Also, I have the first 13 lines of my current novel (two others long ago started are sitting in dust). I would like a little critique on these please, and when I get a few more chapters done (am stuck on chapter 9), I would appreciate if someone would like to read a little more and help me decide if a few sections read well or not.
Thank you,
Abby

Cammy woke up and dazed in the dark, and stumbled to the bathroom. As she splashed cold water on her face from the sink and looked in the mirror, she thought, it must all have been a dream. No, more like a nightmare. She decided she looked really too tired, and would get a glass of juice and go back to bed, since it was Saturday, she could go back to sleep. She crept to the kitchen, and turned the light on. Then, it hit her hard. It wasn’t a dream or a nightmare. It had been real. There were the five coffee cups on the table and a stack of papers to prove it. She sank to the floor in fear, terror, and shame.

Why should she feel fear, terror, and shame? Her past, which had always haunted her, had caught up with her last night. Now, it would be that very past that would give her a future, dim, as it seemed at the moment. She would finally be free of her past, as she used it to open the new door to freedom, for herself, and thousands like her.

If you mean how far inside the character's head we reach, you are talking about what is called penetration. What you wrote is light to medium penetration. To get deep inside her head, you need to give us her exct thoughts, without tags. There is no need for tags because there is only one character.

It is difficult to judge the first 13 lines of a novel because the reader will allow more time to get pulled in (several pages).

For me, the scene hasn't developed sufficiently to understand what is happening. In a short story, this would be a hangin' offense, but in a novel, I'd go along for at least another 26 lines before I started to get annoyed.

I don't think there were any serious problems with the writing as writing.

(Edited for typos)

Abby, a few comments. "Cammy woke up and dazed..." surely should read "Cammy woke up, dazed...". The first couple of lines aren't promising - the moment anyone says "it must all have been a dream", there can be an enormous temptation to the reader to say "well, nothing to worry about then" and kind of switch off.

What's interesting is how hard five coffee cups and a stack of papers hit her. Why is she so affected by their presence? What is it in her past that these "men" have somehow helped her to start moving on from? There's definitely a sense of interest kindled here. I'm not sure, though, that the last couple of lines work together. Perhaps you should try "What these men had started to teach her last night..." or "tried to teach her last night...".

As for 3rd person styles, I'm not entirely sure about the precise terminology myself, but the basic differences are to do with how many characters you follow around, whether you can "see" into people's thoughts, etc. Basically, all you need to do is to try and be consistent, and to make it fairly clear when you switch from one to another (about the only book in the past ten years that I have thrown away in disgust was one where the two lead characters met right at the beginning, and the POV jumped from her to him and back forth about seven times in two or three paragraphs; it was just excruciatingly bad; oddly, it was by a much-published and apparently respected author, but I'd never pick up one of that author's books again).

I'm also not hooking in because half the intro is devoted to mundane things like coffee, and it is weakening the tension you are trying to build with her terror. Don't feel like you need to spin a completely mundane environment to create a contrast for the emotional upheaval. When we are feeling fear we rarely notice the mundane things around us, and neither would our characters.

Good start, other than that! Just my two cents worth.

(And if it makes you feel any better, I'm having a hard time sifting through third person omnipresent, second person twice removed, and first person singular emperical omni-blah-blah-blah myself.)

Spaceman, I think you may be right. It is difficult to get a real sense of a story in just 13 lines.

tchernabyelo, thank you for catching that extra word. I had missed it.

wbriggs, I go into a lot more detail as paragraph 3 goes on. I do guess the whole first chapter is mostly her feelings. It is only 1 1/4 pages. The second chapter recounts the night of reliving, and discussing the horrors she lived through. I would like someone to objectively view that chapter at some point and see if they can tell what is going on. I may be too close to the characters to determine if the chapter is clear.
Who knows, I may switch the chapters back. Origianlly, many months ago, what is now chapter 2, was chapter 1, but it didn't seem right.

