First Page: True Horizon
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The red haze slowly began to dissipate from his vision. Heath Carter looked down to see his hands were no longer stained with the color of his sins. When the storm of emotions took over, it was always red that appeared; the color of love, the color of anger, the color of blood. The rage inside him was quieting down, but it would never go away. It kept faithful company with the guilt and sorrow that also would rise up without warning.
Seated on the floor, he took a deep breath and hit the volume button on his I-Pod. Highway to Hell blasted into his ears and overpowered the noise coming from outside his motel room.
“Fifty more,” he said and tucked his bare feet under the ugly floral chair. Sweat dripped from his body as he flawlessly executed the sit-ups. “Duty…Honor…Country.” He repeated the chant, his body moving in rhythm with words from another life.
Finishing in an upright position, Heath grabbed the towel hung over the arm of the chair and wiped his face. The air conditioning unit sticking out of the wall was humming its death throes.
The room was stifling hot, but that discomfort was nothing compared to the agony that awaited him if he opened the window to let in the cool night breeze.
Tonight, the town of Galveston was celebrating Independence Day. Fireworks were exploding in parks and backyards all over town. Heath knew that it would be over soon, but not soon enough.
Fourth of July used to be his favorite holiday. He remembered helping his Aunt Lynda place red, white, and blue bunting on their front porch. When he was young, she would take him to the afternoon parade. Then at dusk, they would set out blankets at the local park and watch the fireworks. Those bursts of light and loud bangs used to bring excitement. But to the man he’d become, they were now an instrument of torture.
Stripping off his sweat soaked shorts, he threw them on the faded carpet, along with his I-Pod, and walked the four steps to the bathroom. Heath reached into the tub and turned the cracked handle. Cool water streamed from the shower head and he stepped underneath its refreshing spray.
By the time he was finished, the fireworks had stopped. He looked at the small digital clock that sat on the bedside table – 11:50pm. It was time to go see what distractions this town had to offer. He pulled back his long hair and tied it with a worn strip of leather. As he opened the door, he was greeting only by the sounds of music and laughter.
Heath didn’t bother locking the door behind him. On the other side of the street sat a large, rambling building which was bustling with activity. The faded wooden sign attached over the door read –Breakers. Moving quickly across the busy street, he entered through the open door of the bar. The smell of beer mixed with salty sea air reminded him of the places he and John, his late brother in arms, used to hang out at back in North Carolina.
This struck me as purple prose. I’m okay with strong words like, “agony,” “rage,” and “instrument of torture,” but I can’t be told this. I need to be shown. I don’t think you want to show all this on page one, as that would be a backstoryfest.
What’s on this page is a topless guy sweating and doing a lot of sit-ups on a (probably dirty) motel floor. (I wondered what kind of grunge stuck to his bare back) and then he goes across the street to a bar. You have lots of detailed description, but I need something to happen.
This is not drawing me in, but without reading more, I can’t tell you how to begin. A goal would help and it’s hard to imagine any goal that involves sweaty sit-ups. If your story starts in the bar, start it in the bar.
It’s not exactly bad writing, insofar that the author clearly can string a sentence together and set a scene.
Unfortunately I’m not interested, and also not likely to read on. These are stereotypes and clichés and they scream ‘bad-ass, alpha-male ex-soldier with a bad case of PTSD’. The rather cardboard character is defined by things I’ve read once too often and don’t consider attractive. On top of that I’ve read it a couple of times to many very badly written, with PTSD damage not given proper due, and pat and easy solutions which never happen like that in real life.
Else I agree with SOA, start where you can have him have an incentive or goal. From me: make him much, much less of a tired cliché.
You have a good voice but the content has been done before many times. I agree with SAO and Drano – you need to start your story in the bar if that is where it starts, because what you have here isn’t a strong enough hook for the reader.
Add my agreement with the above comments. And yes, ick to doing sweaty sit-ups on a motel floor (any floor) without a mat.
Nits though because those are what I notice: is it legal for citizens to shoot fireworks in their yards or public property in Galveston? It’s hard to know the era of this piece; I think contemporary, but for some reason the long hair and leather strap give me a post-Vietnam era feel, so I guess when this is set would make a difference.
