OSC is of the opinion that whatever's wrong with a novel will usually be apparent in the first 30 pages. I'll extend it (often) to the first 13 lines. If your 13 lines didn't draw me in, and those aren't fixed, I'm almost certain the problem won't go away.
Which leads me to think editors likely feel the same way. Supposedly somebody reads the entire story to be sure, but if it were me, I wouldn't, if the first page or two turned me off.
My suggestion would be, fix the first 13, then go on. I've seen another critiquer here take the opposite approach: if you haven't written the story, don't put up the first 13. But for me, I'd rather take the approach of getting it right from page 1, because if not, you likely (OSC's view) have to rewrite everything that comes after anyway.
[This message has been edited by wbriggs (edited February 26, 2007).]
posted
Yeah, I gotta say I am in agreement, but often if the blurb is good, and is from an author with a proven track record, say like Stephen King, then I'd be willing to give them a bit more as far as pages are concerned to get the story moving along.
Also too, at Marcon last year, I do believe a publisher said, (he might have been from TOR,) that he often tells authors to go back and re-write the beginning, since more often than not, the story you end with is not quite the same story you started out to tell.
Yep, and I am still writing like mad. Hope to have that SS to you before Easter. Okay?
posted
I agree that the first 13 is important to the story, but there is one additional point that I think is just as important to remember. Simply put, it's that what draws one editor or reader in, turns another off. So when an author fixes something, they need to make sure that they really need to fix it and aren't just appealing to a few people's opinions, or personal likes and tastes. The author is the only one in the final analysis that can determine that.
That said, I do think beginning authors need to pay close attention to authors and editors with more experience and understanding of the art of writing. They can learn a lot from them.
posted
I wwould tend to agree on the importance of openings, and might argue that the first sentence or two stand out inthe first thirteen the way the first thirteen stand out from the story.
That said, when I'm reading F&SF orthe like, I'm reading as an academic exercise and read all the stories regardless of whether I like them or not. Usually the latter is the case, because of personal quirks.
When I put on my writing hat, it's hard to imagine laboring over the first 13 lines without having the rest of the story reasonably fleshed out, even if not exactly in it's final form. I guess in my idealism I want the beginning to be the beginning of a specific story as opposed to creating a clever beginning then creating a story to fit it. But maybe the latter is worth a try sometime.
posted
I hardly ever avail myself of the privilege of putting up a "first thirteen." My production since my arrival here consisted of scattered short stories, a major stab at a novel, and (the last two-and-a-half weeks) a major stab at a novelette. It limits my production---I just don't have that may openings.
Besides, as I'm passing the "first thirteen," I'm just clearing my throat. When I start something, I'm usually three pages / five hundred words / fifty or sixty lines in before I break off. Just enough space to to fill up this reply rectangle seems, somehow, insufficient.
I had on in mind the other day---not from a current work, just something that I wondered worked better one way or another. I may put it up yet.
posted
When I pick up a book or short story, if the first few paragraphs (roughly 13 lines) gives me something to look forward to - an issue (hook) or a quirky POV or really wonderful characterizations or something - I'll probably read the first page or two before deciding whether or not to go forward.
If the first 13 are just okay or worse, I won't make it to line 14.
Most editiors I've talked to are pretty rigid on how long you get for a novel - at most one page. If that page isn't compelling, you get the form rejection letter.
posted
As I've said before, I give a novel about fifty pages to suck me in. If I judged everything by the first thireen lines, I would drop nearly every book. Almost certainly, I would never have read "Lord of the Rings", if I judged by the first thirteen lines--and I probably would have dropped "The Hobbit" too.
It's funny. When I was younger, if a book didn't snatch my attention and manhandle it, I would drop it, go watch T.V., and never look back. I ate up most of the TOR Conans because of this. I guess I'm lucky, because the first books that I HAD to push-on to finish, were worth it.
LOL - If I judged everything by the first thirteen lines (and as critically as some do in here) I would NEVER have finished the novel "Ender's Game". It took me a little bit to get past the bodiless dialogue it opened with. I'm glad I did, as is the case most of the time.
I enjoyed the "Dune" novels, immensely. They are some of my favorite books to date. But, the beginning was rough, and it took a bit to get into. "God Emperor of Dune" was the most difficult to get through, and I liked it the least, but I understood the need for it. It also made the two ensuing novels that much better. I can only imagine if Frank Herbert had lived to finish his opus.
Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Tad Williams, and Anne Rice are all famous, trusted authors (with a "track record") who've bored me to the point that I've dropped some of their major novels, never to pick them up again.
Having spouted all of that--and it was a mouthful!--I think that you do us a great service by holding your standards so high. So, THANK YOU, wbriggs and survivor (and all of the others that offer their honest opinions) for being unrelenting and brutally honest. This is the valuable type of feedback that can't be had at home, or in a circle of readers that are close friends. It plainly flusters and upsets many posters, but they need it--as I do, to be sure.
posted
A lot of famous novels wouldn't have gotten past the 13 line format here. But that's okay, because the higher standard here helps us make our work even better. Besides, there are more writers in the spec fic genre now, but the readership hasn't grown. So, it's all the harder to break in.
I get...upset?...at how romance stories are creeping into sf. Fantasy was lost to that years ago, it seems to me.
I'm not saying there should be no romantic parts to story lines, but the romances tropes of the female pov who thinks the hero or other main character doesn't love her when the reader knows her really does etc....I just don't want that (and other romance standards) in my sf.
posted
F&F=the Fragments and Feedback forums on this site.
A side note. When I first read wbriggs initial post, I misread and thought he was talking about F&SF, Fantasy and Science Fiction Mag, which is why folks should ignore my post above in this thread!
posted
I'll delete the 'thread-creep' in my post above and address the initial post more critically.
Back on thread:
I question such a captious approach. OSC is clearly talking about novel-length pieces here and it appears that you are trying to extend the theory to short stories. As you are aware the two are very different beasties but the thought is interesting to discuss. Are the first thirteen generally diagnostic, or otherwise, of significant flaws in a story regardless of length of the finished piece?
quote: OSC is of the opinion that whatever's wrong with a novel will usually be apparent in the first 30 pages. I'll extend it (often) to the first 13 lines. If your 13 lines didn't draw me in, and those aren't fixed, I'm almost certain the problem won't go away.
So why doesn't OSC extend it to the first thirteen himself?
My suggestion, though we would have to ask him, would be because he knows that, with few really incompetent exceptions, the first thirteen can't possibly be diagnostic of deeper, more significant problems that it might take his trained eye thirty pages to detect.
In my opinion, the first thirteen is diagnostic of whether a writer knows how to write the first thirteen lines (just like intelligence tests only demonstrate how good people are at intelligence tests.) But does that indicate a generally higher level of skill in the overall piece? I would suggest that if you read the first thirteen and you were worried about whether you were in competent hands, you would flip through and sample more.
This is something we never do in F&F. We never say, 'Hey! Maybe you could post an addtional thriteen lines that you like from somewhere else in the story, and we can compare the two.' That doesn't happen, does it? It may. Certainly I have never seen anyone say: I wouldn't read on for these reasons, but send me your story anyway and I'll see whether the problems pervade the whole piece.
No, we ask to read the stories with the great first thirteen and are often disappointed.
quote:and those aren't fixed
What does that mean?
If they are not fixed within the first thirteen or within the first thirty pages?
quote:I wouldn't, if the first page or two turned me off.
or do you mean first couple of pages?
I assume you mean if they aren't fixed within the first thirteen. However, if they are fixed, doesn't that mean the more significant problems with the story are no longer detectable in the first thirteen?
Can the first thirteen possibly be diagnostic of the quality of plot, structure, characterisation etc of the full story? Perhaps, but as noted, unless the writer is really incompetent, it will take more than thirteen lines to detect any significant problems. Any problems you pick up in the first thirteen are bound to be superficial and insignificant.
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited February 28, 2007).]
posted
Well, I don't know that anyone is equating the first thirteen lines (or whatever) with an absolute predictor of a story's merit or demerit.
However, most editors feel they can tell with a very small sample of a work whether the writer is of professional caliber and worth the time to read or not, and will make decisions based on that, right or wrong. It's something we should be aware of, and to me that was the main message of the original post.
I think 13 becomes a magic number here because it's the limit we're allowed to post from an unpublished story, so it's what we have to work with.
I've never heard anything about 13 lines being a defining excerpt size away from here, but I don't get out that much.
posted
I was not so extreme as to assert anything was 'absolute', and neither did wbriggs.
In fact there are lots of 'oftens' and 'usuallys' and words like that scattered through either post.
