Post the first 3 sentences of your WIP!

Drachen Jager said:

Over the past two weeks, I’ve come to a conclusion; there is no more deeply disturbing experience than falling asleep in your own body and waking up in someone else’s.

This time I’m a fleshy, middle-aged woman, lying in bed. Women are the worst.

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In this one, "I" doesn't come off as much of an offensive jerk as "I" did in the first one. You introduce a situation immediately which is interesting in the first sentence, which is a positive.

The second sentence is still judgmental and jerkish (fleshy is not an endearing term, particularly to a middle-aged female reader), but it starts showing me the character's attitude immediately, which is also positive.

The last sentence steps on the line with offensive, but some characters are offensive in their beliefs and are still interesting to read, so that's not necessarily so bad. Depends on if that's truly what you're shooting for with this character or not.

However, you do have more emotion in this bit, there's more for the reader to react to (positive and/or negative) than before. I might continue reading this one, whereas I would not have continued reading the previous one. Whether or not I finished the first page would depend on what followed this opening.

BethS said:

The part in bold is your first line and it's a good one. The rest is eye-glazing chatter.

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You know what, I think you're right. Thank you, and everyone else.

Drachen Jager

personally I preferred the first draft, though I agreed with what was said here:

Willow M Stevens said:

Recommendations: I would prefer to see the second sentence become the first, and the first sentence be integrated into it.

"I always find it deeply disturbing whenever I wake up as a woman. The balance is all wrong, and it makes me feel like such a perv! This particular morning, my body is fleshy and middle-aged, and.... (yadda yadda yadda intro action)"

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I guess it all comes down to the old saying that everyone has their own opinions, just like everyone has... um... you know... that body part that every one of us has!

I'd go with whichever you feel is strongest yourself, after all you will never please every reader no matter how hard you try. You seem to be getting positive statements on both versions.

MarkEsq said:

My first visit to this thread, it's fun. Here's the opening to my newest WIP, a stand-alone, slightly noir-ish crime story.

[FONT=&quot]Nobody realizes how hard many people work, how much energy they expend, just to be normal. There are places in America, a few of them, where it's easier to let go, worry less about other people's opinions, but before you can take advantage of a place like Austin, Texas, you have to resolve your own internal conflicts. And when your two most prized possessions are a gun and a guitar, when you speak with an English accent and kick your car door closed with cowboy boots, you can't help but wonder about yourself from time to time.[/FONT]

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Folks are going to come along and talk about tightening this up, you betcha'. Me, I like it like it is. Not just because I like wordiness, but because the way it's written gives a nice feel of the slower, southwestern speech patterns. Besides, you've made me want to move to Austin.

Pounding drops drowned the sound of Paige's sobbing. She had often heard her grandfather say 'No matter how hard the rain falls, how high the river flows, water only means to heal'. It was a modicum of comfort.

MarkEsq said:

My first visit to this thread, it's fun. Here's the opening to my newest WIP, a stand-alone, slightly noir-ish crime story.

[FONT=&quot]Nobody realizes how hard many people work, how much energy they expend, just to be normal. There are places in America, a few of them, where it's easier to let go, worry less about other people's opinions, but before you can take advantage of a place like Austin, Texas, you have to resolve your own internal conflicts. And when your two most prized possessions are a gun and a guitar, when you speak with an English accent and kick your car door closed with cowboy boots, you can't help but wonder about yourself from time to time.[/FONT]

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First off, I'd would cut out 'Texas'. Makes it sound less conversational to me, it muddles the rhythm, and good noir feels like being apart of a conversation rather than being told a story.

My other suggestion is to start the third sentence with 'So' and put 'and' after the first comma.

I like it though; it does have a very active style and I would read more.

lnhawking said:

Pounding drops drowned the sound of Paige's sobbing. She had often heard her grandfather say 'No matter how hard the rain falls, how high the river flows, water only means to heal'. It was a modicum of comfort.

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Do you read your writing aloud? The rhyme in the first sentence is too much.

IMO the rest of it doesn't work very well either. There's no story here. She's sad and thinking of comforting words. No idea why, or where this is going. I don't know who she is either, except that she's sad. She could be a sad psychopath who's being sent to jail after murdering fifty people, or a sad bleeding-heart animal lover that just had her favourite cat die in her arms.

lnhawking said:

Pounding drops drowned the sound of Paige's sobbing. She had often heard her grandfather say 'No matter how hard the rain falls, how high the river flows, water only means to heal'. It was a modicum of comfort.

