Building good beginnings

Back to critiques today. But first I want to clarify something.

When I take the liberty of rewriting something, even if it's just part of a sentence, it doesn't mean I think that's exactly how the writer should phrase it. It only means that's the idea I'd like to see the writer convey. When you see, "I'd say..." I hope you don't take that as arrogance. Just the opposite. It's a brief way for me to say, "This is how I would write it, but you can probably come up with something better." After all, these pieces are the writers' babies. They'll put more thought and care into it than I was able to.

Having said that, I welcome your comments. I don't mind when you disagree with my critique--it's only one opinion after all. And if you think I overlooked something, say so. As long as you're kind and constructive, the more opinions these writers can get, the better.

Moving on to today's critique, and the reason for the post's title. This is the prologue from Brett McLaughlin's suspense WIP. His mistake was starting out with way too much description. So much that I couldn't grasp the setting for some time, and the point of the prologue was nearly lost. He got more of a reaction from me privately than I'm posting here.

Today's post is unique in that I didn't want to show this without giving Brett a chance to redeem himself. When he realized what impression his opening was giving, he improved it immensely with a rewrite. I posted it below the original--without critique--so you can see what he did with it.

MIRACLE
B. D. McLaughlin

PROLOGUE
August 28, 1978

The room stank with sweat and passion. Three hundred men, women, children, and babies pressed into a building meant to hold two hundred and twenty. They stood, shoulder to shoulder. They were all peering ahead, curious and scared and anxious. At odds with the musky odor was the light in the room, sharp and bright. Naked fluorescent bulbs chased away itinerant shadows. The walls of the room had been given a fresh coat of white paint a month ago, to little avail. Hundreds of suit coats and dresses and starched white button-down shirts in motion had turned the white to a pale yellow in patches along the rectangular room’s long side walls.

Much of the wear was camouflaged, though, masked by five stained glass windows on each wall, inset at eight-foot intervals. The windows drew the eye, but they were imperfect, too. Stained blue and gold and white, with Mary or Joseph or Peter or Jesus in repose, they were cheap. The colors were muted and cloudy. On the left wall, the third window back was not quite level, and Mary admired her baby on the slightest of inclines.

At the front of the building was a wooden stage, raised eight inches off of the building’s floor. With the exception of a two-foot walkway on either side, it ran from one side of the building to the other. The front of the stage was a soft arc. The entire structure was carpeted, matching the rest of the building. Joe Winters had laid the carpet, on the building’s floor and on the stage. Tonight he stood in the third row back, on the left side of the aisle. He wore khaki slacks, patched on one knee, and a white dress shirt with a rip along the left elbow. The carpet was navy blue, stain-resistant and thick, the best that the flooring and interiors store Joe was employed by offered. He had paid for the carpet out of his own salary, three weeks worth, and done the installation for free.

[You aren’t describing the room so much as you’re building it piece by piece. By this point, I’m wondering who this story is about. There’s an actual person present, but he’s mentioned only because he laid the carpet. Judging by this paragraph, the carpeting is the main character of your book. *smile*]

A stained wood pulpit stood centered on the stage’s front edge, looming over the first two rows of supplicants. It, too, was the product of a craftsman in the room. Carved by hand, four months in the making, this by Tim Sanders. Oil-rubbed and varnished by Tim’s wife, Susie. Tim stood next to her in the fifth row on the right, peering past the pulpit to the activity on the stage. He squeezed Susie’s left hand with his right. Her fingers were hurting, had been for five minutes now, but she didn’t complain. She was too busy staring, too.

[Two more people mentioned, but again, they had something to do with the construction of the room. Is the pulpit itself so important that we have to know who made it? What I want to know is, what are they looking at?]

On the right side of the stage were several children, wax statues with faces frozen in fear, hope, belief and doubt. They were crowded into the section of floor between the stage and the right-side wall, rubbing more white paint into yellow. It didn’t matter; one of them could have turned around and painted a gang symbol on the walls without repercussion this night. They weren’t the main attraction, and went as unnoticed as the carpet and pulpit and pungent air.

[You’re in omniscient POV, not in anyone’s head. But still I have to ask myself, if no one is noticing these things, why are we being told about them?]

On the stage was a boy, hunched and crooked and bow-legged. He wore brown pants, purchased for eight dollars at the Salvation Army. The pants were pulled up high on his waist, cinched with a brown imitation leather belt. His shirt was white, not the yellow-white of the walls but bright and spotless and shining. Buttoned to the top, it framed the boy’s neck all the way around. The sides and back of the shirt were sweated to the boy’s skin, but only he was aware of this. The eyes in the room were not on the boy’s shirt.

[Then what were they looking at?]

His face was contorted, in pain or perhaps anger. His brown hair was combed tightly over his scalp, and the short bits above his ears were damp. More sweat, just one more detail lost to the gathered crowd. Later, when the night had faded into memory and gossip, Vera Hollingsworth would describe his face – which she didn’t see any more than anyone else in the room – as “the face of Jesus in his sufferings.”

[Here’s the trouble with describing something only to say no one noticed it. Readers trust that an author is only going to mention important details. So we’re paying attention to your description. When you, in effect, bat that detail away, the reader feels like you wasted their time. Suddenly they don’t trust you anymore.

