So, I've decided to reprise my series of page 1 critiques - you can read about the project HERE, and there's a list of all the critiques so far too.
I'm also posting some of these on my Youtube channel (like, subscribe yadda yadda).
And it was after seeing my first video that the writer of this page, Shauna Lawless, volunteered her page 1.
It's worth noting that I have read, reviewed, and very much enjoyed the book Children of Gods and Fighting Men, from which this page 1 comes. The book is due for publication in a few weeks (September 1st 2022).
First of all I'm going to cut and paste the disclaimers, and anyone prone to outrage really should read them:
It's very hard to separate one's tastes from a technical critique. There are page 1s from popular books with which I would find multiple faults. I didn't, for example, like page 1 of Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule (I didn't pursue the rest of the book). But that book has 150,000+ ratings on Goodreads, a great average score of 4.12 and Goodkind is a #1 NYT bestseller. His first page clearly did a great job for many people.
I'm not always right *hushed gasp*. You will likely be able to find a successful and highly respected author who will tell you the opposite to practically every bit of advice I give. Possibly not the same author in each case though.
The art of receiving criticism is to take what's useful to you and discard the rest. You need sufficient confidence in your own vision/voice such that whilst criticism may cause you to adjust course you're not about to do a U-turn for anyone. If you act on every bit of advice you'll get crit-burn, your story will be pulled in different directions by different people. It will stop being yours and turn into some Frankenstein's monster that nobody will ever want to read.
Additionally - don't get hurt or look for revenge. The person critiquing you is almost always trying to help you (it's true in some groups there will be the occasional person who is jealous/mean/misguided but that's the exception, not the rule). That person has put in effort on your behalf. If they don't like your prose it's not personal - they didn't just slap your baby.
I've flicked through some of the pages looking for one where I have something to say - something that hopefully is useful to the author and to anyone else reading the post.
I've posted the unadulterated page first then again with comments inset and at the end.
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Amlav’s armour, sword and axe
gleamed as if new. His beard, washed and bathed in lavender-scented oils,
glistened in the soft candlelight and curled elegantly over his chest.
I leaned forward and rubbed my finger over his lips,
down his cheek, until I touched the wolf-fur cloak which covered the stone slab
he lay upon. Only a stray lock of hair that had fallen across his forehead
marred the effect. The nuns had dressed him well, but it was my duty, as his
wife, to ensure he crossed over to the afterlife looking like a king. I pushed
the curl back, sweeping it into line with the others.
Once satisfied, I smiled.
Lying down, eyes closed, had always been the way I
preferred Amlav. But this was better. Death had a finality that sleep could
only imitate.
Death suited him in other ways too. His right hand
had stiffened to grip his sword tighter than I’d ever seen him hold it in life.
He’d been a warrior once, true enough, but by the time my father inflicted this
marriage upon me, Amlav had been almost seventy, his fighting days over. When
his armies left Dublin to fight the Irish, he had gone with them, but I knew
when the battle was at its worst, he sat on his fat horse while our warriors
drew their swords. Well-deserved, the warriors said, for Amlav’s reputation
preceded him. The number of men he’d slain in his prime numbered over a
thousand. No one dared to call him coward
– only old.
Sinking into the chair next to Amlav’s body, I waited
for the abbot to arrive. The monks had taken an age to dig the grave, rain and
storms hindering them from their work. Last night, finally, they finished. I
almost pitied them, though pity was wasted on the clergy. They’d chosen a life
where misery was a virtue. If they felt closer to God by freezing to death on
this hateful piece of rock, who was I to tell them otherwise? Not even the gold
crosses that Amlav had gifted the monks, and which now adorned the altar, could
give this miserable hovel any glamour, and somehow, the morning sunshine
seeping in through the windows made the stone walls look more tomb-like than
when lit by candlelight alone.
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First, it's worth noting that this page one does not do several things that I offer as 'things to do on page 1' in general advice. And since this is a very good page 1, that fact speaks to the truth of my oft repeated qualifications regarding my way not being the only way.
Two principle things it does not do, which I advise generally, are (i) include dialogue (ii) include action/tension/a problem.
These things are 'generally' advisable early on, page 1 is great, chapter 1 'generally' a must. Lawless keeps us waiting til page 3 for dialogue, but then it's a full-fledged conversation.
I said in my review that the book is an understated one, and noted that there's considerable power in understatement in expert hands. And this relatively gentle opening fits with that.
The advice I've offered on earlier page 1's is intended to be easy to follow and bring good results. This page 1 succeeds using more sophisticated, and harder to achieve, methods.
So, onto the page 1. Let's see why it works
Amlav’s armour, sword and axe
gleamed as if new. His beard, washed and bathed in lavender-scented oils,
glistened in the soft candlelight and curled elegantly over his chest.
Line 1 just shows us something. I'm pretty neutral on it. At least it's not the weather, and the presence of weapons and armour could promise excitement.
By line 2 we're getting a slightly off-kilter feeling. Washed beards and lavender oils in soft candlelight don't normally live next to armour and axes. A subtle question has been posed. Off-kilter is good. It's a "what's going on?" in a good way.
