Here’s why.

First, it’s apparent that the author is trying to create a mystery (what is the vow? why is she traveling, and where to? what is the time period/setting? why do the women drink and the men eat? why is she so thirsty? or whatever the mystery is supposed to be…), but I almost feel like there’s too much I don’t know. Of course, as a reader, I want some mystery. But too much mystery, and I will put the book down. I guess it’s a balance to strike for me… and I feel this is off-balance. As I said, unless this was something that I was reading for another purpose, I would put it down.

If it’s a vampire novel, I expect some gore, so the gore wouldn’t put me off. And I actually find it interesting that the women drink the blood and the men eat the flesh, and it’s some sort of ritual (where cleansing is involved… religious?), and God is mentioned. So I really want to be interested. But I just don’t care about the character. Well, really, any of them. In fact, in the first page, the one I care about? The lamb. I feel sorry for the lamb. If this was a story about the lamb, you hooked me. But it’s dead. So the only thing I care about on the first page dies on the first page? Then so does my reading of the book.

If it’s a non-vampire dark romance, then I would want to know that, perhaps from the character herself. And again, I know it’s only the first page, but I’m just not sure I’m sticking around for the rest of it. Especially not the way it’s written.

If this ritual is somehow central to the whole story, I just feel like it’s a little vague and foreshadow-y in a way that I don’t find at all intriguing. The details of the story (i.e. the questions I had about mystery… the different things we don’t know) interest me. I’d like to maybe know more about the premise. But the important thing for me is that after one page, I really don’t care about this woman at all… mostly because I don’t engage in blood-purifying rituals or take mysterious vows or travel days on foot. And so far, that’s all I know about her.

Just imho, might want to play up the character a bit more and play down the ritual. If you hook me with a good heroine, I won’t care what kind of blood and guts come later. But I’m not hooked by the blood and guts.

Sounds like an interesting premise. I hope the author keeps writing.

If an episode of CSI opened with the image of a blood spattered wall, the first sentence after the scene heading would be: Blood is spattered across the wall. If it opened with the blood spattering in action, then the sentence would be: Blood spatters across the wall. In no case would it open with: The lamb’s blood was splattered against the wall.

Yes, and the past tense (which is what the author of this First Page entry is using) of “Blood is spattered across the wall” would be “Blood was spattered across the wall”, which is what this author uses. The past tense of “Blood spatters across the wall” is “Blood spattered across the wall”, reflecting what some people are suggesting the author change it to. Slightly different, yeah? But no more or less *wrong*.

The first sentence fails this task in every way.

I don’t agree (mainly because it works for me so I’m in no way trying to be objective). And I don’t even agree that it needs to be rich in imagery. You could open a story with “She moved.” and it could be just as effective depending on the next few sentences. Readers generally don’t stop at the first sentence if they fail to be completely hooked in. I’ll usually read the first couple, then skim the first page unless it’s really, really good. And it doesn’t have to be really, really good for me to buy it, either.

Of course, you can argue that the rest of the paragraph doesn’t hook you in, or the rest of the page bores you or whatever, and that’s fair enough. I do agree with some of the other suggestions that other commenters, including Julia, have made. I just find the criticism of the first sentence rather puzzling. (And I’m making the assumption that many hate it on sight because it *looks* like it’s in passive voice and they’ve been taught that passive voice is evil.)

The lamb’s blood was splattered against the wall. Its bleating shrieks of pain and surprise drowned out the crowd noise around them.

I think there are ways to repair the first sentence (if you think it needs repair, which I don’t) without forcing the author to change what s/he means. To me, it’s the difference between an episode of, say, CSI starting with a scene of bloodstains on the wall, as opposed to a scene where we see bloodstains suddenly splattering on the wall. Both will intrigue me enough to keep watching, but they set a different tone for the scene.

The presumption Julia Sullivan is making is pretty reasonable: that the author wants to hook the reader with clear, direct prose and rich evocative images.

