop Services and the writing and editing blog The Writeditor. When not editing, she enjoys reading, writing, and geocaching. Check out her freelance novel editing services.
Help First Page Friday be a Success! Please use the buttons below to share this post. The more views, the more submissions, the more First Page Fridays!
As a writer, you are the master of the timeline of your novel. You can go backwards and forwards in time on a sentence, paragraph, and chapter level. But should you?
For any novel to be satisfying, there must be some degree of tension. Tension is created by anticipating what comes next. A sense of propulsion helps to keep that tension building. So here’s the important part: going backwards in time reduces the sense of propulsion, which, in turn, reduces the sense of tension.
On a Sentence Level
Let’s start small with the sentence level. Some writers make a regular habit of flipping the order of their sentences. For many, this may seem like a stylistic choice. Here are some examples of sentences in backwards linear order:
Anne jumped when there was a loud sound from the hallway.
Jake ducked under a missile as he dodged his way across the battlefield.
Bailey cried after reading the note.
All of these sentences are in backwards linear order, meaning that what happened first is described last. This backwards order reduces tension and that sense of propulsion I was talking about in the intro, which is bad. In general, unless you have a very good reason to convey information backwards (perhaps only truly helpful during attempts at comedy), you are much better off using linear order.
Here are the same sentences rewritten in linear order:
There was a loud sound from the hallway, and Anne jumped.
Jake dodged his way across the battlefield, ducking under a missile.
Bailey read the note and cried.
Obviously these sentences could be improved in other ways: broken up into two sentences for even more tension, showing a bit more of the experience, etc. But regardless, an average quality linear sentence packs a stronger punch (more tension and propulsion) than even a high-quality backwards sentence.
On a Paragraph Level
When it comes to paragraphs, some writers tend to do a strange sort of backwards and forwards dance through time. Here’s an example:
Ben teased Jenny and she ran all the way home. Her legs pumped harder than ever before. Her feet slapped against the sidewalk. She reached the front door and threw it open. After a long run she reached the house and crumpled inside the door.
The issue with this paragraph may not be blatantly obvious at first, but when you look at how readers interpret this paragraph, it becomes clear that there’s a problem. The first sentence indicates that Jenny ran all the way home, so in the reader’s mind, she’s home. But then wait! In the next sentence she’s running again, so we’ve jumped back to before she got home. She makes it to the front door – hooray, she’s home! But wait! The next sentence goes back to her running again.
Though the writer’s intent is obvious, the reader still has the experience of bouncing around in time. This is because they are trying to visualize the events in their mind. In this paragraph, the writer is making that visualization pretty difficult.
It also takes the reader out of the experience of following alongside the character. Read more about that in the next section.
On a Chapter Level
Within a chapter, many writers have a tendency to jump backwards in time – sometimes for sentences, and sometimes for paragraphs or even pages. For example:
Anne sat on the windowsill, tears streaming down her face. She clutched a letter in her hands, a letter that the mailman had delivered an hour before. She had sat down quietly in her favorite chair to read it, expecting an invitation or a birthday card, but what it was instead was terrible. Her hands shook and her tears dropped onto the paper. Harry was breaking up with her.
Sections like this take the reader out of the moment and chuck them into the past. Instead of letting the reader experience the events alongside the character, the reader is being forced to experience things on a different timeline. This creates distance and (you guessed it) a reduction in tension and that sense of propulsion.
Why not just start this chapter with Anne receiving the letter? The same events will play out, but the reader will have a substantially increased sense of tension and propulsion.
If you are faced with something that must be explained from the past (usually because it occurred before the events of the novel), the key to maintaining tension and propulsion is to keep it brief. Learn some techniques for doing so here.
The Bottom Line
If you can convey it in linear order, then do it! When editing, watch out for places where you’ve flipped your sentences backwards, where you’ve done a backwards and forwards time dance in your paragraphs, or where you’ve started your chapter too late and have to backtrack.
Keep your novel in linear order and you will maximize tension and that sense of propulsion that keeps readers turning pages.
First Page Friday is a new section on The Writeditor’s blog. Every Friday I will provide an in-depth edit and critique of the first 500 words of an unpublished novel.
Please read the chapter without my notes and record your feedback in the poll before moving on to my critique. This really helps the author. Thanks!
