A good beginning? (kind of bloody) - WritingForums.com - Writing Forums, Writing Challenges, Critiques and Help for Writers

bpastermack · 07-30-2008, 09:55 AM

I'm trying to make a powerful beginning to my book. I was wondering what people thought of the general concept of this as an introduction. As a little background, it's a dark story about a superhero. But he doesn't become the superhero until the end of the book. He denounces God and fights evil with evil. The reader will be surprised to find that this scene actually comes to a culmination by chapter 4 so it will catch up rather quickly and move on from there.

I almost blanked out, but I slowly worked my way back to my feet. My body now felt like I had just been run over by a Mack truck. I was losing blood fast and was going in and out of consciousness. I had lost my hearing. Instead it was replaced by the deafening sound of a sharp ringing in my ear.

The site in front of me was complete chaos! I quickly noticed that not only had the explosion leveled the warehouse, but it had caused the building behind it to collapse as well. I could see people running out of the rubble in flames, burning alive. Other people were running toward the ruble trying to rescue whoever they could.

Aimlessly, I walked through the rubble surveying the devastation. I reached down to grab the arm of someone that looked stuck in the rocks. But when I grabbed the arm and pulled I fell back to the ground holding nothing more than a severed arm in my hand.

My God what had I done? These were innocent people I had killed. Countless innocent people had just been massacred by my hands. When I fell to my knees in anguish, I looked up one more time to see a man walking from the rubble. He was carrying a woman in a wedding dress. I couldn’t hear his cries, but I could feel them from the depths of my soul.

It was a wedding. People once full of life and hope were now lying under the rubble. This man’s wife was gone before he could even consummate their vows. My anger had consumed me, and the burden of my sins was now being carried by the people that surrounded me.

I walked back to where the shot was fired and found my gun. Again I dropped to my knees. This time I wasn’t planning on getting up. The pain in my heart right now was more than one man could contain. I turned the gun toward my head and quickly pulled the trigger.

Then Chapter 2 would start with:

Earlier that day...

It felt like 120 degrees outside as the scorching summer sun baked down on us from above. The usual winds that whipped through the desert city of Baghdad were gone that day. Sweat was dripping down my body, like I was sitting in a sauna wearing my full army fatigues.

Violent Messiah · 07-30-2008, 11:37 PM

Well, it was an interesting hook, but it was strange how the last paragraph was a more powerful hook then the opening one. Oh yeah, there were a few spelling errors, and you kind of used 'rubble' a little too much in that small section. Replace one with 'debris' or something, I would suggest. All in all, kind of sounds like something I might be interested in reading.

Protecar · 07-30-2008, 11:41 PM

I must say I liked it. At least some parts of it. I actually felt my face fell when you painted the scene of the wedding. I was just like, "aww..." ...in the sad way, you know, not like a 'cute aww'.

Anyways, the pace seems a little clipped. I don't know if I would use that particular line for your first. The voice for the most part is too passive. I just glanced back up and found numerous uses of 'had' and 'was' which isn't a crime in itself, but they don't do the situation justice.

Example: "I had lost my hearing." becomes "I lost my hearing." or "My hearing was gone, replaced by the deafening sound of a sharp ringing."

Obviously was or had isn't much avoidable when writing in the past tense, but I would suggest going back over it and think of where you could give the sensation of more action by switching the passive verbs(or whatever the term is) with action verbs.

Also, maybe give an indication that the protagonist is now thinking or talking with quote marks ' or " or italics(or a combination depending on what you like) to show the action, otherwise the reader is liable to start reading the dialogue thinking it narration, and it's never good to lose your reader, even if for an iota of time. I was really finding myself hooked towards the end of your intro despite all that though. I was definitely wanting to see how things culminated to that point by the time you cut it off.

I would most certainly like to see more of this! I hope this helped!

RyeCatcher24 · 07-31-2008, 05:14 AM

This was pretty good. I liked this and it hooked me and I definitely want to see where this goes. I do agree with Violent Messiah though that you could find a replacement for "rubble". Other than that I really liked this piece.