Dear Author,
In addition to what the other posters said, I would say that the first paragraph really confused me and made me laugh. First, there’s this “red haze” thing. I instantly thought, “oh, he’s a supernatural being who just shifted back to normal”, or something like that. But then he’s doing sit-ups, and I was confused. I feel like you left out the start of the story–the idea that he’s having flash-backs and uses exercise to try to deal with them. It took me a minute to figure that out. (And yes, as the others said, this is not a very original concept.)
Second, the minute I read “stained with the color of his sins”, I knew I would never want to read this book. Way too purple prose-y/melodramatic! And “instrument of torture” confirmed it for me.
You may have an interesting plot in mind, but you need to rethink how to set it up. And as far as dramatic turns of phrase, well, I think you need to use those sparingly, and at more strategic points in your story.
Good morning, author here. Thanks for your feedback. The main purpose of this scene is to show Heath avoiding the noise of fireworks. I guess if I have to explain, then my intention isn’t translating well and I need to do some rewriting. This story is a Contemporary Romance and I definitely don’t gloss over the PTSD aspect of the character, aka love does not ‘cure’ him. Thanks again for taking the time to comment. I really do appreciate it!
The character is potentially someone I’d find interesting enough to follow his journey, but his intro fell flat for me for several reasons.
The page failed to hint at genre or a story problem. The 4th is a big problem for him right now, but how does it relate to the story?
Overwriting, wordiness, and irrelevant detail dragged the pace.
Distant, detached narrative style and told emotion kept me from engaging. Even though I knew he was suffering terribly, I didn’t feel anything for him.
Still, I may have read on to find the story problem if the author had demonstrated a command of language. Misused present participles indicating impossible simultaneous actions repeatedly jarred me out of storyland. Considering how many are on the first page, I know they would snowball until I couldn’t enjoy the story, and probably within a few pages.
I got that his PTSD was triggered by the fireworks and that he was trying to avoid the noise. But I had to work for it – the red haze thing confused me.
I think you have something interesting here, but I think you need to clean up or streamline the descriptions – the writing seems overwrought to me. And as others have said, that makes me wary about how the hero’s PTSD is going to be handled. Personally, I prefer more matter of fact language to describe PTSD – I think it has a greater emotional impact.
I have PTSD and I have very strong feelings about how it’s become a cliche in romance. But I keep reading them, because the (few) good ones are so emotionally rewarding.
I agree that this might not be where your story starts – to me starting with him coming down from being triggered is odd. Why not start with the boom of the fireworks that set him off? How much treatment has he had? Would he know any grounding techniques? What is he saying to himself? When I realize that I’ve been triggered and I’m trying to calm myself, I’m not thinking big thoughts about rage or sorrow or my history – I’m focused on bringing myself back to the present moment. You have him doing that – doing sit ups, listening to music, all of that is good, but somehow the impact is lost.
Good luck with this.
I liked it. I do think the first paragraph is a little too much, simply because we don’t know what the red haze is until afterward and it’s confusing, because he seems to be managing his PTSD in the next paragraphs — obviously he’s affected, but the red haze suggests that he just had a blackout and did something. So that raises the question of what he did … but he’s just doing situps now. So I’d leave the red haze for later in the story.
I’m also fine with where the story starts. It’s nice to see the PTSD being managed and knowing right away that he’s already quite self aware. But I particularly like that it allows you to offer the setting WITH characterization. It’s almost never important that it’s July or hot when we find out that it is — but all those details tell us something about the guy here.
So I’d keep reading. I like characters such as this, even if they’ve been used before, and you’re writing is strong enough to make me wonder how you’ll handle this one.
Author,
It is very hard to come on here and be critiqued, especially when working without the benefit of a tag line or blurb to set some kind of reader expectation, so thanks for sharing.
I’m a patient reader, so I agree more with Meljean than the other posters in terms of not being bothered by seeing him alone in the hotel looking for a way to manage his PTSD before you put him into action. I like a little “intro” to a character. Now I know that he struggles with PTSD and that he actively looks for healthy ways to manage it, which tells me something important about him (and sets an expectation for how he will handle conflict throughout the story). I also know he’s mourning a close friend. I suspect that is important, too. For all we know, this information is necessary to know before he comes up against the conflict at the bar.
