posted
This is the first 13 (I think I have this formatting right ...) to my first completed novel, about 101k. I'm mainly looking for help with the opening, but if anyone is real interested and wants to do a full novel crit let me know, I'd be happy to reciprocate.
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Hannah reaches for the button beside the antique mirror and turns the internet on. "...Wichita police investigate another bombing at Mid-Continent spaceport...." She turns it off, pushing the grief aside, and brushes her hair in silence. I don't want to go back. But I'm going anyway. She takes a deep breath. Today's the day. It's Monday, the beginning of the month... as good a day as any. The psychic was specific about today. "The start of a new life...."
She puts the brush down. I wonder what he meant by that. He's the expert. It sounds good.
So why do I feel so awful? Tears hover around every corner. Stop, Hannah. Don’t think about that. Just stop it. You‘ll spend another day in bed crying. It’s been five months. This has gone on long enough.
[This message has been edited by colorbird (edited May 17, 2006).]
posted
I'm one of the few people on Hatrack who doesn't mind reading a story of any length in the present tense. But this is too much for me.
What's turning me off is the clutter between the narration and the internal thoughts. On top of trying to figure out what's going on, I'm not entirely sure if I'm in the first or third POV. And I really do not know what is going on. There's a lot of emotion that she's feeling, but I'm not feeling any of it because I can only guess what she's worrying about.
posted
I agree... the voice comes across as an uneven mixture of style.
I'm NOT a fan of present tense, which I believe is tedious to read. It never feels real to me, nor does it engage me. I don't, after all, internally see my own life in present tense. I don't think to myself: I grab my coffee cup, I swig coffee down... I actually think more in past tense... "That was good coffee."
I suggest you weigh the costs and the benefits of present tense. If you are willing to keep the voice as is, lean into the style. But one of the costs of this style is that your pool of interested readers is diminished.
posted
Next time you post, look to the left of the text box, and you'll see a link that says "UBB Code is ON." Click on the link and scroll down, and it explains how to insert italics, bold text, etc.
Having italics for Hannah's thoughts would have made it much easier to read, but I have the same concerns about the present tense as Ray and Elan. I recently read a novel in present tense, and while I finished it, I didn't enjoy it very much.
Who's Hannah mourning? She knows, and given that she's in mourning, she's *bound* to think of him/her occasionally. Tell us! Tell us what she misses about him. This will help us connect.
OSC in Characters & Viewpoint has an excerpt very like this. It's a paragraph describing morning rituals, with a reference to grief, and a note on the pillow. But what really matters isn't what's on the radio or how the shower feels, but what's in that dang note, and why is MC grieving? Hannah's the same way: she's in pain, and I can't relate because I don't know why. Easily fixed.
posted
Ok, let's try this again, with the italics in ...
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Hannah reaches for the button beside the antique mirror and turns the internet on. "...Wichita police investigate another bombing at Mid-Continent spaceport...." She turns it off, pushing the grief aside, and brushes her hair in silence. I don't want to go back. But I'm going anyway. She takes a deep breath. Today's the day. It's Monday, the beginning of the month... as good a day as any. The psychic was specific about today. "The start of a new life...."
She puts the brush down. I wonder what he meant by that. He's the expert. It sounds good.
So why do I feel so awful? Tears hover around every corner. Stop, Hannah. Don’t think about that. Just stop it. You‘ll spend another day in bed crying. It’s been five months. This has gone on long enough.
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The comment about who Hannah is grieving is helpful. How do you suggest inserting it?
Her husband and children were killed in a space shuttle accident, thought to be due to terrorists. (Which is mentioned a few paragraphs down, but if it really helps hook the reader I'm totally open to moving it up.)
I'm pondering the whole tense thing. Only writer types seem to even notice it. I haven't come to any decision either way as yet on that one. Personally I like it, but I can understand it striking someone as too strange to be tolerable.
posted
It's more tolerable this time around, but it's still suffering because Hannah has strong emotions storming inside, and I don't know why. The last paragraph says the turmoil began five months ago, and that's where it ought to begin. Maybe then I'll feel some of the emotion.
About the present tense: it can be done well, but it's very difficult to do and it's not working for me here. The difference between past and present tense is the reader's engagement to the story. In past tense, the reader goes through the story with the main character. In present tense, the reader isn't traveling with the main character, he/she is observing what the character is doing. They are very separate experiences, and it's harder to engage a reader with the latter tense.
If you're interested in reading works written in present tense that (I think) are good, I suggest the last short story in The Wind's Twelve Quarters by Ursula K. Le Guin, and Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King. These are both in third-person present tense, and give a good taste on what makes it work. I won't suggest anything in the first-person, because that's a whole other, meaner animal entirely.
posted
>The comment about who Hannah is grieving is helpful. How do you suggest inserting it?
How about:
Hannah's husband and children were killed in a space shuttle accident, thought to be due to terrorists.
Really -- just that. Just tell us. It doesn't have to be subtle. (Hit us over the head with it. It's part of your hook!)
(OK, you might dress that up a bit -- give 'em names, she doesn't think of them as "my husband and children" but as "Bob, Kimberly, and Timmy" -- but you get the idea.)
I'd say the other part of your hook is this psychic thing. What's that about -- where's she going, and why? Just tell us that, too, and I'll be ready to keep reading, to find out what happens next.
posted
I'm having some trouble getting past the present tense as well, but if you want to use it, by all means do. Just know that you might have a difficult time hooking a lot of readers this way.