Oh yeah this is stupid but "rubble" was misspelled once as 'ruble'... I only noticed this because I cracked a smile as I imagined people running to a Russian coin. I guess you could take it as a good thing that that's the only thing that I even saw.

bpastermack · 07-31-2008, 07:38 AM

Thanks guys! I'm glad you liked the general concept. I agree that it needs some tweeks especially the first couple of paragraphs. To be honest I just coppied and pasted from later in the story to get an idea if people liked the concept. I didn't want to change it around to fit the beginning too much if people didn't like it.

Thanks for pointing out what spell check couldn't with the Russian Ruble. I also like the suggestions about the passive language and the quotes. I am still new at all of this so advice like that can help change the rest of my writing too. Now I just need to go back and rewrite the first 100 pages again for like the fifth time, but that's what happens I'm sure when you write your first book and you're learning as you go.

bpastermack · 07-31-2008, 07:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Violent Messiah

Well, it was an interesting hook, but it was strange how the last paragraph was a more powerful hook then the opening one. Oh yeah, there were a few spelling errors, and you kind of used 'rubble' a little too much in that small section. Replace one with 'debris' or something, I would suggest. All in all, kind of sounds like something I might be interested in reading.

Do you mean the last paragraph of chapter one, or the first paragraph of chapter 2, because that was my original beginning? Should I stick to that? I guess that's my big question here.

bpastermack · 07-31-2008, 11:29 AM

THanks to some good comments and a little divine inspiration I feel like I have a good hook for my book, and probably the best written chapter so far. Let me know what you think.

I awoke as if from a deep sleep. It felt like I had been unconscious for days, even weeks. I was confused, trying desperately to remember the circumstances that had brought me to this point.

The first of my senses to return to me was my hearing. My hearing, however, seemed to be limited in its capacity. I could hear my heart beating like it was about to explode out of my chest.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

The sound of my deep short breathes were a sign of the adrenaline that was still rushing through my veins. But worst of all was the excruciatingly loud ringing in my ears. Whatever was making that sound made it impossible to hear anything else, but the internal sounds of my body.

My sight finally returned to me and I quickly realized I was on my back. The beautiful stars in the night sky became more and more clear as they came further into focus.

The smell of fire filled the air. ‘Was I camping in the woods?’ I still had no idea where I was or how I got there.

Up to this point my body had been numb, but deep, piercing pains were starting to shoot all through my body. ‘I don’t think this is a camping trip’ I thought. As I rolled over and attempted to get to my feet my left arm gave out on me, and I almost fell onto my face.

I suddenly noticed in the darkness that I was lying in a puddle of some kind of dark, thick, and sticky substance. A flashing light was getting closer and closer. I saw it flash just long enough to see the bright red color of the puddle beneath me. It was blood!

The sight of the blood only made the pains in my body hurt that much more, like a kid who falls down and doesn’t start crying until he looks down and sees the blood from his wound. I knew I better figure out what happened fast, so I jumped to my feet.

An excruciating pain ripped through my body, like a thousand needles had just been thrust into my right leg. I almost fell to the ground again, but managed to keep myself upright.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

The sound of my heart beating grew louder and more intense. The ability to take in a good deep breath had escaped me. I could feel the blood dripping from my arm to the ground below.

I slowly lifted my head to survey the scene around me. What I saw would be engrained in my head for all of eternity. There, before me was a giant pile of rubble. Signs of chaos could be seen all around me. Men, women, and children were frantically running in every direction.

A man was running through the debris covered in flames. He was burning alive! I could see the terror in his eyes. I could feel his screams from the depths of my soul, but all I could hear was that ringing in my ears, and the ever increasing speed of the beat of my heart.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

When I stepped onto the pile of shattered concrete I saw the arm of a person stuck underneath. I ran to him and locked my hand with his lifeless fingers. With one hard tug I abruptly fell to the ground. I looked down to my chest to see the severed arm of a man I thought was stuck under the rocks.

I had that reaction like you would if you woke up from a nightmare about snakes and realized there was one sitting on your chest, frantically trying to get it off me.

Tears began to roll down my cheeks. Memories were flashing back into my head, almost too quickly to process them. The now blinding flashes of the lights from the emergency responders was killing my concentration.

But as I stood to my feet again, one thought became increasingly apparent to me. I had done this! The blood of these innocent people was on my hands. ‘My God what had I done?’ These were woman and children I had killed. Countless people had just been massacred by my hands. My heart was now beating at a pace that could kill a man.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

When I fell to my knees in anguish, I looked up one more time to see a man struggling to walk from the rubble. He was carrying a woman in a wedding dress. Once again, I couldn’t hear his cries, but I could feel them from the depths of my inner most being.

