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Chapter one:

Dominue Jenkins had sprung from his apartment and stolen a baby from outside of Andronicco’s Market. The responsibility had rested heavily on Dominue’s thin shoulders, but Dominue, generally a worried man, gave his police statement with confidence. Honest, artful, and easy. The statute of limitations had passed, and having been scared for so long and for so many reasons, Dominue’s words roared like a breached dam, “I am not pious, but in my keener, clearer days, I ride to the Methodist church down the street. You see, there is magic in people praying.”

Dominue had lost his sense of harmony. His very good viola teacher had showed him that in a pinch, a church service, one overflowing with joy and loveliness, can stand in for the harmony of playing in an orchestra. And harmony, or a stand in, made sights, smells, tastes, and people beautiful. At the kidnapping, Dominue was confused in harmony and his sense of religion, responsibility, and duty had followed. His mind in turmoil, his shoulders clenched and his brow set, Dominue had stolen a baby.

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I also think you're losing something by not showing the scene where he actually steals the baby... it has the potential to really hook the reader. Instead, you have a rushed little chunk of told narrative, and then you forget the action entirely (which I took to be the stealing of the baby) and jump into flashbacks about church and religion. Which, by the way, I still don't understand the relevance of.

It sounds like you have an interesting story here, but it's really suffering from a lack of clarity, and possibly a poor sense of when to "show" and when to "tell".

First: From who did he steal a baby outside the market? From someone he knew, didn't know? Any old baby that turned up? Before you go to far into the back story, be sure to cover the details that are relevant.

Second: The first sentence implies that this just happened. Then, the fourth says "statute of limitations" had passed... so, how long has it been since he stole a baby, and does this ever actually happen with a kidnapping case? It may be that in the world you are creating the laws are different. Regardless, the sense of time in this paragraph is confusing to me.

Also, I found several sentences confusing:

"Through harmony, or an alternative, Dominue found dignity in everyday events."

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. I hear that harmoniously playing his viola brings him a sense of harmony? So what? And when that doesn't work, there is an "alternative"? Why even bring it up?

"At the kidnapping, Dominue was confused in harmony..."

Again, some confusion here, how does one become confused in harmony? I think I know what you're trying to say... that he became maybe conflicted, but I don't think the word harmony belongs in this paragraph, much less this sentence.

The main idea, that he stole the baby, has the potential to hook me as a reader. However, the way it stands now, that interesting tidbit is lost in his lost harmony, and his viola, and the police statement, and the statute of limitation.

The first sentence is absolutely stunning. Literally. I almost jumped out of my seat reading it, it was so out of the blue. I want to read more.

Send whatever you've written here: jason@brokenimageband.com

EDIT - Now I've read some of the comments, and I have to say I disagree with most of them. If I want to know why he stole the baby, or what happened then, I will read more. The story is begging to be read. If I knew too much right away, I would get bored.

The next paragraph starts out feeling like a tangent...now all of a sudden we're talking about church and I don't see the onncetion, I'm afraid. I find myself wanting to know what happened with that baby. WHy'd he take it and what happened to it? These questions don't all have to be answered immediately, but I want to feel as if the answer is coming.

Now I'm going to read the other comments...

Not to belabor the point, but yes, this is a told scene as opposed to a shown one. I think I got confused because the first sentence grabbed me so much and almost did feel like showing...showing a baby getting kidnapped, but after that it is entirely narrative summary and loses interest.

A comment on Jericson's edited point: as I mentioned above, the problem isn't that you haven't shown us what's going on yet, it's that I don't have any faith that you will without taking me around into wild tangents first.

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Dominue said too much. He sounded ridiculous and naïve and the officer did not understand him, but for the first time in years, Dominue did not care. He told the truth, and the truth is rare in the telling. He left the station with a clear conscience and a clean criminal record, and as he walked down the stairs to the sidewalk and freedom, a profound nag stayed in his mind. He looked to the good people of Oakland strolling about the street and realized that kidnappers look like non-kidnappers, and apparently, they can confess and be released in a timely fashion.

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Here is the deal. I'm writing a very good story about a black classical musician who works at an old folks home. If I keep the story brisk, at a clip I like to read, I don't know how big the audience is going to be. I figure I can write the story the way it's supposed to be written, then go back and change all of the black characters to under-sized white ones with bad vision, and the music references to something having to do with elves and dwarves.

I go back and forth with showing and telling. I'm a teller. I also like being told. The only thing I want shown are accidents, and at the time they occur, I want to be fooled into believing that I'm being told a straight story. Do you really want to know what the weather is like or the color of the bricks or any of that jazz? The whole book is an exploration in music and responsibility, and I think it's got to be told with very little of this showing hanky panky, except for the accidents.