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I'd rather know why she's crying than know why she finds the rain comforting.

This seems to be a very common problem with openings I see here: they start with a reaction (sometimes a dramatic reaction) to an event that happened off-stage. Effectively, this begins the story in a trough, and to get it going is like trying to drive a car out of a ditch. You have to keep backing up to get the traction to move forward. In other words, at some point the writer has to go back and explain what the character is reacting to before the story can move forward.

Start with an event, not a reaction to an event.

So, here is the first three lines of my current (and first ever) WIP. It's a somewhat soft sci fi story set in modern day.

‘Her eyes met mine as she raised her blood soaked hands and the weight of what I’d done finally hit me…’
I marked through the words that I had just written down before sighing a little. Just my luck, I try my hand at starting a journal and the first thing that I write is related to back then.

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You're probably both right. The rest of the paragraph after the first three sentences contains the action. The reason she's crying is inferred throughout the first few paragraphs. I'm going to add a two sentence paragraph to replace this as the opening.

Dustin Howell said:

‘Her eyes met mine as she raised her blood soaked hands and the weight of what I’d done finally hit me…’
I marked through the words that I had just written down before sighing a little. Just my luck, I try my hand at starting a journal and the first thing that I write is related to back then.

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When you're putting stuff up for crits here it's a good idea to add an extra line between paragraphs.

IMO this doesn't work for much the same reasons Beth cited to Inhawking, you're starting on a reaction to something that happened, only then you go one step further and turn it into a flashback, which is even worse IMO. Why can't you just write what happened?

This seems to fall into the often problematic new-writer idea that withholding information is a good way to build suspense. Mystery is a great suspense tool, but what you have here is not a mystery. The narrator knows exactly what happened, it's just you the author who has chosen not to share. There aren't many things that will turn a reader off faster than the impression the author isn't being straight with them (unless you're going the unreliable narrator route, which is an entirely different thing).

​

He stood with his hand on the lock, staring at her; satisfaction fleeing his face for contempt. The storm wouldn't keep him, and so he departed, slamming the heavy wooden door.

​

Pounding drops, amplified by the cabin's lack of insolation, drowned the sound of Paige's sobbing. She had often heard her grandfather say 'No matter how hard the rain falls, how high the river flows, water only means to heal'. It was a modicum of comfort, kindling she could stoke into fire.

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Technically, it's the first five now, but I feel better about it.

And I should say it is the first draft, written this afternoon, in a style that isn't my norm. I've several later chapters finished but the beginning has been so daunting. I'm excited to share more once I reach fifty posts.

Dustin Howell said:

‘Her eyes met mine as she raised her blood soaked hands and the weight of what I’d done finally hit me…’
I marked through the words that I had just written down before sighing a little. Just my luck, I try my hand at starting a journal and the first thing that I write is related to back then.

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First off, I thought the single quotes indicated some form of speech (verbal or thought), so that's a moment of confusion at the start.

The challenge I have here is that it seems like you attempt to put a provocative thing into the first sentence and then didn't back it up well.

However, this also reads like a first draft (apologies if I'm wrong), so if it lets you keep writing, then I wouldn't worry about it. Finish the draft and then see what really will lead into your story well and post again.

lnhawking said:

Technically, it's the first five now, but I feel better about it.

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No offense, LN, but this doesn't help. The only story question I'm seeing is a romantic one, and not a very interesting one at that, sorry to say.

Is that the kind of story you want to be telling--a romantic one?

DeleyanLee said:

No offense, LN, but this doesn't help. The only story question I'm seeing is a romantic one, and not a very interesting one at that, sorry to say.

Is that the kind of story you want to be telling--a romantic one?

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Don't worry about offending; I really need feedback as I have a deadline. I guess I've undervalued the power of the opening. The rest of the first paragraph make it pretty clear she was just raped, without saying it explicitly. The name of the chapter is The Breaking.

Paige is meant to be a surrogate, a mechanic I'm unfamiliar with using. Most of my writing is very character heavy and this story focuses on the world as a character (and whether it's fantastical or an unreliable narrator).

lnhawking said:

Technically, it's the first five now, but I feel better about it.

