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The first 16 lines
The first page of a novel is about 16 manuscript lines long. Common lore among agents and editors is that a writer has that amount of space to hook the reader. If the reader isn't hooked on the first page, then he won't turn the page.
There are lots of ways to hook a reader. Whether you do it with action or description, the important thing is that something... story questions, voice, something... compels the reader to keep going.
I'm not sure my first 16 lines do that though. What do you think? Would you turn the page?
Lucas crept to the edge of the field and listened. Nothing -- nothing close anyway. Maybe he'd lost him. He grunted. Fat chance.
Which way now? Blackberries snarled the fence between him and the woods. The creek? No, that's the first place he'd search. Lucas hesitated, then darted back the way he came, getting only a few feet before rustling in a stand of cattails to his left sent him diving to the ground. He tried to make himself small in a patch of lank brown grass and wished he'd tried for the woods.
Footsteps splashed through the water, paused, then angled sharply back into the field. The footfalls came even faster -- he'd been seen. He sprinted forward, but got only one step before two paws planted against his shoulder and sent him sprawling.
Flat on his belly, spitting grass out of his mouth, he had two thoughts. One, this spot of ground was altogether too squishy, which meant mud. His mom was going to kill him. And two, the dog sitting on his back weighed as much as Isabel Cutter, the girl who had knocked him down and tried to kiss him at school last summer.
He looked over his shoulder and got a glimpse of a lolling pink tongue and white teeth before the beast dropped and began bathing his face. Lucas snorted and choked and buried his face in his arms.
“You got me! You don’t have to drown me.” At least, he decided, pushing the dog off, Mouse was a better kisser than Izzy.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
What's in a name?
My novel has a curly coated retriever in it, and I can't for the life of me settle on a name for this poor dog. Let's be clear -- I have a curly coated retriever, and it isn't this dog. This dog is a potential field trialer. My dog would rather chase rabbits, and he's not even very good at that.
Still, I've been tempted to name him Pax, because, well, because my Pax is the best dog ever, and this sort of immortalizes him. Also a couple of people who have read some of the story get uncommonly gleeful when they see Pax's name. (I think he has a bit of a fan club.) But then I waver and think that people will think that my dog is like that dog, and so I decided that rather than name him Pax after my curly, I'll call him Rain, after my beloved Newf. So I've put "Rain" throughout all my notes.
It doesn't look right.
Sigh. The obvious answer is to give this poor fictional dog a name all his own. Problem is, I can't for the life of me come up with a name I like. At the moment I have a bunch of names for girls, but this dog is very definitely male.
Hmmm. How about Bailey? Or Mouse? Both are, to clicker training fans, obvious tributes to Bob and Marion Bailey. While I won't refer to Bob or Marion or even clicker training by name in the book, the technology definitely has a prominant part in the events. Bailey is a rather common name for a dog these days -- too common, I think. Mouse, though... Mouse is not only an uncommon name, it would be an odd, distinctive name for a character in a book.
Okay, unless and until a better name comes to me, the dog I have previously referred to as "Rain" has now officially become "Mouse."
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Show, don't tell
I haven't been writing. I've been training my dog. It's a peculiarity of me that I can have just one obsession at a time. Fortunately or unfortunately, those obsessions run in phases. So I'll focus on my novel for a while, then toss it to the wind and train my dog for a while, and then forget them both and count calories and obsess about the gym for a while. On the plus side, though a phase may be short-lived at the time, I rarely have time to get bored with it, so it's always new and exciting to me, and even after I drop it, it's almost guaranteed to come around again sometime. On the negative side, it makes progress in any one area quite slow. In fact, it's a wonder I ever get anything done at all. And yet, I have two completed screenplays, a published non-fiction book, and a dog who is actually pretty well trained.
My reading habits tend to mirror my current obsession, but before I switched to scintillating texts on agility training, I managed to read a couple of books on fiction writing. One of those books was Self Editing for Fiction Writers. Really, really excellent book! I think I was expecting more of a grammar focus, but instead it focuses on larger elements like dialog, voice, and point of view. The lesson I got the most from in this initial pass was "Show, Don't Tell."
"Show, Don't Tell" is common advice to fiction writers. I even know what it means. But this book was better at explaining and illustrating the concept than anything I've read before, and it just clicked for me. I went back and read some of my short stories, and there's a heck of a lot of telling there.
Kinda bummed me out.
But it really opened my eyes to the issue, and I think my writing will be better for it now. And, really, I do want to write this story.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Character sketch -- Ella Gannaway
b. 1979
Charm called Ella "Cinderella" when they were kids and she was just Jimmy's tagalong little sister. She's feminine and sexy. She's also troubled.
In rather a running joke, Ella managed to date every male of dateable age that Bird is related to. She dated two of his cousins and his younger brother. She actually married his younger brother, Buddy.
His younger brother was an ass, but she pretends it was a wonderful relationship. He was in the Army, and he was abusive and unfaithful. They had a wicked fight, and then he shipped out to Iraq and got killed. Because she feels guilty, she pretends it was a wonderful relationship.
She and Henry had dated before she started dating his brother, and after his brother died, they bonded again and struck up their relationship again. It's different this time, because she's different. During the story she finds out that Buddy was cheating on her. That gives her the strength to admit that he was an absolute ass, which frees her to stop mourning and start living her life again. That helps Leah start living HER life again. Ella thinks that by admitting that Bird's brother was a jerk, Bird won't want her anymore, but he just loves her more. He was getting tired of sharing her with a ghost that he knew was an ass.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Character sketch -- Ray Gomez
b. 1965
Ray Gomez wasn't born and bred in the town, so he's an outsider. He came in as a manager for the big farming conglomerate that bought out many of the farmers in town. He's educated and reasonably wealthy, particularly by town standards.
