The first time I met Karen was in college. We were in a play together: The Comedy of Errors. She played one of the leads; I played an extra—one that had a few parts. Karen was such a pleasure to watch. In fact, some men might say that Karen was made for pleasure.
To many she possessed a charismatic authority; to the rest she was a poignant curiosity. However, possessing her at all was entirely impossible; many tried. If one did manage to have even the slightest hold on her, she might powder their fingers like the diaphanous wings of a scarlet tiger moth. And as such, she was free to flitter. She was gracious in turning down cold-blooded admirers unless she perceived herself the prey. But if one held on to her wings too tightly, her feline qualities surfaced.

You are very descriptive, but the description doesn't tell me much. Maybe I'm just not reading enough into it, but I didn't find much out about Karen in this passage, and since the passage seems geared to get me intrigued about Karen...that doesn't give me much reason to keep reading.

Also, it might be my personal style preference, but the passage seems very choppy in it's flow.

The first few sentences are choppy compared to the later sentences. It feels like you're getting your stride in the first paragraph, and then things start flowing in the second.

The "made for pleasure" line sounded a little disturbing, like the person watching her would rape her.

You might be a little bit more specific. Almost every sentence is abstract.

With the exception of "Karen was a pleasure to watch", none of the description really tells me anything about the narrator; none of the description reflects how he (?) thinks or feels, just about how "people" do.

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It's thirteen lines, for pete's sake! how on earthcan you expect him to tell anything about the plot, let alone wht she is important to it, in thirteen lines.

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I didn't say he should tell us about the plot, I said he should tell us about why Karen is important to the story. That can mean a lot of things. Here are two ideas. The first has no rewriting, just an addition. The second is rewritten to characterize the narrator more. I'm trying not to change the style too much. (I hope beiko73 doesn't mind the rewrite -- I don't know what's happening in the story, so I'm sure it's all wrong, which, I hope, makes it acceptable.)

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I met Karen in college. We were in a play together: The Comedy of Errors. She played one of the leads; I played an extra—one that had a few parts. Karen was such a pleasure to watch. In fact, some men might say that Karen was made for pleasure.

To many she possessed a charismatic authority; to the rest she was a poignant curiosity. However, possessing her at all was entirely impossible. Many tried. I did, just after the play had run, but just when I thought I had closed my fingers around her, she cut them off. Literally.

It all started when...

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Or...

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I met Karen in college. We were in a play together: The Comedy of Errors. She played one of the leads; I played an extra—one that had a few parts. Karen was such a pleasure to watch. In fact, some men might say that Karen was made for pleasure.

Ten years later, I realized that she had never stopped playing parts. I was jealous of the Wall Street Brahmins who reveled in her charismatic authority, but even more so of those for whom she played the enigma.

I exulted every time she rebuffed, with feline skill, a man who attempted to possess her. I waited anxiously as those who held her lightly, as one might a tiger moth, dusted their fingers with powder from her diaphanous wings. I planned my

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Both of these are over the top, to be sure, and neither has anything to do with the actual story, but they illustrate the points.

1. When the narrator describes something from his POV, you get a lot more information if it's not in the abstract. The first example gives less information (although it does tell you why Karen's important) because it's not giving much detail from the narrator's POV. The second example talks about Karen, but characterizes the _narrator_. Unlike the original, you can feel the obsession. The original only gave you other people's obsessions, and they weren't as personal or intense.

2. The first example shows that it's completely possible to fit plot elements into the first 13 lines. (Remember that the first paragraph is "free".) The second shows that you don't need plot elements to show how the character's important; there's no doubt that Karen's the focal point of the story because the man's obsessed with her, and if I tried harder I would have worked in the "I planned my approach accordingly" into the first 13.

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"Jacob marley was dead to begin with" tells us nothing abou the plot, or why he ie important to it either, but if anyone has the cajones to tell dickins to change how he writes, they deserve to be slapped silly with a herring.

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LOL... No herrings, please. Cherry Heering is fine, though, if you have some.

For the record, here's the first 13 of "A Christmas Carol":

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MARLEY was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-

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Any doubt here that Marley is (a) central to the tale, (b) dead, (c) still influencing things? Any doubt about setting, tone, or pace? It's a great opening precisely because it _does_ show you a lot in the first 13.

TMan1969 said:

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as for the first 13, I am pretty sure that further on, we would find out how this all plays out and how important Karen is.

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To clarify: I know _how_ important she is, but I still have no idea of _why_ she's important. And readers don't have a lot of patience in trying to find out.

As someone who has picked up a published novel, I'm guessing that some editor has already figured that out, and I can hope that it's worth it; but as a slush reader, I might guess that the whole story reads like this. Therefore, if it's on a bookshelf, I might keep reading for a page or two; if I'm being asked to qualify a stack of slush for publication, I'm going to guess that there are better manuscripts in the pile.

I hope this clarifies, and Beiko, I hope it doesn't come off as too harsh.

In the next 2 paragraphs, we see why Karen is so important to the narrator, so I don't worry too much about that part. The beginning does need to be rewritten for smoothness, to be sure.

The part about Karen being made for pleasure, though: if that came off that Jeffery "would rape her," I certainly didn't mean that. It was more his observation of what *some* other men have said around him.

And, no, none of it was harsh. I appreciate the insight about the POV and the narator lacking details for Karen's characterization.

I am curious about the "metaphorical and flowery prose." Is that what is so offputting? I did have fun with that paragraph, but it is a constant reminder for me; even when *I* like the way I've written something, I have be be willing to cut, cut, cut.