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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 Gill91, whose page is below.
First 250 words
Title: A Season on the Piste
Genre: Memoir (written as a novel)Puddles reflected the amber street-lights, proceed with caution they winked. Roger, my partner of ten years, clambered from the taxi, his once lithe physique lurking beneath recent excesses. The silver Skoda merged back into the traffic, disappearing, like our former lives. Our new life, together, would launch from this inauspicious Reading car park.
Late November dusk chilled my naked neck where auburn locks had lain only days before. Short tufts now demonstrated a low maintenance style, reducing the opportunity for wet hair to freeze in Alpine temperatures, with little time for lengthy blow-dries. I had yet to embrace my grey, the tinges reflected an absence of fripperies, like hair-dye, in this frugal lifestyle.
“Is this a massive mistake?” I said. “Is it too late to go home?”
“Yep,” Roger replied.
My chest tightened, I exhaled slowly, tried to lower tense shoulders, I could do this, another long breath out. We lingered on the periphery of a throng, well-travelled suitcases alluded to a common factor, packed in one life, to be opened in another. Through the gloom multi-layered figures stomped the ground in over-sized boots, cosy hats bobbed and arms draped around shoulders.
“They look fairly normal, I don’t feel so dowdy now.”
“Why did you?” Roger asked.
“You know, glitz, glamour, beautiful people and all that stuff.”
“No.”
He scrutinised the replenishing snake of coaches, diesel fumes invaded nostrils and engines drowned conversations as a succession of willing victims climbed the illuminated steps.
There are some evocative images in this opening page, and I like that the conversation between the couple feels natural rather than trying to smush exposition in or forcing things. (Though I had trouble understanding some of it).
That said, I have two main concerns. First, I think there’s a bit of a missed opportunity here to let the reader more into the story and engage us around a particular question or motivation or something, whether in the story as a whole (what fresh start is this?) or within this individual scene (what are they doing at this car park?). Yes, we have the sense of a couple who is embarking on a new life, but what about it? What is new about it, beyond a presumably Alpine setting?
As I often say, all doesn’t need to be revealed straightaway, but I worry that authors often try too hard to create a mystery at the start of novels and then just end up not really letting the reader into the story entirely. Be judicious about your mysteries and try to engage the reader with what’s motivating your protagonists.
My second main concern is that the prose feels needlessly convoluted and overstuffed. Strive for clarity, read your sentences out loud to catch this, and bring your good ideas into sharper relief.
Here’s my redline:
First 250 words
Title: A Season on the Piste
Genre: Memoir (written as a novel)Puddles reflected the amber street-lights
,. Proceed with caution, they winked. Roger, my partner of ten years [good crisply delivered context], clambered from the taxi, his once lithe physique lurking beneath recent excesses. The silver Skoda merged back into the traffic, disappearing, like our former lives [This metaphor feels a little forced. Their lives are merging back into traffic?]. Our new life,together,would launch from this inauspicious Reading car park. [This feels like a missed opportunity. Why no hint of what they’re embarking on, whether holistically or within this particular scene? Does this need to stay so zoomed out?]
Late November dusk chilled my naked neck, where auburn locks had lain only days before. Short tufts now demonstratedamy low maintenance style, reducing theopportunity forchance my wet hairtowould freeze in the Alpine temperatures, with little time for lengthy blow-dries[This sentence feels a little overstuffed]. I had yet to embrace my grey, but the tinges reflected an absence of fripperies,like hair-dye, in this frugal lifestyle.
“Is this a massive mistake?” I said. “Is it too late to go home?” [Another missed opportunity. What specifically is on her mind here? Sharpen the stakes]
“Yep,” Roger replied.My chest tightened, I exhaled slowly,I tried to lower my tense shoulders. I could do this, another long breath out[This feels overstuffed. Avoid generic gestures and “gesture explosions.”]. We lingered on the periphery of a throng, well-travelled suitcases alluded to a common factor, packed in one life, to be opened in another [There’s a good idea here but this feels needlessly convoluted]. Through the gloom multi-layered figures in cosy hats stomped the ground in over-sized boots, cosy hats bobbed and arms draped around shoulders.
“They look fairly normal, I don’t feel so dowdy now.”
“Why did you?” Roger asked. [It took me a bit to unpack this question]
“You know, glitz, glamour, beautiful people and all that stuff.”
“No.” [I don’t understand what he’s saying “no” to]
He scrutinised the replenishing snake of coaches,. Diesel fumes invadednostrilsand engines drowned conversations as a succession of willing victims climbed the illuminated steps. [Needlessly convoluted, this feels like a break in the perspective?]
Thanks again to Gill91!
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Art: Ivan Fedorovich Choultsé: After the snowfall
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Warning! Do not read Nathan’s blog before coffee. First I thought it was snowing in Prospect Park again. Then I read the First Page title as “A SEASON ON THE PISS” and assumed it was a drunkalogue.
But seriously, thanks to Gill91 and Nathan for a great first page and critique. I take the Skoda metaphor as referring to the couple’s former lives dissapearing rather than just merging back into traffic. And Reading is a town in the south of England, so they are nowhere near a ski slope yet. Reading is famous for its beer, so maybe it IS a drunkalogue!
Haha, no snow here!
On the metaphor, I understood that it was referring to the disappearing, but disappearing into traffic specifically felt to me like a confusing comparison to their circumstances and what we know of the story.
And yes, I meant that presumably they’re headed to an Alpine destination, but maybe those winters in Reading are colder than I thought!
Hilarious drunkalogue analogy, John.
My 0.2c on the ‘disappearing’ simile: context does make it seem more obvious that their lives were disappearing like the Skoda as it merged into traffic, but maybe the sentence would flow more elegantly and be easier to understand if punctuated differently. If a word or a phrase are enclosed by commas then this indicates these words are non-essential and can be omitted. So if ‘disappearing’ was left out, then the sentence would read as if the couple’s former lives were merging into traffic. Perhaps if the comma after ‘disappearing’ was removed the meaning might be clearer? Replacing the first comma with a dash could strengthen the meaning, It might even be better to rework the sentence so ‘disappearing’ doesn’t appear to modify ‘traffic’.
Suggestion: ‘Our past lives seemed to disappear with the silver Skoda as it merged back into traffic.’
It is a tricky one.
I thought there were some really beautiful writing moments in this piece. I really liked the opening image of the lights flashing in the puddles. However, with that strong image in my head, I then I ended up feeling super ungrounded in a ‘where the heck are we’ kind of way (literally and metaphorically). It’s like looking in a dark room with a small light and the light flashed on the puddles. Then it jumped to a man. Then to a Skoda (don’t know what that is actually). I needed to be rooted to one thing more concretely before moving on.