Hatrack River Writers Workshop: original intro

This is topic original intro in forum Fragments and Feedback for Short Works at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by adamatom (Member # 8840) on :

Dr. Barbara Taylor was an environmental activist specializing in water ecology. Her husband was an FBI agent specializing in terrorism. Robert Ford had no interest in environmental issues, so he usually declined when Barbara offered to talk about her work. But he came home one day to a stack of newspaper articles on the coffee table and a concerned look on his wife’s face. She unloaded as soon as he walked in the door.

“Strange things have happened to a group of corporate executives over the last few years. They've committed suicide, gone insane, lost large parts of their memories, disappeared, or abruptly resigned. They were making bids for privatization of water utilities or purchase of large bodies of water. The same thing has happened to several CEOs, news directors, or

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited November 23, 2009).]

Posted by Meredith (Member # 8368) on :

quote:
Dr. Barbara Taylor was an environmental activist specializing in water ecology. Her husband was an FBI agent specializing in terrorism. Robert Ford had no interest in environmental issues, so he usually declined when Barbara offered to talk about her work. But he came home one day to a stack of newspaper articles on the coffee table and a concerned look on his wife’s face. She unloaded as soon as he walked in the door.

This is a summary. You're telling us who your characters are, not showing us. The story really starts somewhere around the next to last sentence. Work their jobs and interests in later.

quote:
“Strange things have happened to a group of corporate executives over the last few years. They've committed suicide, gone insane, lost large parts of their memories, disappeared, or abruptly resigned. They were making bids for privatization of water utilities or purchase of large bodies of water. The same thing has happened to several CEOs, news directors, or programming directors of major media companies the last few months. If this is deliberate, I'd be one of the suspects."

This doesn't read like something an actual person would say. Maybe something they'd write in a report, but not what they'd say. She needs to convey more urgency if she's really worried about this.

Also, in my opinion, you should break it up a bit, make it more of a conversation and less of a monologue.

JMO.

Something like this:

quote:

Bob came in late and stopped short when he saw the pile of newspapers on the dining room table, just where his dinner plate ought to be about now. Barb knew he didn't like to discuss her work--especially on an empty stomach.
"What's all this?" he asked.
"You're the FBI agent. You tell me."
He scanned the first few articles. CEOs of major companies who had committed suicide, gone insane, lost large parts of their memories, disappeared, or abruptly resigned over the last few years. He couldn't see a pattern to it.
"Coincidence," he said, looking up at her.
"Is it? All of them were involved in major water deals, buying up water utilities or water rights on large bodies of water. I know. I opposed every one of those deals."
If it was a pattern and anyone in the Bureau was looking into it, Barb would be a prime suspect.

[This message has been edited by Meredith (edited November 22, 2009).]

Posted by adamatom (Member # 8840) on :

Meredith, they were right about you, you put me on the right path. If I were a publisher and you were applying for an editing job, you'd beat the rest of the pack. If I were an editor and saw your name on a manuscript, I'd move it to the top of the slush. I've seen a lot of rewrites of a lot of intros, my material and others' material, and you've offered the best I've seen yet. Seriously, you've got the right stuff.

[This message has been edited by adamatom (edited November 22, 2009).]

Posted by Meredith (Member # 8368) on :

You're welcome. Glad to have helped.

Posted by Merlion-Emrys (Member # 7912) on :

Told ya.

Posted by adamatom (Member # 8840) on :

I see. It's journalism style, not literature style. Is nonfiction sydrome on the Turkey List?

Posted by tchernabyelo (Member # 2651) on :

Journalism style is a very good way of putting it. I read and enjoyed journalist-turned-novelist Sparkle Hayter's Robin Hudson books (The Last Manly Man, Revenge of the Cootie Girls, etc) but when I read a couple of her other books (Naked Brunch, Bandit Queen Boogie) I literally couldn't finish them, the writing annoyed me that much. Why such a marked difference? It took me a little while to work out but when I did it the answer was obvious. The Robin Hudson books were written in the first person, so we had the filter of a narrator, and if she "told" us something instead of showing us it didn't really matter because it was a narrator with a distinct viewpoint telling us the information. But the other books were written in third person and the POV was basically that of a journalist - so information was constantly being reported to the reader in a journalistic style (not just descriptive information but important character and plot information). It didn't read like a story any more, it read like a newspaper article and a newspaper article is not (hopefully!) fiction.

I'm certainly not suggesting that all stories should be written in first person POV. But writing the same material in third and first is a very very useful exercise in seeing how voice carries and enhances information. The moment you are in first person, you are seeing through a character's eyes, and what they choose to tell you and how they choose to tell it becomes important information about character. I have some (unpublished) stories that feature two alternating first person viewpoints, and it's integral to the storytelling to do that as you get to see each character's own filtering of events and each character's internal view of the other, which IMO adds a huge amount of depth to what's going on around them. In general, I tend to use a fairly deep and limiting 3rd person POV for most non-1st stories because it can simulate much of the benefits of 1st person but allows for a certain level of distance (e.g. you still have to guess, sometimes, why the character did something, rather than have them spell it out in their thoughts).

Posted by adamatom (Member # 8840) on :

In my first novel, I used 4 POVs, all of whom interact a lot in the story. Namely the 4 main characters journals. I posted several chapters and didn't not get positive feedback about this strategy.

Posted by satate (Member # 8082) on :

I don't think Tchern means to switch POV's in the same story, that's almost never done, but simply as an exercise write the same scene in first person, then limited third person, using the same character. By POV he doesn't mean a different character in the story.

Posted by Architectus (Member # 8809) on :

Many novels today are written in multiple third person. Enders Game, anyone? Pretty much anything by King, Koontz, McCammon.

Adama, this sort of reminds me of Chinetown, that old flick.

I would probably take a slightly different approach. I'd want to set up the scene as much as possible as well as get to the point.

This is just how I would do it.

Robert Ford came home late after a hard day's work at the Bureau and tossed his keys onto the dining table, where they slid into a stack of newspaper articles. Because he specialized in terrorism, the headlines caught his attention. CEO's abruptly resigned, committed suicide, lost large chunks of memory, disappeared, or gone insane.

Barbara shot up from the sofa as a panther that had waited patiently to attack. She picked up a small stack of articles, and while talking, she flicked them at Robert, one by one. "He made a bid for privatizing water utilities. She purchased a large body of water." Flick. "The same thing with him, her, and him." Flick, flick, flick.

There goes his relaxing night.