I don't think what's going on is all that clear either. I had to read it a couple of times before I got it. But that may be because I'm tired and it's 1:00 in the morning. *shrugs* But, as Ray said, there is clutter between the MC's thoughts and the narration, so that may be the problem.
posted
I have to agree with most of the people that we don't know enough about what's going on to care, but the thing that stopped me first was 'she turned on the internet.' She can turn on her computer, she can turn on her radio and she can turn on the TV, but she is not able to control the internet. I can turn on my radio and turn to 96.9 FM but I am not able to turn on or off 96.9 FM. A little thing, I know, but it stopped me cold right in the first sentence.
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posted
Let's try this again, backed up a month in time:
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I have to get my life back. Robert and the children would have wanted me to. I can't live like this anymore. Hannah's computer sits open to the website. "Dial." "Wichita Future Consultations, this is Martin, how may I help you?" "Can you come over today?" The man looks professional enough. He shakes Hannah's hand as if they are old friends. "I knew you would call." Oh, really? I wasn't even sure I would. "Come in, sit down." How do I explain this? He looks at her without blinking, and then nods. "August second. Go back then." But I didn't even ask you anything. "Are you sure?" He smiles at her as if amazed. "Absolutely. That is the start of a new life, that day, right there."
posted
Sorry, this new one doesn't work so well for me. The first version (well, with the italics in, for clarity) isn't too bad, though I'd agree with wanting to know who she's mourning. I wouldn't state it as baldly as wbriggs suggests, but it seems to me that if the first news item on the net (which is presented more like switching on a radio, I kind of found it confusing) is a spaceport bombing, that would immediately maker think something along the lines of "oh, God, not another bombing..." and segue into her memories of the bombing that killed her husband and children, and then segue from that into her thinking "no, I have to end this cycle", and maybe make that the trigger to her contacting this psychic... (and yes, I know, that's melding the two openings).
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posted
It was kind of jarring for the psyciatrist to shake her hand through the computer. Is this some new technology or an error? as it is it looks like the second. I second that you should keep the spaceport bombing.
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"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Virgin Spaceways Shuttle 9701, with service from Selene International Spaceport to Mid-Continental Spaceport in Wichita, Kansas...." As the flight attendant drones on, Robert glances over at his children. The boys strain to see the lunar landscape disappearing from the window. Katy leans back in her seat, eyes closed. Watching her reminds him of Hannah, back when they first met. I hope Hannah's okay. The doctor said it was just her appendix, that she would be fine. Hannah said she would be fine. He takes a deep breath and tries to relax. There's a slight thump. There's no turbulence in space. The explosion is the last thing he hears.
posted
colorbird, I could be wrong, but it appears to me you are editing to try to make your critics happy, not because you are making deliberate choices that are intended to improve the story. You can't edit for US. You need to retain a strong sense of the story YOU want to tell, and use our comments to shape THAT story. Don't keep rewriting it over and over, trying to make everyone else happy. You'll drive yourself crazy doing that.
As it is, it's hard to critique the story with so many different versions of an opener. MY question is: where do YOU want to go with this tale?
posted
The story's written. I'm just trying to figure out where and how to start it.
(eta: It's intended to be a SF thriller. Which is why I'm feeling, from the comments I've gotten, that starting when she goes back to work (and she is the MC) might not be the best place.)
[This message has been edited by colorbird (edited May 24, 2006).]
posted
I like the newest post best, as far as a starting place for the story. But I would argue strongly that it should be told in past tense. You even state that it takes place months before the events in the rest of the story.
Your fragments all have similar problems, and I believe the difficulty lies with your use of present tense. It's hard to vary sentence length and structure in present tense, you have to be very agile to avoid a rote recitation. It feels as if the MC's life is being commentated by a play-by-play specialist on ESPN. As a reader, I feel like someone is hanging over my shoulder, talking, instead of just letting me watch. It can be done so seamlessly as to be invisible to the reader, buy you aren't quite there yet. (You are close in the second post.)
You also have disorienting POV switches within the context of each fragment. In order to keep something third person, internal thoughts need tags. (As in, "Hannah thought, 'I have to get back to my life.'...") Otherwise you have fallen into first person, IMO.
I rather like the story you are putting together. The loss of her husband, her emotional struggles, the mention of a psychic, etc. But, in all fairness to the function of this forum, I would not read any further. The combination of present tense and POV switches is just too complex for me.
posted
I think that your last fragment is the right place to start. I didn't like that it started with the announcement, but rest of it was really good. I like the idea of starting with the husband and kids. It makes me more sympathetic to the MC--like I knew them too.
My problem with the tense thing is that I notice it. When a story is in past tense I don't think, "oh, past tense I like that." Tense doesn't even cross my mind. With the present tense, I'm immediately pulled out of the story to think about tense--I want to be in the story, not worrying about english mechanics.
I've decided to listen to my critiquers (gasp!) ... you all aren't the first set to not like the tense. (heads, brick walls, you know) And I do like starting with the shuttle and her family better, the more I look at it. It's more active. I added a scene right after where she wakes up in the hospital and her best friend tells her about the explosion.
Just pondering how to change this particular scene so it works better. Any ideas?
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