First Page Friday Edit & Critique
Fantasy/Alternate History First 500 – By Yvone Williams
The Captain As Constance emerged from the ship’s hold, a gale swept her brown hair over her eyes. “Left,” a man called from the bow. “Pull left, you blind codger.” She pushed her hair back and scanned the ship: Creedy stood on the quarterdeck, yanking the wheel in silence. Normally, he would have severed the other man’s tongue with a sharp reply. Constance rushed to meet him. “Creedy, what’s happening?” she asked, lowering her head against the wind. The skirt of her frock coat whipped her legs. “Lost your eyes to the wind, have you?” he asked. The irises of his eyes were clouded and shifted toward her voice. “Make sure that piece of filth Pisador is still in the hold.” “He’s there,” she said. But I had to untie him. Her gaze shied away from him, toward the wind, and over the main deck. Half of her crew was bunched around the mainmast. Overhead, men climbed the ratlines. Above them, others recklessly hung from the crosstrees. Both groups fought to keep the wind-gashed topsail attached to its yard. Constance left Creedy at his position and climbed down to the main deck. A delicate-framed man struggled to pry the main topmast’s halyard from around the mainstay. Another man, hunched and grey, stood beside him. “Why did no one reef the sails?” she asked. “Because I’m not a sailor,” the slight one said, fighting the twisted ropes. “I’m a naturalist.” Constance knew Sanctuary did not care who did her trimming– Creedy had said as much, and his words had yet to fail her. “Angel Shades, Rosy Underwings… my interest is in moths. Not rope, not sails, not ships,” he said, shaking the rope. “Stop!” Constance frowned; the tangled lines were beginning to fray. “Just a doctor, myself,” the old man said with a shrug. “Well.” Constance slid her trembling hands into pockets. “I advise you get your doctoring tools ready. You might have a chance to prove it.” “Chance?” She walked away, but the doctor trailed her. “You’re the captain. Why can’t you fix this? It’s your responsibility; none of us asked to be here.” She tried to ignore him while she walked. All she wanted was a moment alone. A single moment to think. Save the stays and you’ll save the ship. But how? “It won’t unravel itself, you know,” the naturalist called after her. “Christ’s sake,” Creedy said. “Just cut the damn thing. We can afford to lose one sail if we’re as close as it sounds.” Constance moved starboard to look beyond the sails. He was right; the snow-covered ground seemed to wink and coax the sun from behind the clouds. They were less than 20 minutes away. Her eyes roamed past the clipped, icy shore of Greenland. It was all a blur of white, and mountain ridges were only visible due to the shadows they cast. Constance took her pendant in hand, fingers running along the gilt. Soon, its small, arcane marks would lead her to la vara de centuries– the Rod of Centuries– and then… then, she would restore everything.
Reader Participation – What Do You Think?
Before reading my take on this novel opening, please take a moment to record your thoughts in the poll below.
Your thoughtful critiques and suggestions for the writer are also welcome in the comments section. Explaining your vote gives the author even more insight into where they’re hitting the mark and where they can improve.
The Writeditor’s Feedback
Critique Key
Original Text is in italics.
Red is text I recommend removing.
Green is text I recommend adding.
Blue are my comments.
Fantasy/Alternate History First 500 – By Yvone Williams
The Captain As Constance emerged from the ship’s hold, a gale swept her brown hair over her eyes. “Left,” a man called from the bow. “Pull left, you blind codger.” She pushed her hair back and scanned the ship: Creedy stood on the quarterdeck, yanking the wheel in silence. Normally, he would have severed the other man’s tongue with a sharp reply. < This sentence and the next one feel a bit disjointed to me. I think a transition would help tremendously.Constance rushed to meet him. “Creedy, what’s happening?” she asked, lowering her head against the wind. The skirt of her frock coat whipped her legs. “Lost your eyes to the wind, have you?” <This line confused me on the first read-through. After reading it a second time, I think I understand that he is being sarcastic. Some sort of response from Constance or a more specific dialogue tag would help nail down that explanation. he asked. The irises of his eyes were clouded < Having him say that she lost her eyes to the wind, then having his eyes be clouded made me wonder if the wind really was doing something to their eyes. and shifted toward her voice. “Make sure that piece of filth Pisador is still in the hold.” “He’s there,” she said. “But I had to untie him.“ Her gaze shied away from him, toward the wind, and over the main deck. Half of her crew was bunched around the mainmast. Overhead, men climbed the ratlines. Above them, others recklessly hung from the crosstrees. <Instead of relying on an adverb, a stronger description would be better if possible. Both groups fought to keep the wind-gashed topsail attached to its yard. Constance left Creedy at his position and climbed down to the main deck. A delicate-framed man struggled to pry the main topmast’s halyard from around the mainstay. Another man, hunched and grey, stood beside him. “Why did no one reef the sails?” she asked. “Because I’m not a sailor,” the slight one said, fighting the twisted ropes. “I’m a naturalist.” Constance knew Sanctuary did not care who did her trimming– < I don’t know anything about ships. I don’t know what you mean by “her trimming.” Creedy had said as much, and his words had yet to fail her. “Angel Shades, Rosy Underwings… my interest is in moths. Not rope, not sails, not ships,” he said, shaking the rope. “Stop!” Constance frowned; the tangled lines were beginning to fray.