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Samantha opened her eyes and was immediately blinded by the sterile white surrounding. She clamped her eyes shut again as if to somehow prevent the burning in her eyes. There was a fog in her head, a grogginess that can only come for sleeping to long. What had happened? She could not recall anything about how she might have gotten here. She opened again, this time far slower, giving her eyes a chance to focus and adjust. As she looked around the room it became clear that the purpose of the room and the way she was laying was to disorient her. There was little detail in the room to focus her eyes on and she began to wonder if her eyes could even focus. Something in the room made her think of a hospital room, but there was nothing or no one in the room with her.
Looking for people give me their thoughts on this intro and the whole story (about 3800 words). Let me know. Thanks.
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I think you have an interesting beginning. I felt the opening scene could be strengthened with more descriptive language in order to show how the room is disorienting to the MC - is the furniture at odd angles? Is the furniture made of transparent material making it hard to focus?
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It is a good place to start--the moment the MC's life changes--but I agree that the language could be stronger.
Example: Avoid passive voice in most situations. Especially in your first sentence. Stronger would be something like "The sterile white walls blinded Samantha."
Cut unnecessary words. Example: "focus and adjust." Those are quite similar. Pick the one you like and cut the other. Many people would tell you to get rid of qualifiers like "somehow" in "as if to somehow prevent." I tend to like these types of words when appropriate, because it gives a shade of meaning you might not get otherwise, but it's best to use them sparingly, and maybe not in your first paragraph, because it strikes some people (ie editors) as wishy-washy.
"Laying" should be "lying"
It's very intriguing about the layout of the room being that way to disorient her, but you need to give details of this, as suggested above. Are the wall and the floor the same color? Is there a door on the celing? What?
It's a good hook in that we want to know why she's here, what sinister plans have been laid for her, and how she's going to escape. Carry on.
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Just as a heads up, the "character wakes up in a white room" opening is often considered cliche, either by other writers (guilty) or editors (I've been a slush reader for a number of years and I'm guilty there, too.)
There better be a compelling reason for the story to start where it starts. This may be the best place for your story to start, but be warned that just the nature of the start will make a lot of people put it aside, or scan down the page to see if something interesting happens *next* (which does beg the question whether the opening could start there instead.)
Sorry if you know this already, just wanted to get it out there. Your mechanics look sound, the idea of her not being able to focus (or something about the structure of the room being disorienting) is interesting, but the "character wakes up in a white room with no memory of how he/she got there" is just a hard opening.
You could play it for comedy, which many writers do with "It was a dark and stormy night." But I doubt that's the direction you're going.
If you're committed, my strong suggestion is to make sure something else happens right away so we're not stuck in this white formless shapeless place. Speculative fiction readers more than most are really literal when they read - they want to see tangible world building early on in the story (it means you have to be REALLY careful in telling them stories, because if you use metaphors a lot they can assume you mean the literal interpretation of the metaphor, dangerous when you say things like "The coffee was hot lava." - REALLY? What kind of world is this where people drink hot lava!?)
As with all feedback, take what works, leave the rest.
Waking starts are cliche as far as I am concerned. That said I have done it myself, but the story has never sold.
A story is an investment of time and energy and hobbling it by using cliches that editors see time and again (and we see on Hatrack time and again) seems like a disservice to your own effort. I would try your best to start at a different point.
Redux - I will be glad to send over the whole story. Also, I attempted to describe the room in the details to disorient the MC, or rather the lack of details in the room. Of course this is why it is good to get others to read it. Obviously I know what the room looks like but getting the point to the reader may be hard.
Melinda - My original opening line was. "The sterile white room blinded Samantha as she opened her eyes." Not sure why I changed in the second draft. I will also look at the similar words in the next rewrite.
Kay and Skadder - I do hope to get this published and have struggled with the opening cliche of a white room. I have had trouble figuring out a better place to start this story almost as much as I am struggling with the ending.
If any of you want to read the whole story please let me know. I will gladly email to you.
posted
Try something like "Her eyes slid from white to white to white, finding nothing in the painful glare to anchor on" (or maybe better, "finding no anchor in the painful glare" tho note that brings a different tone) so you describe how it feels to her, rather than just what she's seeing. Get inside her head and show us her disorientation rather than telling us about it from the outside. Another example just for fun -- when she stands up, instead of telling us that she feels like she's going to lose her balance, show us by her perception that the the walls and floor seem to recede and twist underfoot.
I suspect that's a lot of the issue with the "woke in a strange blank place" cliche -- most of the time the person just wakes up, sees weirdness, and goes "Glah! where am I?" or some variant of that. There's no struggle, so to speak. Surprise is only interesting for one line. Struggle can be interesting for a whole book. Remember the old SF novel where a bunch of kids find themselves in a maze of stairs and boxes??
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From the Turkey City Lexicon, "A Primer for SF Workshops" (basically a list of problems to watch for in our own writing and in giving others feedback on their writing):
quote: •White Room Syndrome
A clear and common sign of the failure of the author’s imagination, most often seen at the beginning of a story, before the setting, background, or characters have gelled. “She awoke in a white room.” The ‘white room’ is a featureless set for which details have yet to be invented — a failure of invention by the author. The character ’wakes’ in order to begin a fresh train of thought — again, just like the author. This ‘white room’ opening is generally followed by much earnest pondering of circumstances and useless exposition; all of which can be cut, painlessly.
It remains to be seen whether the “white room” cliche’ will fade from use now that most authors confront glowing screens rather than blank white paper.
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Yea, I think I will look into a rewrite on this beginning. I emailed it out to let someone read so on my next rewrite I will tackle the beginning again.
This is exactly why I joined this forum, none of my previous readers made any mention of this issue.
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