posted
Okay, here are the first 13 lines from Aiden's Way, my philosophical, satirical science fantasy novel. I open all comments. Go to town...
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REVISED:
When Aiden was thirteen, his watch stopped.
Using a miniature electric motor powered by the motion of his arm, it was intended to keep unbroken time for the rest of his life. It was reliable and faultless until that moment. The balance wheel which charged the motor stubbornly refused to budge, and the ratchet and rotor had frozen seconds into the third minute past ten o'clock. It was a Sunday.
Aiden's life until that moment had been filled with compromises, temporary moments of happiness he only accepted because his dreams could never be fulfilled. He had yet to reach that point of complacency, trading his absurd aspirations in favor of practical goals. Aiden desired the impossible, what all children sought before reality forced its way in.
Now, it was 10:03 and he no longer needed to accept compromise.
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Based on feedback. Shout-outs to Nick T & aspirit for their feedback. More welcome...
[This message has been edited by ChrisDias (edited March 27, 2010).]
[This message has been edited by ChrisDias (edited April 01, 2010).]
[This message has been edited by ChrisDias (edited April 04, 2010).]
posted
I am confused. I expect to be somewhat unsure as to what is going on in the beginning of a book but not this much.
quote:When Aiden was ten years old, his watch stopped. The balance wheel stubbornly refused to budge. The ratchet and rotor had frozen seconds into the third minute past ten o'clock. It was a Sunday. Okay this is all clear and interesting, but in the next paragraph you lose me.
Desperation possessed him to know and understand what he had seen. What did he see? His watch stop? Aiden sat fossilized on a spread of broken glass, (At first I thought that he broke his watch to try to see why it didn't work, but now I think this has nothing to do with the watch, so what is happening? his eyes fixed on the sky. Blood dripped from deep slices across his palms as he held up his weight. Buckled pavement, splintered wood, twisted steel. His older brother crumpled and crying beside him. Screams from the wounded and terrified filled his ears. Misguided survivors wandered and scuttled around him. Cars were overturned. A fountain sprayed from a broken hydrant, trickling water over his matted brown hair.
Okay now I am thinking that this is a bomb or something, why don't you come out and tell us what is going on? What does any of this have to do with the stopped watch?
He saw it (It? What is it?) vanish around a complex of office buildings.
Okay, you seem to be purposely vague, and I personally find it annoying. It feels like you are playing a game with the reader, and I don't want to play a game. I want to read a story. I don't know why you are withholding information, but it better be a good reason and not just to make the reader curious because you are risking annoying the reader enough to put the book down.
I get the impression here that you are trying to say his watch stopped (paragraph 1) because some paranormal phenomenon (paragraph 3) caused some type of explosion/accident/trauma that (paragraph 2) that broke it. Am I close?
I definately like your first paragraph. It has voice, and it functions as a good hook. But I get the sense that it was some random quirk that caused it to stop, and something important happened that Sunday, and I want to read on in order to find out what.
But then the next paragraph describes the accident/bomb/zombie raid, and it seems like you have written with an entirely different voice. Actually, it seems like you have an introduction for three different books here.
Because you said it is satirical, I'd try to keep the style of the first paragraph flowing. It is the one that works best for me. Can I ask what happens in the rest of the chapter/scene? Maybe knowing that and how it applies to the story would give better perspective...
When Aiden was ten years old, his watch stopped. The balance wheel stubbornly refused to budge. The ratchet and rotor had frozen seconds into the third minute past ten o'clock. It was a Sunday. Desperation possessed him to know and understand what he had seen. Aiden sat fossilized on a spread of broken glass, his eyes fixed on the sky. Blood dripped from deep slices across his palms as he held up his weight. Buckled pavement, splintered wood, twisted steel. His older brother crumpled and crying beside him. Screams from the wounded and terrified filled his ears. Misguided survivors wandered and scuttled around him. Cars were overturned. A fountain sprayed from a broken hydrant, trickling water over his matted brown hair.
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The scene then changes to three days prior and the chapter leads up to the events of this moment. He goes to school, watches TV, plays his online computer game. Then a dragon flies into his city and in the chaos that ensues, his mother is killed. It's the modern age and Aiden, being a lover of fantasy, is shocked and amazed at the same time.
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited March 20, 2010).]
When Aiden was ten years old, his watch stopped. He wouldn't notice it for several hours. Using a miniature electric motor powered by the motion of his arm, it was intended to keep unbroken time for the rest of his life. It didn't need him to replace a battery or wind it. It was reliable and faultless. No longer, as the balance wheel stubbornly refused to budge. The ratchet and rotor had frozen seconds into the third minute past ten o'clock. It was a Sunday.
[This message has been edited by ChrisDias (edited March 20, 2010).]
[This message has been edited by ChrisDias (edited March 20, 2010).]
He wouldn't notice it for several hours. Using a miniature electric motor powered by the motion of his arm, it was intended to keep unbroken time for the rest of his life. It didn't need him to replace a battery or wind it. It was reliable and faultless. It hadn’t suffered any damage. The balance wheel which charged the motor stubbornly refused to budge. The ratchet and rotor had frozen seconds into the third minute past ten o'clock. It was a Sunday.