I got the no bs style from the beginning of The World According to Garp. I like John Irving's writting so so, but there are some things he does well.

I don't know what I'm going to do about the timing. I go from past perfect, to past, to present tense all in three paragraphs and that's not right. I mean, I imagine most people can keep up, but there is something wrong with having to do that.

Jericson, I'll send you the first chapter. If you are still interested after that, I'll send you some more.

And... I still don't get what's happening. Maybe I'm obtuse, I don't know... but I'm wholly confused. First there is baby-snatching, and then there's a statement/confession, a viola teacher, a Methodist church, and and then... back to the police station.

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Do you really want to know what the weather is like or the color of the bricks or any of that jazz? The whole book is an exploration in music and responsibility, and I think it's got to be told with very little of this showing hanky panky, except for the accidents.

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I have no idea what you're trying to say, but I get the distinct impression that you don't understand what we mean when we suggest that you should show and not tell. The reason I think this is that the weather outside and the color of the bricks are a part of level of description, which is often an author and reader preference and has nothing to do with anytying. No, I don't want to know what color the bricks are and as for the weather, it depends if it's relevant. If it's outside and raining and he slips in the mud, that might be important. If they're inside, probably not at all unless you want to or it creates mood.

But enough about that...that's not the problem that I see here.

This is telling:

When he was sixteen, Jack got into a car accident that left him crippled. It was raining hard and he never even saw the other car coming.

This is showing:

Jack let his foot off the accelerator and gripped the steering wheel tightly. He couldn't see anything through his windshield except indistinct flickers of light. Lightening flashed, but even it did not reveal much of the road ahead, and the boom of thunder seemed to shake the car.

He thought he should probably get off the road, but he didn't know where the side of the road was. He was almost home, maybe another mile before his turn-off. He kept going, not letting the car go faster than twenty miles per hour.

He heard the crash a second before he felt it: the shock of metal upon metal without so much as a warning flicker of headlights. Then he felt it, agonizing pain tearing through his body. He thought he would die and wondered if that would be so bad.

Then all went black.

Just one man's opinion... doesn't matter. Jericson likes it, surely others will, too.

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When he was sixteen, Jack got into a car accident that left him crippled. It was raining hard and he never even saw the other car coming.

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Sounds nice in my ear. I don't need to be there. I've been in a car accident. It wasn't pretty or even terribly interesting, but it did leave me with a bit of an injury. The two sentence description did all of the right work for me. The showing version was just more words telling me the same thing.

I go back and forth. I want to write a story told the way I like a story told, and I want a write a story that is technically right, too, because there is a wisdom in the technique.

HSO,
The baby is a baby.

You're in the minority. (I stated that sa a fact, didn't I...but I've never heard anyone suggest what you did...ever.) I read a book because I want to be there, live it with the character, pretend I'm somebody else for a while. If someone tells me Jack was in a car accident that crippled him I might spare a second or two of sadness for him but I move on. If you put me in that car with him and make me like him and care about it, you have made a real impact.

I'm not saying you're wrong. In the end, this *is* a matter of opinion. There is no right or wrong but (of course there's a but) you will probably not sell this. It's not that it's wrong, it's that too many people's opinions of how a story should work don't match this style. Some will; after all, you did get one bite here, but you also got half a dozen "not interested." If you don't want to sell this, if this is for you, then I hope you get all the enjoyment in the world out of it.

By the way, what books do you enjoy?

I like a little emotional novel with a pinch of philosophy in it to spice it up and make me a better person. I feel the same way about ginger. Enough to clear me up, but I don’t make a meal out of the root.

The best stories I've read in the last two months have been the stream of Steinbeck novels I've devoured and I'm still digesting. But I'm tearing through Vikram Seth's An Equal Music and Eugenides' Middlesex out of some sense of duty. For the most part, both books are boring to tears, but there are gems of phrases that I take out and think about, and I'm about half-way through Lessing's The Golden Notebook, which has some delicious parts.

I don't have a problem with the subject matter or any of that stuff. The point is, I didn't understand what you were getting at when I was reading the story. And I lost trust in you as a writer as a result. I wouldn't have read past paragraph two.

It's not pandering to your audience to make it easier for them to understand your story. It's leading them by the hand and saying, "here, this is what it's about, this is why it's important, and this is why you can trust me to tell it true". And in my opinion, this opening fails in all three areas.

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It's not pandering to your audience to make it easier for them to understand your story. It's leading them by the hand and saying, "here, this is what it's about, this is why it's important, and this is why you can trust me to tell it true".