If the “story” action doesn’t begin until page 2 or 3 or 5, that’s fine with me. If it doesn’t begin until page 15, then maybe there’s an issue. I think you can draw a reader in with an interesting character, so here, what I would do is just show us something unique or quirky about this PTSD guy (vs. the many others out there). Hook us with his originality, then put him in the action.
I thought the writing was pretty good. SAO noted it is a bit purple, which I’d agree with just because it is a LOT of ‘telling’ of extreme emotion in a very short space. You can probably tone it down and “show” us more by getting into a deeper POV with this guy so we can feel what he feels.
With the right blurb, I’d sample more pages before making a decision to buy or not.
Best of luck!!
I would definitely read on – not qualified to comment on the technical aspects of the writing but I am absolutely fine with where story starts. I personally do not need the action to start on the first page and I am interested in the character.
While I agree with SAO and a few of the other comments, my confusion over this page stemmed from the ‘red haze.’ I thought it was paranormal. I didn’t get anything on this first page to contradict that either so, though I may be an army of one here, I’m probably not in the overall scheme of things. If it’s not paranormal which I didn’t see at the top of the page in Jane’s intro, I’d do something to make that less of an issue.
I’ll once again agree with the others — and wonder why I can’t get to these earlier. I don’t think this book is really for me, genre-wise, but the writer is competent (except for the spelling of “iPod”) and there’s no reason this couldn’t be a workable story.
I was confused from the beginning and this never won me back. Not to rewrite this, but I think the reader could be placed very easily with a good first line, like “The fireworks bothered him.” Then you explain why they bother him, who he is, and bring the red haze in later. Reorganizing the beginning of things is a good exercise for revising the whole, in my experience.
The first paragraph set up a different story and then the second paragraph brought us back to this one. I’d just cut it and toss it.
I’m another who would read on. I would be happier if he had a towel under him while he did his sit ups.
I agree that red haze/rage etc were just too much in the very very beginning – I was left wondering if he was the hero or a murderer (ie, is this romantic suspense?).
In general it’s a pretty good excerpt so I hope you keep with it – but what I noticed most was that I think you need one more serious editing pass on your verbs to tighten and activate your prose.
Example: “it was always red that appeared;” – whether or not you stick with using the red part, why not say “red appeared.”
Guys – especially bad ass guys who do situps on grungy hotel floors b/c they’re impervious to the grungy aspects – they don’t think in semicolons and long strings of words, especially not when they’re suffering and exercising. This is his head you’re inside. So really examine the verbs and actual sentence structure. When a person is exercising, they think short and rhythmic just like their motions. Do a few situps and try to think! You want the reader to be present for the exercising, which means it has to feel like exercising as you describe it.
Look at this small bit, for example:
“Tonight the town of Galveston was celebrating … Fireworks were exploding in parks and backyards all over town.” = town two sentences in a row is unnecessary. In fact, both uses of town are unnecessary.
Compare:
Tonight Galveston celebrated. Fireworks popped and boomed all over. [describe his exercise – one sentence of some type – to break up description of his thoughts – this could be more fluid.] Explosions in backyards. Parks. Above the marina.
[note: I probably would be more specific than ‘all over’ in a final format, but it’s an okay placeholder for now – but it’s nondescriptive, so I’d eventually write something more interesting but equally short.]
I’m not trying to change your voice – but since there’s no dialog, his thoughts have to sound like how he actually thinks while he’s working out.
In your original writing, both verbs are less active b/c of use of was/were. Sorry, but if he’s feeling threatened by the fireworks, they need to be THREATENING fireworks. Not passive “were exploding” fireworks. This is where your prose has to serve the story – because these are the fireworks he’s hearing, not the fireworks you the author see/hear.
Good luck! Keep at it – it seems like it’s fairly complete and just needs a good tough pen!
Hi Author. Overall, I agree with Meljean more than the others in that I found the voice of this readable and would have kept reading on to learn more about the character. I could nitpick the aspect of finding doing pushups on a not-so-great motel floor yucky (I actually removed this very thing from a WIP of mine recently – I had a love scene start on a motel floor and when I went back later I was like – ew!) and that you could tone done a bit of the more purple-ish phrases here and there, but it definitely pulled me in and made me want to learn more. I do echo the fact that the “red haze” threw me at first. I thought either it was a paranormal of some sort, or that we were in the villain’s POV and he had just murdered someone in a fugue state or something.
