posted
Almost sixty instances of "one" in the first two hundred entries. A large portion used as vague counting numbers, a large portion as obviative pronouns.
Posts: 6037 | Registered: Jun 2008
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quote: Given the ones he chose, and some of the good ones that didn't make the cut, I am really wondering what his criteria was...
I guess it's a matter of taste. Some of the paragraphs he chose don't do a thing to make me want to read on. I would not have picked the one that went on and on about the literary references, for example.
I notice that five of the chosen paragraphs (half) were first person. And one was apparently second person, which is really strange. I'm having difficulty imagining a whole novel in second person.
He's supposed to post on Monday about the paragraphs and why he chose the ones he did. We'll get a chance to find out then, I guess.
Edited to add: And, of course, from a quick glance at the votes, it looks like the one paragraph I liked least is in the lead. One man's meat is another man's poison, I guess. But I can't imagine reading a whole novel in that voice. I want to know what's happening in this story, not how many other novels you can name. And if it's not representative of the voice of the novel, why is it the first paragraph? JMO
[This message has been edited by Meredith (edited October 17, 2009).]
posted
Reflexive second person narratives are typically addresses to the self, sort of like a screenplay voiceover. It's a narrative technique that creates a metareferential engagement for readers. Readers of reflexive second person self-identify with a narrator's self-identifying through reflexive reflection. It's characterized by a very deep psychic access. It is an acquired taste.
Maintaining reader engagement for an entire novel in reflexive second person is hard to do well, probably the hardest narrative voice to pull off, but it's been done. One of the effective methods I've seen in reflexive second person involves a rich exterior life that's reflected in the interior life of the narrator. Another is judicious and consistent use of the self-referential you pronoun, as it is with first person pronouns in first person narratives.
posted
If the second person narrative means the paragraph starting with "You imagine time flowing backward, back upstream." I am not a big fan of this style. However, I just encountered an excellent example of a novel that utilizes this technique perfectly.
I recommend the book Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid. Not speculative, not what I would usually read either, it was recommended by a friend. Describes living in modern day Pakistan and details the downward spiral of the main character. Warning: a little dark, details drug use.
But what stood out to me was the novel use of POV. Most chapters are told in first person by MC. Some chapters told POV by other characters, giving a different perspective on events, talking directly to the reader. Then, a few chapters use this second person device, telling YOU what you are seeing and hearing, the characters are speaking directly to you. By the end of the novel YOU are asked to make a decision about the MC. First time I have ever encountered this type of reader engagement and it really worked for me!
posted
It's interesting to see that his winner wasn't a paragraph that introduced any kind of immediate story, per se, but seemed to just make fun of stuff.
Posts: 2195 | Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
I'm left shaking my head. In his explanation, he says he doesn't like gimmicks. And yet that's exactly what the winner is to me--a gimmick. That would have been my last choice.
And he said he was looking for execution, but one of the honorable mentions had a protagonist who "kneeled (past tense of kneel is knelt) on her knees" (there is no other way to kneel that I'm aware of). Man, I had trouble getting past that first sentence to the rest of the paragraph.
Well, I guess it's a difference of opinion that makes a horse race.
But I'm not much wiser than I was when the contest started.
posted
"Essentially, I think the first paragraph has three important functions: it establishes the tone/voice, it gets the reader into the flow of the book, and it establishes trust between the author and reader." (Nathan Bransford's emphasis) http://blog.nathanbransford.com retrieved 10/19/09
Tone or voice, narrative point of view, mood, tenor, attitude, authorial flair, etc.
Gets readers into the flow, reader engagement--introduces resonance features that engage readers.
Trust, trustworthiness of the tacit contract between writer and reader that the story will live up to a promise of a darned good story, also somewhat tone/attitude, what the tone of the story will instill in readers: unbiased, biased, objective, subjective, reflexive, obviative, imperative, etc., narrator that readers self-identify with or align meaning space with.
Travis Erwin's winning entry does all that for me, the contradiction of naming the rhetorical tropes and scheme of the first sentence with the meta references to other novels and a celebrity in the later sentences speaks volumes in figurative references with potent subtext.
The antithetical statement "Not this one." is a literary device that asks for special notice. Saying so, that the story isn't a story heavily littered with literary devices, then doing exactly that with the meta references to To Kill a Mockingbird, etc. In other words, it's a litotes, a literary device, an understatement in which the affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary [Webster's 11th].
Personally, the litotes put me on point for contradictions and did exactly what "trust" should do, it told me that I'd read the novel expecting to question the narrator's veracity throughout. I could trust him to tell the story, but couldn't entirely trust his perspective. Welcome to the postmodern neoexistentialist world, question absolutes, question certainty, question authority, question everything.
posted
I agree with extrinsic. While this paragraph would not have been my first choice, it definitely stands out from the crowd with its authoritative voice and tone.
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posted
I laughed at the Copperfield reference, and I did think the winner was clever, but ultimately I agree with Meredith. It's a gimmick. Call it whatever you want to. But it's gimmicky as hell.
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posted
The only fault I found with Erwin's paragraph entry is a nondiscretionary comma misuse, "dusty, Texas feedstore." If the adjective "dusty" is a coordinate modifier with Texas, replacing the comma with and, as one of commas' puncuation function is, would read //dusty and Texas feedstore.// I stumbled over it the first time I read it. Read the paragraph again to get over the disruption, and it read without disrupting sans the comma.
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posted
I want to be clear. I'm not complaining about his choices. Picking 25 or so out of 2500 basically overnight has got to be tough.
I just have trouble reconciling what he stated as his criteria--voice, flow, and trust, along with good execution and no gimmicks--with the paragraphs he chose. I'd learn more from it if the relationship from one to the other was clear.
Right now, all I can say I truly learned was that you can't ever tell what an agent will like, even when they tell you what it is they think they like.
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