posted
Here are the opening 12 lines of a short story on its fourth revision (after some editor feedback). Word count is 6,264. I'm doing one more edit before submission to a new market next week.
I would be interested to know, as a reader or hypothetical editor, if you would continue to read. Further suggestions welcome.
Dorothy turned her back on the House of the Black Madonna and walked down Celetná Street, purse tucked under her arm, hands busy shrugging leather gloves onto her fingers. She heard the screech of vinyl tires on cobblestone. The screech was followed by a melodic noise, like a piano falling from the fifth floor balcony, or a giant harp tumbling out of the sky. A car horn blared. "Watch out!" someone cried. Dorothy lifted her head and saw a small, white service van speeding towards her. Dorothy dropped one of her gloves. She darted back inside the gate that defended the Cubist façade of House of the Black Madonna from pedestrian traffic. The white van swerved. Dorothy felt a rush of air as it sped away.
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited January 06, 2006).]
posted
You started right off with an exciting event--she almost gets run over. I liked it but feel almost as if it goes by too quickly. One second the van is speeding towards her and the other she is perfectly safe. Maybe you could slow the action down a bit, or maybe before the van incident if you should a bit more of the character. I've just barely been introduced to the mc--I'd be more concerned about an mc that i know more about. The story sounds interesting, especially the title. It makes me wonder who is the Girl who never was and why? I think the title in itself is a pretty good hook.
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posted
I like the imagery. My one complaint is that the first couple sentences make it sound like she is walking along a sidewalk for at least a little ways, then the bit with the van makes it sound like she's crossing the street instead.
In the first case: -she'd have to move pretty quickly and then make a turn if she wanted to be back behind the gate, which doesn't sound like a very gut-reaction way to avoid a van. -what's the van doing on the sidewalk? Or, if she's gotten far enough to hit a side street (I imagine this house to be pretty big), why would she rush all the way back to the gate?
In the second case: -Walking "down" a street doesn't imply crossing it.
Anyway, love the intro. The strange name of the House and the title both make good hooks.
posted
The piano/harp metaphor fails on me because I dont know that a piano or a harp makes sound while it falling and I wonder if the distance its falling affects the sound it makes while it falls.
Now a piano crashing into the ground, I can imagine.
I never really get where the melodic sound comes from.
For someone to cry out, it has to be established that there are other people around.
Did the van swerve towards her or away from her. Was this an intentional attempt to run her over or was she just being a ditz and stepping out into traffic without looking?
vinyl tires? Since when are tires vinyl? How is this different than the sound of rubber tires?
The first sentence needs to be reworked with one less trailing phrase.
She drops her glove, which she is holding in her hand but keeps the purse perched between her arm and body?
Just stuff to think about.
However, the reason this is not a hook is that, while there is plenty of action, there is not a character that I care about at all. We have a completely nonperson putting on gloves. At least she has a name. But that's all she has.
posted
I agree, the title and opening action provides a good hook. A couple of nits: shrugging an article of clothing usually entails taking it OFF... like you shrug off your coat. I would go with something more standard, like PULLING the gloves on. It sounds weird, not stylish, to say she is shrugging the gloves on. Second nit is the horn honking. You mention a musical sound and describe the musical instruments that could be playing it. Then you start a new sentence and say a car horn blared. Are these meant to be the same thing? If so, make it into one sentence, ie: A car horn blared like a musical instrument... blah blah blah. Breaking them into two separate sentences left me with the impression that they were two unrelated incidences... a musical instrument is being heard, followed by a car horn. I agree, add a bit of flavor to the near miss of being run over... give us her emotional reaction as she 1) sees the car coming, and 2) stands there, realizing it nearly killed her. Of course, we won't see all of that in the first 13 because it will probably exceed the 13 lines, but just make sure her emotional reaction is a part of it all.
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posted
1) I disagree that you have to establish that there are other around before someone shouts "Watch out." If you are on a street, I tend to assume you aren't alone. Plus, the quote helps establish setting without bogging us down with description. I'm guessing Dorothy's in a city, probably the old part of it, which suggests east coast.
2) I agree that "shrugging" came off as unnatural.
3) I didn't get the falling instrument reference at first (and I think you meant crashing). It took a re-read to realize this was the MC's perception of the horn honking, and even now I'm not sure what it says about her. Either she's spacey or likes thinking about destruction.
posted
"The screech was followed by a melodic noise, like a piano falling from the fifth floor balcony, or a giant harp tumbling out of the sky."
At the beginning of a story, I'm not that interested in discerning whether the screech sounded like .... all the ways you have described it. One short descriptive phrase would be enough for me. I want to get on and find out what the story is about.
If later in the story it becomes important to distinguish the sound, I would be more patient to hear about it.
posted
I thought that some details in this were extraneous, and some details that were needed were missing. Not to detract from the hook, or the clarity, which were great.
What I didn't get was who Dorothy was, how old she is, what the street is like (heavy traffic? jaywalking OK in this city?), why she's putting on gloves, and what the House of the Black Madonna is. That is, I don't really know what's going on, except for the near miss, and the sound of a harp falling makes me wonder if we're in a magical world, or if there's something strange about the van.
Nit: how would she know the tires are vinyl? Are there such tires?
posted
It's interesting, but there's a distance to it, and I'm not sure whether that's deliberate or not. The sentence structure makes it very cool; there's no breathlessness or excitement to it, which detracts from Dorothy nearly getting run over. Additinally, the description is all about physical details; although we appear to be in Dorothy's POV, there's no sense of a hint of a smidgeon of an emotion here.
However, the details are very nice and the House of the Black Madonna with its cubist facade is interesting. I'd turn the page and read on, but I'd want something more concrete pretty soon (the answers to at least some of Will's questions above).
This was an experiment in moving an exciting scene from the middle of the story to the beginning in order to make the opening of the story more exciting.
Your comments have given me a chance to see what worked and what did not using that technique.
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