Hello Chris,
There are a great many good things to report about your opening. First, you have what appears to be an excellent story concept, and John/Rhino is a character readers can root for. Both these elements are crucial for a novel to be successful in any market. Another powerful element of your story is the setting. Nigeria is not a country people in the States and in other parts of the world know much about, so there is an automatic curiosity that goes beyond what we read in National Geographic. And from what I've read from of your characterizations, you have presented a quality foundation.
On another topic, I was impressed by the superb way you presented the dream sequence. I was truly on the edge of my seat. That was highly skilled writing, and I can only assume there is more of that throughout the narrative.
However, pertaining to the draft from the point of the dream sequence forward, it was as if I was reading work by two different people. I wondered if perhaps you might've been trying to test me with the pages preceding this, ha ha. And if this was the case, you did a very good job, as you'll notice from how much revising I suggested during the first three pages. I of course couldn't take the time to line edit the remaining 12 or 13 pages, but I found this section of text much easier to read, and I can assure you that nowhere near as much line editing would be necessary to polish it. Perhaps as I was reading I was just getting more used to your writing style, and particularly with respect to the dialogue. Whatever be the case, I really enjoyed the latter dozen or so pages from the perspective of the fluency of the prose.
I went ahead and revised your brief opening description of A TRAGIC COMPULSION, which you can now use as a query (and save yourself the $117.50 I charge for a query, ha ha), as what you provided was very good. But, alas, with all these positive things being stated, as with all unpublished drafts, there are issues to consider, and here they are:
1) Don't write in backstory. Show the action in the correct context in which it occurs. I moved some of the text around in the first three pages to add continuity and eliminate repetition. Whenever possible, always try to show the action, don't tell it (especially in a passive voice).
2) Punctuation and repeated words are a serious problem throughout the draft. Pay particular attention to runs of dialogue. (Your use of apostrophes rather than quotation marks is fine, but not common to 99.99% of what's printed in the Western world. If you're planning to try to find an agent or publisher in the States, you might want to consider quotation marks, but this is just my opinion and certainly not chiseled in stone.)
A Tragic Compulsion
Prologue & 1st Chapter Critique
By Robert L. Bacon
3) Formatting is a big deal. You need a header at the top of each page with your name, the page numbers, and the name of the book. Then the entire narrative will have to be double spaced if you plan to send this to an agent or publisher. Watch out for different size fonts and font styles. I converted what you sent me to 12 point Times New Roman. Use either this or Courier, and 12 point only. Also, be certain to indent you paragraphs at least an inch.
4) Pay close attention to continuity. Would your protagonist go to church on Sunday and then take his lunch to spend the evening with his best childhood friend? Wouldn't the day or afternoon be more appropriate? And in the run below, can you see the problem of how the words "could not come out," yet be spoken in the prior paragraph?
‘Sappy …,’ he said in a whisper. ‘Don’t kill me…please.’ Within him, the young man regretted his mistake.
Before the words could come out, Sappy suddenly jumped up from his lying position and pointed a pistol at the young man’s chest.
Before the words could come out, Sappy suddenly jumped up from his lying position and pointed a pistol at the young man’s chest.
Or were these Sappy's words you're referring to? Either way, it needs to be reworded so the reader knows who didn't speak.
Again, related to continuity, according to your opening, John is going to Europe to bring his family out of unending poverty, but on the third page of the narrative, Sappy tells the reader Jon's family has sold land to finance his excursions. This plot element needs to be reconciled for the story to have credibility with the reader.
On page 16, you wrote: Sappy went on to rant at him, but Rhino had heard enough. Sappy wasn't in this scene, only Rhino and Nichy. Again, continuity is crucial to hold the reader.
5) It is not necessary or desirable to constantly repeat a person's name in dialogue when only two people are talking. If you feel it's important to let the reader know who is talking, use an attribute, such as Sappy said. By the way, don't write said Sappy (or whomever); write Sappy said, John said, Nichy said, etc.
6) You occasionally have dangling modifiers that enable incorrect linkage. For example, in this sentence: Rhino emerged from inside the dilapidated building that housed the miniature room in which Sappy lived through a long narrow passage--you have Sappy living in the long narrow passage, not living on the other end of it. You can fix this by revising the sentence to read: At the end of a long, narrow passage, Rhino emerged from inside the dilapidated building that housed the miniature room in which Sappy lived.