The first sentence fails this task in every way.

You bring up CSI. I’m a television writer. Television is written exactly as Julia suggests this paragraph should be. If an episode of CSI opened with the image of a blood spattered wall, the first sentence after the scene heading would be: Blood is spattered across the wall. If it opened with the blood spattering in action, then the sentence would be: Blood spatters across the wall. In no case would it open with: The lamb’s blood was splattered against the wall.

Here’s why. Sentence one provides the first image (or shot). While the blood on the wall might be that of a lamb, we don’t need to know that in the sentence describing the blood on the wall. We can’t tell what kind of blood it is just by looking at it on the wall. The image of the blood spattered wall in fact contains no lamb. Lamb belongs in the second sentence, when we should probably learn that: The lamb bleats in pain and surprise.

Screenwriters are forced to be consummate communicators, because in the typical hour of episodic television, they must rely on 120 people they will have no direct contact with to execute the images they describe.

Readers of fiction are in the same position as the cinematographers, costume designers, set dressers, grips etc who bring to life an hour of television. They are trying to put together a series of images in their heads that will make sense coming one after the another.

Tone derives from the content of those images, and the point of view the author employs. The tone of the first two sentences of this selection might be described in any number of ways, but would not change if it were rewritten in clear, brisk prose. It would still be about a bleeding lamb observed from a third person point of view. You might describe the tone as bloody and grim. You wouldn’t describe it as screwball comedy, no matter how you rearranged the content of those first two sentences. You might, however, be able to conjure two evocative images in your head, and find yourself sucked into the story.

Julia, I quoted from your post, but I suspect a lot of the commenters complaining about passive voice would have suggested the same.

I posted a question on Twitter on how people would change that first sentence, and most replied in a similar way—i.e. remove “was”—which is a change in tense, not in voice, as far as I can tell.

So I didn’t mean to describe you, specifically, as presumptuous, but the idea of assuming that the sentence is an easy change may be presumptuous without knowing what the author wants to convey.

Well, I’m an editor as well as a writer, so I’m used to being presumptuous in that way. The opening works better when it’s more direct, in my opinion, which the author can take or leave; given all the other indirect speech in the first paragraph, I think whatever loss of accuracy (about a not-very-visually-detailed image) there might be would be well worth it.

I didn’t feel all choked up about baby-animal death — frankly because this early in a story, I have no reason to care yet, so I’m not emotionally investing in anything — but I did feel like I just got hit with the fifty-pound hammer o’ Religious Meaning. It’s not even ‘overtones’ of Christian symbolism, since that would imply some kind of subtlety. It felt like it was smack-dab right there, and while I’m lukewarm these days about vampires, I’m positively chilly when it comes to the whole sacrificial-religious-fallen-creatures-distant-god-mythos etc etc blather. Maybe that wasn’t the intent, but the overload of images combined with the-blood-of-the-lamb and that’s what I got from it.

Hell, I didn’t even think ‘vampires’ — the word choices and heavy-handed foreshadowingthunking in re prophecy and times-to-come + lamb + blood + sacrifice, and my thought was: didn’t I see this in a really bad grade-B horror film already? About sixteen times? Does the next page have the wizened priest seeking the ancient text that turns out to call down the devil via a completely botched reading of Revelations, only the priest bites it in the first twenty minutes because he’s stupid enough to read the book when he’s not on holy ground? Yeah. I saw that movie. Threw popcorn. Wanted my money back.

In sum: some readers really groove on heavy-duty (Christian) religious elements. Some don’t. And some really don’t. Judging from the plethora of devil-coming-to-earth movies over the past twenty years, I’d say there’s definitely a market out there for this sort of thing. I’m just not part of it, is all.

“The blood spattered” not “the blood was spattered.”

Can I just say, there’s a subtle difference in what each of these sentences is actually conveying, and it may be slightly presumptuous to assume that the author means one if s/he, in fact, means the other.