It was a wedding. People once full of life and hope were now lying under the debris. This man’s wife was gone before he could even consummate their vows. My anger had consumed me, and the burden of my sins was now being carried by the people that surrounded me.

I crawled back to where I awoke from my stupor and found my gun lying about ten feet away. Again I dropped to my knees. This time I wasn’t planning on getting up. The pain in my heart right now was more than one man could contain. I turned the gun toward my head and quickly pulled the trigger.

Protecar · 07-31-2008, 10:07 PM

Well I gotta say, I found this to be a nice improvement. The thumping heart mechanism did a good job of giving the story a nice, rushing feeling, like it was accelerating. I felt it started off a little slow still at the beginning but it started to really blur, in a good way, after about the second set of thumps.

Pre-second thumps it seems like you might have gotten a few of your descriptions slow you down rather than enhance the story. I like the descriptions for the most part, but it still comes off a little slow, but it builds fast. If that's what you were looking for(or if this is the chapter excerpt and not the actual prologue) then it sounds pretty good.

For the prologue I might try to get things to rush a little more, like I might have already said, cut down as many words as you feel you can cut while still getting what you want across.

--Really though, I think it is coming across really good and I didn't feel you lost that emotional "umpth" so to speak that I found in the first draft, which I think is the most important, and it's really got that "plummeting downhill fast--like a roller coaster" kinda feel where you are just getting dragged and it speeds you further and further along. I certainly think this is a really great start. Just understand I try to get nit-picky if I no big errors show themselves in an attempt to try and add something.

Your intro(if this is that), has started off good and I like it, very strong hook to it I feel. Any more revision is really just touch-up work to be done on later drafts. I wouldn't worry about this part anymore and press forward--and throw more on here! I want to know what happens!

And on an unrelated note, if you're getting divine inspiration you have to put God in the acknowledgments section of your book

--Hope this helps, I won't mind critiquing your work again: definitely an interesting piece I'd like to see more of.

Edit: After writing this I realized your screenname actually has the word 'pastor' in it. (Don't ask why it took that long, I don't know). Are you really a pastor? (Not relevant, I just found myself gripped by curiosity all of a sudden).

Violent Messiah · 08-01-2008, 03:47 AM

Yeah, the latest version works way better, I believe. The opening hook is solid enough to make someone interested in that genre want to keep reading, and the action in the story strikes me as a 'slow burn' type of build up, which is OK, especially if you close it all off with the last paragraph about the gun and shooting himself.

Speaking of which, that was the paragraph I felt was a stronger hook then the original one.

Something caught my eye, and I think you might want to change it:

"I had that reaction like you would if you woke up from a nightmare about snakes and realized there was one sitting on your chest, frantically trying to get it off me."

I don't know, maybe I'm being nit-picky, but that 'you' shouldn't be there, I think. Maybe something like, for instance...

"I had the reaction akin to waking up from a nightmare about snakes and realizing that there was a real one sitting on my chest, as I frantically tried to get it off me."

...Or something, anything to get rid of the 'you'. Just a thought. Other then that, I thought the new draft worked nicely.

Non Serviam · 08-01-2008, 06:26 AM

There's a particular challenge with the "I woke up" beginning, because it's often used by very amateur writers. (I'm not including you in that category, and this isn't a critique of the beginning you actually wrote. It's intended as an insight into the way people who read a lot of unpublished fiction--such as publishers--sometimes think.)

You see, highly amateur writers tend to get what I call White Room Syndrome. That's where the character starts off asleep, then wakes up in a white room and starts to think about who they are and what's happening.

Psychologically, that's quite revealing. The character's sleepiness symbolises the author's lack of knowledge. The white room symbolises the huge empty expanse of paper, or the blank computer monitor screen, the author is faced with. And the thought processes of the character are really the author figuring out who's who and what's happening in the story--and because they're doing it while writing, all these thought processes are at the reader's expense. That kind of opening gets very wearing and after the first few dozen, the reader starts to see "I woke up" and simply stop reading there. It's nearly as offputting as the dreaded Mirror Scene (which is where the hero looks into the mirror and admires his narrow waist, slim hips, broad shoulders and manly chin, or even worse, where the heroine looks into the still pool and marvels at her cover-girl beauty, long legs, high cheekbones and 38DD boobs).

