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xenithFor those few that don't read Evil Editor, writers get to post the first 150 words from a novel and have it commented on by other readers of the blog.
I shan't say what I think of this practice.
However the subject of what should be in the first 150 words comes up. It would it should hook the reader. It should present the main character. It should introduce the conflict. It should present the setting in clear & obvious way. Yes...
The sensible thing to do seemed to be to look at the first 150 words of some Real Published Novels and see what they have to say.
So I grabbed some books off my bookshelf. Said bookshelf contains mostly fantasy series, so I took all the book 1s.
I'm skipping prologues.
Gerek awoke with first light, rose, and dressed quietly. He kissed his wife,who stirred slightly before turning over and going back to sleep. Then he stepped noiselessly to the next room, where his son slept. Gerek smiled when he saw the boy, still asleep, sprawled ridiculously in his bed. Kori's small feet rested on the pillow and his head leaned against the wall. Gerek sat down on the bed by his son and shook the boy gently.
"Kori. Kori,"he called softly. "I'm going to the island to pick some sham leaf. Do you want to come along? Or do you want to sleep some more."
The boy turned over and yawned, his eyes still closed. "I want to go with you," he replied sleepily.
"All right," Gerek continued in the same hushed tone. "Then you have to get up now."
"All right," Kori answered, although his eyes remained closed.
From Children of Amarid, David Coe (Sticker on front: Winner of William L. Crawford Award for Best First Fantasy Series)
I'm fairly sure it's his first published novel. I like to include first novels in these random samplings becasue "everyone knows established authors can get away with all sorts of things that a new author can't").
So what do we have here? The protagonist? No, those character don't appear again after the first chapter. Conflict? Setting? Nothing much happening either. Would I keep reading? I read this and the following two books in a week. I was supposed to keep them to read on the 14 hour flight home.
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
Born below the ever cloud-capped peaks that gave the mountains their name, the wind blew east, out across the Sand Hills, once the shore of a great ocean, before the Breaking of the World. Down it flailed into the Two Rivers, into the tangled forest called the Westwood, and beat at two men walking with a cart and horse down the rock-strewn track called the Quarry Road.
Eye of the World, Robert Jordan.
The protag appears, sort of. Conflict? I think that starts about chapter 2. This must be the most boring start to a novel/series ever published. We should sell that many books though. Would I keep reading? I did. I looked across at my friend who had leant it to and wondered how she'd been able to read another 5 books of that.
My first sight of Jorandel did nothing to improve my opinion of the kind of elves who abandon Faerie for show business. He was drunk or stoned, I never knew which, and vomiting in the gutter outside one of the most exclusive hotels in San Francisco. Passersby pretended he was invisible. I wished he were. Or I were. I'd been on the job for less than an hour and already I knew it had been a mistake to take it.
On stage, Jorandel might seem like a god: a long, lean, posturing Adonis with a golden voice and pointed ears and the kind of projected animal magnetism that can make a stadium full of pubescent females turn into a howling, quivering mass of sexual greed and frustration. But that magic dies when the god walks off stage to start guzzling booze, snorting or shooting drugs, groping any females who are still sufficiently dazzled to allow it, and vomiting in the gutter.
Cold Iron, Melisa Michaels
Now that does introduce the main characters, give clues to where & when, and bring in some conflict, not, from memory, the central conflict (it's detective/urban fantasy). Keep reading? I did but I wasn't that keen on it at first.
Lessa woke, cold. Cold with more than the chill of the everlastingly clammy stone walls. Cold with the prescience of a danger stronger than the one ten full Turns ago that had then sent her, whimpering with terror, to hide in the watch-wher's odorous lair.
Rigid with concentration, Lessa lay in the straw of the redolent cheeseroom she shared as sleeping quarters with the other kitchen drudges. There was an urgency in the ominous portent unlike any other forewarning. She touched the awareness of the watch-wher, slithering on its rounds in the courtyard. It circled at the choke limit of its chain. It was restless, but oblivious to anything unusual in the pre-dawn darkness.
