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rowynThe poll results were interesting, and not exactly what I expected. Eight people have responded so far; I doubt anyone else will (though I won't complain if anyone does :), so ...
The first thing I didn't expect was that there were no clear winners or losers. The best mean score was 4.75. The worst was 6.38. From that perspective, the general consensus would seem to be "back to the drawing board". :) Either that or "selecting based on the first sentence is arbitrary".
One thing I wanted to look at in particular were "ones": which sentences were somebody's favorite?
These three each got a single "1"
* Starving for ten days, it turned out, wasn't nearly as bad as she would have thought.
* She would have traded her self-respect for two loaves of bread and a half-gallon of milk, but after the grocry clerk checked its worth, he had to turn her offer down.
* Dust motes float in the jagged amber sunlight that peeks through the broken slats on the shutters covering tall, narrow windows.
* Before Michael had even come through the door and slammed his lapboard on the dining room table, his mother knew something was wrong.
The last two are the first sentences of stories I've written already: "A Doll's Life" and "A Normal Family", respectively. The first sentence was written solely for the poll, as I tried to think of single sentences that seemed "engaging" to me. The second is for a possible story inspired by Tuftears' "Zippo" story. But Tufty stopped writing "Zippo" because he felt he'd stolen someone else's idea for it, so I'm not sure it'd be a good idea to use it as inspiration, even if my idea shared only one common concept (the idea of selling personality traits.)
But none of these were even in the top four, in terms of "mean". Even though they were one person's favorite, they got dissed by other people. But one sentence got three "ones", and tied for the best mean score (4.75):
* His last thought, just before the bullet hit his chest, was Man, I hate this part.
This was another one of the sentences that I wrote for the poll, without a story in mind for it. But since it's the winner, I'm going to build a story around it. One reason I, personally, was worried about this line is that it's a hard act to follow. Some of the logical possibillities -- virtual reality, immortal narrator, story about the afterlife, etc -- struck me as kinda cheap. This sentence also had the highest standard deviation -- most people either really liked it, or didn't like it at all. I'm thinking that may be because it's too obviously a hook. Still, I've since come up with a reason I actually like for a story to use the opening line, so I figure there's hope.
The other sentence with a mean of 4.75 was:
* Aritficial Intelligence Program Selene-32J had wanted, for years, to conceive and raise a child of her own.
Which probably would've done even better had I fixed the typo in it before posting it. *sigh*. This story is also already written: it's "She's Having a Baby", and I sent it to Asimov's about ten weeks ago. Some day I'll hear back from them about it, I suppose. I really, really hope that I didn't mail it to them with that stupid typo in it. *blush*
A couple of other sentences I used were already in stories:
* Although the dance club was all but deserted, it looked ready for business.
This is the first line of "An Old-Fashioned Chat". "Chat" is a quiet little story with a quiet little opener, and frankly, I think its only chance in the slush pile is if the editor is tired of looking at grabby active stories and wants a change of pace. Which may happen, I suppose. I'll keep my fingers crossed. I expected this to be a big loser in the poll, but in fact, it ranked ahead of five others.
* I have come to watch the world end.
This is the opening line of what's either a complete short story, or an unwritten novel; take your pick. I plan to polish up the "short story" part and try submitting this, mainly because I like it. I expected it to do well in the poll, but it finished just after "Chat", in fact.
For those curious about the overall results but too lazy to look at them yourself, here's the rank, in mean order:
4.75: His last thought, just before the bullet hit his chest, was Man, I hate this part.
4.75: Aritficial Intelligence Program Selene-32J had wanted, for years, to conceive and raise a child of her own.
5.12: You'd think having the powers of a god would make things easy, but somehow, it never did.
5.25: Tachtli had hoped, when she sacrificed her right hand to the god, that it would be enough.
5.62: Starving for ten days, it turned out, wasn't nearly as bad as she would have thought.
5.62: The Weekly Wolrd News was the one who got it right
5.75 Although the dance club was all but deserted, it looked ready for business.
5.88: I have come to watch the world end.
5.88: She would have traded her self-respect for two loaves of bread and a half-gallon of milk, but after the grocry clerk checked its worth, he had to turn her offer down.
6.00: The ground beneath her cheek shook, its damp, earth scent filling her nostrils.
6.00: Before Michael had even come through the door and slammed his lapboard on the dining room table, his mother knew something was wrong.
6.38: Dust motes float in the jagged amber sunlight that peeks through the broken slats on the shutters covering tall, narrow windows.
A total of five of these -- "bullet", "powers", "starving", "Weekly World News" and "self-respect" were written purely because I thought they'd be good hooks. Mixed results on that. Five of them -- "Selene", "dance club", "world end", "Michael" and "dust" are complete stories that I wrote without special consideration to how much the opening would grab the reader. The remaining two -- "Tachtli" and "ground" are openers for unwritten stories that are already more-or-less plotted out. I like the concept for "Tachtli". I may write that story before "bullet", simply because I've got a much better grip on what happens in "Tachtli". And it was the story I planned to write next, anyway. :)
The first thing I didn't expect was that there were no clear winners or losers. The best mean score was 4.75. The worst was 6.38. From that perspective, the general consensus would seem to be "back to the drawing board". :) Either that or "selecting based on the first sentence is arbitrary".
