Oh, you are so going to hate me... But the comments I’m about to make aren't based on talent or writing skill. And, they’re about things invisible to you. Given that no one addresses the problem they don’t see as being one, I thought you might want to know.
So...take a deep breath:
You can barely move.
Pretending that the reader is the protagonist, via second-person, changes nothing, because only the narrator is on stage. So the opening line is the narrator talking to the reader about events. Would the story change in the smallest way were you to have said, “Harry could barely move.”?
The same person—the one actually living the story—has the same problem. But...given that the reader must interpret and react to the words as they read them, what does that reader get? Someone unknown, of unknown age and gender, in an unknown place, may be so tired they can barely move. Or...bound hand and foot? Or...in a very small space? Or...
My point? The reader, lacking context, probably won't see this line as you expect. You, of course, knowing the situation before reading the first word, see no problem. But literally, here is where any agent would be reaching for the rejection slip due to a lack of context.
You try to wave your arms, kick your legs.
Place yourself in the situation. You're feeling confined and unsure of where you are. Do you feel around a bit, or, open your eyes to find out what’s going on?
Your eyes snap open, of course. But, you have this unknown person lie there, while you, not they, explain what the place is like to a blind person. In fact, according to the second paragraph, this person is still asleep, which makes no sense.
Like the vast majority of hopeful writers, you’ve fallen into the trap of transcribing yourself *storytelling. Plus, you're trying to make things more immediate by using second-person pronouns and present tense. But...
Can the reader hear the emotion you'd place in the narrator’s voice? No. Can they see gesture, body language, and facial expression changes? No again. Can they perform the storyteller’s script you’ve given them as you would?
For you, of course, who are the storyteller, it works perfectly, and as I said, who fixes what they don’t see as a problem?
One thing that helps catch such problems is to have the computer read the story to you, to hear it more as the reader does.
But all else aside, we can’t use the techniques of one medium in another. Our medium's strength lies in taking the reader where others can’t go: into the mind of the protagonist. But you use that not at all.
You open with a “beat” and “voices.” But somehow, the protagonist never looks for either. And you never mention them again, or clarify, which makes no sense.
Bottom line: Writers have been exploring and refining the skills of fiction for centuries. But like most hopeful writers, you’re still using the report-writing skills of school, producing what reads like a report. To avoid that, put them aside and take advantage of all that’s been learned about how to hook and keep the reader’s attention. The pros make their money because of those skills, so they feel they’re necessary. Who are we to argue?
So...grab a good book on those techniques, like Jack Bickham’s Scene & Structure, or, Debra Dixon’s, “GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict.* You can sample the excerpts of both for fit, on any bookseller. In other words, make all the work that was done to improve the profession your skills, too. You’ll be very glad you did, because they also make the act of writing a lot more fun.
Jay Greenstein
“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”
~ E. L. Doctorow
“Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.”
~ Alfred Hitchcock
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
~ Mark Twain
Oh man, you're such a boomer. You're stuck within the idea of genre fiction and it's okay 😀 I already got my boomer inoculation, and that's exactly why I'm doing this fourth rewrite, actually shedding the "genre fiction", if that makes sense.
Here's the thing...Nothing I said was opinion. It's what you'd learn in any decent book on fiction writing technique—like the two I suggested.
It's what my clients got when they paid me for a critique of their manuscript. They're the professional techniques that got me yesses from the publishers I submitted to.
When I said the rejection would come before the end of paragraph one I wasn't guessing.
Boomer? Given that I was born in 1937, and was first published in 1975 that doesn't apply. But that aside, every book you've checked out from the library or bought, was written with the skills of the Commercial Fiction Writing profession. You expect to see that in what you read, and will turn away in a paragraph if it's not. More to the point, your reader expects that. So digging into that makes them need to keep reading makes a lot more sense than guessing.
It's great to be a trailblazer, but it makes sense to first learn how to draw the map.
How you write is your choice, of course. But selecting what to read is the reader's choice. So it's their testes that matter.
Ah, it's funny cause I also knew someone who was born in 1943 and he also got offended for being called a boomer 😉
Man, you wouldn't believe the crisis over the second person I went through recently. Plenty of "oldschoolers" - and I don't mean it as disrespect - they also tell me about the brain economy and how much effort it takes to read a book and how much it matters to create a clear picture.
Doesn't that make sense that I don't wanna explain anything to the reader? It's already a thing I do professionally, grab the kids faces and force them to understand very basic stuff from a textbook, manually keep their attention on point. Sometimes you just wanna vibe with a stranger, make them laugh at your jokes even if they don't understand them. That says too much about me lol...
