[Critique Game] Post the First Three Sentences of your Novel (moved to The Sandbox)

Mary Mitchell said:

The character shows both bravado and empathy, and the setting seems fraught with danger. I would read on.

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Mary Mitchell said:

The character shows both bravado and empathy, and the setting seems fraught with danger. I would read on.

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I wanted a ROFL emoji.

Shucks. Thanks folks.

Keithy said:

OK, here's another version of it:

Line 1) ‘They are loved and admired, but you must accept that they need to die,’ read the message.

This is toned down, but I hope we still know that something important is going on, and it also refers to the character who is receiving it: we are getting that he knows about the plot, but has not told the plotters whether he wants in or not. It probably does not matter how the message comes.


Line 2) His liver-spotted hand touched the window.

We get from this that he is old, and perhaps that he holds feelings for whatever it is beyond the window. I am tempted to add a sigh, possibly a wistful one, except that I'm not keen on wistful sighs.

Line 3) Four silver-grey spaceships sped through pale yellow clouds, leaving them streaming and twisting in their wake.

This jars a little, but I need to mention spaceships and the yellow clouds: it's about the setting. I am hoping that readers will understand that this is what 'he' is seeing through the window. It is important that he sees them because two of them will blow up in the next paragraph.

His name and rank are given a couple of paragraphs later. I can say more on his clothes and tousled hair then.

I am tempted to swap lines 2 and 3.

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The thing is, when we sit down to read the book, we have only the words on the page. Those must succeed or fail on their own without help from the author, who is not going to be sitting there explaining his or her intent. So in the end, it doesn't matter what you hoped to accomplish; all that matters is whether the words succeeded.

In this rewrite--

‘They are loved and admired, but you must accept that they need to die,’ read the message.

His liver-spotted hand touched the window. Four silver-grey spaceships sped through pale yellow clouds, leaving them streaming and twisting in their wake.

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--the first sentence is drifting in space, unexplained. The man in the next line in unnamed. We can guess that maybe he just read the message, but we're not in his head; we get only an image of his hand touching a window, through which (we assume) he sees the spaceships.

Reversing sentences two and three would not help matters. It will only make them more confusing if you jump from the message to the sight of the space ships.

What we need is more context. The message: what is written on? Paper? Or is it digital? The man: Who does that seemingly disembodied hand belong to? How does he feel about what he just read? Why is he touching the window? The descriptive details are excellent--the spots on his hand, the silver ships flying through yellow clouds--but they aren't connected to anything that the reader can see, because you haven't shown us. It's as if someone drew three lines on a page and then asked, "What is this a picture of?"

There are times when a writer can be sparing with description, exposition, or narrative, trusting the reader to get it. But the reader can only do that because of everything that came before. At the beginning, there is no "before" for the reader. There is only what's on the page.

My suggestion--introduce the character when he first opens the message. Let us see him first, then the message and its contents, then his reaction to it.

OK here goes, version 3a.



1) Chalas stood looking through his cabin window at four silver-grey spaceships speeding through pale yellow clouds, leaving them streaming and twisting in their wake.

2) His ComPad beeped: the message upon its screen read, ‘They are loved and admired, but you must accept that they need to die.’

3) He uttered a soft, doleful sigh, and then his liver-spotted hand wiped away his scarce tears.


(read this afterwards. Obviously all explanations will not feature in the real thing. Although I do know of certain books that need a fan-maintained website to explain what's happening...)

The biggest problem I have is that I need to make clear what the setting is. It's in the future, and it's not in "normal space". Some people get confused if they're not told quickly and plainly what the time period and setting are if it's not our contemporary Earth. So that pretty much uses up one of my three sentences. I could attempt squishing sentence 1 and 2 together, but I'll just get a sentence that's too long.

I need to introduce "something happening", or at least a hint of a plot. Otherwise we have a old man in a spaceship sighing and feeling a window pane (wow, that sounds creepy!) So that's another sentence gone.

That leaves just one sentence for Chalas to react to the message, and in doing so tell us something about him and his reaction the message. He's sad at what he knows is about to happen, but not quite heartbroken. He's certainly not surprised: if he was, he might drop the ComPad.