<I always prefer linear order: The tangled lines fray, and then she says stop. “Just a doctor, myself,” the old man said with a shrug. “Well.” Constance slid her trembling hands into pockets. “I advise you get your doctoring tools ready. You might have a chance to prove it.” “Chance?” She walked away, but the doctor trailed her. “You’re the captain. Why can’t you fix this? It’s your responsibility; none of us asked to be here.” She tried to ignored him while she walked. < This sentence stood out to me as much weaker than the others. Firstly, avoid having characters “try” to do things. Secondly, we already know that she is walking so perhaps a description of where she is or what she’s passing would work better (For example: She ignored him as she pushed between two sailors repairing the sail). All she wanted was a moment alone. A single moment to think. Save the stays and you’ll save the ship. But how? “It won’t unravel itself, you know,” the naturalist called after her. “Christ’s sake,” Creedy said. < Isn’t Creedy on a different level of the ship? I think it would be helpful to mention that (For example: Creedy said, leaning over the railing of the quarterdeck.) Something like that helps to orient things in the reader’s mind.“Just cut the damn thing. We can afford to lose one sail if we’re as close as it sounds.” Constance moved starboard to look beyond the sails. He was right; the snow-covered ground seemed to wink and coax the sun from behind the clouds. They were less than 20 twenty minutes away. Her eyes roamed past the clipped, icy shore of Greenland. It was all a blur of white, and mountain ridges were only visible due to the shadows they cast.Constance took her pendant in hand, fingers running along the gilt. Soon, its small, arcane marks would lead her to la vara de centuries– the Rod of Centuries– and then… then, she would restore everything.
My Overall Thoughts
You have a very nice, easy to read writing style that drew me in right away. You started with a great conflict that has action that is interesting but not overwhelming to the reader. Well done.
Key Places to Improve:
There were a few places where I felt slightly confused about what you were trying to say. This may have something to do with the fact that I don’t know anything about ships, but you do need to assume that readers know nothing about ships to ensure clarity.
You do a great job with keeping the descriptions brief, but there were a few places where I felt it would be better to give the characters more concrete positioning on the ship (where Creedy is when he talks to Constance and the doctor; where Constance is when she is ignoring the doctor).
You could turn the emotional dial up just a tad. It wasn’t clear what was at stake for Constance – Was she in fear for her life? Was she just worried about damaging the ship? What exactly was the consequence if things didn’t turn out right?
The Writeditor’s Grade (out of 5): 4
I really enjoyed this first chapter. Aside from some minor tweaking and clarity issues, this seems more or less good to go. I have no real complaints other than a few line edits. This read like a publishable book. Well done!
A note on the grading scale: The rating of the first chapter does not indicate the rating of the novel as a whole nor does it indicate the writer’s overall ability.
Connect with Yvone
You can connect with Yvone on her blog and Twitter.
Submit to First Page Friday
If you’d like to submit your novel for First Page Friday, please send the following to ellenbrock@keytopservices.com:
The name you want me to use in the blog post (real name, alias, or anonymous).
The genre of your novel.
The first 500 words (give or take, don’t stop in the middle of a sentence) pasted into the body of the email.
Any links (Twitter, Blog, Goodreads, etc.) that you’d like included in the post (not required).
Please do not submit if you are not okay with your first page being posted, critiqued, and edited on my website.
About the Editor
Ellen Brock (AKA The Writeditor) is a freelance novel editor who works with self-publishing and traditionally publishing authors as well as e-publishers and small presses. She owns the editing company Keytop Services and the writing and editing blog The Writeditor. When not editing, she enjoys reading, writing, and geocaching. Check out her freelance novel editing services.
Help First Page Friday be a Success! Please use the buttons below to share this post. The more views, the more submissions, the more First Page Fridays!
First Page Friday is a new section on The Writeditor’s blog. Every Friday I will provide an in-depth edit and critique of the first 500 words of an unpublished novel.
Please read the chapter without my notes and record your feedback in the poll before moving on to my critique. This really helps the author. Thanks!
