Hey Veeky Forums. Rate the first paragraph of my novella. And feel free to post your own first paragraphs...

Hey Veeky Forums. Rate the first paragraph of my novella. And feel free to post your own first paragraphs. I'd like to discuss what makes an engaging opening to a story.

He took the challenge lightly. It's almost imperceptible that he took it at all. No question had been asked more than how this series of behavior was meant to come to a climactic end, revealing that Foster Quinn had been the hero all this time.
To look at him in real time is looking at digression it's self. But in accordance to the plot, he is never out of shouting distance. He can be summoned to move things forward. However, as often as he drinks, it is easier to lead him further astray and let the story unfold it's self

2/10, better luck next time mate.

But why?

it feels pretty unnatural, and I think your tenses are kind of janky?

Feels very disengaging

>In accordance to the plot.

that was me. 2/10 is too harsh really, but I wouldn't carry on reading this with the prose as it is. for a start you've written itself as it's self twice. are you writing the novella on your phone or something?

in more detail, hopefully somewhat constructive criticism:

>He took the challenge lightly. It's almost imperceptible that he took it at all.

Strong start.

>No question had been asked more

ridiculous hyperbole, a transparently artificial attempt to make everything seem important, without giving any actual reason for interest. get rid of it.

>than how this series of behavior was meant to come to a climactic end,

what series of behaviour? is almost imperceptibly taking a challenge a series of behaviour? no, it's not.

>revealing that Foster Quinn had been the hero all this time.

is it the climactic end that reveals this, or is it the asking of the question? it's ambiguous, and not in a good way. Foster Quinn is a strong name, though.

>To look at him in real time is looking at digression it's self.

This sounds quite good, but... what other way is there to look at him? If you looked at a recording, would it no longer be like looking at digression itself? also I could imagine listening to digression itself, but looking at it, not so much. what does digression look like? or are you going for digression being some kind of metaphysical quality that is embodied by Quinn, rather than something that's literally seen by looking at him?

>But in accordance to the plot, he is never out of shouting distance. He can be summoned to move things forward.

I like this bit, too. but it's in accordance WITH. or do you mean something more like in deference to?

>However, as often as he drinks, it is easier to lead him further astray and let the story unfold it's self.

But and However are not strong ways to start a sentence in the first place, starting two consecutive sentences with them is unimaginative, completely breaks the flow between sentences, and makes you sound confused.

The interaction between the protagonist (assuming Quinn fills that role in some sense or another) and the narrative looks like it could develop into something genuinely interesting. But it's not expressed clearly enough yet, and you really need to tighten up your prose, it has a touch of Morrisey as it is. (This is not good.)

Where does it go after this? It's hard to really rate it from one paragraph, because maybe the following paragraphs clarify some of the things that are confusing about this one, and maybe they don't.

It's rough. Keep trying. If you are going to ask me "But why?" I can't tell you. Read "An Approach to Style" in William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White's Elements of Style. You can't necessarily describe why someone's style is lacking, but you know it when you see it.

I will say that "It's almost imperceptible that he took it at all" is an awful sentence and immediately where I was thrown off. Perhaps stop trying to use words that you don't use in everyday speech and try to keep it simple. The first sentence was good, after that it became a cluster-fuck. Also, what the fuck am I reading? If I can't get a sense of setting or direction in the first paragraph why should I bother moving on to the next?

I know this is two paragraphs, but... fuck it.

The stiff, embroidered cloth was uncomfortable. Elias rolled his shoulders, trying to move the seams to a place they didn't rub against his skin, but the tunic was too well fitted. It had actually been made for him specifically for this occasion, but that didn't make it any more comfortable. He tugged on the hem, settling the garment against his shoulders.

The great hall was filled to capacity with various warriors, nobles, and priests, each dressed in their finest clothing or ceremonial armor. After all, it wasn't every day that a king died.

Hey. here.

I... honestly wasn't hooked, like, at all. The tenses kept fucking with me. It seemed to hop between present and past tense, and wasn't terribly cohesive. I felt dropped into the middle of something that I needed more back story for.

>It had actually been made for him specifically for this occasion, but that didn't make it any more comfortable.