One thing I wanted to look at in particular were "ones": which sentences were somebody's favorite?
These three each got a single "1"
* Starving for ten days, it turned out, wasn't nearly as bad as she would have thought.
* She would have traded her self-respect for two loaves of bread and a half-gallon of milk, but after the grocry clerk checked its worth, he had to turn her offer down.
* Dust motes float in the jagged amber sunlight that peeks through the broken slats on the shutters covering tall, narrow windows.
* Before Michael had even come through the door and slammed his lapboard on the dining room table, his mother knew something was wrong.
The last two are the first sentences of stories I've written already: "A Doll's Life" and "A Normal Family", respectively. The first sentence was written solely for the poll, as I tried to think of single sentences that seemed "engaging" to me. The second is for a possible story inspired by Tuftears' "Zippo" story. But Tufty stopped writing "Zippo" because he felt he'd stolen someone else's idea for it, so I'm not sure it'd be a good idea to use it as inspiration, even if my idea shared only one common concept (the idea of selling personality traits.)
But none of these were even in the top four, in terms of "mean". Even though they were one person's favorite, they got dissed by other people. But one sentence got three "ones", and tied for the best mean score (4.75):
* His last thought, just before the bullet hit his chest, was Man, I hate this part.
This was another one of the sentences that I wrote for the poll, without a story in mind for it. But since it's the winner, I'm going to build a story around it. One reason I, personally, was worried about this line is that it's a hard act to follow. Some of the logical possibillities -- virtual reality, immortal narrator, story about the afterlife, etc -- struck me as kinda cheap. This sentence also had the highest standard deviation -- most people either really liked it, or didn't like it at all. I'm thinking that may be because it's too obviously a hook. Still, I've since come up with a reason I actually like for a story to use the opening line, so I figure there's hope.
The other sentence with a mean of 4.75 was:
* Aritficial Intelligence Program Selene-32J had wanted, for years, to conceive and raise a child of her own.
Which probably would've done even better had I fixed the typo in it before posting it. *sigh*. This story is also already written: it's "She's Having a Baby", and I sent it to Asimov's about ten weeks ago. Some day I'll hear back from them about it, I suppose. I really, really hope that I didn't mail it to them with that stupid typo in it. *blush*
A couple of other sentences I used were already in stories:
* Although the dance club was all but deserted, it looked ready for business.
This is the first line of "An Old-Fashioned Chat". "Chat" is a quiet little story with a quiet little opener, and frankly, I think its only chance in the slush pile is if the editor is tired of looking at grabby active stories and wants a change of pace. Which may happen, I suppose. I'll keep my fingers crossed. I expected this to be a big loser in the poll, but in fact, it ranked ahead of five others.
* I have come to watch the world end.
This is the opening line of what's either a complete short story, or an unwritten novel; take your pick. I plan to polish up the "short story" part and try submitting this, mainly because I like it. I expected it to do well in the poll, but it finished just after "Chat", in fact.
For those curious about the overall results but too lazy to look at them yourself, here's the rank, in mean order:
4.75: His last thought, just before the bullet hit his chest, was Man, I hate this part.
4.75: Aritficial Intelligence Program Selene-32J had wanted, for years, to conceive and raise a child of her own.
5.12: You'd think having the powers of a god would make things easy, but somehow, it never did.
5.25: Tachtli had hoped, when she sacrificed her right hand to the god, that it would be enough.
5.62: Starving for ten days, it turned out, wasn't nearly as bad as she would have thought.
5.62: The Weekly Wolrd News was the one who got it right
5.75 Although the dance club was all but deserted, it looked ready for business.
5.88: I have come to watch the world end.
5.88: She would have traded her self-respect for two loaves of bread and a half-gallon of milk, but after the grocry clerk checked its worth, he had to turn her offer down.
6.00: The ground beneath her cheek shook, its damp, earth scent filling her nostrils.
6.00: Before Michael had even come through the door and slammed his lapboard on the dining room table, his mother knew something was wrong.
6.38: Dust motes float in the jagged amber sunlight that peeks through the broken slats on the shutters covering tall, narrow windows.
