Quick--how's the pacing of this opening?

[shalanna]

Okay . . . I've found another potential market for Camille. I'm supposed to send it right away.

I'm wondering whether the pacing is fast enough in this opening, though. Don't want to blow it. The ONLY two people who have ever had any interest in it have said it's a good opening and that it has voice and charm (I'm talking about SuperAgent whom I chased away and the other agent who didn't think it could sell because people want to sympathize with the protagonist--and at the time I had the word "trick" in there to denote someone she'd slept with on the road, but that has now been changed.) The two places I worry a bit about are the "inventory" (when she looks into her backpack) and the "teenaged poet" thing. The inventory is a standard device for sneaking in some things that your character will need on short notice later. (It's the gun over the mantel in Chekhov, introduced in the first scene and fired in the final scene.) The "teenaged poet" thing lets us know how old she is and that she used to be idealistic, but is now disillusioned and has had her perspective changed. But . . . y'know, I may have to sell out, so if you think those slow down the pacing, I *could* change it. (The SuperAgent said not to change the first line, that it was a grabber. And I need to orient readers to where we are, and thus the description of the small town.)

Here's the opening again. Comments are fine, or e-mail, or a public screed on wherever. . . .

By the time Camille MacTavish stepped off the bus in Texas, she was beginning to regret stealing the dragon. But there wasn't much she could do to correct that at the moment.

As the creaky Greyhound pulled away from the curb, exhaling a cloud of diesel smoke, Camille visored her hand and peered after it. She briefly wondered whether Philip knew she was gone yet. He was probably still sleeping peacefully under the icy motel air conditioning, snoring and dreaming of California.

This town was a lot smaller than the ticket clerk had said. Just her luck.

But maybe her luck would take a turn for the better. Way down at the bottom of her left-hand jeans pocket she could feel the dulled vibrations of the netsuke she'd stolen, a Japanese dragon carved out of a knot of burled rosewood to fit in a palm. Impulsively she shoved her hands deep into her pockets. When her fingers touched the dragon, they tingled.

She glanced both ways and started across the deserted intersection. From here, she could see just about the whole of the downtown business district.

A billboard claimed that the Chamber of Commerce welcomed her; from another next to it, the churches of Christ saluted her. Street lights clicked audibly off as lamps flicked on in a few windows. At the edge of her consciousness, she noted the sunrise painting the eastern sky with what she would've called (back when she was still a teenaged poet--only three-and-a-half weeks ago, but it already seemed like forever) "vainglorious translucent shades of apricot edged with peach and gold." The same sunrise she had so optimistically called "the colors of freedom" when she was that ignorant kid. But now that sun had set. Three weeks ago, when Jimmy Cline had jumped her and ruined her life, she'd abandoned that kind of rhetoric to preachers and poets. She'd finally come to understand that song lyric about freedom being just another word for nothing left to lose.

Her stomach rumbled, sending up a splash of acid to urge her on to--where? Not the Salvation Army again.

Rifling through her backpack just in case she’d missed something, she took inventory: journal, teddy bear, CD player and six CDs, set of colored pencils and sketchbook that she'd gotten for her sweet-sixteenth birthday three months ago, sewing kit with scissors, first-aid kit out of her mother's Caddy's glove compartment, her late daddy's pocketknife and his dog tags, matches, flashlight, mini photo album, that coin purse she'd found, and her makeup bag with the usual girly necessities. And of course the remnants of her vast wardrobe: one pair of cutoffs, three wrinkled T-shirts, four changes of underwear, two sad-looking pairs of socks, four orange kerchiefs currently tied to form a halter top, and spare jeans that were getting a little loose. Everything else she'd thought to bring had been in the gym bag that some lowlife had ripped off when she'd turned her head at the last bus station. The peanut butter and crackers she'd brought from the pantry at home were long gone.

This sucked.

She had to be frugal. With Phil’s money and what she had left over from before--minus the cost of the bus ticket and a bag of chips and a Coke at the station--she had two hundred and twenty-seven dollars.

Back when she'd baby-sat and mowed lawns, that would’ve seemed like a lot--a boatload of CDs and a handful of movie tickets. Now it wasn’t enough, not nearly enough to get her to California. She couldn't handle the bus nonstop, even if she could afford it; her legs were already stiffening up from riding overnight. She'd have to find someone else to ride along with, someone not quite as . . . eccentric . . . as Phil.

Across the street, an older woman wearing a gingham housedress was propping open the glass doors of a good-sized mom-and-pop grocery.
Camille sat on the bus stop bench, her stomach crawling with crawdads from hunger, until a few customers had gone inside so she wouldn't be so obvious. She fought down a few pangs from her already-guilty conscience, but hunger urged her forward. She wouldn’t take much, only something to eat. "Shrinkage," they called it, and planned for it. The girls at home did worse during their initiations into the cool cliques, and they weren't going hungry.

The scent of small-town store, a mixture of disinfectant and rotting produce, hit her in the face as she walked in. The place had an air of genteel shabbiness, but it was busy enough already. She wheeled a squeaking cart up and down the aisles, dropping things in at random.

And then she gets arrested for shoplifting and her adventure begins in earnest (because the dragon/netsuke helps her escape, but then she has the problem that it has knocked out the cop and she's now a fugitive, and then she has the sorcerer chasing her to get the item back. . . .)

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I like everything except the second sentence, which klunks and adds nothing. First is great--second graf is great, and I was totally into it from there. Just when I was starting to look for some story, you got it moving.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Agreed -- better without the second sentence.

Good. I see places where I would choose to delete a word or two.

You might want to put in a line or so telling where she's from.