I don't necessarily disagree with wbriggs, my question is, assuming the writer is competent in the first place, whether the first 13 is a genuine predictor of plot, structure and character problems within a longer story or whether any problems picked up in the first thirteen are more likely to be minor and insignificant in comparison to the bigger problems that can be detected when reading, let's say, thirty pages or so.
If the first 13 stinks, of course no one will buy it.
BTW
13 lines is generally what appears on the first page of a standard manuscript below the title and author name.
That's why we pick 13 lines.
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited February 28, 2007).]
posted
Sometimes I tend to think that some writers here become overly obsessed with that first 13 lines, spend too much time perfecting the first 13 lines, but do nothing to improve their writing craft beyond that--as if the first 13 lines is all there is to writing a good story.
As if, if they learn to write those first 13 really well, they'll instantly be publishable. It's like some are trying to learn to build airplanes by studying how to build a propellor.
I tend to think that the perfection of the first thirteen lines is something better left for after the story's first draft is in the can--or at least, as hoptoad referred, the story is well fleshed out.
It's just that I see an AWFUL lot of first 13 lines, but VERY FEW finished stories with ANY version of the previously posted first 13 lines offered up for critique.
Why is that? Do they become so entrenched in over-thinking the importance of the first 13, that when they just can't seem to get it 'right' (meaning they can't get it past the 'board of directors' without SOME kind of negative feedback) they must be failing as a writer? That the story isn't worth writing?
There aren't even enough completed stories on the F&F threads these days for ANYONE here to get any really meaningful practice at getting or giving critiques of anything more than 13 lines. Back in the day, when there were a LOT fewer members here, there were MANY more opportunities to critique WHOLE stories. What happened?
Feedback (getting and giving) on 13 lines is helpful, but only minimally. A critique of a completed story is a different monster ENTIRELY from a few comments on the first 13 lines. Anyone who is not working to take advantage of that is a fool.
quote: As if, if they learn to write those first 13 really well, they'll instantly be publishable. It's like some are trying to learn to build airplanes by studying how to build a propellor.
posted
What I meant by "If your 13 lines didn't draw me in, and those aren't fixed, I'm almost certain the problem won't go away" is that if a writer has a problem in the first 13 (a real problem like "reader's confused" or "reader's bored," not "reader has a minor quibble with word choice), and can't or won't fix it, that's a good indication to me that the same problem is going to pervade the story: I'm going to continue to be confused, bored, whatever it is.
BTW I'm talking short stories, not novels. I'm not sure how it would work out with novels for me.
posted
Ah, the almighty Hatrack paradox returns: I can't start writing the story if my first thirteen lines are bad, but I won't finish writing my story if I don't move past those first thirteen lines. I've wasted many weeks trying to figure this one out, which has led me not to post any openings for over six months...
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posted
I disagree strongly. I think there is a serious limit to what value can come from getting detailed critiques of only your first 13 lines.
I think a lot of great novels have failed to capture me immediately, I mean I wouldn't pass judgement on Dune or (insert mutually agreed upon great novel here) on the first 13 lines.
I think the opening page is important but let's not blow it out of proportion. If you expect to fine-tune a 120,000 word novel like it's a poem then, well, you've got another thing coming. Is it then so important to be inconsistant with a perfect opening 13 and relatively weaker prose for the rest of the story?
I think the prose/setting/CHARACTERS/conflict/etc of the story, (the reasons people like good fiction,) take more than a page to prove themselves. Maybe I'm a nice reader. I don't know. But one thing I do know is that Tolkein's Fellowship of the Ring sure didn't draw me in on the first page. Not even in the first 100. But I still ended up looking back on LOTR as a well-composed, interesting, enjoyable series. (Albeit a really slow one---though lightning fast compared to Victor Hugo)
[This message has been edited by Zero (edited March 03, 2007).]
If you have 13 bad lines, then you've started your story. There's no reason not to finish the story regardless of what's going on regarding critiques of the first 13.
Unless, for some reason, your goal is simply to write a "good" 13 lines then after that's done, think up a story for it.
I would suggest at least writing a draft of a story before worrying about having the first 13 critiqued. In terms of your story itself, what comes after the first 13 is far more important than the first 13. After you have a workable story, then you can go back and dress up the beginning. Having the story on paper will allow you to create a better opening, one that actually begins the story, and can draw from it.
And pardon me if your post was intended to be a bit tongue-in-cheek.
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