Harness your details (page critique)

If you’d like to nominate your own page or query for a public critique, kindly post them here in our discussion forums:

• Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog
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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 Marlo, whose page is below.

August 1995
Stunning views of Idaho’s Rocky Mountain foothills and the breadth Lake Coeur d’Alene softened Claudia’s morning memories of her size-four mother and sycophant brother. It was a warm summer afternoon in mid-August as she strolled the well-trod trail around Tubbs Hill, a city park–a fat hill of peninsula–that jutted from the resort town of Coeur d’Alene and out into the lake. She loved to stroll the easy walk that circled the hill. Lake breezes hummed through White pines. Water grazed ancient granite boulders with surges and splash. Nattering of chipmunks echoed the crunch of her shoes on the dirt path.

“The sheriff has money for a beach patrol?” she said aloud. Below the trail on the beach, Claudia spotted a shiny steel sheriff’s launch pulled up on golden sand. Two people in uniforms worked their way back and forth over the beach area with rakes and plastic bags. A third examined trashcans. She continued around the hill towards town until yellow “crime scene” tape blocked the trail. On the water, two more boats with the county’s crest bobbed in light chop.

A young deputy at the barrier announced, “Sorry, Ma’am. Sheriff’s investigation. You’ll have to go back.” Claudia gritted her teeth at the “Ma’am.” Down on the water, she saw a drag rope off the stern of one of the Sheriff’s boats.

“Oh, god. Someone’s drowned.”

“Don’t know, Ma’am.”

Claudia fixated on the water, mesmerized by the silvery metal boats of the Marine Patrol. A diver in full wet suit emerged to stand on barely submerged rocks. Waves from power boats and skiers made his balance precarious. He signaled to someone up on the trail, far inside the taped-off area in front of her.

Claudia followed the silent communication to a lanky man, his face shaded by a battered Stetson that barely hid graying teak-brown hair. He stood just off the trail; cowboy-booted foot planted on a granite boulder. She recognized his form before his face came into focus.

Frank Adams. The Sheriff was personally directing this operation. He signaled a thumbs-up to the diver and glanced up the trail.

She did not see his look of recognition. Overcome by a rush of blush, she turned away, forcing her attention to the action below. Frank Adams…She couldn’t believe it. He looked as if he were wearing the same plaid shirt and worn jeans he’d inhabited in high school.

I really wanted to be engaged with this opening. We start off in a beautiful mountain setting with splashing water and chipmunks, and we transition to a potentially dramatic scene unfolding with the sheriff and maybe a missing or drowned person.

That said, I’m afraid there are two main areas where this didn’t quite come together for me. First, while there are some strong details (lake breezes humming through pines, the aforementioned nattering chipmunks), the details didn’t quite feel harnessed in a cohesive way. The first line feels decidedly overstuffed and imprecise, I don’t know that the water needed to graze, surge, and splash against the boulders, and I found myself a bit mystified how nattering chipmunks “echoed” the crunch of shoes on dirt.

It’s great to think about the sights and sounds and smells and to evoke a place, but harness those details. Make them clear and seamless, particularly for a first page when the reader is just getting their bearings. It’s particularly confusing when Claudia only arrives at recognizing Frank Adams in a very roundabout way when she could have just recognized him from the start. (A weakness you probably picked up on if you read my post last week on writing clear physical description).

Secondly, I felt just a bit disoriented by the perspective in this opening, and it feels like the author isn’t quite sure how deep into Claudia’s head we are “allowed” to go. On the one hand we’re nominally tied to her perspective and are seeing/feeling through her POV and we know which trail she likes, but all of her other thoughts are quite vague.

I couldn’t make heads or tails of the memories she was having about her mother and brother, and I didn’t come away with a sense of her relationship with Frank. Instead of seeing her thought processes and what she’s finding odd about the operation, we get a vague line of dialogue about the sheriff’s budget and a beach patrol before we’ve even gotten to any physical description.