First Page Friday Edit & Critique
Fantasy First 500 – By Randall Whan
Phineas surveyed the approaching army descending upon the city. While small, less than a hundred men, he knew that nothing would stop their advancement till they reached the library. Reports had come in from the west, of their approach, where several villages were burned to ash. Hundreds of men, women, and children had found their head on the end of a pike if they failed to escape. Darkness followed them like a fog enveloping all that it touched. Even the moon’s brilliant light seemed to fade as they drew nearer.Time, so little time left, but how much time did he have left? Surely his barricade on the lower level of library wouldn’t hold them off for long. The city was all but deserted; they had fled when the scouts brought word of the army’s approach. Most of them fled north to the mountains where they believed they would be safe. Phineas had stayed behind and sealed himself in the library, desperate to finish his task. An eerie silence unnerved him, not a sound came from the valley surrounding the city. It seemed that even the wolves and night larks sensed the evil approaching beneath the boots of the invaders. Lowering the hood of his robe he turned back into the room. His head was shaven except for the braid of hair bound by a crimson and leather band hung to the right side of his forehead. A gold medallion bearing the crest of Deval, a large oak tree barren of leaves, was tied to end of the braid.The only light in the small study came from a burning candle on a desk in the center of the room. The candle was quickly reaching the end of its burn, and like his time, would soon be out. Three of the stone walls were lined with charts and maps; one held a door that lead to the landing of the second level of the library. The fourth was covered by a large bookcase filled with books of various topics. He hurried over to the desk. A group of four rolled scrolls, sealed with read wax bearing the same seal of Deval. He tore the wax from of the scrolls and glanced at its script. Not finished, he thought, but it would have to do. He grabbed a quill and dipped into ink and quickly began to write. His hands ached as he wrote on the tattered parchment. Blacked ink stained his fingers, his hands wrinkled and calloused. He had held his post as chief elder of Deval for the past 35 years, now he knew the moment he and the rest of the elders had been preparing for was upon them. He hoped that he wasn’t too late, that his work would not be in vain.He was pulled away from his writing as the sound of a battering
ram pounding against the libraries outer doors vibrated
throughout the study.
Reader Participation – What Do You Think?
Before reading my take on this novel opening, please take a moment to record your thoughts in the poll below.
Your thoughtful critiques and suggestions for the writer are also welcome in the comments section. Explaining your vote gives the author even more insight into where they’re hitting the mark and where they can improve.
The Writeditor’s Feedback
Critique Key
Original Text is in italics.
Red is text I recommend removing.
Green is text I recommend adding.
Blue are my comments.
Fantasy First 500 – By Randall Whan
Phineas surveyed the approaching army descending upon the city. < This is not the most exciting opening line. It feels overly familiar since a lot of fantasy novels open with an approaching army or battle.While small, less than a hundred men, he knew < “knew” is a filtering word. Read more about filtering here.that nothing would stop their advancement till they reached the library. Reports of their approach had come in from the west, of their approach, < Avoid unusual sentence structures as they tend to sacrifice clarity. where several villages were burned to ash. Hundreds of men, women, and children had found their head on the end of a pike if they failed to escape. <I’m not a fan of sentences that imply dead people realize things. On top of that, this is more passive than saying that the army put their heads on the end of pikes. Darkness followed them like a fog enveloping all that it touched. Even the moon’s brilliant light seemed to fade as they drew nearer. < I mentioned this in another First Page Friday, but I recommend not mentioning the moon in the first chapter, especially in the first few paragraphs, because it’s considered cliche. Time, so little time left, but how much time did he have left? < The wording of this sentence is strange. He sort of answers his own question before he even asks it.Surely his barricade on the lower level of the library wouldn’t hold them off for long. < Oh, so he’s inside the library? This wasn’t clear. The city was all but deserted; they < “They” seems vague. Perhaps “villagers”?had fled when the scouts brought word of the army’s approach. Most of them fled north to the mountains where they believed they would be safe. Phineas had stayed behind and sealed himself in the library, desperate to finish his task. An eerie silence unnerved him, not a sound came from the valley surrounding the city. It seemed that even the wolves and night larks sensed the evil approaching beneath the boots of the invaders. < Again, this line feels like something I’ve read a dozen times before. Lowering the hood of his robe he turned back into the room. His head was shaven except for the braid of hair bound by a crimson and leather band that hung to the right side of his forehead. A gold medallion bearing the crest of Deval, a large oak tree barren of leaves, was tied to the end of the braid.The only light in the small study came from a burning candle on a desk in the center of the room. < This is another line that just feels too familiar. The candle was quickly reaching the end of its burn, and like his time, would soon be out. Three of the stone walls were lined with charts and maps; one held a door that lead to the landing of the second level of the library. The fourth was covered by a large bookcase filled with books of various topics.