I am so far away, and you’re making me farther away from what should be immediacy. “The blood spattered” not “the blood was spattered.” “The lamb shrieked” not “she heard the lamb shrieking.” “She thanked them for the brief feast” not “she thanked the man who’d offered her a brief feast,” etc., etc.

Tighten it up. If you absolutely have to keep the “the man” and “the woman” stuff, be smarter about it. “The leader” is better than “the black-haired man” and much better than “the man who’d offered her a brief feast,” and so on.

I have tremendous vampire fatigue as well, but what I like about this idea is that you’re showing the heartache and difficulty, not glamorizing it. If there really were vampires, being a vampire would be grueling and depressing and shameful, and you’re getting that across.

Several miles later, the woman smelled the fire and heard the familiar prayers. She was getting closer. Years later she’d remember what it cost her. Until then she had to keep moving through the smoke, through the smell of fear, and through the appeals to God.

The foreshadowing is clunky, as I’m not sure what “it” in “what it cost her” refers to. And since we’re told she would remember years later, does “until then” mean she had to keep moving through the smoke, etc for years?

That said, I wouldn’t read it because I’m a wimp.
But that’s just me.

I am hoping the Omniscient Narrator gets traded for Character POV
… ?
More than a few pages of ON would make me put the book down.

Trying to help here …
Two word choices to think about –

She could feel the animal’s blood absorbing into what was left of her body

then overcame her disgust and dove on the animal,

Further trying to help –

You might toss in some longer sentences. I see what you’re doing with the current pacing, I think, but you could maybe tolerate two or three long complex sentences of description. They could make a nice contrast to the march of those shorter declaratives. Actually emphasize them.

Just a thought.

The lamb’s blood was splattered against the wall. Its bleating shrieks of pain and surprise drowned out the crowd noise around them.

The subject of the first sentence is “blood.” (Lamb is adj. modifying “blood.”) The “It” of the next sentence, therefore, refers to “blood.” Blood doesn’t bleat.

Nah, the sentence structure is fine. Lamb isn’t an adjective! It’s a possessive phrase modifying the blood. Since ‘It’s’ at the start of the second sentence is also a possessive, it’s perfectly legitimate for it to refer to the lamb. And yes, there could be pairs of sentences with this kind of construction where it’s ambiguous, but not here.

On the other hand, I’m pretty sure that surprise isn’t what the lamb is feeling. Shock, possibly. But more likely pain and fear.

I read the title and the first couple of sentences and was moderately intrigued by the idea of a romance set in ancient Israel or some other similar culture which practiced animal sacrifice for religious purposes. But once it was clear we were in vampire land, you lost me. Way, way too icky for this reader. Though I suspect there will be some readers out there who will, um, lap this up?

The killing of the animal in the opening doesn’t bother me with it’s graphic-ness.

My main gripes are those others have already mentioned. The past tense everywhere makes the reader disconnect with the story. One thing the writer can do is minimize the would’s and could’s. The story feels like it’s being told by the author not the character and overall the protagonist just doesn’t stand out on the page. As a reader I’d want to get into her head and see and feel what she’s feeling. it’s just not there quite yet. I also think the writer needs to focus on one thing/event at a time and explain it’s significance.

Does 7 make a crowd? And if the men are ravenous, a lamb ain’t gonna sate that and they wouldn’t be nearly as polite. Perhaps some pushing and shoving and only the man’s power and control as leader keeps them in check?

Can she see the blood running down the lower half of her face? (and is she really that messy an eater?)

Can she see the men watching her as she heads back to the road? Maybe they’re watching her hungrily since they finished that lamb that quickly.

Too much happens in this first page. What occurs here should be spread across at least three or four in order to orient the reader to the main character. Right now we are so distanced from the MC who is continuously referred to as the woman, that most of this comes off as the author telling us what’s going on instead of the MC showing us.

Overall, I’m getting symbolism shoved down my throat, and I’d have to pass on this. Spread it out over a cople more pages, and it might work.