And I should say it is the first draft, written this afternoon, in a style that isn't my norm. I've several later chapters finished but the beginning has been so daunting. I'm excited to share more once I reach fifty posts.

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Knowing now that this woman has been raped, I think you could make the first line(s) more explicit.

The man's hands were trembling, they had blood on them, his voice shook, he did up his belt, he spat on the ground. The description of the look on his face could be made punchier with an action that suggests the terrible assault that has just taken place.

[FONT=&quot]I am not in love with this so I don't care if it's shredded, but the tenses are driving me nuts. I don't want present first person POV. First person, yes. Present tense, no. It keeps happening. I feel like an idiot.


[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Someone shakes me by the shoulder and I let out a scream. Above me Harrison looks panicked. “You have to come over now, Katie! [/FONT]

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And I have no idea how I screwed up the font and size so very much. ARGH.

Anna Spargo-Ryan said:

Knowing now that this woman has been raped, I think you could make the first line(s) more explicit.

The man's hands were trembling, they had blood on them, his voice shook, he did up his belt, he spat on the ground. The description of the look on his face could be made punchier with an action that suggests the terrible assault that has just taken place.

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See, the trouble I'm having is one of lacking identity. The rest of what I've written is sort of an Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Wizard of Oz type story; big themes explored through a fantastic adventure. I want it to ideally be YA fiction that adults can enjoy and have a lot to digest. This beginning however has been a source of much consternation. I'm torn between vaguesness and implication of rape or changing it to some other sort of damaging betrayal, enough to make her run away and establish that her experiences may subsequently be unreliable. Regardless of my plot problems, I'm reworking my opening approach to the scene leading up to the incident.

BrightSera said:

[FONT=&quot]I am not in love with this so I don't care if it's shredded, but the tenses are driving me nuts. I don't want present first person POV. First person, yes. Present tense, no. It keeps happening. I feel like an idiot.


[/FONT]And I have no idea how I screwed up the font and size so very much. ARGH.

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Someone shook me by the shoulder and I let out a scream. Above me was Harrison's panic stricken face.



Look up verb phrasing and branch-chains if you're having trouble identifying your subject/establishling tense.

Thank you!

lnhawking said:

Pounding drops drowned the sound of Paige's sobbing. She had often heard her grandfather say 'No matter how hard the rain falls, how high the river flows, water only means to heal'. It was a modicum of comfort.

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I like this. possibly repackage things somewhat. I sense a theme that you are introducing w/ the water, and that's fine. I'm wanting more from the last sentence. "It was a modicum of comfort" after . . .

JChandlerOates said:

I like this. possibly repackage things somewhat. I sense a theme that you are introducing w/ the water, and that's fine. I'm wanting more from the last sentence. "It was a modicum of comfort" after . . .

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Thanks, a few posts down is a revision. And you are certainly correct in picking out the theme.

Here are my first three sentences.

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Craetoka turned boys into men. Those who fail are met with death. Jarek envied the dead.

BrightSera said:

[FONT=&quot]I am not in love with this so I don't care if it's shredded, but the tenses are driving me nuts. I don't want present first person POV. First person, yes. Present tense, no. It keeps happening. I feel like an idiot.[/FONT]

Someone shakes me by the shoulder and I let out a scream. Above me Harrison looks panicked. “You have to come over now, Katie!

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In past tense (with a wee bit of trimming) it would be:

Someone shook me by the shoulder and I screamed. Above me, Harrison looked panicked. "You have to come over now, Katie!"

This leaves out a lot of crucial information. We don't know if the character is lying down or sitting or standing, or where she is, for that matter. The character screams, which seems like an extreme response to be startled, and we have no clue why, because the character's thoughts are closed to us. Harrison seems untroubled by the scream but is panicked about something else. The phrasing "come over" is odd, because that's usually what you say when you're asking someone to come to your house.

So, basically, this is pretty disconnected. It's like looking at a few pencil marks and trying to see a picture.

wolfking said:

Here are my first three sentences.

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Craetoka turned boys into men. Those who fail are met with death. Jarek envied the dead.

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You changed tense in the second sentence. And it's kind of choppy, but with a little editing, you can make that work for you:

Craetoka turned boys into men. Those who failed, died. Jarek envied them.