It could be only my tastes, but I don’t like little glimpses into the future. To me, any momentum you may have had was lost when we hear what a character thought later.]

He wore white Nike tennis shoes over white athletic socks. That everyone did notice. Clean, rubber soles told the crowded masses that the shoes were new, or perhaps perfectly preserved. They had never stepped onto a concrete basketball court, or a sandy playground. Never splashed into a puddle and been covered in murky tepid rainwater. Never ground out a cigarette or picked up a wad of pink Super Bubble with an errant step.

[By themselves, these details are kind of neat. A unique way of saying just how clean and/or new the shoes were. But the reader’s patience isn’t going to hold out much longer, if they’ve even made it this far. They want to know what’s happening.]

Then, the immaculate white tennis shoes moved. The boy took a step, and another. Men and women and children held their breaths; infants wailed a siren in the silence, marking the moment as important. Profound.

The boy took another step, staring at his own feet. He raised his pained angry face-of-Jesus to look at a man on the far left side of the stage, five feet away. Reached out his arms to the man.

Suddenly, whatever strings held the boy up were cut. He crashed to the ground, his penitent arms rising above his head as he fell. His knees struck the carpet that Joe Winters had installed, and his left hand bounced on the pulpit that Tim Sanders had built and Susie Sanders had stained. There was an audible thump as his chest and head connected with the stage, a broken Pinocchio of arms and legs and perfect white tennis shoes. The boy flailed on the ground, fighting gravity and losing.

[You definitely have a unique voice. Now that something is happening, I can see the talent. While I’m not sure those details are necessary, I sort of like the tie-in here with “the carpet that Joe Winters had installed” and “the pulpit that Tim Sanders had built.” I like it because of the voice, and probably for no other reason. Sort of a Garrison Keillor being serious type thing. This is your best paragraph.]

The man on the other side of the stage stepped towards the boy. He knelt down beside the prostrate youth. Hundreds of pairs of eyes took in the perfect creases in the man’s pinstriped navy blue suit pants; the dark socks running from his heels toward the tops of his unseen calves; the mirrored black surface of his dress shoes. He leaned forward, his mouth aimed at the boy’s left ear.

Even the babies seemed to quiet in anticipation.

The man whispered something to the boy. The boy’s face turned up towards the man. Widened his eyes, and then closed them. His body went limp.

The man stood, every eye in attendance. He stepped up to the pulpit, and spread his arms wide.

“It is a miracle,” he said. Every word was clear. The accent of poverty that plagued this corner of the small Virginia town of Herndon was absent, in his speech just as it was in his clothing. The words echoed, and the walls seemed whiter, the stained glass clearer.

[The accent of poverty. Great description. Now down to small mechanical tweaks. “He said” isn’t necessary. The second to the last sentence might be a little clearer like this: “…was absent—in his speech, and in his clothing.” Or else move the comma to after speech instead of after absent. Tiny detail, I know. But I stumbled over the ending, whereas it’s a great sentence otherwise.]

The boy’s eyes opened behind the man, but nobody was paying attention anymore.

Then the boy screamed, and the preacher resumed his role as a bit player in the night’s drama.

[A bit player, and yet by mentioning him, he becomes the focus, instead of the screaming boy.]

“NOOOOOOOOOOO!”

The sound coming from the boy’s mouth was more noise than language. The high-pitched shriek would haunt several dreams that night. It was the last sound the boy made that day, that week, that month. In fact, it would be four months and three days before he spoke again. By then, everyone had stopped listening anyway.

If you cut the last sentence, this prologue would end at a better spot, in my opinion. The last sentence is a little ambiguous. Stopped listening? So they had been listening to a boy who couldn’t make a sound? Not where you want your reader’s thoughts. Leave them wondering what happened to this boy. By the way, the future glimpse works here.

Find another way to build suspense other than making the reader wonder what’s happening in that church, what’s making them sweat, and what they’re watching. Tell us enough about him, and what he means to these church people, so that we care he was able to walk a few steps.

And his rewrite

The boy had never walked, and he suspected it was the only reason his mother still loved him.

His father had left seven years ago, probably tired of the gigantic medical bills or his son’s inability to pee on his own. And who could blame him, really? He had produced a child that was broken, defective, some accident of fate or genetics or just the unlucky winner of 1966’s cerebral palsy lottery.

That’s the way the boy saw things, at least.

It was a lot of weight to carry around for a twelve year old, but his mother made things easier. And, sometimes, harder. She had always done the things that mothers should, keeping him in clean diapers and rocking him to sleep at night. But then his dad took off, and things changed. She began to love the boy . . . more. And with a ferocity that often frightened him. As he grew older, he realized it was need that had made things different. He needed her, always had, but now she needed him. A man in her life that would never leave her. A man who couldn’t leave her.

She loved him because he belonged to her, a living, breathing consolation prize to make up for all her pain and suffering. He understood this in the way that children understand most terrible things: without any awareness that life could be different.

Until he saw the advertisement in the newspaper.

