Every time someone doesn't read the first part of this post, Rick Santorum eats a kitten and your post may be frowned upon.

Idea stolen from Critique Circle.

The writer will post no more than the first 500-1000 words of their work (unless you desperately need to finish a sentence, I guess). If it's a script, the first four pages should suffice, since 1000 words is about four pages in most books.

The reader is pretending to be an editor going through the slush pile, and will stop reading the excerpt if they lose interest. The reader will post to say if they stopped reading, why/ why not, and offer suggestions. The critique doesn't have to be detailed, but please at least offer some advice.

Every time someone doesn't follow the second part, Rick Santorum eats five kittens and your post has a 90% chance of being ignored.

FRIENDLY REMINDER: As the title of the thread implies, if someone posted an excerpt before you, please critique it before posting your own. If you skip someone, you lose the right to whine if someone skips over you. People that have been skipped, feel free to post a polite reminder if you're getting concerned. Reading 1000 words and leaving a few comments shouldn't take too long. And look at it this way: if you critique it yourself, you don't risk waiting forever for someone else to do it for you (this thread takes occasional naps) and you don't have to hope the critiquer doesn't have an excerpt of their own to post right after.

A SHORT NOTE: By hook we mean the first thing the reader sees of the story, not necessarily some sort of inciting incident. Your beginning can be slow and steady, but it still counts as the hook because readers can still be interested by something that moves slowly as long as something is there that gives the reader a reason to keep going. So if you have a prologue that meets or surpasses the word limit, don't stick your first chapter underneath it.

DISCLAIMER: This isn't a hardcore critique thread, so don't try to milk a detailed critique for your first chapter. That's why we have the word limits. Just think of this as a preliminary screening process for serious problems so you can get started on making your first impressions sparkly and awesome.

edited 20th Aug '12 7:46:48 PM by SnowyFoxes

This is my 380-word prologue. Ergo, what I have of Na No Wri Mo before school and wind ensemble tryouts made me quit.

http://freetexthost.com/shyvzu1xpc

edited 26th Nov '11 11:37:38 AM by CrystalGlacia

Well, I can offer an opinion but...it's not pretty. Are you certain you want to hear it?

...I'm pretty sure it primarily concerns my first-person narrator choice, but go ahead.

I actually like it, and I don't think it would have worked as well if your narrator weren't so obviously out of his mind. Then again, I have a thing for narrators that don't seem all there. Most "Hi, this is a story" intros don't work out.

edited 25th Nov '11 10:27:22 PM by SnowyFoxes

It's amusing. It would at least entice me to read the first bit of actual story.

Since I'm supposed to be going off right now, I'll just link the first page of Manifestation Files. You had seen this before, Snowy Foxes, so I'd like a couple of more opinions.

It started out interesting, then the narrator just got irritating. I don't want to see another phrase in capslock in prose again.

edit for 2nd thought: I'm not really sure what this story's supposed to be about, but apparently it involves an EVIL! dad and a kid who gets bullied at school. I have to say this doesn't sound like the kind of thing I'd be interested in, without further information.

Blergh ninja'd.

^ If the errors were fixed, it could go either way for me. Nothing really jumped out.

Also, it's really, really short.

edited 25th Nov '11 10:49:17 PM by melloncollie

@Crystal Glacia. Well, keep in mind I am very critical as you read this.

The style itself I find incredibly amateurish and irritating. Not because it's first person, just the way it's written. Way too many exclamation points, the all-caps are obnoxious, the reiterating that, yes, we are reading a story, it's incredibly irritating to me, and a common mark of amateurish stuff. I know I can't put this to the same standards as published stuff, since you are still in school, but a publisher would probably throw this out without reading the whole prologue. The entire character, who apparently is old enough to have a son, seems like he's about eleven years old, incredibly immature. I don't know if that's intentional or not, it seems as if it's trying to do something with this, but it makes him very unlikeable and feel unrealistic, and the prologue itself doesn't give me anything else to grab onto, so at this point I'm gone. I feel as if there wasn't a great deal of thought put into writing this person as an actual living person would act, he feels like some kind of caricature. Even crazy people don't actually recount things this way, it's so over the top in an uninteresting, unjustified, obnoxious way, in my personal opinion.

But aside from just the style, it doesn't accomplish much of anything. I'm not certain what type of story you are writing here, but I'm not convinced it needs a prologue at all, especially since this one seems to me to be there solely to inform me that, yes, I am reading a book about someone's life, which I could have gathered as much from reading the summery on the back of the book (if it were in published format). The prologue itself is opaque in the sense that it gives me no information about why I should stick around to grasp onto. It doesn't give me a setting, doesn't tell me what the story is going to be about, aside from this guy's life, which I don't know enough about to be convinced his life would even be interesting.