<This is too vague to be worth including. He hurried over to the desk. A group of four rolled scrolls, sealed with read wax bearing the same seal of Deval. <This is a sentence fragment. He tore the wax from of the scrolls and glanced at its script. Not finished, he thought, but it would have to do. < This either needs to be an italicized thought in present tense or not a thought at all. Right now the first part is in present tense and the second part is in past, which reads awkwardly. He grabbed a quill and dipped into ink and quickly began to write. < The next sentence says he’s writing, so this seems redundant. His hands ached as he wrote on the tattered parchment. Blacked ink stained his fingers, his hands wrinkled and calloused. < Connecting the two parts of this sentence with a comma doesn’t make sense because they have nothing to do with each other. He had held his post as chief elder of Deval for the past 35 years, now he knew the moment he and the rest of the elders had been preparing for was upon them. He hoped that he wasn’t too late, that his work would not be in vain.He was pulled away from his writing as the sound of a battering
ram pounding against the libraries outer doors vibrated
throughout the study. <I’m not sure if this formatting is intentional or unintentional, but this is the way it was sent to me. If it’s intentional, I have to wonder why?
My Overall Thoughts
This opening lacks a strong hook. A hook can be anything from a question that begs for an answer to a unique plot element or character trait. This opening feels a bit too expected, a bit too much like dozens of other fantasy novels that have already been published. What’s unique about your book? Why is it better than all the other fantasy novels? That is the element you need to push to hook in readers.
Key Places to Improve:
Why should I care about Phineas? I don’t know who he is, whether he’s good or bad, or what he’s trying to accomplish. This makes it difficult to root for him.
Work on finding your own unique voice. The writing isn’t bad, but it sounds like you’re trying to write the way you think a fantasy novel is supposed to be written.
Emphasize what is unique about your fantasy world. The approaching army, candlelit room, eery silence, scrolls, medallion, and guy with a braid all feel too familiar and too standard for the genre. That’s fine when coupled with some really unique elements, but the uniqueness isn’t coming across here.
Be careful with your proofreading: added or missing words, grammatical errors, sentences that don’t make sense. Agents/editors don’t have a lot of tolerance for these types of mistakes as it can give the impression you didn’t put your best effort into the work before submission.
The Writeditor’s Grade (out of 5): 1
Your writing isn’t bad, it’s just a little bland. I don’t feel like this is something that could have only come from Randall Whan, but that’s the impression you want to give agents and editors – that this is a unique masterpiece that could only have come from your imagination. The only way to give that impression is to have a strong voice and unique world/character/plot elements. And maybe this is true of the rest of the book. I don’t know.
I think, more likely than not, you are not starting this in the right place. Don’t fall into the trap of starting with action. That is absolutely not a requirement of the first chapter. In fact, it often leads to weaker first chapters. Action is meaningless before the reader has bonded to the characters. The key to a great first chapter is to start with proaction (your character doing something). That doesn’t mean that what they’re doing has to be inherently exciting. It just has to be interesting.
A note on the grading scale: The rating of the first chapter does not indicate the rating of the novel as a whole nor does it indicate the writer’s overall ability.
Connect with Randall
You can connect with Randall on Twitter: @R_A_Whan
Submit to First Page Friday
If you’d like to submit your novel for First Page Friday, please send the following to ellenbrock@keytopservices.com:
The name you want me to use in the blog post (real name, alias, or anonymous).
The genre of your novel.
The first 500 words (give or take, don’t stop in the middle of a sentence) pasted into the body of the email.
Any links (Twitter, Blog, Goodreads, etc.) that you’d like included in the post (not required).
Please do not submit if you are not okay with your first page being posted, critiqued, and edited on my website.
About the Editor
Ellen Brock (AKA The Writeditor) is a freelance novel editor who works with self-publishing and traditionally publishing authors as well as e-publishers and small presses. She owns the editing company Keytop Services and the writing and editing blog The Writeditor. When not editing, she enjoys reading, writing, and geocaching. Check out her freelance novel editing services.
Help First Page Friday be a Success! Please use the buttons below to share this post. The more views, the more submissions, the more First Page Fridays!
If you read my post on using find and replace to edit your novel, you know that I’m all about easy ways to pretty up your prose!