I dumped the window pane thing: it's probably unnecessary.

Keithy said:

The biggest problem I have is that I need to make clear what the setting is.

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You don't. That is the job of your book's cover and its blurb. If somebody picks up your book believing they're getting a Romcom set in our own space-time continuum, then your cover and blurb have not done their job. If they've picked up your book, they should already be expecting speculative fiction.

It's in the future, and it's not in "normal space". Some people get confused if they're not told quickly and plainly what the time period and setting are if it's not our contemporary Earth.

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Not if they're familiar with the genre. It's sci-fi. It's already a given that it's not going to be a standard Earth setting.

I need to introduce "something happening", or at least a hint of a plot. Otherwise we have a old man in a spaceship sighing and feeling a window pane (wow, that sounds creepy!)

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All you need is a hook.

1) Chalas stood looking through his cabin window at four silver-grey spaceships speeding through pale yellow clouds, leaving them streaming and twisting in their wake.

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This says that the spaceships were leaving spaceships streaming and twisting in their wake because Chalas is looking at them.

3) He uttered a soft, doleful sigh, and then his liver-spotted hand wiped away his scarce tears.

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Sighs aren't uttered. Words are uttered, and they can be uttered with a sigh, but a sigh on its own can't be anything but sighed (or breathed, if you really feel the need to expand on a sigh).


"Chalas stared out of his cabin window at the four silver-grey spaceships travelling beside his ship, but not even his favourite view could banish the unshed tears stinging his eyes. His gaze travelled down to the compad on the desk, its words already seared like a brand across his mind.

They are loved and admired, but you must accept that they need to die."

^^ Not perfect, but you get the idea.

I think you're putting too much emphasis on these three lines right now. Leave them for a couple of weeks and revisit with fresh eyes.

BethS said:

The thing is, when we sit down to read the book, we have only the words on the page. Those must succeed or fail on their own without help from the author, who is not going to be sitting there explaining his or her intent. So in the end, it doesn't matter what you hoped to accomplish; all that matters is whether the words succeeded.

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This, this, and only this.

The game called "Post the first three sentences of your novel, then explain each in two paragraphs" is featured in another section.

Harsh as it may seem, the kindest response to crying because a mere three sentences is unfair, the endless soap opera called "Here's What I Really Truly Meant To Say," and other monopolization of this game is to completely ignore them.

Keithy said:

OK here goes, version 3a.



1) Chalas stood looking through his cabin window at four silver-grey spaceships speeding through pale yellow clouds, leaving them streaming and twisting in their wake.

2) His ComPad beeped: the message upon its screen read, ‘They are loved and admired, but you must accept that they need to die.’

3) He uttered a soft, doleful sigh, and then his liver-spotted hand wiped away his scarce tears.

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This is more orderly in terms of the elements introduced, but it still jumps from one image to another. It's like asking your reader to leap from one stone to the next to cross a stream. What the reader needs is a smooth path. It can twist and turn, but it needs to be there, right under his feet, with no gaps, nothing to trip him up. Which brings me to my next point--

That leaves just one sentence for Chalas to react to the message

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You don't have to do all this in just three sentences. I think trying to is why you're having difficulty connecting things up. In order to properly introduce Chalas in his setting, and then have him read the message and react to it, you may well need several sentences.

The three-sentence limit here is arbitrary and artificial. Don't try to stuff your opening into it. The opening needs to expand into its own space.

BethS said:

This is more orderly in terms of the elements introduced, but it still jumps from one image to another. It's like asking your reader to leap from one stone to the next to cross a stream. What the reader needs is a smooth path. It can twist and turn, but it needs to be there, right under his feet, with no gaps, nothing to trip him up. Which brings me to my next point--

You don't have to do all this in just three sentences. I think trying to is why you're having difficulty connecting things up. In order to properly introduce Chalas in his setting, and then have him read the message and react to it, you may well need several sentences.

The three-sentence limit here is arbitrary and artificial. Don't try to stuff your opening into it. The opening needs to expand into its own space.

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Thanks for that. Perhaps I need to post this elsewhere. I was looking for guidance more than anything.

Keithy said:

Thanks for that. Perhaps I need to post this elsewhere. I was looking for guidance more than anything.

