Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time.

Each week we take a look at the first page of an aspiring author’s novel or short story, and figure out ways to make it better. Good self-editing chops are what writing is all about. Think of this blog as a gym.

Thanks for the recent flurry of submissions, folks. All the retweets and Facebook posts helping to spread the word really did the job. If you’d like to submit the first page of your novel or short story for me to tear to shreds, send 250 words max via the ‘Contact Me’ link on the right. Just the title and text, no explanatory blather, please. By submitting, you’re agreeing to let me publish your work on this blog forever, with the understanding that I will engage robustly and honestly with it.

If you have any specific questions or worries about your fiction writing, like ‘Hey Tim! I’m trying to describe a horse-riding scene and it sucks ass. How can I de-ass it?’ or ‘My novels always fall apart in the mid-section. What should I do?’ then send me your question, with enough detail that I can make sense of it (maybe even a sentence or two of the offending scene, if relevant), to the ‘Contact Me’ link. I’d love to mix things up with the occasional Agony Uncle ‘Dear Tim’ piece.

Oh, and those of you who have dropped me an email or a tweet to say you enjoy Death of 1000 Cuts – thank you. I really appreciate it. Nice to know my puce-faced frothing is changing lives.

Right. You know the drill. Read the first page below, decide what you like and don’t like, then read my comments under ‘The Cuts’.

Abra Macabre (by Chris)

Zoe’s arms come with spirit messages, self-penned cries for help.  She applies a hand to the milky-white window in front and wipes away the condensation.  It’s like a production of Jekyll and Hyde in there; all stage smoke and laboratory beakers of WKD potion.  There’s a tap on her bare shoulder.  She turns: a patchy moustache on a man with dark rings and long hair combed back from a widow’s peak.

“You look lonely,” he says.

“I’m bored,” Zoe replies.

“Are you tired?”

“A little.”  She feels as bronze as the statues in this room.

“I’m not surprised.  You’ve been running through my mind all day.”

“Has that line ever worked?”

“Made you smile, though.”

“You’re worth more than my pity.”

“So, what do you do?”

“Do you mind if we skip the ritualistic exchange of personal information and get straight to the fucking?”

“You’re very dry -”

“- as this ice -”

“- that’s unique.  Most girls don’t want come across as ‘crazy, self-aware bitches.’  But you’re not afraid to pretend you’re not stupid.”

Zoe pulls a close-mouthed smile.  “I’m not interested.”  She turns back to the window.  The man positions himself firmly in her peripheral vision and displays his palms.

“What makes you think I’m even interested?  Seriously.  I collect people.  That’s what I’m interested in.  You’re an interesting sort of person.  I won’t apologise for that.  You look interesting.  Ah.  I knew you laughed.  I come out for all sorts of reasons.  One is to meet new people.  Let’s play a game.”

“I think you’re already playing.”

The Cuts

Right. Your pun doesn’t work. ‘Macabre’ isn’t pronounced ‘Mak-Abra’. It’s a two syllable word. It’s pronounced ‘Muh-Karrrb’.

Zoe’s arms come with spirit messages, self-penned cries for help.

Some opening lines tell a story in themselves. They’re little haikus which brilliantly capture a frozen moment and give us, in microcosm, the world we’re about to enter. This is not one of those lines.

That’s not to say it’s dreadful, necessarily. Starting with ‘Zoe’ is good. We have a character.

Your opening attempt at an image doesn’t quite work. It took me a while to figure out why – ‘spirit messages’ and ‘self-penned cries for help’ are not the same thing, so you actually give us two unrelated metaphors. Indeed, you can’t ‘pen’ a ‘cry for help’, which is self-evidently an utterance rather than something written, so your second metaphor is a metaphor (albeit one so clichéd we barely recognise it as such) within a metaphor.

Three metaphors in the first sentence, all pulling in different directions. What a fucking mess.

She applies a hand to the milky-white window in front and wipes away the condensation.

The previous sentence might have been salvageable if you’d built on, developed or otherwise justified it here. Instead, you abandon all three metaphors and give us some wet glass.