Adverbs make it weak. Remove "actually" and it will be much better. "Specifically" also should be taken out but instead replaced. If I were your editor I would suggest this:

It had been made for him for this occasion, but that didn't make it any more comfortable.

That is significantly better. Thank you.

No problem. The only thing I hate is having "for" appear within three words. You could perhaps place "just" before the second "for" or figure another rewrite. If you added the "just" it would look like this:

It had been made for him just for this occasion, but that didn't make it any more comfortable.

Idk how I feel about that, but it's not too bad.

I'd keep reading past your first two paragraphs. Seems fun.

This opening is about, and will become clear that it's about myself as Foster Quinn. And Quinn being digression, is referring to him being the only one that can save the day (it's really only his day that needs saving) but he can never stick to one path to see it to the end.

Foster Quinn lives in a town where people care about him, but he is the only one that needs saving, but has it in his head that the whole town needs saving. He makes everything about himself then leaves it behind. He forgets his own role and always finds himself playing the alcoholic

I take your advice and opinion to heart. And greatly appreciate the feedback

no

I like this pretty well actually. Is this the opening to a novel or a short story?

Also, here's mine. Any feedback is appreciated:

I stare down at the plate before me. White. Porcelain. Rounded square. Straight line bordering the edges. Miniscule reflections of the overhead lights reclining on the periphery, teetering off as on the edge of a flat planet that has expended its inertia and creeps ever closer to pure staticity. Heat death. The warmth of the food reaches my senses before the sight or smell of it. For a moment I experience the sensation, and then I inspect the food.

Without understanding, the distance of color is what drew me to the window. Such shimmers like spume off the sea of what was. It was close, to me, though; closer than I cared for its reach to go. Yet, it was deceiving in its approach to me. And that was surely what it was doing. I drew no steps, yet my mind could feel the approach of the other, that thing that is always within and without the self. Imagining all that has ever been stationed between each breath, each heartbeat, the murmur of self rustling against its own boundaries. Emotions roll in me not like tides, but a thing more conscious than that. I cannot well convey it, but I know what I feel. Perhaps my own flesh rebels against time? It has used me, not the other way around. I have been chosen as a marker to decay. Yet, I cannot withstand its approach. Like the shell of an atom I am affected by the other in proportion to its propinquity. It is the bonds that are unseen in the micro which rule the macro with such impunity. Yet, both worlds exist within each other. The smaller within the larger on a physical level, yet the larger within the smaller on a psychological level. A quark spins left, not right, and a year that is dead rages from the grave. Whether it is noticed by all, or the other, makes no difference to the percipient, for notice clangs through the cosmos individually, at all times. That which we choose to notice is usually an aspect of our own past or future manifesting itself ever so briefly before the mist makes its union.

The color I saw was, specifically, my cat Harry- orange, black and white. He was engaged by the day outside my 21st Century suburban Texas home. Or was he? Upon moving toward his color I noticed that he was focused upon a balletic scene just outside. It seemed two dragonflies were locked in what seemed mid-air mortal combat- one shimmering yellow and orange, the other a deep navy blue. Their iridescence had always fascinated me, when young, and reminded me of creatures dreamt of in science fiction novels or superhero comic books. Then, as their free tumble crashed into my window’s wire mesh screen I could see it was copulation, not destruction, which possessed the insects. Their legs would frantically, but only momentarily, lock upon the screen mesh as they did their deed, then they would tumble downward, relock their legs, and continue. Perhaps it was just the color scheme, but I felt the blue dragonfly was the male. They did not mind the gaze of me, nor Harry, for the long minutes they tumbled down our sight. This diseros lasted several minutes, as Harry and I were rapt. In fact, they seemed wholly oblivious to us, as if they realized we were unlooked upon, by them, thereby unimportant. Their struggle was somehow primitive, yet understandable. Harry might swipe at the pair, with his paw, and his gesture might cause them to fly off the screen, less than a foot, then tumble back at us, into the screen, to try to fasten themselves again, as if their very mortality were no price for their desire. Desire has little relation to reality- how many of us have desired a person or a thing that was clearly, in retrospect, not worth the effort? Yet, still we desired, just to desire, regardless of our desired thing’s quality, or qualities. So, too, it seemed with the dragonflies. Aimlessly they seemed to tumble, through space alone, at first. Then, of a sudden, as I looked into the vastness behind them, time was also in remission, and the insects were not outside where I thought they were, but I, alone, was back nearly forty years earlier, to my childhood, in an impoverished section of Queens, New York.

