For the first time in not nearly enough years, Braeden could see the house in which he grew up. Through the ice laden pine boughs as they reflected the light of an almost full moon, he spied its crumbling chimney and rusted weathervane. He was still some distance away but he could hear that weathervane creaking horribly in his head. The car rumbled beneath him adn his palms began to feel slick against the faux blue leather wheel. That house with its chimney and weathervane, with it's sparse lawn imprisoned by a stark chainlink fence were all of them in the settings of his darkest nightmares. Scenes full of black silhouettes haloed against the yellow glow of dying bulbs, running toward him with the speed that for some reason only the violent can attain.
This is a preview of my first chapter. I have written 68 thousand words and am in the process of editing yet again. I would love to know what people think and if they would like to read more.
Posted by WB (Member # 10414) on :
The first paragraph is free. I would like to know why he's there and what he's afraid of, up front.
Minor bits: it's->its creaking horribly -- I don't know what this means stark chain-link fence, were... Scenes full of black silhouettes -- I'm not sure what is happening here
So for me, I'd want more clarity. I just don't know what's going on, and would feel frustrated at this.
Posted by MattLeo (Member # 9331) on :
Watch for commas; when they start piling up ask yourself (1) is this comma really necessary? and (b) is this comma telling me I've got an overcomplicated sentence structure?
For example try saying this one out loud:
quote:Through the ice laden pine boughs as they reflected the light of an almost full moon, he spied its crumbling chimney and rusted weathervane.
Putting such a ginormous adverbial phrase at the front of the sentence sounds a bit unwieldy. Or maybe that's just me; perhaps others here would disagree? For me at least parsing is getting in the way of picturing, and I'm really good at parsing. There should be a hyphen in "ice-laden", by the way; this clarifies that it is a single concept acting as an adjective with "pine boughs".
Here's a place where you are actually short a comma:
quote:That house with its chimney and weathervane, with it's sparse lawn imprisoned by a stark chainlink fence [comma here] were all of them in the settings of his darkest nightmares.
Here you have two prepositional phrases, and both of them should be set off with commas. Again the syntax may be more convoluted than is ideal, which is probably why you missed the subject-verb agreement problem. Strictly speaking the verb "were" refers back to a singular subject "that house"; grammatically the verb should be singular. But notice that "was", while grammatically correct, does not convey what you intend. You're trying to include in the lawn, fence, chimney etc in the subject, so you need to arrange the sentence so the grammar does that too.
And the same goes for this:
quote:Scenes full of black silhouettes haloed against the yellow glow of dying bulbs, running toward him with the speed that for some reason only the violent can attain.
Here you've got a classic case of dangling modifier; it's the participle phrase "running toward him with the speed that form some reason only the violent can attain." Here's why that dangles: it's not immediately clear just by grammar whether it's the bulbs, silhouettes, or scenes that are doing the running. The reader has to pause for a split second to consider that it makes marginally more sense for silhouettes to be running, although the fact that silhouettes can't literally run makes our job as reader harder.
What you're attempting here is to give the scene atmosphere, which is a worthy goal, but you're doing it by tacking purplish auxiliary clauses and phrases onto your sentences. I'd consider experimentally rewriting this opening to have a lighter, more deft touch. Don't pull out quite so many stops on your rhetorical pipe-organ and use simpler, more conventional sentences. See how you like the results, and if they're too plain for you add some of the bells and whistles back.
One of the things I like to see in an opening is confident writing. Over the years I've tried to deconstruct what I mean by that, and I think it's this: don't make it so obvious that you're trying to hit the ball out of the park. Make what you do look easy. Of course that's actually hard to do. One thing that helps is making things as easy as possible for the reader; then he won't notice that you're working on him.
Congratulations on your 68K word count by the way. I'm assuming this is a first novel. Do you have a complete first draft?
Posted by Grumpy old guy (Member # 9922) on :
The could's in the first and third sentences kill this opening for me; they pull me right out of the story. Perhaps I'm just getting picky in my dotage, but the word could destroys all the imagery you're trying to create.
Could is a tell, not a show. I bet you could re-cast those three opening sentences so that we, the readers, are closer to the action, such as it is, as it unfolds.
As Braeden pushed aside the low hanging pine branches . . .
Just a suggestion.
Phil.
Posted by T. Griffin (Member # 10411) on :
Your descriptions are, for the most part, a strength, but like Phil said, you could definitely make the action more immediate at several points.
A few other things: The first sentence bothers me. Something about "in not nearly enough years". It cuts against the grain.
You keep returning to the chimney and the weather vane. This may be purposeful, but it begins to feel redundant. This is a long-form work, so you don't have to hit your three foreshadowing mentions in the first half-page.
quote: running toward him with the speed that for some reason only the violent can attain.
Why "for some reason"? It all feels wordy. Could try "Running toward him with a violent speed" or "running toward him with the speed of violence." Feel free to ignore those suggestions, but paragraph endings are important. You don't want to hedge.
Posted by Scot (Member # 10427) on :
The paragraph is starting to get moody. And starting towards a reason for being there. But as someone mentioned earlier, I'm not sure how long it's going to take before I know what's going on. So that makes me hesitant to say I'd keep reading. And if editors/agents are swamped like they say, you might want to at least suggest more about what's going to be at stake here. I know (?) he had a bad childhood at this place, but what specifically was bad? And why specifically is he going back if he loathes it so much? I understand playing things out slowly, but I don't think you should delay on that particular set of details. And if you tell me what's up, I'll have a better sense of why this place is creepsville.
As far as the text itself goes, I'd consider a paragraph break when it shifts from concrete description to his internal experiences.