Ray is serious, focused, and ambitious. He's a third generation American of Mexican descent, but he has faced his share of discrimination along the way. He got a B.S. in Agricultural Systems Management from Texas A&M and then went on to get an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
He has worked his way up to being a manager for the farming conglomerate. He could have gone higher in the corporation, but that would have required travel and less hands on. He liked to get out and get his hands dirty.
He's married -- trophy wife who's into horses (and bat shit crazy) -- and he likes to be the best at whatever he does. Best wife, best horses, best cars, best hunting dogs. He's always looking to improve something, to make something better, to get better, to accomplish more. He stayed at this level of management because he could be hands on and try to keep improving the farm and what it produces.
He is looking for better and better hunting dogs. While he wouldn't think a curly would be a great hunting dog, just the fact that this dog would be the first field trialer would appeal to him. So would Maria's training methods, once he saw how well they worked.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Character sketch -- Wayne Layton
b. 1971
Wayne is a local man, several years older than Charm. Charm didn't like him because Wayne was an ass when he was a teen, and he picked on the younger boy. Wayne grew up and became a respectable, responsible man, but Charm wasn't here to see it and so carries a grudge. Wayne had hunting dogs as a boy, and then when he got older, he worked with a professional to learn the ropes. His dogs did well, and so he began to get clients. He is actually quite talented with the dogs, and that's why Ray Gomez hired him. Now he manages and trains Ray's dogs and horses.
He's ambitious like Gomez and doesn't want to work for him forever. He wants to be a big-name professional trainer like Mike Lardy or Evan Graham. Gomez has excellent dogs, so he's a means to an end. He's planning to take Gomez's main dog to an NFC.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Character sketch -- Leon Ortmann and Max Shetley
b. 1930 (both!)
Max is the owner and bartender of The Bull's Eye. This is remarkable for two reasons. One, he's 80 years old. Two, he's gay. Considering this is the South, the town is remarkably accepting of his alternative lifestyle. Of course he never rubbed it in anyone's face. His longtime partner is Leon, who runs the Greyhound bus station. Leon is also the Mayor of the town and has been since 1967. They live in separate houses next door to each other on Main Street.
The grownups always knew they were gay. When Charm was a boy it was rumor among the kids, but he didn't believe it at first. When he found out it was true, he was shocked to discover all the adults knew. Kids today, though, probably all know, because that sort of thing just isn't a secret anymore. Still, the town wouldn't likely tolerate any other openly gay people, at least not happily.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Character sketch -- Rev. Arthur Walton and Ruth
b. 1951 (Arthur), 1952 (Ruth)
Rev. Arthur Walton is humdrum and BORING. He replaced a minister who got caught in a compromising situation involving a prostitute, a French maid's outfit, and lots of Jello. Jimmy had been claiming for years that he had a massive porn addiction and weird fetishes. When Charm is told about what happened to the old minister, he says something like "Well, it wasn't porn." They laugh because when his wife kicked him out, she threw all his porn magazines on the front lawn and the crazy mail lady saw them. That meant EVERYBODY knew about it.
Rev. Walton was the most boring, uptight, conservative man they could find. He drives everyone crazy. Even Jimmy can't find out anything about him -- but he warns that it's always the quiet ones you have to watch out for. Besides, why on earth would he and his wife have wanted to move to this small town?
Ruth Walton is very sweet, but there's something about her that bugs people. "There's something odd about that woman." Turns out that she is a he -- or used to be. This comes out at some point, and the town jumps on it as an excuse to get rid of her boring husband. No one actually cares about Ruth's sex change, but they're sick to death of her husband's three sermons. Charm wonders exactly what went on in the Walton bedroom, and Jimmy asks if he really wants to go there. Not really.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Character sketch -- Gertrude McKelvy
b. 1935
Gertrude is the crazy lady who delivers the mail and runs
the post office and raises alpacas. Gertrude is in her mid 70s and makes
a point to wear a bright orange hat and vest year round. She also wears
her knee high muck boots in all occasions because she is forever running
out to care for her alpacas. She both runs the post office and delivers
the mail. Delivering the mail takes a few hours. In the winter she closes
up at lunch so she can go in full daylight. But as soon as she can, she
pushes that time later and later in the afternoon. At high summer, she
doesn't start delivering mail until around four. It doesn't take that
long, though, because a lot of people just stop by the post office to
pick it up during the day, so she only has a little left to deliver by
four. She raises alpacas and wanted to move the post office to her house,
but the mayor and town council, such as it is, refused. So she turned
the half acre lot the post office sits on into an alpaca lot. If there's
anyone she's worried about for any reason, she just brings them to work.
The low split rail fence around the property keeps them contained just
fine, but if anyone forgets to close the gate, it's not unusual for the
alpacas to leave the post office and head to the nice green grass on the
town square just across the way. She had started with llamas, but the
llamas spit at children, so she switched to the alpacas. The alpacas don't
spit and people stopped complaining. You do have to watch your step when
you go to the post office though. Gertrude can't drive well. She couldn't
drive well when she was younger and could see. Now she's a menace. She,
however, painted her mail truck bright orange just like her vest and hat,
so it's easy to look out for her. Her secret? She's the sanest one of
the bunch!
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
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