Quickie critique

[dennis-havens.livejournal.com]

My beef is with the "creaky Greyhound." Buses don't creak, at least when you're outside of one. Maybe "a flatulent Greyhound?"...I'd add "bus," but you do clarify that quite quickly, with the cloud of Diesel smoke. We know it's not a dog, arthritic or not.

I'd also change the end of paragraph 3, because you end up immediately repeating "her luck" at the start of pp. 4.

Near the bottom, you use inclusive ellipses, most unusual and a little jarring. But them I'm famous for doing the same thing with em-dashes; at least they're more familiar looking.

That second sentence? It doesn't do much, but it doesn't hurt much, either. I didn't notice it as being "bad" until two previous critiquers commented negatively about it. It doesn't send me shrieking into the night, but if it's a deal-buster, lose it by all means.

Overall, it looks good. And, it goes without saying, best of luck. (Then why did I say it?)

[coneycat.livejournal.com]

Add me to the folks who would delete that second sentence and maybe a few modifiers here and there, but otherwise I like it a lot. You've got us into her head and I'm already on her side. I like the bit where her fingers tingle as she touches the dragon--as a reader I'd be wondering whether that was guilt, excitement, or an actual vibration off the dragon.

Good luck!

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I'm someone who likes starting sentences with 'but' so I notice them - and I agree with Sartorias about it.

Overall, I like it quite a lot. It's fresh, and I'm visiting with her. I thought you were dropping the teenage poet thing in too heavily - you use that, and you say 'sixteenth birthday, only three months ago' so we get her age.
And we should also get it a) from the tone, b) from the in-cliques, c) the haltertop, d) the gym bag... - don't overdo it.

And, ok, she's short on money, but the thing I don't quite buy is that she shoplifts _now _ because she still has plenty of money. Not enough to get where she wants to be, but that she shoplifts already tells me that she's somewhat unconcerned about other people's property- not what I look for in a heroine.

I love the first line, but I'd like to get a touch more of a hint that it's really magical, and not just an ornament.

[coneycat.livejournal.com]

And, ok, she's short on money, but the thing I don't quite buy is that she shoplifts _now _ because she still has plenty of money. Not enough to get where she wants to be, but that she shoplifts already tells me that she's somewhat unconcerned about other people's property- not what I look for in a heroine.

I had that pass through my head in a much more nebulous form--I just registered, "But she could still buy food" and was mildly disturbed about her decision to steal. It might be an idea to knock down the amount she's carrying, especially if it's not enough to get her a bus ticket to California anyway.

As I say, I didn't specifically think about my reaction until it was pointed out, but I did have a mild form of it as well.

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

Okay . . . how much (how low) should scare her, as a traveler? I used to feel that I was rollin' if I had a twenty in my pocket at that age . . . but then I wasn't out on my own, either. Back then there weren't even any cell phones, and I was always concerned with having several quarters for pay phones to check in or to get rescued. (grin)

I want people to realize that she's gone past the stage where she feels that guilty about theft . . . she has to do what she thinks she has to do to survive. She doesn't have a prospect of a job until she gets out to California where her cousin is, and she imagines that will make it all OK (as kids do) without really knowing the situation with her cousin. But she does know that once one is out of cash, one is out of luck. *grin* She wouldn't want to steal out of somebody's pocket (except maybe a trinket.) So what's the panic level?

I appreciate all the thought that's going into this. I am trying not to get too excited about this new market, but it's just impossible.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I've lived the last three years on an extremely narrow budget. I know what it's like to make a day's budget stretch for a week, so I have an idea what she'll be going through - *once her money has run out*.

If she's stealing-desperate that low, she should be worrying about where she'll sleep and whether she can take another bus.

If she's got enough money to buy 'chips and a coke' then she has too much money.

And her reasoning is off - why shouldn't she be able to get a job before she gets to California? It's something she needs to try before she results to stealing. I'd beg before I'd steal; but she's different, and you need to show that.

If she were my character, she's be completely out of money. Give her a little money tucked away in a pocket, and maybe a few notes tucked away where she isn't inclined to look until she really really needs a little break from the trouble she's in, but make her splash out for the bus ticket and panic when she realises that she's run out. Have her put some of her money into the bag that's stolen.

And give us more of the run before she hits rock bottom and decides to steal. If stealing is an easy option for her, you've lost my sympathy. Before stealing there's always waiting for closing time and getting things that are reduced or about to be thrown out. She needs to explore those options. Someone stealing with 200+ dollars in her pocket seems frivolous to me. As does someone with fifty or even twenty dollars in their pocket.

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, the money thing. So how much *should* scare her? I used to think that having a ten-dollar bill in my pocket meant I could be unafraid to go through the school week. (wink) But then I found that even a twenty wasn't really a safety net once I got into college, because I might need to have some kind of "rescue" or might actually run out of food or ???

So I don't know. It seemed reasonable to me for her to try to conserve that. I am terrible with money, so perhaps it's a common sense issue (I have never had a lot of THAT. Mostly go on instinct.) How much would you think? All guesses appreciated.

Oh, and her age . . . yeah, that's a double-dose there. But the SuperAgent *still* said, "I need to know her age right up front and how long she has been sixteen, because at that age you learn a lot every few months." I pointed these passages out and she thought I might even need MORE. (Ack) There have been other readers who went through the first part of the book unsure of her age. It's because she's precocious in voice and thought much of the time, I think, but I wouldn't want to spend time with a typical Paris Hilton-ish airhead (grin).

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

*Anonymous*?! From the owner of the journal?! *facepalm*

How do I get logged out all the time these days? I used to be able to leave the site and come back and still be logged in. I think our ISP is dropping contact and then making me reconnect. I have to remember to log in before I leave a comment.

(That last one was from me.)