Re: Revision vent

On Sat, 1 Dec 2007 02:43:41 +0000, Catja Pafort
<green_knight@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:1i8f5ko.5jrbu3ad7t1cN%green_knight@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
in rec.arts.sf.composition:

Brian M. Scott wrote:

[...]

Here are the fairly bland opening sentences of four books
that I enjoyed and that happen to be handy. Oversimplifying
drastically, one is about people and relationships; one is
competent traditional sf fare with decent characters, decent
action, and a decent sf trappings; one is sf in which the
characters take a back seat to ideas and the author's
inventiveness; and one of them is non-stop action sf with a
fascinating protagonist and an important theme or two. I
don't think that it's at all obvious which first sentence
goes with which description.

The sun filtered through the charcoal-generated haze
that hung over Seros, warming the city's ancient bones,
and hinting at the coming of summer.

Doesn't feel bland to me - there's a good amount of
worldbuilding in it.

There is? Not without a good deal more information, I
think.

I can guess what kind of story I am dealing with here.

If I knew only that it was fantasy or science fiction, I'd
probably guess fantasy -- and be wrong. (Mind you, the
second sentence would disabuse me of the notion: 'A great
deal had changed during the more than ten thousand years
since the first colony ship had landed on Anafa'.)

This is the workmanlike, sf novel _Runner_, by William C.
Dietz; enjoyable, solid journeyman work, but nothing
special.

Livia Kodaly opened her eyes to gray predawn light.

Instant reaction: 'so what?' And it's not a problem if the
next sentence draws me in, but if I'm halfway down the
first page without anything to catch my eye, it will be a
problem.

The third sentence might catch your eye ('Real sheets, not
virtual, were bunched around her legs; ...'), or you might
have to read a couple of pages to realize just how odd this
setting is. This is Karl Schroeder's _Lady of Mazes_, the
one in which the characters take a back seat to the ideas
and special effects, so to speak.

Sunlight lay across the bare floor of the hotel room,
falling rich and golden upon the smooth white sheets
of the single bed, and the exposed pale arm of its
occupant.

Hmm. This is a zooming in - I expect something important
to happen in the next paragraph.

Doesn't, though; in the first 15+ pages the owner of the arm
gets up, has breakfast, goes to a job interview, has dinner,
lets herself be picked up, spends the night with the fellow,
and leaves his apartment before he wakes. We get a few
hints that she's unusual, but it's a pretty leisurely
introduction -- to the non-stop action story. (Joel
Shepherd, _Crossover_)

Works for me because of the dynamic.

It had been the hottest summer in living memory.

Works - weather/worldbuilding always seem to work for me.

And I don't really see it as worldbuilding at all. (It's
Alma's _Jin-shei_.)

I am no more or less grabbed by these four opening sentences
than I am by these:

Pay attention.

This could possibly be a Very Big Turnoff for me. Unless
it was written by a certain local resident, in which case
I'll forgive the second person.

It's a YA, _The Shadow Thieves_, by Anne Ursu; the opening
*is* a bit much, though perhaps less so for many youngsters:

Pay attention. Watch carefully, now. Look at the
sidewalk, there. See that girl -- the one with the
bright red hair, overstuffed backpack, and aura of
grumpiness? That's Charlotte Mielswetzski. (Say
it with me: Meals-wet-ski. Got it? If not, say it
again: _Meals. Wet. Ski._ There. You thought your
name was bad?) And something extraordinary is
about to happen to her.

No, the extraordinary event will not be related to
that man watching her behind the oak tree ... that
oddly pale, strangely thin, freakishly tall, yellow-
eyed, bald-headed man in the tuxedo. (And while
we're at it, why on earth would anyone be wearing
a tuxedo at four o'clock on an unseasonably warm
October afternoon? [...]

The PoV is omni with a personality and voice of its own, and
occasionally, as here, the personality and voice come
through very strongly; mostly, though, the narration is much
more straightforward, and the book is good fun.

Kardon stood at the back of the tavern, surveying
the night's clientele, and smiled with brutal
satisfaction.

Doesn't sound like the sort of person I'd want to read about.

Isn't. But you won't for long: he's the PoV character for
the first chapter, but he serves only to introduce the
protagonists, get them together, and get them on their way.
(Sharon Shinn, _Mystic and Rider_)

Rossamünd was a boy with a girl's name.

Instant turnoff: if someone can't do enough research to
get the spelling right, I'm not interested at all.

