Opening 7
I liked opening 7 because it was very interesting and it got me gripped to it. This was the only opening that created a lot of suspense. It didn’t go into full detail. It was kind of like a mystery. It seemed like a horror/mystery story. I like this genre so this opening kept me entertained. ‘My front four teeth are gone, I have a hole in my cheek, my nose is broken and my eyes are swollen nearly.’ The description of the persons face is completely fantastic. It is very creatively presented. The way the conversation is set is also very good.
Shhh…There’s Someone Here
Sarah sat up urgently, but then gently smiled. She could remember when John had last given her the rose. It was blood red. He had told her how it matched with her dress. But she didn’t care back then, because she just loved him. Only him. He was her life, her happiness, her joy. Sarah wiped the tear from her face. She was looking out the window now. She wasn't sure what the time was. She looked towards the clock but the room was dark. She could hear the clock tick gently, and then her heartbeat. It was in a pattern. She had heard this tune before. Tick...Thump...Tick...Thump. Her heart and the clock were like an orchestra composing a piece, which didn’t sound very entertaining. She looked at the clock again. It was 1:30am. The wind hurled across her face and now she was cold. Ice cold. The window swept at her face and crashed against the rusty window frame. The glass shattered. She grabbed her stomach, her eyes felt like swollen eggs. She tried to breathe, she couldn’t. She collapsed and lay there silently.
The pain had gone now. She could see her bed. Her vision was blurred and she couldn’t think. Confused. She lay there motionless. Suddenly, she moved her arm as though she had been bitten, and grabbed her stomach again. The pain got worse, she screamed, it was hell. Something inside her was eating her apart, it twisted and turned, all tangled up. All her insides were being burned. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t scream. Both her hands had clenched her stomach now. She couldn’t let go. The pain would get worse. She breathed. A beast was eating her insides. She was being cut up and distributed, she breathed. She looked at the clock.
Part One: you identified the mysterious and suspenseful nature of this opening as one of it’ best qualities. In the excerpt, James Frey sets up a lot of intriguing questions (what’s happened to the narrator? How did the narrator get on the plane? What’s wrong with him?) that the reader will read on in order to find answers to. And that’s what an opening should do – get people to carry on reading.
ReplyDeleteYou also identified Frey’s description as a ‘completely fantastic’. I’d have liked more from you on exactly WHY it’s so good. Personally, I think Frey uses the tenets of “show, don’t tell” very well; his minimalist dramatisation gives a very clear, visceral sense of person and place, which is again something an opening wants. As well as creating questions, an opening should also be an exposition (that is, set the scene… or the mood, or the character, or…)
So – how well do you set up questions and use dramatisation and exposition in your opening?
Firstly, the “question” of Sarah’s illness is an intriguing one, and as a reader I wanted to read on and find out what was happening to her. At first I thought ‘she grabbed her stomach’ because of pregnancy/abortion/something to do with John, as you’ve initially set up her relationship with him as central to the story. However, the severity of the description made me doubt this (aka made me ask questions).
From ‘something inside her…’ onwards, I thought your description was really strong. The short sentences, the stripped-back descriptions make the language really punchy – the reader FEELS Sarah’s pain through rhythm and pace. Fantastic! I also liked the cyclical return to the clock.
The earlier clock description (from ‘she was looking…’ to ‘It was 1:30am’) is also fantastic. The repeated sentence opening of ‘She…’ really communicates the drudgery of late night sleeplessness. Again, the pared down language works wonderfully – it seems simplistic, but it’s incredibly effective in showing Sarah’s boredom, her slow misery. The pacing and use of concrete imagery in this segment makes a lot stronger in truly communicating an emotion and atmosphere than that earlier mention of ‘the tear’, and the abstracts of ‘her life, her happiness, her joy’.
There’s also some dodgy verbs, that didn’t create a clear picture for me – ‘the wind hurled across her face’ didn’t ring true, and ‘the window swept at her face’ was overly repetitive and didn’t make much sense – and I’d be careful of using any adverb at all, but especially TWO in your opening sentence. The first line is the most important, so don’t damage its immediacy with ‘urgently’ and ‘gently’. Also, be careful of ‘their’ on the last line of the first paragraph.
However, there’s some really, really great description in this piece – I’m so, SO glad that Frey has helped you grasp the “show, don’t tell” lesson with such skill! – and it sets up an intriguing scenario I want to know more about. However, that you set up John as character but don’t mention him again is problematic. Personally, I’d remove any references to him at all (as they’re told in the most conventional/least effective language) to make this piece even more pared down and even more intriguing and mysterious.
Part One
ReplyDeleteIt is certainly a very gripping opening to a novel, and it does pose a number of interesting questions. He has used 1st person narration so as not to antagonise his readers when ommiting important parts of the story: the narrator does not need to explain his actions to himself, so does not state the obvious. This sets the precedent for the questions that follow. I think that the line “I know she smiles and feels sorry for me. She shouldn’t” indicates that it is more likely to be a mystery than a horror, as it adds a sinister element to the protagonists character, opening further questions about the narrator as well as the situation that we find him in.