A Tragic Compulsion
Prologue & 1st Chapter Critique
By Robert L. Bacon
7) Check your narrative for missing words. We all have this problem because we often still see what we wrote before our many revisions, but you need to address this so you have a text that's truly a fluent read.
8) There are also Point of View issues, as this narrative should be written entirely in John's POV during his scene with Sappy. I made the changes and you can compare this with what you wrote so you see the way this was done.
9) Transitioning is sometimes an issue. I added a few short phrases here and there to give you an idea of how to make the exposition flow with something that preceded it. You can remove all of this, of course, but if you read what each phrase alludes to at a prior point in the narrative, you might want to work on this by adding your own words and ideas. Regardless of how you approach this, it mirrors in many way what I wrote regarding transitioning.
What follows is the revised opening (sic, actual prologue) that, as I mentioned, you can use as a query. All you need to do is add the word-count and genre, and a little about yourself at the end. Also, if you find this acceptable for your query, use two spaces after each period. One space is okay for the novel's narrative, but not for a letter.
You'll then find the three pages I line edited, and a clean three pages after this so you can compare my suggestions for improvement with what you wrote. I try to deal with issues that I know, but please understand the editing is often subjective, and sometimes highly so. Consequently, if you don't like some of my ideas, certainly change them back or come up with something else. But keep in mind that I made each revision for a reason.
Chris, I wish you the best of luck with your manuscript, and I hope you find some benefit from what I'm providing. And as I wrote in the e-mail, please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about my critique and cursory line edit.
Regards,
Rob
A TRAGIC COMPULSION
To John, finding a job in Europe would help his family out of what has been never-ending poverty, and this is why he is determined to run away from Mother Africa.
In Spain, he discovers that there are ways to earn cash much faster than by manual labor. But he decides to do things honorably as he struggles for survival. That is, until he is awakened by an early-morning phone call. His best friend is home for Christmas. And a rich man. To compete, John feels the pressure to turn to crime.
While he is contending with the forces of evil, he falls into the hands of a stranger on a deadly mission. The change in John's new life is permanent when he accepts a stipend that would alter his family's situation for good. But when he enters a house and is confronted with three dead bodies, he realizes that his benefactor is really a con man who has made him out to be the murderer.
Now wanted by the Police for multiple homicides, the young African is on the run. His only hope of saving himself is to learn the identity of the man who tricked him. But as he undertakes this task, he discovers he is being hunted by the same man--who also wants him to join the ranks of the three corpses.
PROLOGUE
NIGERIA. JUNE, 2004
Today, Sunday, he returned from church and took his lunch with him, deciding not to while away his time in the house, but to go visit his known best friend right from childhood friend and spend the rest of the evening afternoon with him. And when he stepped inside the bathtub-size, ramshackle, one-room apartment, lying in on the bed, face down, was Sappy, his best friend.
‘Hey, wake up, am I'm here,’ the young man had called out.
For a long moment, Sappy hadn’t responded didn't respond, so the young man went to an old rusted chair relic by in the corner – the only one chair inside the room – and sat down, waiting and thinking that Sappy may be was having a nap and didn't want to be disturbed.
fitted atop a small, old, almost-no-foamed six-spring Vono bed, spoke., ‘We’re going to make cash.’ To the young man, his voice had never been sounded as icy as heard before.
‘Yes we’re we are, but we’ll wait for our time to be ripe.’
‘No,’ said Sappy said. ‘It’s tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘So, how about this?’ the owner holder of the hand which held the gun asked him.
The young man said nothing, but remained transfixed on the weapon, his eyes wide open, his jaw sagging, and his heart thumping with violence as the single eye of the weapon gun rested was remained pointed directly at his chest.
It occurred to him, that in the next few seconds, a red-hot bullet would fly out and pierce through his heart. And he would be dead; murdered by the friend he’d known since childhood.
‘Sappy …,’ the he said in a whisper. ‘Don’t kill me…please.’
Sappy laughed aloud. ‘Cool it down, Rhino, there are no bullets inside this thing. This,’ he said as he tapped on the barrel of the pistol with his left hand.,‘is a Beretta automatic. It belongs to a politician.’
‘Why would I want to kill you, Rhino?’
‘I don’t know. You keep surprising me with lots of changes since we came into Lagos. Why
‘You are asking me that?’
Rhino nodded.
‘Because it’s what life’s all about in this country, my man: Change. But from good to bad, not from bad to good, as is your own case.’ Sappy looked hard at his best friend.