I certainly understand the reaction, but in this case it
isn't justified: this is a different world, and the names
aren't -- quite -- ours. Besides Rossamünd we have in the
first chapter Barthomæus, Gosling, Verline, Madam Opera,
Master Fransitart, Master Craumpalin. Early in Ch. 2 we
learn that the day before Domesday is Midwich. It looks to
be a pretty safe bet that just about all of the distortions
are deliberate.

In fact the author has a lot of fun with the names. Those
who look at the maps at the very beginning of the book will
find first a map of 'The Half Continent, also being called
The Haufarium, Westelund, The Sundergird', which is bounded
on the south by the Mare Infernum. At its centre is
Hergoatenbosch. Through the capital city of Boschenburg
runs the Humour (Humeur) river, which is fed in the north by
the Black Bile (Schwartgallig) and Yellow Bile rivers. At
the latter confluence is Aestivium, the summer palace of the
Gightland Queen. Cities and large towns include Woord,
Evengenin, Sotighiem, Wurst, Proud Sulking, Winstermill,
Silvernook, High Vesting, Bennat Lea, Brandenbrass, Useless,
and Doggenbrass. There's a stronghold of Harefoot Dig.
Major roads are the Conduit Felix, the Conductor Secunda,
the Vestiweg, the Conduit Vermis or Wormway, the Conduit
Crepitus, and the Conduit Stercus.

This is a YA, _Foundling_, by D.M. Cornish. Approximately
the last quarter of the volume is an 'Explicarium, Being a
Glossary of Terms & Explanations Including Appendices',
which lists as its most useful sources:

The Pseudopædia
Master Matthius' Wandering Almanac: A Wordialigue
of Matter, Generalisms & Habilistics
The Incomplete Book of Bogles
Weltchronic
The Book of Skolds
& extracts from the Vadè Chemica

Some of the terms are his own invention. A skold, also
known as a habilist, zaumabalist ('soup-thrower'), or
fumomath, is a teratologist who fights monsters using
chemicals and potions. A peregrinat is an 'almanac made
hardwearing and even waterproof for use by wayfarers and
other travelers'. Harundo is a form of cudgel fighting with
its own elaborate vocabulary. And so on. He's a bit drunk
on words.

<hic!>

'Let's go fight the girls!'

Read this line twice, and it stuck in my mind, and it sold
me on the book. I was hooked right away, I had to find
out what kind of world this was where boys meet girls in
playful combat. (And the girls win <EG>.)

If I remember correctly, I didn't even read the first page
before I bought it: I read some bits in the middle that I
liked, and I'd read and enjoyed other things by her, so I
picked it up. (And on its strength I just bought the second
volume in hardcover at Darkover last weekend, pretty nearly
without opening it.)

They're just different styles of opening. That said, I will
grant that I occasionally read a first sentence that stands
out:

There were rumors of gems appearing in the city:
topaz turning up in the sneaker of a three-year-old;
discarded emeralds found glittering on a restaurant
dish that a waiter was about to clear; a convenience
store cash register filled with opals instead of dimes;
the dark soil in a window box suddenly shining with
bits of polished lapis and garnet -- enough to make
necklaces for every woman in the tenement.

But that's an unusual bonus, and its absence is by no means
a negative mark.

I'm not saying every first line must hook me, just that it
makes a difference to me whether it does. When a
competent book competes with a good one, mere competence
loses out.

But in general I don't think that one can distinguish a good
book from a merely competent one on the basis of the first
sentence. I don't think that it even sends a very strong
signal, except in the most unusual cases (at either end).

It takes a lot for a sentence to put me off, but it
doesn't take all that much for me in a bookshop when I'm
looking at ten or twenty books I have not encountered
before with the knowledge that I can only buy one or two
before I will put it down and pick up the next one. So a
not-overly-satisfactory first sentence isn't a
dealbreaker, but it goes a long way towards forming an
opinion.

I truly don't get this. In the days when I had very little
money, I read *more* of each book that I picked up than I
generally do now, because mistakes in judgement were more
costly, and the effect on me of any single sentence is tiny,
unless it contains a gross error of some kind. (I may
return to a book after having put it down, too.)

Why, with dozens of books to choose from, invest time in
things that are of moderate interest? If something fails
to grab me on the first page, then it might still be a
good book, or even a book I'd enjoy reading - but further
down will be something that makes my soul sing, and when
I have little money for books it is *those* I am looking
for.

And for me it might very well be one that *doesn't* grab me
on the first page. Very, very few books actually do grab me
on the first page, when you get right down to it, and some
of those proceed to lose my interest long before the end.
(If I've correctly identified the resident whose second
person you'd forgive, he's done this to me often enough that
I've had to conclude that we're just a bad fit.)

[...]

Brian
.

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