The knock came at Cammy’s door late one stormy night, just as she had turned out the lights to go to bed. Her husband, Joe, opened the door, to see uniformed representatives of each of the armed forces at their door. Both were startled, and a bit afraid. The first, looked a bit familiar to Cammy. They asked to come in, and as they walked into the light, she thought she recognized each of them. They all gathered around her kitchen table and began to draw out briefcases full of papers.

Cammy was still afraid, she did not have a pretty past, in fact, had few memories of her past, other than fear. Her husband understood this, and did not worry too much, just was concerned she might be overwhelmed. Joe started a pot of tea, because he could see it would be a long night.

At first, they spoke around the table as a group. One person would begin a sentence, with another completing the thought. “We are here for a complex purpose. In the end it will be for good. It will be very painful for a bit. This is in regards to a court case that you are a star witness in.

For instance -

"Why should she feel fear, terror, and shame?"

Good question...I have no idea.

This passage may mean something at the end of a book (in terms of how she feels etc and why) but for me...not at the start.

I wouldn't want the reader to realize what is happeneing before the character does. As in most such cases, she really doesn't know, she has repressed all memories, and the wakeing up the day after being forced to confront the truth of her past is important, as it explains who the character is, and why she feels the way she does, why she has the health issues, as well as the growth she experiences throughout the book.

What kind of opening do you consider one that lets you know what the character knows instantaneously? How do you use it to keep an interest in the story, rather than just a list of facts that don't create a stroy?

Your first 13 lines should hook us in and make us want to read more. The function of your opening isn't to explain the entire story, it is to intrigue us and stimulate our desire to learn more. As long as you accomplish that, you've done what needs doing.

Anyway, Abby, I see you've got plenty of comments above. Here's the thing about that. You can't explain yourself to an editor or a reader. Even though you have some legit questions up there, it comes off as a bit argumentative/defensive.

Fragments and Feedback works best for all involved if you post up 13 lines, and then let people mercilessly tear it apart, which they will do, but usually with some mercy. Then, you take all of that opinion and let it mulch for awhile. (You can always ask for clarity on any opinion given, if you don't understand a comment that is made.)

This doesn't mean we want to stifle you or discussion on your fragment, it simply means to wait a bit and see several opinions / comments come in first. Trust me. It works... you have to let it go for a short while.

Right. I think what some of the comments are saying about the first 13 is that you're leaving out what happened the night before. You could just as easily say in those first 13 lines that people came over. Of course, it appears it is covered in the next 13, but by then the damage may already have been done for some readers. So, just keep that in mind. You really might intrigue is more if you told us up front and right away that 5 people came over to discuss something.

For instance: The morning after the five (whoever they are) came over, Cammy woke and wondered if it was a dream. More like a nightmare, she thought.

You're right, you shouldn't tell us anything that the POV character doesn't know. But both excerpts--especially the first--make it sound like she knows what's going on. For example:

quote:

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Why should she feel fear, terror, and shame? Her past, which had always haunted her, had caught up with her last night.

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It's true that you don't have to tell us everything in the first 13 lines. But you also don't have to tell us everything we don't know. Tell us what's happening at the moment, plus the knowledge that she has and is relevant (i.e., that she has a reason to think about or be aware of at that moment).

It's also true that we are never going to get a sense of a novel from the first 13 lines. However, we CAN get a sense of whether we want to continue reading. If we know it's a novel, we're probably not going to demand that we're fully caught up as much as in a short story.

quote:

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I hear a few of you saying to say everything the character knows, but wouldn't that cut the story to just a few words, rather than a story? In this case, the character suffered abuse, built a rescue group, then found herself suddenly able to do things she thought long gone. No story, no interest.

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Here's how I like it to happen: you tell me exactly what she's thinking and feeling, right now. Not what's going to happen: I *do* like to be in suspense about that. If she's got repressed memory syndrome and isn't aware of what happened when she was 3, I don't want to know that either. But I *do* want to know what she knows, right now.

If the story is too dull that way, then it needs something else in it. It sounds like to me yours won't! A woman uncovering an abusive past (and possibly present -- you can add that too!) and learning how to live, sounds like a pretty gripping story to me.