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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 snebog, whose page is below:
Title: Everyone an Orphan
Literary Fiction
First 250 wordsA ‘Back Soon’ sign hung from an iron nail on the door of the rugged granite kiosk. The sign board advertised “Kreuzen Vermietet/Crosses Rented: 9:00-1:00, 2:00-6:00. He glanced at his watch. 9:10. Probably should have left his watch in the hotel room.
Their entire stock of crosses was organized to one side of the kiosk along the cathedral’s high wall, models made of rough-hewn beams alongside others of thinner wood, ten, twenty, thirty pounds lighter. Some were hollow facsimiles.
Ray stared at a challenging version twice his height convinced if he touched it he might crash down the whole row. Maybe he could find Christ-connectedness here but he didn’t want to kill himself in the attempt.
The shutters of the kiosk jumped open, bang. The matron, in jeans and high-necked knit sweater, came around to the front of the kiosk and studiously latched them with long, thin fingers. Her dark hair, streaked grey, swung like a horse’s tail when she turned and nodded toward him. She had stark blue eyes and dark eyebrows.
Satisfied that the tray of brochures had been pulled all the way forward to the leading edge of the counter, she gave Ray a practiced smile with yellowed-ivory teeth. She was almost Ray’s height. Her expression seemed to acknowledge the possibility of deep sadness beneath his interest and promised discretion and warrantied the privacy of his visit.
“Good morning.” She must have placed him as an American. “Have you rented with us before?”
This page gets off to a nominally interesting start with a character seemingly arriving at a kiosk in a cathedral to rent a cross, but I struggled to make sense of what I was reading.
Sometimes authors get a too bit in love with their mysteries and, rather than focusing on the core mystery but otherwise grounding us in the story, they opt to make everything mysterious. Instead of being intriguing, it often just ends up vague and confusing.
Who is Ray? Why does he want to rent a cross and what’s at stake in that? Where are we entirely? Why would it have been better for him to leave his watch behind when he literally just looked at it and presumably found that helpful?
All doesn’t have to be revealed right off the bat, but when simple details are withheld that would help us make sense of the story, it makes the reader work extremely hard to piece together what clues we have, which might make a reader throw up their hands and decide it’s not worth it.
In addition to missing context that would help ease us into the story, it’s confusing that there’s so much more physical description of the kiosk manager than the interior space entirely. It’s another choice taht makes it very difficult to piece together the broader context.
Here’s my redline:
Title: Everyone an Orphan
Literary Fiction
First 250 wordsA ‘Back Soon’ sign hung from an iron nail on the door of the rugged granite kiosk [Where are we entirely?]. The sign board advertised “Kreuzen Vermietet/Crosses Rented: 9:00-1:00, 2:00-6:00. He glanced at his watch. 9:10. Probably should have left his watch in the hotel room. [Why?]
Their [Who is “they?”] entire stock of crosses was organized to one side of the kiosk along the cathedral’s [what cathedral?] high wall, models made of rough-hewn beams alongside others of thinner wood, ten, twenty, thirty pounds lighter. Some were hollow facsimiles.
Ray [Is Ray the “he” in the first paragraph or someone else? If they’re both Ray… why not just call him Ray the first time around?] stared at a challenging version [I’m not grasping why a cross would be “challenging”] twice his height, convinced if he touched it he might crash down the whole row. Maybe he could find Christ-connectedness here, but he didn’t want to kill himself in the attempt. [Struggling to grasp what he’s after]
The shutters of the kiosk
jumpedbanged open, bang. The matron [matron of what? the kiosk?], in jeans and high-necked knit sweater, came around to the frontof the kioskand studiously latched themshutters with long, thin fingers. Her dark hair, streaked grey, swung like a horse’s tailwhen she turned and nodded toward him. She had stark blue eyes and dark eyebrows.Satisfied that the tray of brochures had been pulled all the way forward to the leading edge of the counter, she gave Ray a practiced smile with yellowed-ivory teeth. She was almost Ray’s height. Her expression seemed to acknowledge the possibility of deep sadness beneath his interest and promised discretion and warrantied the privacy of his visit. [Clunky and jumbled sentence. Read it out loud]
“Good morning.” She must have placed him as an American. “Have you rented with us before?”
Thanks again to snebog!
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Art: Interior of the Sint Bavokerk in Haarlem by Job Adriaenszoon Berckheyde
Maria DMarco says
Some short notes on a decent start…
> The granite kiosk stopped me dead. Not only in attempting to visualize something so odd, but also to try to grasp a tendril of environment that would support such a thing.
> I tried to use the ‘iron’ nail to place the setting time-wise, but then the inference that the watch was uncool and (I assumed) a possible danger to the character’s ‘mission’ (whatever the heck is it) pretty much blew a setting in the ‘Iron Age’.
On this uneven not-grounded standing, I cautiously read on…
> Then, we have the ‘back soon’ sign (definitely modern inference), as well as the ‘sign board’ that lists crosses for rent. I admit I struggled here, as I couldn’t imagine any situation where a cross would be rented (a bizarre holiday of some sort?) — got a vision of people renting a large cross, then stomping down some road carrying the thing and possibly re-living the story of Christ and the cross??
Not being a big religious person, this shows how anxious I was to have some kind of clue about the setting, Ray’s ‘mission’, the time frame, and — since we aren’t told the woman’s hair is in a pony tail (!!), the comparison to a horse’s tail got me to giggling. :O))
In this opening, unfortunately, I’m wandering the sea of white space that is a static reader position — I’m waiting for the author to shove me in a direction, to open the scene enough that I have room to step in and participate.
Nit-picks: All sweaters are knit, that is the verb ‘to knit’ and has to do with creating a garment. So, she can just wear a ‘turtle-neck sweater’ — all readers will have an instant image.
The shutters bang open, then the woman ‘studiously’ latches them. Soooo, she comes out, then shuts and latches the shutters behind her?
If she has dark hair, I will assume she also has dark eyebrows, so with that natural assumption, why tell us about that? If she dyes her brows purple, then that might indicate that she’s, well, a bit different.
I do not know what to make of ‘stark’ blue eyes. Since I have no physical frame of reference for ‘stark’ eyes, perhaps if you amended this descriptor to a comparison? Or perhaps she’s got no eyelashes and that makes her blue eyes look surreal. Using ‘stark’ instead of hinting at something small and creepy, not noticed until he really stares at her, which disarms him, and adds to the mistake of wearing his watch… is good! :O)))
I still like the potential enough to want to see more — and to give the story a chance to hook me (and inform me).
Good luck!!!