Lessa curled into a tight knot of bones, hugging herself to ease the strain across her tense shoulders. Then, forcing herself to relax, muscle by muscle, joint by joint, she tried to feel what subtle menace it might be that could rouse her, yet not distress the sensitive watch-wher.
Anne McCaffrey, Dragonflight
I like this one best of those I've posted. There's the main character. Is there conflict? No, but you know something is about to happen. You get a good idea of what this world is like. Keep reading? Many times.
There are only three truly important questions in the universe. The first deals with why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings. The second is terrifyingly simple, concerning what true love really means, and why nearly true love is so much healthier for all concerned. The third most important question in the universe is about pirates.
In the little Empire of Mocklore, from the troublesome and hairy town of Axgaard to the scholarly and puddlesome Cluft, from the bleak, crime-ridden streets of Dreadnought to the gold-paved avenues of Zibria, from the enigmatic mysteries of the Troll Triangle to the blatant impossibilities of the Skullcaps, every now and again a Pirate of Note is born. No one knows why.
Anyone can be a pirate, of course. The most ordinary of farmboys can buy himself an eyepatch and run away to sea. But a Pirate of Note is always marked in some particular way.
Splashdance Silver, Tansy Rayner Roberts (winner of George Turner Prize - best unpublished Australian SF/F novel).
No characters at all. Not much of anything. But you know damn well what the rest of the book is going to be like, don't you? Keep reading? Sure.
The procession wound its way along the cobbled street, stretching fifty carriages long. The people of Le Havre pressed close on either side, cheering their King and his court, marvelling at the opulence of the carriages and the harnesses, admiring the flamboyant dress, the jewels and lace, the velvet and cloth-of-gold, the wide plumed hats of the young noblemen who accompanied their sovereign on horseback.
Marie-Josèphe de la Croix had dreamed of riding in such a procession, but her dreams fell short of the reality. She traveled in the carriage of the duke and duchess d'Orleans, a carriage second in magnificence only to the King's. She sat across from the duke, the King's brother, known always as Monsieur, and his wife Madame. Their daughter Mademoiselle sat beside her.
On her other side, Monsieur's friend the chevalier de Lorraine lounged lazily, handsome and languorous, bored by the long journey from Versailles to Le Havre.
The Moon and the Sun, Vonda McIntyre (Nebula Award Winner, Best Novel)
Possibly I should have started with the prologue. OK here we have the main characters and a bunch of other characters, in fact I think everyone but one from a large cast appears in this scene. No conflict yet. Does it establish the setting? You could make an educated guess, I suppose. Keep reading? Here I am stuck in an airport for 8 hours so I guess I will.
With a cold drizzling rain, the last of the twilight was closing in like gray steel. As she looked at the sky, Jill was frightened to be outside. She hurried to the woodpile and began to grab an untidy load of firewood. A gray gnome, all spindly legs and long nose,,perched on a big log and picked at its teeth while it watched her. When she dropped a stick, it snatched it and refused to give it back.
"Beast" Jill snapped. "Then keep it"
At her anger, the gnome vanished with a puff of cold air. Half in tears, Jill hurried across the muddy yard to the round stone tavern, where cracks of cheerful light gleamed around wooden shutters. Clutching her firewood, she ran down the corridor to the chamber and slipped in, hesitating a moment at the door. The priestess in her long black robe was kneeling by Mama's bed.
Daggerspell, Katharine Kerr
Main character, yep. Sense of where & when? Possibly. Central conflict? Um. Keep reading? Of course.
So, most of them show the main character doing somethig, but even that's not universal. Little conflict. No indication of the "central conflict." Usually clue as to where/when/what.
What they all do, is give an idea of what the book is like and its style.
I shan't say what I think of this practice.
