posted
Dark Empyrean. Fantasy. Working on rewrite, no idea of how many words but 24 chapters down. It's really hard to pick out 13 lines from it (laughs) hope these grab your attention. If you read this on the back of a book would you pick it up to read?
[sample - 13 lines] 'Remember the pain and humiliation that waits for you if they catch you', the demon hissed as it drifted up closer to the struggling soul. It's body resembled that of a panther crouched low to the ground. 'Don't you want this suffering to end?' Banner swallowed, his hands lowered shaking to his side, his dirty fingernails turned purple by the cold. 'It's only one step. Just let go and it will finally be over. Just one more step.' The demons head rose up behind the man, gold orbs glowing, the head outline by four twisting horns. Banner's hands grew still, he smiled slightly closing his eyes.
“Forgive me,” he whispered and stepped towards the blinding lights. The demon grinned, it's snake like tongue flicking behind sharp fanged teeth as the man took his last slow step
[This message has been edited by SheaRyhai (edited May 19, 2010).]
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited May 19, 2010).]
Bleh this is not the actual opening. This is just what I thought would be an interesting (13 lines) place to start with. The POV does ****, that's simply the way I write. It was not in Banner's POV in this excerpt however, it was the demons, but again your missing the part before this. Most of the things pointed out by Nick would be explained simply by reading the first part of the chapter (mind you more then the first 13 lines). So either I should just skip the idea of trying to snag anyone with thirteen lines or enter the first paragraph and hope it works.
*shrug* First attempt either way. Thanks for the feedback.
[This message has been edited by SheaRyhai (edited May 19, 2010).]
posted
The point of view seems to be all over the place. Banner can't possibly see the demon behind him. I'm assuming he's the person the demon is enticing. I don't have a good sense if Banner is standing or lying down or whatever.
There are things going on that confuse the reader. Perhaps that's because this is a fragment of the story rather than an opening to the story or to a chapter.
posted
Hi, Most of the time agents, editors, etc. want to read a story opening. They want to see if you can create an opening that’s good enough to get them to read on because that’s how your typical reader operates. Beginnings are important because most stories get rejected within 1 page. No one’s going to get this far into your story if you’re opening is no good. Apart from this, judging an excerpt is impossible because we lack context. I don’t have as much reason to care as much as someone who has read through the whole book does, because I don’t know anything about Banner. Perhaps he’s a jerk who should die. I don’t know. As a back cover blurb, I don’t think it works because back cover blurbs work by giving potential buyers the essential conflict. How often do you see more than one or two lines from the novel on the back cover? Back covers boil down the story, not the writing style. I have no idea what kind of story this is from this excerpt apart from the fact it’s fantasy and it features demons. For me, this isn’t enough to buy the book. It’s like watching a random 10 seconds of a movie as opposed to 10 seconds of a movie trailer. If you start at the beginning, we are placed on equal footing with your hypothetical reader. Onto the excerpt itself:
quote:'Remember the pain and humiliation that waits for you if they catch you', the demon hissed as it drifted up closer to the struggling soul.
A person quirk of mine, but it’s very hard to hiss words like “pain” and “humiliation”. “Said” works just as well. Given you’ve described the demon as a “crouching panther”, the “up” doesn’t make sense. Either cut it or give us more description so that we can visualize how the demon can both resemble a crouching panther while still floating through the void.
quote:It's body resembled that of a panther crouched low to the ground.
It’s means “it is”. You want the possessive form, its. Unfortunately, English is illogical. “Crouched” implies it is low. I suggest simply saying “Its body resembled a crouching panther”.
quote:The demons head rose up behind the man, gold orbs glowing, the head outline by four twisting horns.
As pointed out previously, it is a POV violation for Banner to be able to see the demon when it’s behind him. “Demons” should have a possessive apostrophe, i.e. “demon’s head” (told you English was illogical). “Orbs” is overwriting when the perfectly serviceable “eyes” is available. “outline” should be in the past participle form, “outlined”. I’d also suggest making it “active” by ensuring that it’s the horns doing the outlining, i.e. “Four twisting horns outlined its head.”
quote:The demon grinned, it's snake like tongue flicking behind sharp fanged teeth as the man took his last slow step
Because you haven’t given us more detail than “panther-like”, the grinning doesn’t work for me. Panthers can’t really grin. The “it’s” should be “its” as you’re using the possessive form. Because we’re (presumably) in Banner’s POV, it’s a technical violation to refer to him as “the man”. He wouldn’t think of himself this way. Not a big deal, but consistent POV immersion really helps the reader experience over a full-length novel. Posts: 712 | Registered: Jun 2008
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The idea of the feedback sections is generally to replicate what a slush reader/agent will receive when you’re trying to get something published. They all start at the beginning and you don’t have much time to hook them. That’s why we start at the beginning.
Regardless of whether an excerpt is the start, middle or end, they need to stand on their own if we’re to judge them. I’d think the only exception (and KDW can correct me) is when you’re having difficulty with a specific non-opening and you set the rules for us, so we know how to shape our feedback, i.e. “This is an important scene in my novel and I’m worried that POV isn’t clear.” We can then judge it on its merits. We can’t properly judge excerpts because we haven’t read the preceding chapters and that makes the whole point of putting feedback up a bit useless.
The default assumption is that you’re writing from deep 3rd POV because that’s the most commercial POV nowadays (along with deep 1st). The excerpt doesn’t provide any clear evidence that you’re operating in omniscient POV or cinematic POV, so it looks like you’ve committed POV violations or slips from either character viewpoints. Operating on the assumption that you’re writing in deep 3rd, the problem with this section being the demon’s POV is that it’s strongly implied throughout that the POV is Banner’s. If it’s the Demon’s POV, then the following make it seem as if we’re in Banner’s POV when we’re actually not:
quote:'Remember the pain and humiliation that waits for you if they catch you', the demon hissed as it drifted up closer to the struggling soul.
The demon should have a name for itself and generally it would call itself by its name (say, “Nick”). As such, the sentence becomes:
quote: 'Remember the pain and humiliation that waits for you if they catch you', Nick hissed as it drifted up closer to the struggling soul.
While this isn’t a biggie, using the same name as how the POV character would think of themselves makes it clear that we’re in the demon’s POV. That way, it doesn’t seem like a POV violation when the demon looks at the back of Banner’s head. Another note is that it’s difficult to write true gender-neutral creatures. Since the demon presumably thinks of itself as “he” (or some kind of equivalent gender), then you can use “he” rather than “it”. “It” only becomes useful if we’re in Banner’s POV and he isn’t sure of the demon’s gender.
quote: It's body resembled that of a panther crouched low to the ground.
From our own viewpoints, we rarely think of ourselves in terms of external description. Rather, we have self concepts (i.e. I’m a funny guy, I’m a smart guy, I’m an athlete, etc.) For the POV demon to think of itself in terms of external description without some motivating stimulus doesn’t make sense and strongly implies that it’s actually Banner looking at the demon rather than the demon thinking about its own appearance.
quote:The demons head rose up behind the man, gold orbs glowing, the head outline by four twisting horns.
As above, this is all unlikely self-description if you’re writing from the demon’s POV. The “glowing orbs” are particularly indicative of Banner’s viewpoint because they are (presumably) temporary (i.e. they’re unlikely to form self-image) and can only be seen from the outside.
posted
Yeah, unfortunately, this is just not working for me. To answer your question: no, I wouldn't be interested in the book if that was on the back of it. Pov knowledge is essential. And we need to know how the book starts. Let us see that!
Posts: 14 | Registered: Jun 2010
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