A total of five of these -- "bullet", "powers", "starving", "Weekly World News" and "self-respect" were written purely because I thought they'd be good hooks. Mixed results on that. Five of them -- "Selene", "dance club", "world end", "Michael" and "dust" are complete stories that I wrote without special consideration to how much the opening would grab the reader. The remaining two -- "Tachtli" and "ground" are openers for unwritten stories that are already more-or-less plotted out. I like the concept for "Tachtli". I may write that story before "bullet", simply because I've got a much better grip on what happens in "Tachtli". And it was the story I planned to write next, anyway. :)
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Date: 2003-10-14 08:46 pm (UTC)===|==============/ Level Head
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Date: 2003-10-14 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-14 08:54 pm (UTC)I think this is a great story, but it's not a "grabber" by the specs set out above. It's a casual, leisurely story. It might make an interesting short comic exercise ... except that there's nothing that really seems to FIRE UP about the plotline, no driving urge to find out what happens next, per se.
I have the "bullet" one my "#1" vote, because I thought it really succeeded in being a "grabber" ... but with many of these pieces, they weren't "grabbers" per se, but they would at least get my attention enough to read the next line. 8 people, as you would be told at ITG, is not enough people to count as a representative example of your customer base at large. But it can give you some ideas. Personally, I think that you'd do much better to try to focus on an opening PARAGRAPH that really sells the story (or, at least, for purposes of a test, PRESENT the first paragraph) ... and then, as a bonus, try to make that first sentence a zinger, if possible. ;)
Anyway, of the group, "Bullet," "World End," "Tachtli," "Self-Respect" and "Powers" were the most interesting to me, in that order. But knowing that you haven't actually written anything for "Bullet" or "Powers" or "Self-Respect" ... and personally already knowing at least part of "World End" ... Tachtli is probably the one that interests me most right now. (But then ... I suppose that sometime it would be nice to see the whole "World End" story, if indeed I've only seen part of it.)
"Ground" might well be interesting ... but that one line just isn't enough to tell me anything by itself.
Now I'm curious: what's the opening line to "Prophecy"?
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Date: 2003-10-14 09:05 pm (UTC)I'm writing that from memory; it's the current opener, anyway. I will probably tinker with it, ditching some of the early description in favor of getting into the action faster. Which is a shame, since I like the current pacing, but the first page, as it is, is unduly slow.
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Date: 2003-10-14 10:14 pm (UTC)Yes, there's something appealing about the concept of being able to traffick in personal qualities... And about that not even being particularly valuable.
Me, I like the Goblin Market concept that underlies it. Maybe if I ever pick up my version of Zippo again, you'll get to see that!
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Date: 2003-10-16 10:31 am (UTC)Yup, I think the "not valuable" was an especially good hook.
Me, I like the Goblin Market concept that underlies it. Maybe if I ever pick up my version of Zippo again, you'll get to see that!
I hope you do; I'd like to see it. :)
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Date: 2003-10-15 04:39 am (UTC)The "dance club" line is grabby, because a dance floor's business is to have dancers, and for a deserted one to look ready for business it must have some other business that I want to know about. Secret meeting place? Alien abduction zone? Who knows. You do!
"Tachtli" and "Selene" are classic ideas, very sturdy, not too obnoxious and not too dull. Tachtli gets additional points for being obviously South-American in influence, which is fairly unusual. Plenty of Celtic and Scandinavian fantasy worlds, but not too many Mayan, Aztec or Incan ones.
I voted down the ones that got a single "1." "Starving," struck me as a little silly, since you can go without food for a lot longer than ten days, so the narrator seems a little whiney. If you changed that to 'Going without water for ten days,' then I'd have to read the next line to find out if 1. The narrator was human, or 2. the narrator or her circumstances are special, or 3. You don't know anything about biology. *laugh* Michael's temper tantrum isn't interesting in and of itself... I'd want to know what inspired it in order to decide if I wanted to bother with another whiney teenager/child. "Dust motes" was prettily descriptive, but belongs in the middle of a scene-setting paragraph, not at the story's beginning. I don't want to read a story about dust motes. I want to read about people. Tell me about them first.
"Self-respect" was just too pithy. It sounds too generation-y.
"World news..." I couldn't decide if the reason it should be interesting was that it was misspelled, and so of course couldn't be the reason why anyone did something right.
"Ground beneath her cheek" is a sleeper good opener. I didn't realize until much later that it had potential, probably because of the clause on its end, which softens the impact of the engaging part. I'd chop the sentence before the clause, and then work the clause into a new sentence, if it were me.
The god line and the bullet line have been done before, but they're so nicely phrased I'd be willing to see if the author had something new to tell me about them.
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Date: 2003-10-16 10:29 am (UTC)I think the variety of responses I got to these illustrated, in part, how differently people will react depending on what they look for in a story. Some of the sentences were, I think, "trying too hard". They're so obviously trying to be snappy and grabby that they fall into cliche. And I suspect that a lot of editors, because they read so many stories, will be especially sensitive to "obvious hooks". On the other hand, editors who are looking for a particular type of story: "action! adventure! excitement!" might be less concerned about that. I mean, some magazines seem perfectly happy to publish the same formula of stories over and over again. :)
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Date: 2003-10-15 07:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-15 07:26 am (UTC)Thanks for taking it!