However the subject of what should be in the first 150 words comes up. It would it should hook the reader. It should present the main character. It should introduce the conflict. It should present the setting in clear & obvious way. Yes...
The sensible thing to do seemed to be to look at the first 150 words of some Real Published Novels and see what they have to say.
So I grabbed some books off my bookshelf. Said bookshelf contains mostly fantasy series, so I took all the book 1s.
I'm skipping prologues.
Gerek awoke with first light, rose, and dressed quietly. He kissed his wife,who stirred slightly before turning over and going back to sleep. Then he stepped noiselessly to the next room, where his son slept. Gerek smiled when he saw the boy, still asleep, sprawled ridiculously in his bed. Kori's small feet rested on the pillow and his head leaned against the wall. Gerek sat down on the bed by his son and shook the boy gently.
"Kori. Kori,"he called softly. "I'm going to the island to pick some sham leaf. Do you want to come along? Or do you want to sleep some more."
The boy turned over and yawned, his eyes still closed. "I want to go with you," he replied sleepily.
"All right," Gerek continued in the same hushed tone. "Then you have to get up now."
"All right," Kori answered, although his eyes remained closed.
From Children of Amarid, David Coe (Sticker on front: Winner of William L. Crawford Award for Best First Fantasy Series)
I'm fairly sure it's his first published novel. I like to include first novels in these random samplings becasue "everyone knows established authors can get away with all sorts of things that a new author can't").
So what do we have here? The protagonist? No, those character don't appear again after the first chapter. Conflict? Setting? Nothing much happening either. Would I keep reading? I read this and the following two books in a week. I was supposed to keep them to read on the 14 hour flight home.
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
Born below the ever cloud-capped peaks that gave the mountains their name, the wind blew east, out across the Sand Hills, once the shore of a great ocean, before the Breaking of the World. Down it flailed into the Two Rivers, into the tangled forest called the Westwood, and beat at two men walking with a cart and horse down the rock-strewn track called the Quarry Road.
Eye of the World, Robert Jordan.
The protag appears, sort of. Conflict? I think that starts about chapter 2. This must be the most boring start to a novel/series ever published. We should sell that many books though. Would I keep reading? I did. I looked across at my friend who had leant it to and wondered how she'd been able to read another 5 books of that.
My first sight of Jorandel did nothing to improve my opinion of the kind of elves who abandon Faerie for show business. He was drunk or stoned, I never knew which, and vomiting in the gutter outside one of the most exclusive hotels in San Francisco. Passersby pretended he was invisible. I wished he were. Or I were. I'd been on the job for less than an hour and already I knew it had been a mistake to take it.
On stage, Jorandel might seem like a god: a long, lean, posturing Adonis with a golden voice and pointed ears and the kind of projected animal magnetism that can make a stadium full of pubescent females turn into a howling, quivering mass of sexual greed and frustration. But that magic dies when the god walks off stage to start guzzling booze, snorting or shooting drugs, groping any females who are still sufficiently dazzled to allow it, and vomiting in the gutter.
Cold Iron, Melisa Michaels
Now that does introduce the main characters, give clues to where & when, and bring in some conflict, not, from memory, the central conflict (it's detective/urban fantasy). Keep reading? I did but I wasn't that keen on it at first.
Lessa woke, cold. Cold with more than the chill of the everlastingly clammy stone walls. Cold with the prescience of a danger stronger than the one ten full Turns ago that had then sent her, whimpering with terror, to hide in the watch-wher's odorous lair.
Rigid with concentration, Lessa lay in the straw of the redolent cheeseroom she shared as sleeping quarters with the other kitchen drudges. There was an urgency in the ominous portent unlike any other forewarning. She touched the awareness of the watch-wher, slithering on its rounds in the courtyard. It circled at the choke limit of its chain. It was restless, but oblivious to anything unusual in the pre-dawn darkness.