SIGNS AND WONDERS, it read. COME AND BE HEALED. He showed it to his mother, and she wadded up the paper and threw it in the trash. He had his Momma, and she loved him, and what did he need to be healed from, anyway? There was nothing wrong with him, he was just the way God made him, yes sir.

When his mother went to work, he fished the newspaper out of the trash and brushed off a thin layer of cigarette ash. He found the ad and showed it to his brother. Convinced his brother to go. Said he could even bring a few friends. It would be a big show, something they’d all laugh about. His brother was reluctant, but gave in, as he always did.

Now they waited, filling the second row of the tiny country church, the boy in his dull silver wheelchair jutting out into the aisle, his younger brother holding a dog-eared copy of Fahrenheit 451 under one arm. Next to him, a black boy with horn-rimmed glasses, a redheaded girl with freckles, and a dark-haired kid wearing a New York Mets t-shirt.

The building was cramped, hundreds of bodies pressed into too small a space. Everyone stood shoulder to shoulder, looking desperate, anxious. Sweat and heat and anticipation combined, forming a musky, sweet odor that stung the boy’s nostrils. The walls were yellowed, bare, accented by three cheap stained glass windows on one side of the room, two on the other.

A woman claiming to have liver cancer stood on the stage at the front of the church. She was old and leathered and wore a curly gray wig that sat too high on her left side. The preacher said something in a low voice, and pushed her, his palm a battering ram against her forehead. She toppled backwards, screaming as she fell, and the crowd screamed with her. Someone carried her off the stage, and the preacher declared her healed.

Then, a crazed woman came running down the aisle, hurling obscenities at the preacher at every step. She pulled her teenaged son behind her, gripping his right wrist with a bony claw. Both of them wore stained, torn clothes. She tripped over the boy’s wheelchair as she moved towards the preacher, and he smelled nicotine, in her hair, her clothes. She never stopped cursing, even as her son helped her back to her feet. Two large men in suit pants and suspenders materialized out of the crowd and removed her.

The boy’s brother and his friends giggled into cupped hands. The boy ignored them, his eyes fixed on the preacher. Hope blossomed, battling his mother’s voice, searching for fertile ground.

Then he was wheeled down the aisle, lifted onto the stage. Large hands pulled him up, out of the chair, and it was just the boy and his brother, and the preacher across the vast wooden platform. The boy tried to balance on his stupid crooked legs, squeezing his brother’s hand. Years of frustrated attempts at walking coalesced into this single moment.

He turned to see eyes, hundreds of eyes, all fixed on him. He felt exposed, his plain brown pants pulled up high on his waist, cinched tight with an imitation leather belt. A white short-sleeved shirt, buttoned to the top, squeezing into his neck. Sweat glued the shirt to his back and his sides. He felt moisture in his hair, too, against his scalp on the sides and in the back. He wondered if everyone could see it, dripping down over his ears, coloring his brown hair black.

He looked down at his shoes. White Converse, laced up tight. They were immaculate. Of course. He’d never stepped onto a basketball court. Never splashed into a puddle of rainwater. Never ground out a cigarette or picked up a wad of pink Super Bubble with an errant step.

The preacher commanded him. “Come! Believe, boy! Walk!”

One of the shoes moved. He felt the silence descend then, and knew that many were holding their breath. Like he was. An infant wailed in the quiet, marking the moment as important. Profound.

The boy took another step, still staring at his feet. He felt his face draw up, full of pain and fear. He reached out his arms to the preacher, willing himself forward.

Now they were all screaming. “Walk! Walk!” He felt the force of their excitement, their belief, resurrecting his dead legs.

The preacher’s face became his mother’s. Worn, ravaged by loss and disappointment. Her thin lips whispered: “You gonna leave me, too, boy?”

Whatever strings held the boy up snapped. He crashed to the ground, his penitent arms rising above his head as he fell. His head bounced on the stage, and he heard a hollow thump. He was Pinocchio again, twisted and lifeless. Jumbled arms and legs and perfect white tennis shoes. He flailed on the ground, fighting gravity and losing.

The preacher stepped towards him and knelt. The boy saw his own distorted reflection in the man’s mirror-black dress shoes. The preacher leaned even closer, his face coming into view. His mouth opening to speak.

The preacher whispered into the boy’s ear. The boy jerked his head, tried to shake it back and forth in denial. He couldn’t, his resistance gone.

The preacher stood, and the boy closed his eyes. He heard steps, and then the preacher’s voice.

“It is a miracle.” Each word was clear. The accent of poverty he associated with his mother, his friends, it was missing from the preacher’s voice. The words echoed in the tiny room.

The boy opened his eyes again. The church’s walls seemed whiter. The stained glass, clearer. Every eye was on the preacher, standing with his arms wide at the front of the stage.

Until the boy screamed.

“NOOOOOOOOOO!”

He felt it in his stomach, a guttural roar, as much noise as it was language. Then it was gone, and he lay silent. He closed his eyes again, and the world went dark.

I told Brett I wasn't going to critique the rewrite, but I can't resist commenting on the end. It was the fact that this boy couldn't speak for four months after this that made me want to read more. I think it should still be included.

What do you guys think?