All I know about this guy is that he has a son called Peter, a wife named Alice, and he apparently knew some guy that abused his son or something(and he said it in such a random, pointless, hostile way that I'm once again thinking he's incredibly immature and judgmental, like a preteen, seriously. The rant about the guy in jail was out of nowhere, for me.) I get the feeling that you are trying to make hints that this guy might be crazy and want to kill someone, and if that's not the case then right there it's misleading, but if it is, again I don't think I need a prologue to tell me, just getting right into what is going on could do the same. Personally I don't like the character, or the way he's portrayed. I am not personally against first-person, or deadpan snarker-type narratives (although there is a strong tendency for authors to not do them as well as they think they are doing them), but the way this one is done...ugh. Again, it feels like the ramblings of a preteen, not something an adult would thing, even one going crazy.

So honestly, if it were me, I would scrap this completely and start over. If the whole story is like this then I would scrap that and start over as well. I don't know what the story is about (which is a problem, let me tell you) but I think you should rethink this character, especially since the entire narrative is being told from his perspective. If he is actually crazy I think a first person perspective would be very useful and interesting, but like this...just, ugh. I don't find his stammering and rambling immature-mentality endearing or interesting at all.

So...yeah.

edited 25th Nov '11 10:49:29 PM by NoirGrimoir

^^^ The first moment where I began to lose interest was where you used "I held back the temptation to" twice in a row. Three uses of a structure allow you to humorously subvert it, and one use would have been fine, but two uses seem like you didn't make enough use of a thesaurus. Also, some of the phrasing seems awkward. (For instance, I'd change the line about the bandage so as to begin by saying that his face was marked, then continue that it was marked by the bandage and the smile. As it is, the reader spends the beginning of the sentence wondering what the hell a bandage and a smile have to do with anything.)

This is actually the beginning of Chapter 2 of my story, but Chapter 1's intended to function as its own story, with 2 as an optional continuation, so . . .

edited 25th Nov '11 11:14:43 PM by feotakahari

@chihuahua 0

This doesn't appear to be the sort of thing I would normally read on my own so keep that in mind.

There are definitely some problems, many of which were already brought up by Snowy Foxes, such as the repeated use of the phrase 'I held back the temptation to' twice in a row. I also found the phrase 'cringe flickering out' a bit questionable, not sure if cringes really flicker on and off. Also, "A bandage on his forehead and a sheepish smile marked his face," is a sentence fragment. I think you wanted something like 'He had a bandage...' And that last sentence was a little awkwardly done, but it was informative so I wouldn't say get rid of it outright it just needs better lead-in.

Aside from the grammar/word choice issues though, I don't actually think it's that bad. It sets up a situation and sort of hints at everything to come. Already I know the story seems to be about a sullen kid whose father is never around who gets a cheerful, quirky, clumsy British foreign exchange student living with him. I'm already pretty interested in the exchange student, honestly. He's pretty much the best part of this. I picture the story going the quirky exchange student bringing the sullen kid out of his funk and making his life bright. I don't know if that is what the story is about, but that's kind of what I want to see here from this first paragraph. So basically provided the flow was reworked a little and the word choice was fixed, with this first section of the story I would be interested enough to read another section and then consider again whether I'm interested.

edited 25th Nov '11 11:18:09 PM by NoirGrimoir

...I forgot to edit in Snowy Foxes' suggestions...Oof.

But good advice anyways.

Oh, quite the opposite of what you think. I think I can use this whiplash to my advantage.

@feotakahari

In a "story within a story" sort of thing, it's best to not keep reminding the reader that that's the case long after it's already been established. Just when I started properly suspending my disbelief and getting "into" the story, the "Ghost was not the bravest person in this story" line threw me off and my suspension of disbelief was completely broken, and the excerpt was not long enough after that for me to have enough time to suspend my disbelief once again.

Though the mention of breasts pretty much guarantees that I wouldn't have kept reading if this was a published story I came upon somewhere.

Also, the "neither thin nor fat" line was a bit weird. Makes one think "If she's neither thin nor fat, then why mention it? What does that even mean, anyway? Is she of average weight or...?", and the reader is not supposed to be thinking these things.