‘applies a hand’? Really? What a horrible, clinical verb choice. She’s a human being, not a caulking gun. (I assume – although potentially sweet reveal bro) ‘milky-white’ wins the November award for Most Tautological Compound Adjective. ‘milky’ is fine. It’s not as if the reader is going to assume you mean ‘milky-brown’. That said, I’m not convinced condensation-covered windows are milky.

Why do you feel the need to tell us that the window is ‘in front’ and that she wipes away the condensation with her hand? Again, credit your readers with a basic suite of assumptions that allows them to function in the modern world. Yes, specificity and accuracy are axiomatically desirable, but you need to pick your battles. The only time you’d need to explain exactly how she cleared the window would be if she did something surprising, like pressing her arse cheeks to the wet and frigid pane.

It’s like a production of Jekyll and Hyde in there; all stage smoke and laboratory beakers of WKD potion.

Oh great, an extended simile. So is she looking into a bar? Why is there dry ice (which is what I assume you mean by ‘stage smoke’)? And why can’t you just say what you mean without yoking it to a chain gang of wanky and opaque metaphors?

I would suggest the answer is: because then the lack of content would be laid bare. Because then the reader would realise that the first three sentences are

Zoe has tattoos on her arms. She wipes a porthole into the steamed-up window. The bar is full of smoke and glowing bottles.

Admittedly, that reads better than the original, but still. Who gives a shit? Where’s the conflict, the surprise? Repeat after me:

Voice <> metaphors

Vivid imagery is rarely about artfully comparing something with something else. It’s about noticing the world around you and having the wherewithal to note down particularly striking observations, like the warm blast of malty, soapy air from a pub’s extractor fan when you walk past on a Monday morning and they’re doing line-cleaning.

Metaphors and similes are like herbs. Fresh ones, in very small quantities, complete a dish. Chucking in handfuls of stale ones will ruin it. Try limiting yourself to one metaphor or simile per page. Worry about content instead.

There’s a tap on her bare shoulder.

Fine. It’s simple, and it feels like an inciting incident. Ooh, mystery! Although I’d change it to ‘She feels a tap on her bare shoulder’. Your phrasing is weirdly detached from her experience of it. You might as well write ‘A tap on her shoulder occurs’.

She turns: a patchy moustache on a man with dark rings and long hair combed back from a widow’s peak.

Since ‘she’ is the subject of the sentence, at first it reads as if you’re telling us that ‘she’ is ‘a patchy moustache on a man’. I would love, love, love to read a story where an early reveal is that the (female) protagonist is, in fact, a giant sentient moustache. Imagine my disappointment.

‘dark rings’ is an odd detail to insert at this point. If you’re writing in third-person limited or first person, remember to make your descriptions progress logically. The way you describe it, Zoe’s eye jumps from his moustache, to his fingers, to his long hair to his forehead. Unless she’s totally amped on trucker crank, I’d suggest this is a fucking batshit sequence of events.

Are we supposed to think he’s attractive, by the way? At the moment I’m imagining a guy who probably has a cache of D20s stowed in the pocket of his trenchcoat.

“You look lonely,” he says.

While we’re at it, are we supposed to like this guy? He immediately comes across as a five-star D-bag. Creepy, dull, and incredibly patronising.

Of course it’s absolutely fine – desirable, even – to have some characters who possess one or all of those traits. Flaws > virtues. Nonetheless, this is very early on in the story, so we need a signal from you that you, the author, know this character is a charmless dildo.

“I’m bored,” Zoe replies.

I can’t be arsed doing another spiel on overdetermined dialogue tags. I’m getting a migraine just thinking about it. Read the whole post I wrote on this subject. ‘replies’ is never necessary. We understand it’s a reply from the context. Use ‘says’, or consider skipping the dialogue attribution altogether.

“Are you tired?”

“A little.”  She feels as bronze as the statues in this room.

I have no fucking idea what this last sentence means. My old friend Urban Dictionary tells me ‘bronze’ is slang for ‘1. a feeling of exceptional happiness; to feel good about ones self.’ Which makes about as much sense as anything else in this scene.

Also: ‘in this room’? So she was peering through a steamed up pane into a bar. Isn’t she outdoors, then? WHAT THE CREEPING CHRIST IS GOING ON?

“I’m not surprised.  You’ve been running through my mind all day.”

“Has that line ever worked?”

“Made you smile, though.”