Overall, though, I did like this!
Hi author,
I have PTSD that’s triggered by auditory cues (among other things) and it’s brutal stuff — flashbacks are terrifying as they’re you at your most helpless, your brain is busy flooding your body with adrenaline, so you get increased heart rate, breathing, as well as for me feeling shaky/dizzy/wobbly. It often sets of a panic attack, so I come out of it crying and emotionally unable to deal with ANYTHING until I can hit my medication (not counting the stuff I take daily). Add in the dissociation some people get (depends for me) and yeah, the world is not a safe or secure place — I get paranoid, I’m often sure someone is in the house with me even though I know it’s impossible, etc. If someone had been under fire I can see a lot of this — the feeling of someone after them, of needing to escape or hide or fight, being pretty strong. Post-flashback I also wouldn’t want the extreme stimulation of music as it could toss me right back in and is incredibly disorienting, and I’d want any distractions out of my ears because of the above DANGER DANGER DANGER going on in my lizardbrain. I also absolutely DO NOT WANT to go outside or be around other people because I’m really clearly not okay and incredibly fragile. This is with all kinds of therapy, too! Fortunately, the therapy means getting triggered is much more difficult, the effects tend to not last as long, and I have a whole toolkit from meds to grounding exercises to therapeutic video games to help with the effects before and after to let me keep on with my day. That’s taken a long time to reach, so I’d be interested to know where in his therapy he is (if he is at all).
So while I don’t expect a tough-guy to necessarily have the same symptoms (although it’d be nice sometimes, to have that vulnerability) I don’t see someone physically able to do exercises, because the adrenaline rush really isn’t, not in the way that excitement or even fear is — it’s more like when it wears off and you crash, only from a really tall height. On the other hand, if he felt something coming on or just the anxiety of it being the 4th (because believe me, I know when firework days are and dread them and the whole weekend they surround, because people are constantly setting stuff off even not-on-that-day), I can absolutely see that being a way to work it out of his system. Also, the exaggerated startle response is something that has not eased with therapy, so any loud noise/unexpected thing sends me right through the ceiling, and it’s definitely worse if I’m already keyed up, because I am JUST WAITING for the rest of the sky to fall.
I absolutely agree with folks up-thread about grounding exercises — I recently read a book with a protag with PTSD and it was FANTASTIC because he, like, does grounding exercises when he can feel a spiral or flashback coming on, or when he’s triggered, or when he’s coming out of a flashback, or waking from a nightmare (which isn’t really a nightmare). It’s less about calming panic and more about managing it, because you can be the strongest person in the world but in the middle of a flashback you’re as helpless as a kitten with zero emotional armour. It sucks.
OK! That stuff aside, man, I feel for your protag — fireworks (and hunting season) are the worst. I can hear them from several miles away when I’m inside, so yeah, music/white noise/etc get cranked, but I’d definitely hear them in the shower without said music. I wear earplugs, but they carry their own special anxiety of “take them out and THE WORLD ENDS” so that’s exciting. There is no way to logic with these feelings some days.
Anyhow, I would read on and would love to know more about the book, because it sounds like you’re trying to handle this well and I really, really want to read more books where someone’s problems aren’t solved by magic genitals!
@Lindsay:
Which book?
@Lindsay: Thank-you Lindsay for your feedback and insight. Being that I have never experienced the symptoms of PTSD, it is very valuable to me when someone shares their knowledge. I know PTSD is an important issue to a lot of people and I want to ‘get it right’ in my portrayal of Heath. At the start of this story, he is alone and not seeking treatment, so his reactions to stress are simply self-learned coping mechanisms.
Thanks again, and may you find continued relief of your symptoms.
@Janine: Sorry for the delay! It was Laura’s Wolf by Lia Silver. I’ve picked up the second but haven’t read it yet.
@Author: I really do look forward to reading this, so I hope you’ll let us know in one of our Author Promo threads when it comes out!