Repetition–repetition is distracting (page critique)

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• Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog
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Also: I’M LOW ON QUERIES TO EDIT. If you post your query in the query critique forum, there’s a good chance I’ll edit it in the coming weeks.

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 knowledgeable, whose page is below:

Title: The Musician
Genre: Literary Fiction
Aaron opened his eyes, but he could only see dark. Small spots of cold—snow—pelted his face. Pain shot though his ribs. He tried to suck in air, but his chest—something pushed on his chest. Huge. Heavy. Immovable.
Am I dying?
How long could I go without breathing before passing out or dying?
A deathly, otherworldly silence enveloped him like an isolation booth.
Where am I?
They had been on the bus, driving through the Berkshire Mountains. The five men were all talking about the gig they had just played in New York when Danny, the driver and their manager, let out a cry. The bus lurched and the next thing Aaron knew, he was tossed in the air, multiple items in the bus flying and hitting him.
He slipped between substance and shadow as recent and older events whirled and tumbled in his mind, just as he and some of the equipment had in the bus. Cele. If only he had known what to do when he realized she wanted an abortion. Maybe he could have gotten there in time to save the baby. If only he had known sooner. Hitching a ride with Danny to get out of Dalhart. bussing tables at the diner. London. Amsterdam.
* * *
On a warm August night in Nashville, 1963, Aaron Cronan arrived at Manchester’s bar. He, Cal, and Cele were the house band until July of that year when Aaron took work at a local studio.

While I like the mix of ingredients in this opening, this strikes me as a pretty heavy-handed first page, with forced storytelling and overwrought prose.

It opens with the most common opening in fiction: a character waking up. He apparently can’t breathe, but rather than feeling panicked by that, he has the capacity to have an overwrought thought about how long he can go without breathing. There’s little sense of originality in the bus crash, and it feels a tad convenient for the character to immediately flash to a clearly-important plot point without presenting it in a very nuanced way. As a framing device, the bus crash doesn’t really feel particularly interesting or that reveals much about Aaron. The hand of the author feels too apparent trying to grab us with something dramatic rather than just confidently starting the story where it really starts.

The prose feels like it tries too hard, both with needless repetition (“Small spots of cold—snow—”, “his chest—something pushed on his chest”), and overwrought jumbles (“He slipped between substance and shadow as recent and older events whirled and tumbled in his mind, just as he and some of the equipment had in the bus.”)

I like the idea of a novel about a fledgling musician who starts at a bar in Nashville in 1963. Why don’t we just start with an engaging scene there? What’s gained by this bus crash?

Here’s my redline:

Title: The Musician
Genre: Literary Fiction
Aaron opened his eyes, but he could only see dark. Small spots of cold—snow—pelted his face. Pain shot though his ribs. He tried to suck in air, but his chest—something pushed on his chest. Huge. Heavy. Immovable.
Am I dying?
How long could I go without breathing before passing out or dying? [Not believing this thought, if he really can’t breathe why wouldn’t he be panicking?]
An deathly, otherworldly silence enveloped him like an isolation booth. [I don’t think we need help via a metaphor to understand “otherworldly silence”]
Where am I?
They had been on the bus, [BE MORE SPECIFIC ABOUT WHO “THEY” ARE] driving through the Berkshire Mountains. They five men [Awkward way to refer to people Aaron knows] were all talking about the gig they had just played in New York when Danny, the driver and their manager, let out a cry. The bus lurched and the next thing Aaron knew, he was tossed in the air, multiple items in the bus flying and hitting him.
He slipped between substance and shadow as recent and older events whirled and tumbled in his mind, just as he and some of the equipment had in the bus [Overwrought and cliched]. Cele. If only he had known what to do when he realized she wanted an abortion. Maybe he could have gotten there in time to save the baby. If only he had known sooner.

¶Hitching a ride with Danny to get out of Dalhart. bBussing tables at the diner. London. Amsterdam.
* * *
On a warm August night in Nashville, 1963, Aaron Cronan arrived at Manchester’s bar. He, Cal, and Cele were the house band until July of that year when Aaron took work at a local studio.

Thanks again to knowledgeable!

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Art: Study for View Near Stockbridge by Frederic Edwin Church