There are certain writing tips and tricks that get shoved around a lot: showings vs. telling, info dumps, and purple prose, for example. But there’s another big one that’s often ignored: filtering.
Filtering is when you “filter” the novel through the character’s senses, creating an extra layer of distance between the reader and the story.
There are a lot of filtering words, but here are the big ones.
Filtering Words
Saw
Heard
Felt
Tasted
Knew
Thought
Realized
If you’ve never heard of filtering, you might be thinking, I use these words all the time! Unfortunately, filtering is something widely known among industry professionals (it can be a red flag that work is amateur), but it’s much less known to aspiring authors.
Let’s look at an example of text with filtering:
Tina heard a deep grown and felt breath on the back of her neck. She knew the monster was too close, and she realized the door was too far for her to get away. Her mouth tasted dry and metallic with fear, and she could feel her heart thumping against her ribs. As she turned, she saw big drops of monster spit all over the ground and knew she was done for.
The problem with all of this filtering is that it stops the reader from putting themselves in the character’s place because they are constantly reminded of their distance from the events. It’s Tina who heard the noise, not the reader. It’s Tina who tasted the fear.
So what would this look like if filtering were eliminated? There are lots of ways to get rid of filtering, and they all require you to stretch your creative muscle. Here’s one possible rewrite:
There was a deep growl and hot breath sprayed against the back of Tina’s neck. The monster was close. Too close. She squinted in the darkness, but the door was at least fifteen feet away. She’d never make it. A dry, metallic taste filled her mouth, and her heart thumped against her ribs. She turned and the toe of her shoe dipped into a puddle of monster spit. She was done for. There was no way she’d make it out now.
Do you notice how much closer you feel to the action in this second version? Do you see how much more heavily it relies on showing instead of telling?
Eliminating filtering words is an easy way to improve your writing right now.
Thanks so much to everyone who submitted to the trick or treat contest. It was fun getting a glimpse of your projects!
Please keep in mind that query letters are very subjective. I left a critique of each query letter in the comments section. If you want to get a better idea of how I came to my conclusions, you can read those comments here.
And now, without further ado…the winners!
Grand Prize Winner – Free 25k Word Edit
Tobie Easton!
What I like about Tobie’s query is that it has a strong voice, is easy to follow, and clearly indicates the central conflict. Nice job, Tobie!
Second Place – Free 10k Word Edit
R. A. Whan!
This was decided via a random number generator. R. A. Whan will also be featured in First Page Friday next Friday, November 8th.
Third Place – Free 5k Word Edit
Kai Strand!
This was also decided via a random number generator.
Participants – Free 1k Word Edit
As a thank you for competing, all participants will get a free edit of their first 1k words.
How to Redeem Your Prize
Prizes must be redeemed within one year. You may schedule your edit in advance or simply send it to me to edit it as soon as possible. I will try my best to get to 1k and 5k word edits before the end of the year, but the 10k and 25k will take at least until January. Send your work as a .doc attachment to my email: ellenbrock@keytopservices.com
First Page Friday is a new section on The Writeditor’s blog. Every Friday I will provide an in-depth edit and critique of the first 500 words of an unpublished novel.
Please read the chapter without my notes and record your feedback in the poll before moving on to my critique. This really helps the author. Thanks!
First Page Friday Edit & Critique
Dark Romance First 500 – By Tom Orchard-Webb
Timothy Deakin’s corpse floated through emptiness in an eternity of nothing. His disconnected mind awakened at the touch of ephemeral beauty materialising above him. Uncertain whether he was the dreaming dead or dreaming of death, his senses returned as her naked body slid over his. She kissed his lips and stroked his cheeks. Her golden hair, which blasted away the darkness with the force of a supernova, tickled his ghostly skin. She rested her head on his chest and listened… Thud, thud, thud… The joy on her lips was clear, yet tears began to rain down her face.
Tim opened his eyes. She was gone.
§§§
The stench of sterility overcame Tim’s regard for hospital rules, finding both safety matches and pack of Marlboro Reds in the large chest pocket of his oversized, olive green German Army smock. He flicked his mop of greasy chestnut hair from his glazed hazel eyes and found himself confronted by a poster depicting tar-coated lungs on the wall opposite to the wooden bench on which he slouched. He snortled, striking the sulphurous head of the match against the sand and powdered glass stripe in a blaze of white phosphorous. He sucked in a lungful of toxic bliss. The hot smoke in the cool hallway was as inwardly refreshing as a cold beer in summer. His eyes fixed on the burning match, the flame crawling along the stick toward his blackened fingernails, like a slug hungry for cabbage. Gradually, it began to transform before his eyes, until the flame rippled as orange water. Sounds and voices lost all clarity. The pressure in his head and lungs made it seem as though a mysterious hand were drowning him in a bathtub. He realised he was holding his breath. Gasping suddenly and violently, the world slowly returned to how it had always really been.