Also, the word "contract" pretty much put the nail in the coffin for that story for me. Contracts are way overdone.

edited 26th Nov '11 8:36:37 AM by fanty

First page go. I will edit this post to share my opinions on others.

—-

CG: Is this supposed to be a journal entry? I could see it working if you had a style to Wimpy Kid or Amelia, but otherwise, yeah, it is kind of hard to read through, and comes across more as a comedic fanfiction than anything. Not hooked.

Chih: Definitely no hook. The descriptions have an ADHD esque feel to them, I have no idea what to focus on, and way too much information in way too short of a time. Not Hooked.

Feo: I am kind of completely lost there. I don't know where I am, or how I got there, and the character doesn't know either, and it seems rather generic. At least the first line of storyness. The idea seems vaguely interesting, so I like that, but the set up is all wonky. Not hooked.

edited 18th Jan '12 8:08:25 AM by MrAHR

Posting this on behalf of USAF713, in anticipation of Monday, when he can apparently post again. Again note: not mine.

Prologue – The Apple of Discord

Berlin, Germany

The Reichstag

~*~

It was a refreshingly cool winter’s evening, Kaiser Wilhelm III thought as he made his way down the halls of the Reichstag building. At the beginning of October, the nights were usually colder—in fact, it likely should have been snowing by that point—but it seemed that luck and God’s fortune were on his side tonight. He adjusted his uniform—medium-dark blue, with large gold bands crisscrossing it and a fuzzy collar that was somewhat irritating, but could not be removed (much to Wilhelm’s annoyance and dismay), and an Imperial cross in the center of his chest, suspended on a gold rope—ran a hand through his short, combed-back black hair, and then made his way towards the front hall.

As he reached the foyer before the front door, a figure got up from a bench there and walked towards them. Wilhelm got closer and recognized the man, as he knew he would, as Chancellor Maximilian, his primary minister, representative in the Reichstag, and close friend. Though they did not agree on every issue, they had become reasonably good partners in government, with Maximilian taking on a vaguely mentor-like position after the death of Wilhelm’s father, which Wilhelm appreciated greatly in spite of their political differences.

He wore his own uniform—far plainer than Wilhelm’s, to Wilhelm’s own unvoiced envy, with a plain gray colored officer’s coat, a red arm band on his left arm, two rows of twelve silver buttons, a plain officer’s hat, and an officer’s sword attached to his belt (though only the end of the weapon was visible under his officer’s coat)—and his demeanor was cordial and non-threatening; he was increasingly passive as he aged, Wilhelm had noted, and it saddened him that Maximilian had slowed down so much.

“Your Highness.” Maximilian said, tipping his head and hat in greeting and acknowledgement as Wilhelm reached comfortable speaking distance. Wilhelm, in return, extended a hand, which Maximilian grasped and shook once, firmly.

“Are you ready to impress a few French nobles tonight, my friend?” Wilhelm asked, smiling. They both knew that “a few French nobles” was a severe underestimation of their guests, which—among others—would include Emperor Napoleon VI of the French Empire and his wife, Grand Duchess Tatiana of Russia. Napoleon VI was quite possibly—by the reckoning of Maximilian and Wilhelm’s foreign ministers—the most important person in Europe and, therefore, the civilized world. Who made friends with Napoleon—officially, through trade and military alliance, and unofficially, through backroom diplomacy—could quite conceivably control mainland Europe and, through it and its place as the cradle of human culture and advancement, the entire world.

And at that time, Britain was currently in that position of ally, trade partner, and diplomatic friend of France.

However, the mighty British Empire’s grip on Europe was far from secure—a sentiment shared with Wilhelm by his staff and the larger population of Germany, France, and Russia. Britain was simply too sure of itself—too headstrong—to be the regent extraordinaire of the civilized world. Though her might was immense and her Royal Navy’s reach long, the British Empire overestimated her ability to bully and demean the other Great Powers of Europe and still retain her place on the forefront of the world stage.

Such is why Germany was hosting a ball, in honor of Napoleon VI’s birthday. Wilhelm, though he actually did respect Napoleon to an extent—the man, if nothing else, was astonishingly charismatic, and well-loved by his people, though his colonial policy left something to be desired—was simply more interested in getting his country into a position where it could undermine British Imperial power, and, eventually, take her place as the leader of Europe and the world.

“Your Highness, you know that I am always ready to entertain French nobles.” Maximilian responded, his tone obviously sarcastic. Wilhelm chuckled, knowing Maximilian’s dislike for the French nobility. While Napoleon and Tatiana were themselves quite personable, French nobility as a whole tended to be far too entitled and superior, thinking themselves better simply for being French. It was often quite irritating, though Wilhelm had grown somewhat accustomed to it, and they to his lack of tolerance for it.