I leaned forward and rubbed my finger over his lips,
down his cheek, until I touched the wolf-fur cloak which covered the stone slab
he lay upon.
The author is keeping us on our toes by subverting minor expectations a second time. I was reading about Amlav, a bearded warrior. But now I discover he's not the 3rd person Point Of View (PoV) character. Instead the PoV is first person, and watching Amlav. Touching him in a curiously invasive manner. More questions.
Only a stray lock of hair that had fallen across his forehead
marred the effect. The nuns had dressed him well, but it was my duty, as his
wife, to ensure he crossed over to the afterlife looking like a king. I pushed
the curl back, sweeping it into line with the others.
More revelations. Amalav's dead - earlier strangeness explained. The PoV is a woman. The setting is beginning to fill itself in despite the author having spent almost no words on it. By slowly expanding and changing our awareness Lawless has created an implied setting in our heads without needing to spend words describing it to us. A dead king, dressed by nuns, candles, a stone slab. I'm thinking some sort of chapel, a king lying in state, ready for burial/cremation.
Once satisfied, I smiled.
And again, the author continues her series of small surprises, expectations subverted/contradicted. A newly dead husband, but she's smiling.
Lying down, eyes closed, had always been the way I
preferred Amlav. But this was better. Death had a finality that sleep could
only imitate.
We're learning about their relationship now, but without being 'told' it in an inelegant statement "I never liked my husband." or "I was glad he was dead. We didn't get on." etc - instead observations on his state in well-written prose 'show' us.
Death suited him in other ways too. His right hand
had stiffened to grip his sword tighter than I’d ever seen him hold it in life.
He’d been a warrior once, true enough, but by the time my father inflicted this
marriage upon me, Amlav had been almost seventy, his fighting days over.
More observation and brief facts that through the reader's understanding of arranged marriages in times of swords and axes tell us a lot. It seems clear that she was much younger than her husband. The word "inflicted" is very efficient, speaking volumes. We don't need paragraphs here, just enough hints to reconstruct the likely situation. We feel grounded.
When
his armies left Dublin to fight the Irish, he had gone with them, but I knew
when the battle was at its worst, he sat on his fat horse while our warriors
drew their swords. Well-deserved, the warriors said, for Amlav’s reputation
preceded him. The number of men he’d slain in his prime numbered over a
thousand. No one dared to call him coward
– only old.
Plenty of world-building here - 'leaving Dublin to fight the Irish' either raises questions or answers them, depending on the level of your understanding of the period/place. If he's in Dublin and isn't Irish then it seems he's a Viking king, an invader.
-- as an editing point, that "the number ... numbered" is a bit awkward and the line could be reworked to avoid the repetition.
We also see a hint that our PoV's, perhaps understandable, antipathy is not well contained. If the man has killed 1000+ warriors in person in battle, it's hard to consider him a coward, but she rather implies he should be called cowardly for sitting out the hand-to-hand stuff in his old age.
Sinking into the chair next to Amlav’s body, I waited
for the abbot to arrive. The monks had taken an age to dig the grave, rain and
storms hindering them from their work. Last night, finally, they finished. I
almost pitied them, though pity was wasted on the clergy. They’d chosen a life
where misery was a virtue. If they felt closer to God by freezing to death on
this hateful piece of rock, who was I to tell them otherwise? Not even the gold
crosses that Amlav had gifted the monks, and which now adorned the altar, could
give this miserable hovel any glamour, and somehow, the morning sunshine
seeping in through the windows made the stone walls look more tomb-like than
when lit by candlelight alone.
And finally we get more scene-setting observation - which is ALWAYS much better than scene-setting absent a PoV. Always make description come through the eyes of someone with opinions, thereby illuminating both the place/thing and the person. The more "stuff" that writing can deliver, comfortably, in a small space, the better it is. It's more nourishment/excitement per line. If you were to separate out the description from the opinion here and deliver them separately, it would take more space and be far less digestible.
We get hints that our PoV is perhaps not a very agreeable person. Her situation hasn't been great but she also comes across as spiky. That's good too. It suggests that we're not getting a vanilla goody-goody here. We might be getting someone with edges who is going to be proactive and maybe even cause trouble. All to the good - I want to know more about her and her situation. Is she going to rule now? Is she in danger? Who will fill the throne?
It's a strong page 1 that pulls you through from line 1 to the bottom of the page by relentlessly edging the boundaries of our understanding outwards, all the while keeping us on our toes by, if not pulling the rug out from under our expectations, then by giving it a good yank on a regular basis.
Confounding expectations is a powerful technique. The first line of my book Red Sister is often quoted, and the strength there comes from confounding expectation.
"It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure you bring an army of sufficient size."
The 'nun' being the object of important advice about 'killing' is a surprise. We might expect a dragon or a lion or something traditionally fearsome. And expectation is upended a second time when instead of being told to bring a sharp knife or make sure nobody's watching ... we're told to make sure we have a big enough army.
A page one that spreads that effect out across five paragraphs and a series of minor shocks, can work very well too.
The rest of the book is written with similar skill and I recommend you give it a read.
