If you’d like to nominate your own page or query for a public critique, kindly post them here in our discussion forums:
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 rodmcfain, whose page is below.
Title: In Between Time
Genre: Historical Fiction
First 250 wordsCecil James Elliott hated the name his mother gave him. He didn’t care much for her. Not after her hospitalization in 1910, the year he was twelve. That’s when she told him she wanted to die. It was a Wednesday. Wednesday, October 5, to be exact. From that day, their relationship was troubled. In this year, 1919, he referred to himself as C.J., and they barely spoke.
C.J. was glad they barely spoke. Prohibition had just passed; he would have been worn out by listening to her blather on about how grand the forced enactment of teetotaling would be. To annoy her, he would have argued that prohibition would only increase crime. Yes, it was best they barely spoke.
On the occasions he was interested in a female’s view, he preferred the notions of Maggie O’Sullivan, an opinionated Irish girl. Stubborn – and what a temper that one had – but, oh, she was pretty: ginger hair, snapping green eyes, a warm skin tone, tall, willowy, and a hint of an Irish lilt in her voice. He knew the first time he saw her that she would be his muse.
“Your muse?” she said, pulling her collar up, and her red felt beret, down, over newly bobbed hair.
“Yes, my muse,” C.J. responded, conceitedly. “Surely, a Mount Holyoke girl knows what a muse is.”
“Of course, I know,” Maggie replied, clearly glancing down at the novel she was carrying – The God of the Seas. “I’m just astounded an Amherst boy does.”
There are, admittedly, some limitations to this biweekly exercise where I critique merely the first 250 words of manuscripts. It’s not very much time to get to know a novel and an author’s intent.
In this case, I found the opening to this novel very choppy and found myself a bit disoriented by the loopy nature of the narrative voice, with all the repetition and confusing bouncing around. But is that intentional? Is C.J. intended to possess a bit of a disordered mind? Or is the writing just choppy and would benefit from a smoother opening progression? I wouldn’t know for sure unless I read more.
But I’d err on the side of advocating for a smoother progression even if a certain degree of discombobulation is intentional. It’s tricky for a reader to start a novel and get their bearings, and there are ways to make a reader feel well-anchored even with an unconventional mind and narrative voice, particularly by at least helping us understand and visualize our surroundings.
That means clearer scene-setting. If we were better able to imagine these two encounters, we’d be better able to contextualize C.J.’s voice.
Here’s my redline:
Title: In Between Time
Genre: Historical Fiction
First 250 wordsCecil James Elliott hated the name his mother gave him. He didn’t care much for her. Not after her hospitalization for [why she was hospitalized] in 1910, the year he was twelve. That’s when she told him she wanted to die [where she told him she wanted to die, set the scene a bit more]. It was a Wednesday. Wednesday, October 5, to be exact. From that day, their relationship was troubled [missed opportunity to show this with more specificity with a detail or two rather than abstractly summarizing it as “troubled”].
¶In this year, 1919, he referred to himself as C.J., and they barely spoke. C.J. was glad
they barely spoke. Prohibition had just passed;and he would have been worn outbylistening to her blather on about how grandtheforcedenactment ofteetotaling would be. To annoy her, he would have argued that prohibition would only increase crime.¶Yes, it was best they barely spoke.
On the occasions he was interested in a female’s view, he preferred the notions of Maggie O’Sullivan, an opinionated Irish girl. Stubborn – and what a temper that one had – but, oh, she was pretty: ginger hair, snapping green eyes, a warm skin tone, tall, willowy, and a hint of an Irish lilt in her voice. He knew the first time he saw her [establish the physical setting] that she would be his muse.
“Your muse?”
she said, pullingMaggie pulled her collar up, and herand tugged her red felt beret, down,over her newly bobbed hair.“Yes, my muse,” C.J.
responded, conceitedlysaid [Stick to said and asked as much as possible and show us he’s being conceited, don’t smush it as an adverb into a dialogue tag]. “Surely, a Mount Holyoke girl knows what a muse is.”“Of course, I know,” Maggie
replied, clearly glancingglanced down at the novel she was carrying – The God of the Seas. “I’m just astounded an Amherst boy does.”
Thanks again to rodmcfain!
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Art: Mount Holyoke Seminary. South Hadley, Mass. by Thomas Chubbuck
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