Wilhelm moved towards the doors, grasping the left handle with one hand. Maximilian joined him, mirroring him with the right door. They shared a single nod, and then they threw the doors open without another word. As soon as they had fully opened, Wilhelm and Maximilian were greeted with a thunderous roar of applause. Wilhelm blinked a little, to clear the glare from sudden exposure to the bright lamps in the Reichstag front garden, and then he took in the large crowd.

He picked out several of his generals—Hans von Seeckt, Erich von Falkenhayn, Wilhelm Heye, Erich Ludendorff, and his Chief of the German General Staff, Paul von Hindenburg—among the crowd, intermingled with their French counterparts in what was likely a number of serious discussions of military strategy. Hindenburg in particular stood out, partially for his relative girth and partially for his age. The man was 73 and had already retired nearly a decade previously, but Wilhelm had asked him to come back to serve as his Chief of General Staff during the current, critical period of Germany Army reorganization. It had actually surprised him when Hindenburg accepted, but Wilhelm wasn’t one to argue when one of the most experienced generals around came at his behest.

As Wilhelm scanned the crowd, his eye was caught by his wife, Cecilie, motioning for him to come over. At the same time, he saw Napoleon out of the corner of his gaze, waving at him as well. He smiled at Cecilie—though it was not a truly happy expression—and put up a hand to return Napoleon’s wave, while signaling that he would be a moment.

edited 26th Nov '11 11:32:13 AM by alethiophile

ಠ_ಠ

Well, there isn't much time between your posts so maybe you posted yours while they were typing theirs.

Couldn't hold my interest. The long, descriptive paragraphs full of back-story with little dialogue or action really just ruin any 'hook' to read the rest.

Historical Fiction isn't exactly my cup of tea though, so...

My selection is from what is more a collection of isolated events that give a peek into the daily lives of various people around the world, rather than a concrete plot, but its what I've got, and the topic fascinates me:

edited 26th Nov '11 1:40:07 PM by theoneguy

Er...the formatting is really...blocky. Most people don't want to read that much text in one go. And while I did struggle thought part of it, I think I can safely say not hooked.

Can someone please look at mine now :>

AHR: It came so close to hooking me. So close but didn't quite. Maybe it's just the format of the barebones that turns me off. (Is this a graphic novel?)

Yes. A GN script.

Then the actual page should do it. I get the feeling whatever art you have is unfinished however.

I can't draw, unfortunately. But I love graphic novels. I can only wait until I publish it, or someone is interested in drawing it and has the right style. Until then, all I have are words.

Well I can draw...just not well. (Seriously ZUN draws much better than me at the moment and artistically speaking he's pure Let's See YOU Do Better! bait.)

Maybe I'll scan in some of the drawings I have to show how bad I can do.

Alright, thread crawl!

@Crystal,

Honestly, it wasn't the what the narrator was saying, it was how you put it down in terms of straight formatting. In a different formatting (say, using italics instead of all caps), it might have been received very differently, but as noted, it struck me less as "oh, this could totally be a published novel" and more "oh, this is the kind of thing that always irritated me about FF.net."

@feotakahari,

Well, I made it to the end, so, kudos to you, but it strikes me less as finished product and more as "well, this is alright, but it needs to be fleshed out more." Also, I concur with "fuck, contract cliche ahoy!" Just noting.

@chihuahua 0,

I don't have any issues with your formatting, although I personally wouldn't do it in such a short paragraph style (that's not really a hit against you), but I do take issue with your word choice—the aforementioned "flickering" and "I held back the temptation to..." issues, etc.

However, I give you credit anyway, because the last line sufficiently piqued my interest.

@AHR,

Sorry 'bout that, with the proxy ninja. Also, it's really difficult for me to judge your work because I'm just not a script reader. Sorry.

inorite? I even told alethiophile that I wished my prologue was more action-y. I mean, come on, the next chapter is the goddamned Battle of the Marne! And if we hadn't had the 1,000 word limit, the weird shit comes in on like the next page, as well as the actual interesting characters. Ironically, your complaint of "not enough dialogue" totally reverses itself, as most of the chapter is a long conversation between two characters. It's just the first three-four pages that set the scene and are all boring blah blah blah.

I guess I should feel good that this is all the heat I took, given that it's literally the unedited first draft and I have no clue what horribly stupid errors may be in there...