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Hi all. This is my 13 line submission from the novel I'm working on. It's hovering around 70,000 words. I'm not sure whether it's more ideal for contemporary fiction or YA.
I'm not sure what you can glean from this tiny snippet, but I'm interested in knowing if you want to read more.
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The ‘buffering’ screen resolved into a headshot of a guy in his early twenties. He had his head angled away from the camera, as though he feared it. “Ohmigod, look at him, Riki! He’s so cute! Isn’t he cute?” I thought Tonia might combust from excitement. She bounced on her toes in the skin-tight, low-rise jeans she wore to attract Zach Wallace’s attention, though why she wanted his attention was beyond me. Zach Wallace was an idiot. So was Tonia. The video was halfway done, and I hadn’t heard a word of it over my co-worker’s squeals. “Tonia,” I said through locked teeth. “Could you please be quiet.” “Right,” she said, taking several deep breaths, and fanning her face. “Okay. Here.” She handed me her screen and I got my first real look at the famous Jesse. The vid had paused on him mid-word, his expression frozen in that flattering
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I keep reading. I'm not sure how much you should be expected to accomplish in 13 lines. Nothing has happened yet, though I suspect the next line solves that problem.
Did you want to spend that much time on what I suspect is a secondary character? I do not know what a buffer screen is.
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I would keep reading: enjoying the tone; conversation seems lively.
Buffering might only be familiar to those of us who remember awful 90s internet connections, or are still living with dire old ADSL <sigh>.
As Emma notes, I don't have a sense of the story arc yet. And the title doesn't inspire me personally... But it's a novel, not a short story, so I would expect a slower start.
I'd be happy to do an exchange -- i.e. mutual feedback if you're up for it. Feel free to email me chapter 1 if you'd like to do this.
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Starts are the most difficult aspect of writing; nothing precedes them, everything follows on from them and you only get this one moment to convince your readers to read on. It seems like an impossible task.
For me, in this instance, you have the right idea with this opening. Everything is there, yet it all fails in the execution in my opinion. Thus, I am not engaged as a reader. But I oh-so could be.
The first thing a writer must do is grab hold of the reader’s interest. To do this the writer must write an opening which, in a word, is interesting. The writer has at their disposal a raft of tools with which to do this: a bit of connivance , a touch of humour, the promise of love, a taste of drama, the allure of a mystery to unfold or, perhaps, the promise of a little swash and buckle action to come. The point is, you don’t have to dive right in (and you haven’t) in order to engage with a reader; you just need to be interesting. And you have been.
In the submitted fragment you engaged my interest with a small mystery: Who are these people, what are they watching, despite the buffering, and why is this guy, Jesse, who Tonia thinks is so cute, famous? The reason I am engaged is that this mystery seems able to be quickly solved; some of it within the following paragraph or two, the rest perhaps a little later--but not too much later I would hope.
The second thing, and I’m not too sure at this moment whether I place more weight on this aspect of writing or on simply being interesting, but you engaged me on a memory/emotion level. This may take a bit of explanation, so bear with me. It isn’t enough just to be interesting, you need to connect with a memory/emotion image in the reader’s mind which is instantaneous and vivid. Take Tonia, for instance. While she is a blatant stereotypical cliché, we have all met real people just like her and we can all instantly recognise her ‘type’ without any conscious effort. But the real clincher which connects me with the main character is this fragment: “She bounced on her toes in the skin-tight, low-rise jeans she wore to attract Zach Wallace’s attention, though why she wanted his attention was beyond me. Zach Wallace was an idiot. So was Tonia.”
This is exactly what I would think, and in just the way I would think it. All things considered, this alone would be enough to hook me--for the moment. But to keep me engaged you would have to maintain the connection.
Now, what doesn’t work for me.
Here’s the thing about writing which most people starting out don’t realise, it’s damn hard work. If you want to be taken seriously as a writer you must write with absolute clarity; every word must be there for a reason, must have a clear purpose and must mean exactly what it says. Example: “‘buffering’ screen”. What is this, exactly? I grew up in the good old days of the dial-up Internet connection, so I am intimately familiar with ‘buffering’. Also, here in the Land of Oz, in the last world cup soccer tournament, it was only available on pay TV. The station hadn’t purchased enough bandwidth and enduring buffering for 6 hours becomes tedious. The point is, is this a download progress bar, a pop-up, an app or something else? The same thing goes for: “She handed me her screen . . .”. What type of screen? A mobile phone, an iPad or maybe something else. Clarity. These are the things which will ruin a god read. I know it sounds petty, but people pay editors good money to find this sort of stuff in their manuscripts.
A good start, but I think it could be better. Hope this helps.
quote: The ‘buffering’ screen resolved into a headshot of a guy in his early twenties.
Too many people won’t know what a “buffering screen,” is. I’m a logic designer, and for me, data buffers, screens don’t. So why not drop the word and keep everyone happy?
quote: He had his head angled away from the camera, as though he feared it.
Given that the reader has no idea of where we are or what’s going on, we don’t know why the protagonist concludes this. It’s a photo of someone looking away from the camera. Why would that indicate fear?
quote:“Ohmigod, look at him, Riki! He’s so cute! Isn’t he cute?”
A new speaker or change of subject rates a new paragraph.
And: If we don’t know who’s speaking, what that person thinks they’re looking at, and why, we have the words, yes, but not the context to make them meaningful.
Who are we? Dunno. Where are we in time and space? You don’t say. What’s going on? Not a clue. But if the protagonist is to be my avatar, shouldn’t I know the scene as they do, and be in their viewpoint?
Here’s the problem: Before you read the first word you place yourself into the scene as the protagonist, knowing what that character does. You know their history, their intent, their age, gender, situation, location, and what year it is. So as you read, each line points to images, situations, memories, and more, in your mind. And because you have all that it works and the scene lives.
But pity the poor reader. When they begin reading they have only what has gone before (and in this case nothing has gone before), and what the words suggest based on their background, not yours. So for the reader, each line points to images, situations, memories, and more, in your mind. And since you’re not there to explain when it’s read…
And while you might suggest that if the reader continues, all will be made clear, will they? If you begin to audition a book in the bookstore, and you find the opening confusing, will you continue, hoping that things will clarify (without assurance that they will), or will you turn to a story that pulls you in, immediately?
It’s not that you’re “making mistakes.” It’s as my favorite Mark Twain quote says: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” And we graduate our school days with a huge amount of “just ain’t so" because all the reports and essays we wrote there taught us to write reports and essays. They didn’t train us in the techniques and tricks of the professional fiction writer. For that, like every other profession, we must acquire the specialized knowledge of the pro. After all, if we’re not aware of the elements of a scene on the page, or what an acquiring editor is seeking, can we write an opening scene that will provide that?
My point is that it’s perfectly possible that you have the talent to become an amazing fiction writer. But first, just as you must train what talent you own for any profession, you need to dig into the tricks of ours.
My suggestion, as it so often is, is to dig through the local library’s fiction writing section and devour a half dozen books on the nuts and bolts issues of writing fiction that sings to the reader, so as to give your talent some tools to work with. And as I so often do, My advice is to seek the names, Dwight Swain, Jack Bickham, or Debra Dixon on the cover. They can help you replace the sturdy cart-horse we’re issued in our school days with Pegasus. And mounted on a flying beast, wh knows how far you’ll go?
But whatever you do, hang in there, and keep on writing. It keeps us off the streets at night.
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