Rhino returned the look just as firmly. ‘What are you doing with a politician’s gun
Sappy ignored the question. ‘Let me teach you how to load and
‘Don’t teach me anything,’ Rhino said, ‘I
‘
'Come on now,Rhino,’ Sappy said as he finished loading the pistol, ‘me, you, DJ., Trouble and the Giraffe, we’re going to roughen up a certain man tomorrow. We’re going to teach him some good lessons, say, break one of his knee caps, so that he quits gives up his intention to run for next year’s councillorship elections for this ward.
'Come on now,
When the job is done,’ Sappy continued to load bullets into the weapon said, ‘he will bow out of the race. And my friend, the other politician, pays us fifty thousand Naira for our efforts. What do you think about that, man?’
Rhino sat
‘We’re not going to do him with the gun,’ Sappy went on,
‘
'I don’t know him,’ Rhino said, his voice harshdue to a growing tension and tense. ‘And I don’t want to know any politician,’
'I don’t know him,’ Rhino said, his voice harsh
Sappy’s hand halted as he wanted to drop the last bullet into quit playing with the loaded gun. ‘Why are you sounding very hostile, Rhino?.
‘I can’t make money through harassing politicians for other politicians. These people keep using the poverty and ignorance of the masses to commit unbearable atrocities in
‘What has our making money got to do with the richness or poverty of this country?’ Sappy stared at him, furious. ‘Look now,
Rhino stood up, but remained silent.
‘Let me ask you something,’ Sappy said, looking hard into the eyes of a man dwarfing him by almost a foot.
‘What?’
‘How long have you left the east for
‘A year and nine months. How does that matter?’
‘And you’re twenty one right now
‘Yes, like
‘And you still depend on your old parents to sell another piece of their precious land, and hand you the money to travel abroad?’
'Well,’ Rhino said as he thought for a moment, ‘as long as it didn’t come to me in a bad way.’
_______________________________________________________________
NIGERIA. JUNE, 2004
Today, Sunday, he returned from church and took his lunch with him, deciding not to while away his time in the house, but to visit his best childhood friend and spend the rest of the afternoon with him. And when he stepped inside the bathtub-size, ramshackle, one-room apartment, lying on the bed, face down, was Sappy.
‘Hey, wake up, I'm here,’ the young man called out.
For a long moment Sappy didn't respond, so the young man went over to an old rusted relic in the corner – the only chair in the room – and sat down, waiting and thinking that Sappy was having a nap and didn't want to be disturbed.
But a short time later, Sappy, lying on a mattress with almost no foam that was fitted atop a small, old, six-spring Vono bed, said, ‘We’re going to make cash.’ To the young man, his voice had never sounded as icy.
‘Yes we are, but we’ll wait for our time to be ripe.’
‘No,’ Sappy said. ‘It’s tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’ The young man’s eyelids flickered, revealing his surprise. ‘How do you mean...tomorrow?’ He then sat in horror as he stared down the barrel of the gun trained at him from a few feet away.
‘So, how about this?’ the holder of the gun asked him.
The young man said nothing, but remained transfixed on the weapon, his eyes wide open, his jaw sagging, and is heart thumping as the gun remained pointed at his chest. It occurred to him that in the next few seconds a red-hot bullet would fly out and pierce his heart. And he would be dead, murdered by the friend he’d known since childhood.
The young man said nothing, but remained transfixed on the weapon, his eyes wide open, his jaw sagging, and is heart thumping as the gun remained pointed at his chest. It occurred to him that in the next few seconds a red-hot bullet would fly out and pierce his heart. And he would be dead, murdered by the friend he’d known since childhood.
‘Sappy,’ he said in a whisper. ‘Don’t kill me…please.’
Sappy laughed loud. ‘Cool it down, Rhino, there are no bullets inside this thing. This,’ he said as he tap on the barrel of the pistol with his left hand,‘ is a Beretta automatic. It belongs to a politician.’
The young man dropped his hands and clutched his chest. He closed his eyes for a moment and breathed in, struggling to control the rapid beating of his heart, trying to reduce the effect of the shock he had just endured. He opened his eyes and looked up at who he thought was his friend. ‘Sappy, you’re going too far! I thought you wanted to murder me.’
‘Why would I want to kill you, Rhino?’
‘I don’t know. You keep surprising me with lots of changes since we came into Lagos. Why?
