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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 Quarterwit, whose page is below.
Title: MAN DOWN!
Genre: Thriller“Man down! Man down!”
Ducking even lower, hiding his head in his shoulders, glad to be alive, the Chief Inspector looked across at his companion, “We can’t let this carry on. Is there nothing we can do, Sergeant? He’s already hit six policemen. Six highly trained policemen. Some of them armed. I still can’t pinpoint exactly where they’re being shot from”.
The grey haired, hard looking sergeant was ex-army and knew a thing or two about being shot at. He took off his dark blue, peaked cap and banged it on his thigh to remove some imaginary dust. Slowly scratching his head, he raised himself up to try to get a better view of what was happening, quickly ducking back down again, body tensed against any bullets that may be coming in his direction.
He shook his head. He had no gun so there was nothing he could do anyway.
He shrugged. “There’s nothing we can do, Sir.” “We’re pinned down here ‘till someone can sort out a diversion and we can move to a better position.”
Replacing his cap, he sucked in a deep breath. He looked up in preparation for giving his opinion on the person or persons shooting at them. He wouldn’t normally offer advice to a superior officer but he knew this one had virtually no front line experience. He wanted to help.
I’m afraid I found this opening pretty disorienting all around. It’s not clear where we are, who these characters are beyond their roles, and what they think might be happening and what’s at stake. Even on the line level, I often struggled to sort through which “he” the narrative voice was referring to. On top of that, the perspective head jumps from the Chief Inspector to the Sergeant in the last paragraph. It makes for a very confusing reading experience.
What little context we have is largely smushed into dialogue, which is very rarely an effective method for providing exposition. Authors often over-rely on dialogue at the expense of the narrative voice, and this is a textbook example where it doesn’t make much sense for one character to be saying what he’s saying. They are in the same place and presumably are seeing the same things. Would the Chief Inspector really need to tell the Sergeant what they both just saw? Isn’t it obvious he’s really talking to the reader, which makes the dialogue difficult to believe?
It’s so important to give the reader the information they need to process what’s happening, and this is a case where it would have been more effective to establish the context with the narrative voice. It’s fine to create a mystery around who’s shooting since it doesn’t appear that the protagonists know. But in this case, everything is vague, which makes the opening more confusing than mysterious.
Here’s my redline:
Title: MAN DOWN!
Genre: Thriller“Man down! Man down!” [INSERT CHARACTER] shouted.
Chief Inspector [INSERT NAME]
Duckingducked even lower [INSERT WHAT HE IS DUCKING UNDER], hiding his head in his shoulders[Isn’t that just describing what ducking is?], glad to be alive,. [Establish physical description and where we are entirely].¶[INSERT CONTEXT FOR WHAT’S HAPENING AND WHAT’S AT STAKE]
¶
tThe Chief Inspector looked across at his companion, Sergeant [INSERT NAME], a grey haired, hard looking ex-soldier who knew a thing or two about being shot at. [Describe characters when they’re first introduced]¶“We can’t let this carry on
.,” the Chief Inspector said. “Is there nothing we can do, Sergeant? He’s already hit six policemen. Six highly trained policemen. Some of them armed. I still can’t pinpoint exactly where they’re being shot from”. [Feels awkward smushing the action and context into dialogue]
The grey haired, hard looking sergeant was ex-army and knew a thing or two about being shot at.HeThe Sergeant took off his dark blue, peaked cap and banged it on his thigh to remove some imaginary dust.Slowly scratching his head[Empty gesture], hHe raised himself up to try to get a better view of what was happening [Which is what? What is he looking at?], quickly duckinged back down again,bodyand tensed against any bullets that may be coming in his direction.
HeThe Sergeant shook his head. He had no gun so there was nothing he could do anyway. [I don’t understand what this means, he just looked at what was happening, which was doing something? Otherwise, do something about what?]
He shrugged.[Empty gesture] “There’s nothing we can do, Sir.,” the Sergeant said. “We’re pinned down here ‘till someone can sort out a diversion and we can move to a better position.”He
Rreplacedinghis cap, heand sucked in a deep breath. Helooked up in preparation for givingprepared to give his opinion onthe person or personswho was shooting at them. [Convoluted and vague] He wouldn’t normally offer advice to a superior officer, but he knew this one had virtually no front line experience. He wanted to help. [Awkward perspective shift (head jumping/hopping) over to the Sergeant]
Thanks again to quarterwit!
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Art: The Night Watch by Rembrandt
V.M. Sang says
Thanks for that. One thing I would have altered is where the text says there was nothing they could do, then in the dialogue, actually the next sentence, the sergeant says, “There’s nothing we can do, sir.”
Also, ‘raising himself up…’ and ‘ducking down’ I don’t think the prepositions are needed. Raising is lifting up, and ducking is moving down. You can’t raise down, nor duck up.
Nathan Bransford says
All good points!
Matt Randles says
I really appreciate seeing these page critiques. It seems like a lot of them start in the midst of a dramatic moment without any set up–to grab the readers attention, I suppose, but it seems to do the opposite. It’s disorienting, the setting is unclear, and the characters are cyphers. If a film opens with an action sequence, we see the characters (and can often deduce all sorts of thing about them by what they’re wearing) as well as the setting, and can likely figure out what time period we’re in. A book needs to tell us all that. Opening with dialogue makes it even tougher. In this case we didn’t get a mention of the Chief Inspector until the third line, and I’m still not positive he was the one yelling “Man down!”
I know starting “in medias res” is popular, but it’s not easy to pull off well. I’m tempted to say that more often than not it *isn’t* the best choice for opening a novel.
I appreciated this post by September C. Fawkes on how to use it:
https://www.septembercfawkes.com/2021/11/how-in-medias-res-actually-works-when.html