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The thing is, if I turn a story I'd like to read into a story that may be clearer for other people, but a story that I, personally, wouldn't buy, there is something dishonest in that. That's not taking the reader seriously as a person. There is something condescending in that.

There is a clarity problem with the tenses, and that can be fixed with adding some "had"s in the correct place, but I'm just thinking of all of those books on the shelves that I don't buy because the author is speaking to journalist's audience, that is, a fourth grader, and I wanted to write a book that I would open up and buy. There is a sense, a loose sense, that changing it to something that I wouldn't buy but that other people would is pandering.

I'm speaking more confidently about this issue than I feel. I'm not sure one way or the other. I do know that I like a told story where the meta-story is shown, rather than a story where the whole thing is shown and it's twice as long as it should be.
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I like a book that expects something from me as a reader. I think that readers should be willing to look up a few words, within reason, and be willing to invest a little bit of thought. My favorite OSC book, by far, is Hart's Hope, precisely because he paid more attention to the story than he did to me reading it, and the story was worth it.

No one is asking you to dumb down your story. We are asking you to tell it properly from the get go. I like things that make me wonder and think and dream. That's what a good story does.

As it stands now you're story doesn't appeal to the majority in this topic. Should you give up? No, you shouldn't. But if all you want is a nice pat on the shoulder, this forum is not the place for that. The people here (between you and me, okay, don't tell them I said this), they're opinionated -- and if they don't like something, they don't hold back.

But you'll never have the chance to explain yourself to a reader outside of a critique group. So, you need to make sure that your intent is properly translated.

[This message has been edited by Rocklover (edited February 17, 2005).]

To put it another way: If the story would not be a story without one piece of witheld information, it's not a story I want to read.

Please don't confuse this with the setup in a mystery novel. In a mystery, there is no witheld information. In the best mysteries, we know precisely as much as the sleuth and have as much opportunity as he to figure it out. If we don't have an opportunity to figure it out I call BS and do not recommend the story to anyone else. It is not the witholding of the information that makes it good, but rather the telling of everything the protagonist knows and being able to live the story with him/her.

I don't need to know right away why he stole the baby or how or anything like that. What I DO need to know is what the story is about.

The two paragraphs pull me in two directions at once. They're telling me the story is about two different things. They're telling me that the story is about the stealing of the baby. But they're ALSO telling me the story is about Domnue's redemption through music.

I simply don't want the story to be about both of them. I want it to be about ONE of them and your opening lines should make it crystal clear WHICH of the two you are pursuing as the MAIN theme of the story. Choose one to be the main theme. The other can support the main theme, but they shouldn't have to compete with each other for the honor.

I find the language a delight to read--smooth, lilting--except for a few lines that are a bit confusing, in that I'm not sure to what they refer.

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You see, when the POV character knows something I don't know it does not create suspense it creates annoyance.

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No no, you've got the wrong idea. It's a flashback. BOOM hey guess what, Dominue stole a baby, but now BOOM we're going back 5 months before that happened. So the story moves on 5 months before the event happens, but you know it's coming. The POV character doesn't know about it himself because it hasn't happened yet.

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If we don't have an opportunity to figure it out I call BS and do not recommend the story to anyone else.

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Example: In five months, Dominue would steal a baby... [add intriguing stuff here, if needed.] Today, however he had lost his harmony... [add more stuff].

New paragraph starts with the action 5 months before the baby snatching.

As a reader, I'd forgive everything after that point. As currently written, this reader can't forgive it.

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Five months before running off with the baby, Dominue saw his name in the Tribune. “I didn’t write it,” he said, reading the piece over Gina’s shoulder.

Gina had a sturdy mind and an agreeable manner, making her pleasant to get along with. She was very good looking. Her vague ethnic features erased a decade from her skin, and when she woke from a night’s rest, she glowed and Dominue wanted to draw in close and warm by it.

She knew that nothing came without commitment, and having been wealthy then poor, she had a solid sense of priorities. She was not curious beyond practical matters; if drama and fantasy were dirty, Gina was immaculate.

To Dominue’s knowledge, Gina received every job that she sought, and she collected good grades in high school and college not for some hazy sake of education; she studied because scholarship students were expected to study. She knew the difference between what was precious and what was trivial, and she appreciated what she had gathered, a steady job teaching elementary school, a trustworthy group of friends who sometimes asked too much but mostly knew their bounds, and a boyfriend who was gentle and loving, though unrefined. She would have to do something about Dominue’s social quirks, people had to think well of him if the two were to get on.

In public, she was at home in her way, and she made people feel at peace in theirs. Alone, she let herself cry about her mother. She moved elegantly and all her features—voice, form, motions, almond-shaped eyes and dark hair—sounded a charming concert.

