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Also, if you’d like to test your editing chops, keep your eye on this area or this area! I’ll post the pages and queries a few days before a critique so you can see how your redline compares to mine.
And, of course, if you need help more urgently or privately, I’m available for edits and consultations!
Now then. Time for the Page Critique. First I’ll present the page without comment, then I’ll offer my thoughts and a redline. If you choose to offer your own thoughts, please be polite. We aim to be positive and helpful.
Random numbers were generated, and thanks to Quarterwit, whose page is below.
Man Down
YA
“Man down! Man down!”
“God, not another. Is there nothing we can do Sergeant? That’s six highly trained, armed policemen he’s hit already. I can’t even see where he’s shooting from.”
The grey haired, hard looking sergeant, was ex-army and knew a thing or two about being shot at. He removed his cap, scratched his grizzled head and gingerly raised himself up to try to get a better view of what was happening. He quickly ducked back down again, shoulders tensed against any bullets that may be coming his way. He shook his head. He had no gun so there was nothing he could do anyway.
Shrugging, he said; “nothing at all Sir, we’re pinned down here ‘till someone can mount a diversion and allow us to move to a better position.
During all my years in the army and the police, I’ve never seen anything like it. In my opinion, he’s so well organised, so accurate, he may well be Special Forces, or ex Special Forces. He knows exactly what he’s doing; picking us off one by one. Like you say, we can’t even see where he is to get a shot back at him. He’s working to a plan although I’ve no idea what the plan is. It could be a hostage situation, or it could be part of a wider attack on civilization in general.”
He sat back against the hard, damp wall to relax after what was, for him, a long and complicated speech.
I don’t know what’s in the writing waters these days, but over-reliance on dialogue has become far and away the #1 problem I see in manuscripts. In this page, I like the verve and calmness these officers display under fire, but I worry there’s too much reliance on dialogue to really take much from the page beyond that.
Relying too heavily on dialogue often results in very unnatural conversations like this one, where the author is smushing exposition into dialogue in an unnatural way and neglecting physical description that could help orient us. It’s particularly precarious at the start of novels when the reader hasn’t had a chance to get their bearings.
In this case, there’s so little happening with the narrative voice that we don’t even know the characters’ names, where we are, or what’s happening entirely. All we know after the first page is that someone is shooting at the police.
Don’t make dialogue the foundation of your novel. It can add flavor but you should be telling a story, not forcing readers to eavesdrop and piece together what’s happening.
Here’s my redline:
Man Down
YA
“Man down! Man down!”
“God, not another. Is there nothing we can do Sergeant? That’s six highly trained, armed policemen he’s hit already. [Clunky dialogue. Exposition feels smushed in] I can’t even see where he’s shooting from.”
The grey haired, hard looking [Be more specific/precise. How does he look hard?] sergeant
,was ex-army and knew a thing or two about being shot at [Does the narrative voice not know the sergeant’s name?]. He removed his cap, scratched his grizzled head and gingerly raised himself up to try to get a better view of what was happening [Be more specific. Raised himself up from what? A better view of what?]. He quickly ducked back down again, shoulders tensed against any bullets that may be coming his way. He shook his head. He had no gun so there was nothing he could do anyway. [Be more specific. Nothing to do about what? I can’t picture where they are and what’s happening]
Shrugging, he said;[Name] shrugged. “Nothing at all Sir, we’re pinned down here ‘till someone can mount a diversion and allow us to move to a better position. During all my years in the army and the police, I’ve never seen anything like it. In my opinion, he’s so well organised, so accurate, he may well be Special Forces, or ex Special Forces. He knows exactly what he’s doing; picking us off one by one. Like you say, we can’t even see where he is to get a shot back at him. He’s working to a plan although I’ve no idea what the plan is. It could be a hostage situation, or it could be part of a wider attack on civilization in general.” [Overwritten dialogue and I’m not much closer to understanding what’s actually happening. As the dialogue suggests, it could be almost anything?]He [Who is “he?”] sat back against the hard, damp wall to relax after what was, for him, a long and complicated speech.
Thanks again to Quarterwit!
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I think Nathan has hit the proverbial on the head here (ouch).
To enter the world of the novel, to suspend disbelief, the reader needs to clearly picture the scene. Once a reader can picture the story world they’re entering, they are hooked even if some elements are not yet to their liking. Then, of course, the other important element is being able to emphasize with the main characters, or the protagonist and the antagonist and either care about them or become fascinated by them. So everything needs to be brought into sharp relief: the characters and their motivations.and the scene around them that always impacts in some way upon them.
While I think you’ve done a fine job with presenting an intriguing situation, there needs to be standout descriptions that trigger our imaginations to the degree we’re still thinking and picturing the story world after putting down the book. Uniqueness is another tool that can make our story seem like it’s really happening around the readers as theyread. In a world of distractions, the author must fully capture the readers’ attention and almost hypnotise them with the words that are creating so much magic in their minds. If anyone can believe in a concept or the meaning of the words, it gives these words a certain power–for good or bad. The power of the pen. But we must be able to see the result of these words or the details of the story while we read.
For an author to achieve this level of word-building, he or she must be able to vividly see their world, too. An author will often be amazed at the detail that is revealed when they focus on this level. I believe that the imagination is the portal to the spirit realm, so when we let our visual imaginations roam through our story world we are tapping into something on the deepest and most profound level, and where we can give our story life. And the result is not just words on the page, but words that come to life and have meaning and power to evoke an emotional response.
Amen, Wendy! We writers have no greater ally than the imagination and curiosity of our readers, if we can enlist it.
Interesting. I like dialogue, both as a reader and writer, but this page has a touch of the “As you know, Bob”s and the dialogue attribution and tense are a little uncertain. Though, in fairness, the author does “Hang a flag” on it, in Hollywood terms, by reporting that the last speech is unusually long and complicated for the speaker.
Thanks to Quarterwit and Nathan!