The struggle of a pair of mindlessly driven creatures had wedged me back, myself, tumbling through the memories and aridity of years that were not mine, alone, any longer. I was part of a larger scheme- stars, desires, losses, deaths, and trivial moments that framed all the rest. It was the smaller things that roared back into me, as if a first love. It is said that a first love fills the heart even as it empties the head. So it was for me in the return to my past. I was stripped of all presuppositions and rationalizations of that time, even as I was confident of their return. I was me, them, you, others, all things at all times in all ways. I was here there, and beyond, where any soul could read my meager existence like some newly discovered star, or a fossil whose heft weighed the life of its discoverer. It was as if I had fled past the barriers of the known cosmos and was waiting for someone to notice the schism. Having read Abbott’s Flatland, I was reminded of the scene where A Square encounters a testy Sphere, who resents his existence being denoted a hallucination, so sweeps into A Square’s world, and forever shatters his illusions of reality.

Here's the intro to my first story, let me know how it is:

I hadn’t been back in years, a myriad of things repelling me, none of which I ever cared to dwell on. So much of my adolescence is an uneasy blur—a smudge on the window obscuring my vision. It isn’t that things were bad growing up, but I always regarded my past with a slight sense of distrust, likely due to the poor state of my life after graduating high school. Unfortunately, some of my most vivid memories of those years are of my dead-end job. Life was a singular drag then, and I was mired in dissatisfaction. I liked to have this word, dissatisfaction, ruminate in my mouth each morning on my way to work, letting it roll over the edges of my tongue before speaking it aloud. Back then, no word could describe my state of being more thoroughly than dissatisfaction. I couldn’t really blame anyone for this, for the way things had gotten, the rut I had let myself sink into. I did well in high school, my parents were supportive, and I had been presented with several opportunities to attend university over the years. I couldn’t leave, of course--not that place, not as a young man with no aspirations. If something was preventing me from going, from moving on, I didn’t know what it was. I still don’t know, but that town had an aura about it, an aura I would see at night sometimes, something only I ever recognized. Returning from the larger surrounding cities, the nearly invisible outlines of the mountains would come into view, contrasted against the rolling farmlands and smattering of lights from the little houses closest to the city limits. It was peaceful: it gave me the sort of familiar pleasure you would expect to feel after being away from home for a while, yet I felt it each and every time I saw it. I haven’t made that drive towards the mountains in years, or even visited, but coming back now-- I remember, with uncomfortable clarity, the time the aura seemed to change, and the air got a little heavier. Before that day, my hometown had been like a kind old man, seated next to his wife on a park bench, feeding birds on a cool spring morning. But time breeds change—and things had changed, along with me and every other inconstant thing in life. The kind old man became cruel, hunching over tattered tomes detailing occult worship, his bony spine arching grotesquely as he laughs. I can see him now, turning to reveal a sardonic grin spread across his face. He makes a mockery of tragedy and a mockery of the town I once felt so drawn to. Perhaps that kind of ominous force had always been lurking somewhere beneath the surface, but I remember when I first felt its presence, an enclosure of caution tape concealing its arrival.

Full novel. Rough draft is done. 102k words right now... in beta read status still because my readers are all lazy fucks, or I'm a shitty writer.

One of the two.

Your passage isn't bad, per se, but it is a little purple. Maybe tone down the similes and such a bit, and it would flow better.

Eh. It's hard to judge a single paragraph.

>it's a little purple
yeah, I was going for a sort of staccato pace with the short descriptors like "White. Porcelain." and then to ramp it up with the long purple sentence just to create an interesting pacing, but it does come off kind of bad/amateurish I guess. Thanks for the feedback and good luck with the novel!