What, in your mind, is the reader’s investment in this exchange? Why should we care? This dude is the fucking pits. He’s such a tedious D-bag. And if Zoe genuinely smiled at his awful, condescending chat-up line, I’ve immediately lost 50% of my respect for her.

The very real danger of this exchange, Chris, is that the reader bails on your novel as a whole. By having Zoe engage this chucklehead fresh from his parents’ basement in a limp parody of repartee, you risk the reader concluding: oh… in the author’s head, this guy is vaguely charming. Maybe the author is a loser and a sexist too.

Which I’m sure you’re not, Chris. But this guy is such a fucking pariah that his aura of douchebaggery is close to jumping the species barrier between the fictional world and ours. Quite an achievement, but perhaps not the one you were shooting for.

“You’re worth more than my pity.”

“So, what do you do?”

“Do you mind if we skip the ritualistic exchange of personal information and get straight to the fucking?”

Ugh. Now I don’t like Zoe either.

Imagine Dawson’s Creek. Now imagine all the cast were butt-ugly hipsters stripped of the vulnerabilities that made them likeable, the vulnerabilities that threw their precocious monologues into relief. You’ve just imagined Abra Macabre, a new novel by ‘Chris’.

“You’re very dry -”

“- as this ice -”

“- that’s unique.  Most girls don’t want come across as ‘crazy, self-aware bitches.’  But you’re not afraid to pretend you’re not stupid.”

And now I actively hate both characters. Zoe’s interjection isn’t even a pun. It’s like something out of one of Jeremy Beadle’s You’ve Been Framed monologues.

This guy’s awful, misogynistic psychoanalysing is so, so repellent. His praise is incredibly patronising. He seems amazed to meet a woman who is also a human being with thoughts and feelings. He makes a sweeping generalisation – using the diminutive ‘girls’ – drops in ‘bitches’ – but it’s fine because it’s in air-quotes – then congratulates her on her mighty courage in daring to address him as an equal.

The only way you could save this scene now is if he burns his hand on a waffle iron. Badly.

Zoe pulls a close-mouthed smile.  “I’m not interested.”  She turns back to the window.  The man positions himself firmly in her peripheral vision and displays his palms.

Again, Zoe makes a token display of resistance but you undermine it with the ‘close-mouthed smile’. Whether you intended it or not (I’m going to be charitable and assume you didn’t), this extract has an icky undercurrent of ‘all girls secretly want to be harassed by douchebags’.

“What makes you think I’m even interested?  Seriously.  I collect people.  That’s what I’m interested in.  You’re an interesting sort of person.  I won’t apologise for that.  You look interesting.  Ah.  I knew you laughed.  I come out for all sorts of reasons.  One is to meet new people.  Let’s play a game.”

Oh my God I hate this pasty-faced streak of dong yoghurt SO FUCKING MUCH. Seriously. I am going full Macy Gray up here. I bet he smells of digestives.

A burnt hand is no longer enough. Unless this is a Hard Candy style story about a girl who lures PUAs back to her flat before torturing and killing them, I’m out.

And if it is – which, frankly, would be pretty cool – or if Zoe secretly despises this thick, arrogant tosspot, you need to give us some more tip-offs, earlier on, otherwise we’ll bail before you get to the sweet, sweet reveal where she feeds him into a wood chipper toes-first, crowing about how very, very independent and complex he is.

Part of me wonders if I’ve misread this scene entirely and it’s supposed to be an account of two characters ‘on the spectrum’ meeting for a first date. In which case, again, you need to give us a few more cues so we can get on the bus early and not waste energy passionately hating every breath they take.

Look Chris, I know it’s tough. I’ve made this mistake, trying to give two characters sparky, combative dialogue in the hope of creating a scene that crackles with smart, sexy tension. The trouble is, when you’re trying to write ‘witty’ it’s very easy to spiral off into ‘twatty know-it-all’. You’re aiming for Beatrice and Benedict, but you end up with something about as charming as Piers Morgan licking spunk off a mirror.

Given your title, I refer you to one of the fundamental principles of magic: misdirection. Start with a story ostensibly about something else. Throw the two characters together. Give them something to talk about – and flirt around – other than themselves. Pseudo-intellectual metacommentary is not engaging. Humanity – with all its vulnerability and its cleverness – is.

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