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We go back five months and the rest of the chapters happen in time. 2/3rds of the way into the story, we are back on the morning that Dominue stole the baby, and we see the caper with full motivation, richly colored because now you know Dominue. The way the story is planned out, Dominue isn't going to steal the baby the audience assumes that he is going to steal, yet there isn't any information withheld. The story is about burdens of insecurities of responsibility, how a regular, squirrelish guy gets so confused he understands that it's his duty to take this kid, among other things.
I don't think that telling people the future is withholding information. This isn't cheating because Dominue doesn't know that he is going to steal the baby. This is one of those cases where the audience knows more than the character. In Five People You Meet in Heaven-- I don't love the book but Albom does a few things right-- we know Eddie is going to die. We also know that Eddie doesn't know that he is going to die. We know that Eddie doesn't want to die. It's kind of like that. We know that Dominue does something wrong. We learn that Dominue doesn't know that he is going to do something wrong. We know that Dominue is the sort of person who fears doing something wrong. It's a bit of a tragedy, as I've told the audience his destiny and at the same time introduce a character who would have anything but this be his destiny.

You know what's going to happen, and the rest of the story is telling how, why, and what else, the what else is the kicker because I planned the ending before the beginning, and I have the whole story geared up to a decision at least as strange and interesting, though a little more beautiful, than stealing a baby.
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Jericson,

I'm worried there is a little too much exposition. Not enough deeds. This one deed has to carry the most of the tension for the rest of the chapter, while I populate the world. Every character in Dominue's arch is introduced here. The high point is the raise, and the low point is the break up at the end, but and I'm hoping Dominue's conflicts with himself can hold the reader for the chapter, but an inner conflict is harder for me to pull off and make compelling than some outside oppressive force bearing down on him.

The last bit you just posted, Tanglier is where your story starts (or how it should start in my opinion). That's all you need. In fact, it's written well enough that I'd read further. You've teased me by telling me that something happens in five months, and now that I know that, I can move on and enjoy the story as is. If you cut out everything before it, I believe it'll work just fine.

Just a thought.

I gleaned the 5 months thing from Jericson's post, by the way.

Perhaps you can look at it this way-- an over-tedious description bogs down a show (versus a tell); An over-tedious explanation does the same for a tell. In the beginning this is a lot of words to swallow since you are not willing to show us things. I don't think this is good for a beginning. It has nothing to do with needing to think harder, it is just confusing, and it should not be at this point. Telling is direct, or so your argument goes, well then it should be easy to follow even if the concepts are hard to grasp. Notice, too, your first 13 don't fall into a hard to grasp category, you are not writing anything deep yet, and the vocabulary is not difficult here.

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At three thirty-five, on July 5th, Dominue Jenkins sprang from his apartment and stole a baby from a shopping cart outside of Andronicco’s Market. His deep brown eyes showed a spark of righteousness, as he lifted the baby and shuffled his tiny legs around the shop corner. This caper, the tremendous responsibility resting on Dominue’s thin, trembling shoulders, would surprise all who knew him save Gina, who had seen Dominue’s heart, and Carn, who had known Dominue’s mind.

Dominue was not a pious man, but in his keener, clearer days, he biked to the Methodist church to hear the roar of a hundred people praying for each other and thanking Jesus. His very good viola teacher had showed him that art is a godlike thing and that in a pinch, a church service overflowing with joy and loveliness—one inviting him to crawl into the music-- approximated the awesome revelry that emerges in playing a great symphony. This attention to godlike things fed Dominue’s sixth musical sense. The sense that made sights, smells, tastes, sounds, textures, and people good and beautiful. A beast rose in Dominue when he lost this sense of harmony. And once the beast rose, it distorted the music of people living together and Dominue’s sense of religion, responsibility and duty dissolved. In the grips of the beast, bereft of harmony or religion, his mind in turmoil, his shoulders clenched and his brow set, Dominue was given to steal babies.

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That said, I do like the clarity of writing that you seem to have gotten by the time your excerpt on Gina's description comes in, though this might be due to the fact that this version of the beginning was afterall from an older draft. So yes, it could use tightening, but I think you are right in saying you might have gone a little editing crazy with the 13 lines posted at the top of this thread. Maybe go back to this one then and work from here.

This is a novel? If it were a short story I would read it, but I am not sure I am up for the commitment of a novel yet. I am still getting my bearings. If a first chapter read would be helpful, though, send it over.

Edit: okay, I lied. It is taking longer to put my critiquing in Word than I thought, and, of course, I see things along the way and well...so it goes. I hope you do not find my critiquing too nitpicky. You do have a great story developing...something real and that can touch people's lives from what I can see. So I hope you find it worth refining and polishing and getiing through my pesky comments.