I've been prefacing each new first 13 with info on what is happening to my other stories because I would like to know what is happening to your other stories. If you would rather I stopped, let me know and I will.
The current first 13 is from an older story. I've resisted submitting to simi-pro markets up to now, but since Locus has started to review them, any market reviewed in Locus I'm willing to try. This story has already gone out to Talebones, but I'm still looking for comments and readers.
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This is the story of a man who lied to the immortal gods. He was the biggest liar in Rome. His name was Flminius Publius and the only good thing anyone could say about him was that he loved his wife.
The air of the insula apartment was thick with the smells of neighbors cooking breakfast: onions, garlic, and frying sausages. It was hot, so the door was open, letting in the sounds of children yelling and running up and down the stairs, of the next-door neighbors engaged in a shouting contest, of the baritone two flights up singing a popular song. The world seemed filled with life, and yet Julia’s life hung by a thread.
Flaminius knelt by his wife’s pallet. “You’ll be better soon,” he lied.
You give us alot of sensory input here - sounds, smells, visuals, but since we are told this - instead of a particular person experiencing this, it has less impact.
The sentence beginning with "It was hot..." could be broken up, as it is it slows down the story. In fact, instead of telling us it was hot - why not a character sweating profusely from the dry heat - or something similar.
Take out the cliches - "...thick with the smell of..." and
"...hung by a thread..."
[This message has been edited by nitewriter (edited November 17, 2007).]
About your first thirteen, i thought it would be stronger if you just nixed the first paragraph. Everything you tell us, you show us in the following paragraphs much more powerfully.
I thought the second paragraph would be much stronger if the details were more specific to Flaminius, rather than general thoughts about the apartment. Otherwise, it hooked me. It was these lines that did it:
quote:
The world seemed filled with life, and yet Julia’s life hung by a thread.
Flaminius knelt by his wife’s pallet. “You’ll be better soon,” he lied.
Concerning that description and sensory input, I have to respectfully disagree with nitewriter and annepin.
I'm happy with the details not necessarily being tied to the MC right away. For one thing, I'm not attached to him yet, so his sensory experiences at this point are less important to me than a good dose of milieu/scene setting.
Furthermore, having him directly note the smell of sausages might come across narratively as too reader-conscious (if that makes sense). He's sitting at the bedside of his ill wife, after all, and even if he does smell them, presenting the smell to the reader through his senses suggests he's consciously aware of it, even while more important things are at hand. That might be a whole different Flaminius.
Beyond the wife issue, it's established right above that he's a liar - as a reader, I might be questioning anything he tells me.
Long story short: I like the atmospheric details just as they are - as stated atmospheric details.
And I like that you preface your fragments with updates. :)
I would read on, and I offer myself as a reader with the caveat that my response may be agonizingly delayed.
He was the biggest liar in Rome. His name was Flminius Publius and the only good thing anyone could say about him was that he loved his wife.
The air of the insula apartment
[I had to look up 'insula' and that's okay, I'm not one who demands stories to be written with words of one syllable. But my dictionary says that 'insula' is a noun, so I think 'apartment' is redundant.]
was thick with the smells of neighbors cooking breakfast: onions, garlic, and frying sausages. It was hot, so the door was open, letting in the sounds of children yelling and running up and down the stairs, of the next-door neighbors engaged in a shouting contest, of the baritone two flights up singing a popular song.
[I'd suggest this next sentence might be in a new para to give it more impact. And the previous sentence should, in my opinion, concentrate on noise and movement and delete references to where people are, because that detail slows it down and dilutes the world seeming 'filled with life.']
The world seemed filled with life, and yet Julia’s life hung by a thread. [I like this sentence -- but it has two lives.]
Flaminius knelt by his wife’s pallet. [If in the first sentence it said 'he loved his wife Julia' this could become 'knelt by her pallet' and might read easier.] “You’ll be better soon,” he lied.
Oh, and it's interesting to hear how submissions and rejections go. Do you ever rewrite them as a result of a rejection? (It often seems to me that you send a rejected story straight out to another market without change.)
Hope this helps,
Pat
[This message has been edited by TaleSpinner (edited November 18, 2007).]
On revision: I follow Heinlein's advice, even though every other piece of advice by Heinlein I've ever followed has led to disaster and another failed marriage. I only revise if an editor asks me to. I get the impression that a lot of would-be writers spend all their time revising and little time writing. I tried to start a local writer's group, failed. The three people who showed up a the meeting had each written one story, years ago, which was praised by their creative writing teacher, and they had been revising it ever since.
quote:
I only revise if an editor asks me to.
Maybe I'm not understanding here, but why are you submitting stories to us if you're not going to revise them?
quote:
The three people who showed up a the meeting had each written one story, years ago, which was praised by their creative writing teacher, and they had been revising it ever since.
That sounds like bad dream...imagine trying to leave and finding the door locked--you are trapped with them forever.
Shoot me...please.
On the other hand, since I have new stories out at all the markets I know about, fifteen stories in all, I am spending some time revisiting older stories. To my surprise, I can see mistakes in them, so evidently I've learned something. The biggest problem I see in my older stories is trying to cram too much information into a single sentence or paragraph. I'm much more relaxed in my writing now, and don't have to tell the reader absolutely everything I know right this very minute. I think more in terms of scenes and characters, and if I want the reader to know something, I set up a situation, preferably a conflict, in which the information will come out naturally.
On the first thirteen:
Not much to say on this one other than even with the "tall tale" style, I found myself wishing the last line had been closer to the beginning and that opening lines has been less "Let me tell you a story."
Having said that, I still think I would have read far enough to reach the last line, at which point, I would have intrigued enough to continue reading.