Lessa curled into a tight knot of bones, hugging herself to ease the strain across her tense shoulders. Then, forcing herself to relax, muscle by muscle, joint by joint, she tried to feel what subtle menace it might be that could rouse her, yet not distress the sensitive watch-wher.
Anne McCaffrey, Dragonflight
I like this one best of those I've posted. There's the main character. Is there conflict? No, but you know something is about to happen. You get a good idea of what this world is like. Keep reading? Many times.
There are only three truly important questions in the universe. The first deals with why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings. The second is terrifyingly simple, concerning what true love really means, and why nearly true love is so much healthier for all concerned. The third most important question in the universe is about pirates.
In the little Empire of Mocklore, from the troublesome and hairy town of Axgaard to the scholarly and puddlesome Cluft, from the bleak, crime-ridden streets of Dreadnought to the gold-paved avenues of Zibria, from the enigmatic mysteries of the Troll Triangle to the blatant impossibilities of the Skullcaps, every now and again a Pirate of Note is born. No one knows why.
Anyone can be a pirate, of course. The most ordinary of farmboys can buy himself an eyepatch and run away to sea. But a Pirate of Note is always marked in some particular way.
Splashdance Silver, Tansy Rayner Roberts (winner of George Turner Prize - best unpublished Australian SF/F novel).
No characters at all. Not much of anything. But you know damn well what the rest of the book is going to be like, don't you? Keep reading? Sure.
The procession wound its way along the cobbled street, stretching fifty carriages long. The people of Le Havre pressed close on either side, cheering their King and his court, marvelling at the opulence of the carriages and the harnesses, admiring the flamboyant dress, the jewels and lace, the velvet and cloth-of-gold, the wide plumed hats of the young noblemen who accompanied their sovereign on horseback.
Marie-Josèphe de la Croix had dreamed of riding in such a procession, but her dreams fell short of the reality. She traveled in the carriage of the duke and duchess d'Orleans, a carriage second in magnificence only to the King's. She sat across from the duke, the King's brother, known always as Monsieur, and his wife Madame. Their daughter Mademoiselle sat beside her.
On her other side, Monsieur's friend the chevalier de Lorraine lounged lazily, handsome and languorous, bored by the long journey from Versailles to Le Havre.
The Moon and the Sun, Vonda McIntyre (Nebula Award Winner, Best Novel)
Possibly I should have started with the prologue. OK here we have the main characters and a bunch of other characters, in fact I think everyone but one from a large cast appears in this scene. No conflict yet. Does it establish the setting? You could make an educated guess, I suppose. Keep reading? Here I am stuck in an airport for 8 hours so I guess I will.
With a cold drizzling rain, the last of the twilight was closing in like gray steel. As she looked at the sky, Jill was frightened to be outside. She hurried to the woodpile and began to grab an untidy load of firewood. A gray gnome, all spindly legs and long nose,,perched on a big log and picked at its teeth while it watched her. When she dropped a stick, it snatched it and refused to give it back.
"Beast" Jill snapped. "Then keep it"
At her anger, the gnome vanished with a puff of cold air. Half in tears, Jill hurried across the muddy yard to the round stone tavern, where cracks of cheerful light gleamed around wooden shutters. Clutching her firewood, she ran down the corridor to the chamber and slipped in, hesitating a moment at the door. The priestess in her long black robe was kneeling by Mama's bed.
Daggerspell, Katharine Kerr
Main character, yep. Sense of where & when? Possibly. Central conflict? Um. Keep reading? Of course.
So, most of them show the main character doing somethig, but even that's not universal. Little conflict. No indication of the "central conflict." Usually clue as to where/when/what.
What they all do, is give an idea of what the book is like and its style.
Amber
Date: 2006-08-23 01:39 pm (UTC)Re: Amber
Date: 2006-08-23 01:43 pm (UTC)Re: Amber
Date: 2006-08-23 01:50 pm (UTC)