‘Ah!’ he cried, the slug finally biting him. The flame died as the match fell from his fingers and landed on his battered jeans – battered by use, not design. He rubbed the blackness in, just another stain among stains, allowing the tiny unburned stub drop to the floor.
Against his shoulder, the prodding of sweaty, trembling digits burst the invisible bubble of his internal world. His body jerked away and his hand automatically reached for the knife concealed in his side pocket.
The young man leapt back, cat-like. ‘Sorry!’ he yelped. Tim’s defence mechanisms returned to DEFCON 5 at the sight of the smooth face with tomato-red cheeks. The green-robed boy dabbed his brow with his glabrous forearm. ‘I didn’t mean to, um–’
‘How the fuck are you working here?’ Tim interrupted, slurring his words. He picked at the long hairs on his chin.
According to the photo ID card dangling around his flushed neck, the boy’s name was Bradley. ‘Excuse me?’
‘I thought you needed, like, a million qualifications to work in healthcare.’ Tim belched out the bubbling gas in his stomach. ‘You look younger than me, and I’m EIGHTEEN,’ he half-shouted, half-sang, ‘I get confused every day!’
Reader Participation – What Do You Think?
Before reading my take on this novel opening, please take a moment to record your thoughts in the poll below.
Your thoughtful critiques and suggestions for the writer are also welcome in the comments section. Explaining your vote gives the author even more insight into where they’re hitting the mark and where they can improve.
The Writeditor’s Feedback
Critique Key
Original Text is in italics.
Red is text I recommend removing.
Green is text I recommend adding.
Blue are my comments.
Dark Romance First 500 – By Tom Orchard-Webb
On the first read-through, I was immediately distracted by all the adjectives, so I decided to mark them in orange. This is not to say that they are all non-essential. Some of them are necessary and should definitely be kept, but I think it can be very powerful to color code an author’s text so they can see how often certain words, phrases, or parts of speech are used.
Timothy Deakin’s corpse floated through emptiness in an eternity of nothing. His disconnected mind awakened at the touch of ephemeral beauty materialising above him. Uncertain whether he was the dreaming dead or dreaming of death, his senses returned as her naked body slid over his. < As the reader, we know he is a corpse because you told us in the first sentence. But dead people don’t dream. So this sets me up to expect a paranormal. If this is not supposed to be paranormal, then you’re not setting the right tone. She kissed his lips and stroked his cheeks. Her golden hair, which blasted away the darkness with the force of a supernova, tickled his ghostly skin. She rested her head on his chest and listened… Thud, thud, thud… The joy on her lips was clear, yet tears began to rain down her face.
Tim opened his eyes. She was gone.< Opening with a dream or anything that seems like a dream is considered a cliche and is likely to get you rejected.
§§§
The stench of sterility overcame Tim’s regard for hospital rules, finding both safety matches < The way this is written, it basically means that the stench of sterility found the safety matches. and pack of Marlboro Reds in the large chest pocket of his oversized, olive greenGerman Army smock. He flicked his mop of greasy chestnut hair from his glazed hazel eyes < This is third person limited, which means that it’s being told from the perspective of Tim, which means that he can’t see his own hair and eyes to describe them. Consequentially, this immediately pulls the reader backwards out of the story and away from your protagonist. and found himself confronted by a poster depicting tar-coated lungs on the wall opposite to the wooden bench on which he slouched. < This sentence feels a bit like attack of the adjectives. Focus in on the most important descriptions and drop the rest. He snortled, striking the sulphurous head of the match against the sand and powdered glass stripe in a blaze of white phosphorous. < Two problems with this sentence: 1. It implies that his snort had something to do with striking the match. 2. It is overly complicated. There’s nothing wrong with simply saying that he struck the match. He sucked in a lungful of toxic bliss. The hot smoke in the cool hallway was as inwardly refreshing as a cold beer in summer. His eyes fixed on the burning match, the flame crawling along the stick toward his blackened fingernails, like a slug hungry for cabbage.< I’d drop this analogy because it isn’t needed. Gradually, it began to transform before his eyes, until the flame rippled as orange water. Sounds and voices lost all clarity. The pressure in his head and lungs made it seem as though a mysterious hand were drowning him in a bathtub. < The purpose of analogies is to clarify a difficult to grasp concept with something concrete that readers can understand. Since readers probably have not had the experience of a mysterious hand drowning them in the bathtub, it actually adds complexity rather than clarity. Keep it simple like: “as though he were being held underwater.” The “mysterious hand” bit doesn’t convey anything. He realised he was holding his breath. Gasping suddenly and violently, the world slowly< There are three adverbs here almost in a row. Go very, very easy on adverbs. returned to how it had always really been normal. < Keep your word choices simple. “Normal” conveys the same thing in 1/6th of the words.