Part Two
You have opened a very interesting story, similar to the one that you critiqued earlier. You have successfully opened up questions and drawn the reader into a web of unknown circumstances. You have written it in 3rd person, but use free indirect discourse a great deal. I think that maybe this story would have been more effective with a first person perspective, as it would create a more disturbing scene. The reader might find it easier to empathise with the character if they were seeing the narrative events through their eyes.
You have used a myriad of short sentences to heighten the tension, however I feel that maybe you could have used them to slightly better effect. For example, “she couldn’t think. Confused.” Is a very personal statement, and does not fit with the 3rd person narration that you are using. Also, your phraseology at times is a little confusing; “She was being cut up and distributed”. Are you sure distributed is the word you were looking for?
I really enjoyed the metaphor of the heartbeat, I think it would become even stronger from a first person narration. It is a very accurate description of what one feels when the room is silent and you synchronise your movements with your heart beat. I love “she had heard this tune before”, very witty.
Overall, I think this is a really interesting opening and could develop into something really nice. It would be interesting to see how you develop the emphasis on her relationship with the time, and her continual glances at the clock. Well done, I look forward to reading some more prose next week.
First of all, what definitely comes across in your writing is that you have cultivated a real affinity with Frey's writing. Your enthusiasm for his opening is very apparent in part 1, and this enthusiasm has clearly galvanised your own writing in part 2.
ReplyDeleteIndeed most of the superlatives that you have picked out of his story have been implemented very successfully into your own story. It is certainly suspenseful, and contains elements of the horror and mystery genres.
I think what works so well about Frey's writing, and certainly what helps in terms of building suspense, is that he is a master of minimalism, and you have very effectively utilised this form in your own writing, in the sense that you create very vivid and lurid images but only by the power of suggestion, as your sentence construction is very simple, in the sense that for much of the piece every sentence basically consists of another symptom of Sarah's affliction. But this works very well in terms of building suspense, and I would very much agree with Sarah that you have become very proficient with the "show, don't tell" adage. Similarly, despite using third person narration, your use of Sarah as the reader's main point of reference is very effective in the building of suspense in the sense that she is the definition of the unreliable narrator. Indeed many sentences embody a shift from reality to fantasy and then back again (for example, "the pain got worse, she screamed, it was hell. Something inside her was eating her apart") which is very disorientating for the reader but is also what keeps the reader hooked, especially if the narrator (or strictly speaking in your case, the main character) is sympathetic, and in your case the narrator is very sympathetic because her pain, and her response to it, do not seem contrived, but very identifiable, even if many of your images reside in the world of fantasy.
Your use of the clock is also a very strong recurring image, and also one that the reader can latch on to, because it resides fundamentally in reality. Indeed I think your strongest line is the final one, "She looked at the clock", because it is impossible not to empathise with the character after this. It is after this that the reader understands that her pain is never-ending; at 1;30 she looks at the clock; then she convulses in pain; then she recovers; then she looks at the clock; then you end. But it is quite clear that the process continues indefinitely; you have therefore successfully shown us her pain without telling us.
Very well done,
Eoghan
Hey,
ReplyDeleteYou’ve identified well what makes a mystery piece of writing work, and your attempt is a good one.
I think sometimes you tell the reader a little too much: this is particularly so with your use of adverbs. (Adverbs are tricky things – I always think they’re best when used very sparingly!) This means that the first sentence is given almost stage directions; Sarah sits up “urgently” (we need this adverb to know there’s something on her mind), but then smiles “gently” (we don’t need this: if she’s sitting up “urgently”, but then smiles, we know she’s reminded herself of a comforting thing).
Having said that, it’s a surprise to find her crying just a few sentences later! We need to hear a bit more of her, I think; this isn’t quite as full of suspense as the extract you looked at, so you can afford to be a bit more engaged with the character’s interior voice. That’s not to say you should have anything as obvious as “she thought wistfully” or “she was saddened to remember...”; just a word here or there will do enough to let the reader know a few subtle things about the character. It’s hard to do, but this technique – free indirect narrative – is a great one when it’s done properly; Ian McEwan is particularly good at it in novels like Atonement, where we are given the characters’ thoughts in a subtle way.
I like the humour of the composition “which didn’t sound very entertaining.” This comes at a good point in the piece, too – it saves the tone from being too heavy. I love “her eyes felt like swollen eggs” – a really clever simile that captures the strangeness of the sensation.
This feels a bit like it’s written in two parts, though: the suspense like that in the extract comes in the second half, and isn’t really present in the first half. A couple of ominous words in the first part would keep the reader feeling uneasy!
Well done.
Penny