Aiden sat fossilized on a spread of broken glass, his eyes fixed on the sky. Blood dripped from deep slices across his palms as he held up his weight. Buckled pavement, splintered wood, twisted steel. His older brother crumpled and crying beside him.
[This message has been edited by ChrisDias (edited March 22, 2010).]
quote: Using a miniature electric motor powered by the motion of his arm, it was intended to keep unbroken time for the rest of his life. It didn't need him to replace a battery or wind it. It was reliable and faultless. It hadn’t suffered any damage. The balance wheel which charged the motor stubbornly refused to budge. The ratchet and rotor had frozen seconds into the third minute past ten o'clock. It was a Sunday.
There’s a lot of information here to basically tell us his watch has stopped and isn’t that weird? It’s not a clearly speculative element by itself and it doesn’t clearly present Aiden with a problem or mark itself as an inciting incident. It’s disconnected from what follows. I’d cut it completely.
quote:Aiden sat fossilized on a spread of broken glass, his eyes fixed on the sky. Blood dripped from deep slices across his palms as he held up his weight. Buckled pavement, splintered wood, twisted steel. His older brother crumpled and crying beside him.
Having read the commentary above, there are two problems with this as an opening: 1) By itself, it’s action without context. 2) In order to give it context, you’ve got to go into a flashback. Personally, I view flashbacks as a last resort method of ensuring the story makes sense. In this case, we have no idea what’s happened until we’ve read further into the story. Based on your summarisation of the plot, I think you need to give a little context of who Aiden is (i.e. is he a clever kid, a scared kid, a nice kid, etc.). Obviously within the limitations of the 1st 13, you can’t do a whole lot, but I believe it’s very possible to get quite a lot of good character information across in only a few lines. After, I’d move straight onto the dragon attacking. Make it clear it’s a dragon attacking and then have the story unfold from there. This introduces the protagonist, gives us an inciting incident and a story problem. 90% of the time, a linear timeline is the best way to tell a story and you’ve got to be pretty good to utilize a non-linear timeline. What kind of POV are you intending to use for this story? It seems as if you’ve using a rather distant narrator who stands outside of the protag’s head and I think this might be a bit of a problem depending on your intended audience and aims. Nick
posted
Hi, Chris! I like the description of the watch and recommend leaving it in (the opening or in a later scene) as long as it's relevant elsewhere in the story.
With the watch as the opening, I'd expect to jump to a scene set earlier in the day. That scene would establish the norm (that's about to be distrupted) and give the readers a chance to identify with Aiden. At the end of the opening chapter, we'd be back with the broken watch. The next chapter would show Aiden dealing with the weirdness/disaster.
Anyway, that's the promise the watch-as-opening made to me.
posted
Wow...great comments, though obviously conflicting. Keep the watch or lose it. I guess it should be important to note that the watch is a vital story point which plays later in the same chapter, and at least three more times throughout the novel. I am not even that subtle in the metaphor, comparing it to Aiden's refusal to mature...
But I see your point about trying to squeeze in some character in those 13 lines.
I paced around a bit and came back with this: I hope it's better...
When Aiden was ten years old, his watch stopped. Using a miniature electric motor powered by the motion of his arm, it was intended to keep unbroken time for the rest of his life. It was reliable and faultless. It hadn’t suffered any damage. The balance wheel which charged the motor stubbornly refused to budge. The ratchet and rotor had frozen seconds into the third minute past ten o'clock. Aiden's life until that moment had been filled with compromises, temporary moments of happiness he only accepted because his dreams could never be fulfilled. He had yet to reach that point of complacency, trading his absurd aspirations in favor of practical goals. Aiden desired the impossible, what all children sought after before reality forced its way in. Now it was 10:04 am and he no longer needed to accept compromise.
posted
The tone of your new 13 is more in line with your description of the novel: "philosophical, satirical science fantasy". I'd read more.
The one thing that bothered me was the number of prepositions (after, before, in) in the second-to-last sentence. The sentence is clearer and cleaner without the "after".
posted
I'd forgotten to mention that the Hatrackers generally add their revised 13 lines to the original post. That way, critiquers can tell from the first post what they should read.
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The only time you'll get 100% agreement from a bunch of critiques is when it's something that you really need to change. Most other times it's a matter of judgement who you listen to, if anyone.
If the watch is an important thematic marker, the only warning I'd give is to make sure you trust the reader to get it. Even if they don't actually "notice" the watch, they should understand the theme anyway; the symobolism of the watch is a bonus for those reading and thinking carefully about what you've written.
Is Aiden the right age for the type of story you're telling? I think it's perfectly acceptable for 10 year olds to have unrealistic dreams and not to dream of practical goals, so he may be a little bit young for the kind of maturity you may wish him to achieve.
I think the second version is a better reflection of what you're aiming for and there's a much better connection between the two paragraphs. Furthermore, even though the watch description isn't that much shorter, it just seems to reader shorter to me. I'm not sure why, but the whole opening reads a lot smoother.
posted
Axe, I have spent like a week trying to figure out how to accommodate your suggestion but I am not sure how to do that and maintain the parts of the intro that I like. However, I did change 10:04 to 10:03...the line still works and it reduced confusion. Thanks.
BTW: For those curious, the novel is actually finished at 105,000 words. Though technically it can be classed as YA-Fiction, I don't think it is and I didn't write it in that intent. I prefer Science-Fantasy for those of the digital age.
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