Anchor the reader in the physical setting and, if you’re writing in third person limited, ease the reader into seeing the protagonist’s thoughts in a clear way. It’s good to start with details and an intriguing situation, but the reader needs to be very firmly brought along on the journey.

Here’s my redline:

August 1995
Stunning views of Idaho’s Rocky Mountain foothills and the breadth Lake Coeur d’Alene softened Claudia’s morning memories of her size-four mother and sycophant brother [This opening sentence is a bit of a mouthful. Let the reader see the stunning views with more specificity and don’t overstuff the sentence]. It was a warm summer afternoon at Lake Coeur d’Alene in mid-August as she and Claudia strolled the well-trod trail around the city park at Tubbs Hill, a city park–a fat hill of peninsula that jutted from the resort [This feels like a tiny perspective break. In this moment Claudia is thinking of Coeur d’Alene as a resort town?] town of Coeur d’Alene and out into the lake. She loved to stroll [Avoid repetition of “stroll”] the easy walk that circled the hill. Lake breezes hummed through White pines. Water grazed splashed ancient granite boulders with surges and splash [Doesn’t “splashed” alone convey “grazed” and “surges?”]. She heard Nnattering of chipmunks echoed the crunch of and her shoes crunched on the dirt path [The nattering chipmunks echo the crunch of her shoes? I’m confused, what do those two things have to do with each other?].

[Insert her memories about her mother and brother here, but with way more specificity than her mother’s waistline and her brother’s undefined sycophancy]

“The sheriff has money for a beach patrol?” she said aloud. [I’m confused why we’re getting vague dialogue here rather than seeing her thought processes with more precision. We’re in her head enough to know which trail she likes, but we aren’t “allowed” to just see what she’s thinking about the sheriff?]

¶Below the trail on the beach, Claudia spotted a shiny steel sheriff’s launch pulled up on golden sand. Two people in uniforms officers worked their way back and forth over the beach area with rakes and plastic bags [She watches them long enough to see them moving back and forth along the beach? That seems like a long time to be standing there?]. A third examined trashcans. She continued around the hill towards town until yellow “crime scene” tape blocked the trail. On the water, two more boats with the county’s crest bobbed in the light chop.

A young deputy at the barrier announced, “Sorry, Ma’am. Sheriff’s investigation. You’ll have to go back.”

¶Claudia gritted her teeth at the “Ma’am.” Down on the water, she saw a drag rope off the stern of one of the Sheriff’s boats.

“Oh, god. Someone’s drowned?” she asked. [Tell the reader who’s speaking]

“Don’t know, Ma’am.”

Claudia fixated on the water, felt mesmerized by the silvery metal boats of the Marine Patrol [Why does she find this mesmerizing?]. A diver in a full wet suit emerged to stand on barely submerged and stood on rocks near the shore. Waves from power boats and skiers made his balance precarious. He signaled to someone up on the trail, far inside the taped-off area in front of her.

Claudia followed the silent communication his gesture and spotted Frank Adams, the Sheriff, who was personally directing the operation inside the taped-off area. to He was a lanky man, his face shaded by a battered Stetson that barely hid graying teak-brown hair. He stood just off the trail; a cowboy-booted foot planted on a granite boulder. She recognized his form before his face came into focus.

Frank Adams. The Sheriff was personally directing this operation. He signaled a thumbs-up to the diver and glanced up the trail.

She did not see his look of recognition [I don’t understand what this means. She’s not seeing his look of recognition? Then how is it on the page when she’s the anchoring perspective?]. Overcome by a rush of blush [She’s aware that she’s overcome by a “rush of blush” from a look of recognition that she didn’t see? I’m confused], s She turned away before she blushed, forcing and forced her attention to the action below.

¶Frank Adams…She couldn’t believe it. He looked as if he were wearing the same plaid shirt and worn jeans he’d inhabited in high school.

Thanks again to Marlo!

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Art: Arrowhead point by John W. Graham and Dorothy Dalgren