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You're over the minimum post limit, so you could put up a longer except in the appropriate Share Your Work forum.

I think this trips up the most people when they first post in this thread. This isn't a query - you don't have to tell your entire story in the first three sentences. It's simply a game to post your first three and get feedback on them. After that, it's up to the author to decide, "Hmm, maybe it's not working and I really need to rethink the opening" OR it may be the author deciding "They've got a point, but if they had the entire paragraph they might not feel the same and I like the feel for these three sentences" OR "Hmm, I like sentence one and three, but they're right, I'm (cramming too much, not going into enough detail) in sentence two, maybe that needs to be looked at."

What I've seen is too many people trying to cram six or seven sentences into "the first three" because of the arbitrary limit. Don't worry about it. Just give the first three and accept the feedback, thank the people for giving you feedback, and decide what makes sense and what doesn't work (and keep that to yourself - do not argue with people). And really, don't sweat it. Not everyone's going to like your first three. Think about all the people who can read the same book and give it wildly different ratings.

BethS said:

You don't have to do all this in just three sentences. I think trying to is why you're having difficulty connecting things up. In order to properly introduce Chalas in his setting, and then have him read the message and react to it, you may well need several sentences.

The three-sentence limit here is arbitrary and artificial. Don't try to stuff your opening into it. The opening needs to expand into its own space.

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Richard White said:

I think this trips up the most people when they first post in this thread. This isn't a query - you don't have to tell your entire story in the first three sentences. It's simply a game to post your first three and get feedback on them. After that, it's up to the author to decide, "Hmm, maybe it's not working and I really need to rethink the opening" OR it may be the author deciding "They've got a point, but if they had the entire paragraph they might not feel the same and I like the feel for these three sentences" OR "Hmm, I like sentence one and three, but they're right, I'm (cramming too much, not going into enough detail) in sentence two, maybe that needs to be looked at."

What I've seen is too many people trying to cram six or seven sentences into "the first three" because of the arbitrary limit. Don't worry about it. Just give the first three and accept the feedback, thank the people for giving you feedback, and decide what makes sense and what doesn't work (and keep that to yourself - do not argue with people). And really, don't sweat it. Not everyone's going to like your first three. Think about all the people who can read the same book and give it wildly different ratings.

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Good advice!

Keithy said:

1) Chalas stood looking through his cabin window at four silver-grey spaceships speeding through pale yellow clouds, leaving them streaming and twisting in their wake.

2) His ComPad beeped: the message upon its screen read, ‘They are loved and admired, but you must accept that they need to die.’

3) He uttered a soft, doleful sigh, and then his liver-spotted hand wiped away his scarce tears.

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I like this a lot less.

You don't need to smother the reader with "this is sci-fi."

First sentence, you can make it smoother by saying something like: "Chalas watched through his cabin window as four silver-grey ships punctured the clouds." Note the lack of "space" before ships. The last phrase of your sentence was confusing to me; I didn't know if the clouds or the ships were streaming and twisting.

Second sentence: "ComPad" sounds awful. Also, anyone with whom he is familiar enough to be talking about why someone needs to die would not preface that with how loved and admired the victims are. Realistically, it would just say something like "You must accept that they need to die."

Third sentence: Drop either soft or doleful. It feels writery. "and then" sounds procedural; "as" would be more effective. Have his hand brush back his hair, not wipe away "scarce" tears. First, "scant" would be better to describe what you're going for, but really, I'm having trouble suspending disbelief that an assassin would be crying as he considered murdering someone. I'd nix the tears altogether.

That would leave you with something like this:

Chalas watched through his cabin window as four silver-grey ships punctured the clouds. The message was clear: You must accept that they need to die. He sighed softly as his liver-spotted hand brushed the hair from his forehead.

Richard White said:

I think this trips up the most people when they first post in this thread. This isn't a query - you don't have to tell your entire story in the first three sentences. It's simply a game to post your first three and get feedback on them. After that, it's up to the author to decide, "Hmm, maybe it's not working and I really need to rethink the opening" OR it may be the author deciding "They've got a point, but if they had the entire paragraph they might not feel the same and I like the feel for these three sentences" OR "Hmm, I like sentence one and three, but they're right, I'm (cramming too much, not going into enough detail) in sentence two, maybe that needs to be looked at."

