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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 CFrances, whose page is below:
Title: Bertie, Brave and True
Middle Grades ContemporaryFirst 250 words
The trouble started when my cousin Humph sat down across from me at our lunch table and wolfed down the first of the three slices of pizza on his plate. “That all you’re eating?” he asked, nodding at my plate.
“I might go back for a cookie,” I said. “Since when do you eat more than a half a slice of pizza? And why do you care what I’m eating?” He and our other friends, Vinh and Nolan, exchanged looks and snickered. I noticed they all had extra food heaped on their plates.
“We’re bulking up,” said Vinh. “That’s what we weight lifters say when we’re trying to put on a few pounds.”
“We’re hardgainers,” said Nolan. He crammed a handful of French fries into his mouth. “All three of us.” He coughed out a fry.
“That means our genes makes it tougher for us to gain muscle mass,” Humph said.
“Oh, your genes are the trouble?” I said. “ And you three body builders figured that out on your second day of working out?”
No one answered me.
“Did you see that guy pyramiding?” Vinh asked.
“Man, that guy was shredded!” said Nolan. The other two agreed, shaking their heads and laughing.
I don’t lift weights. I had nothing more to add to this exchange, and who listens to a conversation when he has nothing to add to it? Nobody, that’s who. Now you see how the trouble started. Hump forced me to look elsewhere for entertainment.
This opening has an appealing voice, and the author has a strong ear for dialogue. The characters are engaging and funny, and we’re starting in a reasonably lively place.
Still, I would have liked a bit more in the way of scene setting. I worry as with so many novels I read these days, it relies on dialogue a bit too much at the expense of other storytelling elements.
It definitely pays to keep things moving with contemporary middle grade, but there’s barely a shred of physical description in this opening and I would have liked to have had a keener sense of where we are entirely (“our lunch table” probably means school, but does it always?) and some descriptors so we can visualize and separate these different characters in our minds. It’s fine to be brief with physical description and rely on essence rather than an exhaustive summary, but this page is taking things a little too far.
Lastly, it’s subtle, but I worry the protagonist is a bit too passive and reactive in this opening. Okay, the protagonist doesn’t want to lift weights. What do they want to do instead? What exactly does it meant to them to “look elsewhere for entertainment” and why does that matter to them?
Sharpen the motivations with much greater specificity, try to weave in what’s at stake in what the protagonist wants, and show them being active even this early on so we start investing in their story.
Here’s my redline:
Title: Bertie, Brave and True
Middle Grades ContemporaryFirst 250 words
The trouble started when my cousin Humph sat down across from me at our lunch table and wolfed down
the firstone of the three slices of pizza on his plate. [Missed opportunity to weave in more overall physical description] “That all you’re eating?” he asked, nodding at my plate.[Establish what’s motivating the protagonist in this scene] “I might go back for a cookie,” I said. “Since when do you eat more than a half a slice of pizza? And why do you care what I’m eating?”
¶He and our other friends, Vinh and Nolan, exchanged looks and snickered. I noticed they all had extra food heaped on their plates.
“We’re bulking up,” said Vinh. “That’s what we weight lifters say when we’re trying to put on a few pounds.”
“We’re hardgainers,” said Nolan. He crammed a handful of French fries into his mouth. “All three of us.” He coughed out a fry.
“That means our genes makes it tougher for us to gain muscle mass,” Humph said.
“Oh, your genes are the trouble?” I said. “ And you three body builders figured that out on your second day of working out?”
No one answered me.
“Did you see that guy pyramiding?” Vinh asked.
“Man, that guy was shredded!” said Nolan. The other two agreed, shaking their heads and laughing.
I don’t lift weights. [Tense shifted from past to present] I had nothing more to add to this exchange, and who listens to a conversation when he has nothing to add to it? Nobody, that’s who. Now you see how the trouble started. [Do we? I’m not sure this familiarity with the reader feels earned] Hump forced me to look elsewhere for entertainment. [What specifically does this mean? We didn’t really see the protagonist looking for entertainment in the first place, so are they doing about it?]
Thanks again to CFrances!
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Art: Osmar Schindler, Muskelspiel
Alex G says
The tense shift reads fine to me. The character is mainly talking about a thing that happened in the (presumably recent) past, but the fact that they don’t lift weights is a statement that’s still true now.
ReTx says
I missed that this was middle-grade, so I pictured this as a bunch of nerdy, adult employees on lunch break. Part of this has to do with the lack of description to really ground me in the who/where, but it’s also a bit about the voice of the dialogue. Something about it doesn’t feel middle-school to me (which I say because I have a middle schooler…)