‘Ah!’ he cried, the slug finally biting him. The flame died as the match fell from his fingers and landed on his battered jeans – battered by use, not design. He rubbed the blackness in, just another stain among stains, allowing the tiny unburned stub to drop to the floor. < It’s not clear to me what was going on with this match and cigarette. Was it drugging him in some way? Why was he losing touch with reality and not breathing?
Against his shoulder, the prodding of sweaty, trembling digits burst the invisible bubble of his internal world. < Can he really feel that the fingers are sweaty? This is outside his viewpoint. His body jerked away and his hand automatically reached for the knife concealed in his side pocket.
The young man leapt back, cat-like. ‘Sorry!’ he yelped. Tim’s defence mechanisms returned to DEFCON 5 at the sight of the smooth face with tomato-red cheeks. The green-robed boy dabbed his brow with his glabrous forearm. ‘I didn’t mean to, um–’
‘How the fuck are you working here?’ Tim interrupted, slurring his words. He picked at the long hairs on his chin. < Picking at hairs on his chin is hard for me to visualize. Is he rubbing a beard? Or pulling stray hairs?
According to the photo ID card dangling around his flushed neck, the boy’s name was Bradley. ‘Excuse me?’ < It’s not clear who is saying this.
‘I thought you needed, like, a million qualifications to work in healthcare.’ Tim belched out the bubbling gas in his stomach. ‘You look younger than me, and I’m EIGHTEEN,’ < Avoid all caps.he half-shouted, half-sang, ‘I get confused every day!’ < This reaction is confusing to me. Is he high/drunk from the flame/cigarette?
My Overall Thoughts
You have some nice and interesting descriptions, but they’re often just a bit too heavy handed. Sometimes striking a match is just striking a match and needs no further explanation. I felt a little confused about what sort of mood you were trying to set, and my brain couldn’t settle on any genre: Paranormal? Fantasy? Drama about a drug addict and/or psychotic person?
Key Places to Improve:
Nix the opening. Is it a dream? A prologue? A glimpse into the future? It’s not clear, and it didn’t reel me in. On top of that, opening with anything dream like is considered cliche.
Give Tim something to do. Sitting and smoking a cigarette isn’t a very interesting place to start. Novels should open with the character doing something of interest: being proactive, facing a conflict, etc.
Go easy on the adjectives. We don’t need to know the color, texture, etc., of everything in the story. At this point, readers aren’t pulled into the story enough to care, and there’s no context with which to judge anything. Tim’s hair is greasy – Does this mean he’s dirty or is his hair just naturally greasy? We don’t know, so it has no real meaning.
Stay tighter on Tim’s point of view. Think critically about what Tim would be seeing. Even though third limited isn’t quite as close as first person, you still shouldn’t be describing things he can’t see or wouldn’t know: like that his eyes look glazed over or that Bradley’s fingers were sweaty. These things pull the readers out of the story and away from Tim, which is the last thing you want on your first page.
The Writeditor’s Grade (out of 5): 2
While I think you’re probably starting this story in the wrong place (most likely too early), I do see potential in your writing. If the query letter intrigued me, I might give this another few hundred words to catch my interest, but no more than that. The heavy use of adjectives is likely to scare off agents/editors who will see this as a big editing project.
I think you’ve got a nice writing voice in you that’s trying too hard to get out and be heard. As a result, you’re using adjectives and analogies where they aren’t needed and you’re not being as clear as you could be.
A note on the grading scale: The rating of the first chapter does not indicate the rating of the novel as a whole nor does it indicate the writer’s overall ability.
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About the Editor
Ellen Brock (AKA The Writeditor) is a freelance novel editor who works with self-publishing and traditionally publishing authors as well as e-publishers and small presses. She owns the editing company Keytop Services and the writing and editing blog The Writeditor. When not editing, she enjoys reading, writing, and geocaching. Check out her freelance novel editing services.
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