What I've seen is too many people trying to cram six or seven sentences into "the first three" because of the arbitrary limit. Don't worry about it. Just give the first three and accept the feedback, thank the people for giving you feedback, and decide what makes sense and what doesn't work (and keep that to yourself - do not argue with people). And really, don't sweat it. Not everyone's going to like your first three. Think about all the people who can read the same book and give it wildly different ratings.

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I very much agree with this. Great advice.

Keithy said:

1) Chalas stood looking through his cabin window at four silver-grey spaceships speeding through pale yellow clouds, leaving them streaming and twisting in their wake.

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I think this has too many adjectives. The cover and blurb will give the reader the setting, and the fact they found it on the sci-fi shelf and not the contemporary romance shelf. It's confusing whether the clouds or spaceships are streaming and twisting.
Saying that he's looking is filtering, which comes across as distant. You don't need to specify that he's looking. You can show what he's thinking or feeling. Or an action that's more than just looking - maybe combine the wiping away a tear thing with the ships flying through the clouds. You don't need to say that he's looking at or seeing the ships - the reader will infer that.

2) His ComPad beeped: the message upon its screen read, ‘They are loved and admired, but you must accept that they need to die.’

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I agree with Leif's point about the person sending this message probably already knowing the first bit and just saying "you must accept that they need to die".

"His ComPad beeped: the message on the screen read..." doesn't sound like how people interact with technology. How is this device different to a smartphone? (rhetorical question - you don't need to answer in thread and definitely don't want to be explaining this in your first three... it's just something to think about when deciding how to phrase things). I don't think "My smartphone made a noise like a bottle being opened*: the message on the screen read..." I think "I got a text from my mum: "[transcription of message]".

For me, this kind of thing makes the difference between realistic interaction with technology versus coming across like a 70s sci-fi.

*it's an inane alert tone, I know. But if his ComPad can only beep and can't be customised, then that would be technology going backwards and also make it come across like a 70s sci-fi.

3) He uttered a soft, doleful sigh, and then his liver-spotted hand wiped away his scarce tears.

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This also has too many adjectives. "Liver-spotted" gives important information. However "scarce tears" sounds unnecessary and awkward. If he's only crying a little, then maybe he'll just wipe away "a tear". "Soft, doleful sigh" sounds over-written. Most sighs are soft and doleful. If something's unusual, then an adjective is needed to show that. If it's normal, the adjective seems unnecessary. For example "white snow" - do you need to say "white" seeing as this is the normal colour of snow? But if it was "royal blue snow" then that's highly unusual and here, specifying the exact shade of blue probably is necessary.



Regarding the other things you said - I think you're trying to cram too much into your opening. What's going on in the exact moment needs to be clear (don't confuse the reader) and it needs to be interesting enough to make the reader keep reading.

Richard White said:

I think this trips up the most people when they first post in this thread. This isn't a query - you don't have to tell your entire story in the first three sentences. It's simply a game to post your first three and get feedback on them. After that, it's up to the author to decide, "Hmm, maybe it's not working and I really need to rethink the opening" OR it may be the author deciding "They've got a point, but if they had the entire paragraph they might not feel the same and I like the feel for these three sentences" OR "Hmm, I like sentence one and three, but they're right, I'm (cramming too much, not going into enough detail) in sentence two, maybe that needs to be looked at."

What I've seen is too many people trying to cram six or seven sentences into "the first three" because of the arbitrary limit. Don't worry about it. Just give the first three and accept the feedback, thank the people for giving you feedback, and decide what makes sense and what doesn't work (and keep that to yourself - do not argue with people). And really, don't sweat it. Not everyone's going to like your first three. Think about all the people who can read the same book and give it wildly different ratings.

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Yes, exactly.

Richard White said:

the arbitrary limit.

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That's the key. Three sentences is, as you said, a completely arbitrary limit.

It's immediately obvious when someone starts removing periods and replacing them with commas in order to get more of their story into the first three sentences for this exercise.

No agent reads three sentences and goes, "eh, sentence four looked good, but since this one didn't grab me in the first three, pass."