‘You are asking me that?’
‘You are asking me that?’
Rhino nodded.
‘Because it’s what life’s all about in this country, my man: change. But from good to bad, not from bad to good, as is your own case.’ Sappy looked hard at his best friend
Rhino returned the look just as firmly. ‘What are you doing with a politician’s gun?’
Rhino returned the look just as firmly. ‘What are you doing with a politician’s gun?’
Sappy ignored the question. ‘Let me teach you how to load and cock a gun, man.’ He jumped out of the bed and approached Rhino, but no longer pointing the gun at him. The boxer shorts and the dirty white singlet he wore manifested the well-formed contours of his masculinity in a perfect manner. ‘I know you’ve not had the opportunity to see and touch a gun before.’
‘Don’t teach me anything,’ Rhino said, ‘I want nothing to do with a gun!’ But as he said this, he rested his eyes on what Sappy was doing – feeding bullets into the clip.
'Come on now,’ Sappy said as he finished loading the pistol, ‘me, you, DJ, Trouble and the Giraffe, we’re going to rough up a certain man tomorrow. We’re going to teach him some good lessons, say break one of his knee caps so he gives up his intention to run for next year’s councillorship elections for this ward. When the job is done, he will bow out of the race. And my friend, the other politician, pays us fifty thousand Naira for our efforts. What do you think about that, man?'
Rhino sat dumbfounded, gazing at Sappy.
'Come on now,’ Sappy said as he finished loading the pistol, ‘me, you, DJ, Trouble and the Giraffe, we’re going to rough up a certain man tomorrow. We’re going to teach him some good lessons, say break one of his knee caps so he gives up his intention to run for next year’s councillorship elections for this ward. When the job is done, he will bow out of the race. And my friend, the other politician, pays us fifty thousand Naira for our efforts. What do you think about that, man?'
Rhino sat dumbfounded, gazing at Sappy.
‘We’re not going to do him with the gun,’ Sappy went on, smiling at the now loaded automatic and fondling it. ‘But in case anything goes wrong, you know what I mean.’ His smile widened. ‘This thing is just personal protection belonging to my friend, the politician. You know him, don't you.’
'I don’t know him,’ Rhino said, his voice harsh and tense. ‘And I don’t want to know any politician any more than I want to know about that gun.’
'I don’t know him,’ Rhino said, his voice harsh and tense. ‘And I don’t want to know any politician any more than I want to know about that gun.’
Sappy stopped playing with the loaded gun and stared at his friend. ‘Why are you sounding very hostile, Rhino?'
‘I can’t make money through harassing politicians for other politicians. These people keep using the poverty and ignorance of the masses to commit unbearable atrocities in this, our rich, good country.’
‘I can’t make money through harassing politicians for other politicians. These people keep using the poverty and ignorance of the masses to commit unbearable atrocities in this, our rich, good country.’
‘What has our making money got to do with the richness or poverty of this country?’ Sappy stared at him, appearing furious. ‘Look now, I keep wondering why you have changed from the ever-respected man who was always in command of the English language and very strong in fisticuffs--the Rhinoceros I used to fear back in our secondary school days--to a good hearted, patriotic citizen of Nigeria. This quality will only make you a wretched man.’ Sappy paused for a moment and smiled at his friend. ‘Why don’t you make good use of your brilliance, Rhino? You’re the kind of machinery politicians are in search of.’
Rhino stood, but remained silent.
Rhino stood, but remained silent.
‘Let me ask you something,’ Sappy said, looking hard into the eyes of a man dwarfing him by almost a foot.
‘What?
‘How long have you left the east for Lagos in search of a visa?
‘A year and nine months. How does that matter?'
‘And you’re twenty-one right now?'
‘Yes, like you.’
‘And you still depend on your old parents to sell another piece of their precious land, and hand you the money to travel abroad?’
‘Well,’ Rhino said as he thought for a moment, ‘as long as it doesn’t come to me in a bad way.’
‘What?
‘How long have you left the east for Lagos in search of a visa?
‘A year and nine months. How does that matter?'
‘And you’re twenty-one right now?'
‘Yes, like you.’
‘And you still depend on your old parents to sell another piece of their precious land, and hand you the money to travel abroad?’
‘Well,’ Rhino said as he thought for a moment, ‘as long as it doesn’t come to me in a bad way.’
__________________________________________________________
Robert L. Bacontheperfectwrite.com
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