So I preferred your first beginning, because it didn't start with "I woke up" which has such negative associations for me. It started with much more bang.

bpastermack · 08-01-2008, 07:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Non Serviam

There's a particular challenge with the "I woke up" beginning, because it's often used by very amateur writers. (I'm not including you in that category, and this isn't a critique of the beginning you actually wrote. It's intended as an insight into the way people who read a lot of unpublished fiction--such as publishers--sometimes think.)

You see, highly amateur writers tend to get what I call White Room Syndrome. That's where the character starts off asleep, then wakes up in a white room and starts to think about who they are and what's happening.

Psychologically, that's quite revealing. The character's sleepiness symbolises the author's lack of knowledge. The white room symbolises the huge empty expanse of paper, or the blank computer monitor screen, the author is faced with. And the thought processes of the character are really the author figuring out who's who and what's happening in the story--and because they're doing it while writing, all these thought processes are at the reader's expense. That kind of opening gets very wearing and after the first few dozen, the reader starts to see "I woke up" and simply stop reading there. It's nearly as offputting as the dreaded Mirror Scene (which is where the hero looks into the mirror and admires his narrow waist, slim hips, broad shoulders and manly chin, or even worse, where the heroine looks into the still pool and marvels at her cover-girl beauty, long legs, high cheekbones and 38DD boobs).

So I preferred your first beginning, because it didn't start with "I woke up" which has such negative associations for me. It started with much more bang.

I agree. I am learning a little about about what agents and publishers call the hook, which is the first sentence or two in your book. If a publisher reads that, then he'll put it down right away. I'm considering just taking out the first paragraph and starting it with "The first of my senses to return to me was my hearing."

bpastermack · 08-01-2008, 07:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Violent Messiah

Something caught my eye, and I think you might want to change it:

"I had that reaction like you would if you woke up from a nightmare about snakes and realized there was one sitting on your chest, frantically trying to get it off me."

I don't know, maybe I'm being nit-picky, but that 'you' shouldn't be there, I think. Maybe something like, for instance...

"I had the reaction akin to waking up from a nightmare about snakes and realizing that there was a real one sitting on my chest, as I frantically tried to get it off me."

...Or something, anything to get rid of the 'you'. Just a thought. Other then that, I thought the new draft worked nicely.

I agree, working on changing it. Thanks!

Non Serviam · 08-01-2008, 07:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bpastermack

"The first of my senses to return to me was my hearing."

I'd go with shorter, punchier than that; I think it's better to communicate as much information as you can in as few words as possible.

"My hearing returned first."

bpastermack · 08-01-2008, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Protecar

Edit: After writing this I realized your screenname actually has the word 'pastor' in it. (Don't ask why it took that long, I don't know). Are you really a pastor? (Not relevant, I just found myself gripped by curiosity all of a sudden).

Nothing wrong with curiosity. I am not a pastor, but I do lead my churches bible study, and have a minor in Christian Education. Not that my convictions are strong, but you will certainly see pieces of my religion in my work. (ie- him denying God)

Non Serviam · 08-01-2008, 07:57 AM

Here's how I'd re-draft the first half or so of this. (I've re-ordered a couple of the sentences too).

Do you see this as an improvement? Or have I chopped out something you feel is important?
________________________________________________

My hearing returned first, but it seemed limited. All I could hear were the sounds of my own body. My heart pounded like it was about to explode. My breathing rasped and my ears rang as my adrenaline levels peaked.

Then my sight came back. I lay face-up staring at the stars as they swam into focus. Deep, piercing pains began to shoot through my body. I rolled over and tried to stand, but my left arm gave out and I almost fell on my face.

I was lying in a puddle of some dark, thick, sticky substance. A flashing light approached, and I glimpsed the bright red color of the puddle beneath me. It was blood!

At the sight, pain rushed in, like I was that kind of kid who falls down and doesn’t start crying until he looks down and sees the blood from his wound. I knew I better figure out what happened fast, so I jumped to my feet.

An excruciating pain ripped through me, like a thousand needles thrust into my right leg. I managed to keep upright. ...