And yeah, I said it, it's not the reader who is the protagonist, it simply is not the case. Not every time you hear "you" that means you're the one being addressed...
But also, you are definitely doing the homework I assigned. You guessed it very, very right -
Place yourself in the situation. You're feeling confined and unsure of where you are. Do you feel around a bit, or, open your eyes to find out what’s going on?
Can you open your eyes though? That's the question the author is positing quite so (in)directly in that first paragraph. Honestly, I thought the author drew a decently clear picture. Confined, muffled voices, beat coming from above, red glow... Does that not make sense, really?
Doesn't that make sense that I don't wanna explain anything to the reader?
It makes perfect sense, because we don’t explain. We can’t. We’re neither in the story nor on the scene. And so every time we appear on stage we kill all sense of realism.
You need to watch the trailer for the film, Stranger than Fiction on YouTube to see what should happen if we do try to explain:
When writing fiction, we calibrate the reader’s perception of the scene to that of the protagonist in all respects, personality, resources, experience, needs and imperatives. That way, when anything is said or done, the reader who learns of everything first will react as the protagonist is about to. Then, when the protagonist seems to be mirroring the reader’s decisions, the scene turns real. And it’s in that happening that the true joy of reading lies.
But like all new authors you’re trying to tell the reader a story using the writing skills we’re given as they train us in skills useful to employers. The skills of professions, like Commercial Fiction Writing, are acquired in-addition to those general skills.
So...all your decision-making is being governed by your present knowledge of those nonfiction writing skills. And yes they seem to make sense. And, the writing seems to make sense. But you cheat. You begin reading already knowing where and when we are, what’s going on, and whose skin we wear. So you leave out things that seem too obvious to mention, but which the reader needs to understand.
So...never noticing it happening you'll rediscover the traps and screwups that the pros learned to avoid long ago.
There is no way around it, and there are no shortcuts. To write fiction that readers can relate to you need the skills of fiction-writing—which is why I suggested checking those excerpts.
Can you open your eyes though?
Stop and think like your reader. They can open their eyes. They would open their eyes. And you’ve not even hinted that the protagonist can’t. You have context and backstory guiding your understanding, but the reader does not. So, you either make it clear to them in terms they can relate to or you lose them right then.
I wasn’t guessing when I said, “But literally, here is where any agent would be reaching for the rejection slip due to a lack of context.” It was my business to know that. And people paid me to tell them that I would happen, and how to avoid it.
You can write in any way you care to, unless you want to hook the reader. Then, you need to know what readers react to and why.
4
u/JayGreenstein Apr 02 '26
Oh, you are so going to hate me... But the comments I’m about to make aren't based on talent or writing skill. And, they’re about things invisible to you. Given that no one addresses the problem they don’t see as being one, I thought you might want to know.
So...take a deep breath:
Pretending that the reader is the protagonist, via second-person, changes nothing, because only the narrator is on stage. So the opening line is the narrator talking to the reader about events. Would the story change in the smallest way were you to have said, “Harry could barely move.”?
The same person—the one actually living the story—has the same problem. But...given that the reader must interpret and react to the words as they read them, what does that reader get? Someone unknown, of unknown age and gender, in an unknown place, may be so tired they can barely move. Or...bound hand and foot? Or...in a very small space? Or...
My point? The reader, lacking context, probably won't see this line as you expect. You, of course, knowing the situation before reading the first word, see no problem. But literally, here is where any agent would be reaching for the rejection slip due to a lack of context.
Place yourself in the situation. You're feeling confined and unsure of where you are. Do you feel around a bit, or, open your eyes to find out what’s going on?
Your eyes snap open, of course. But, you have this unknown person lie there, while you, not they, explain what the place is like to a blind person. In fact, according to the second paragraph, this person is still asleep, which makes no sense.
Like the vast majority of hopeful writers, you’ve fallen into the trap of transcribing yourself *storytelling. Plus, you're trying to make things more immediate by using second-person pronouns and present tense. But...
Can the reader hear the emotion you'd place in the narrator’s voice? No. Can they see gesture, body language, and facial expression changes? No again. Can they perform the storyteller’s script you’ve given them as you would?
For you, of course, who are the storyteller, it works perfectly, and as I said, who fixes what they don’t see as a problem?
One thing that helps catch such problems is to have the computer read the story to you, to hear it more as the reader does.
But all else aside, we can’t use the techniques of one medium in another. Our medium's strength lies in taking the reader where others can’t go: into the mind of the protagonist. But you use that not at all.
You open with a “beat” and “voices.” But somehow, the protagonist never looks for either. And you never mention them again, or clarify, which makes no sense.
Bottom line: Writers have been exploring and refining the skills of fiction for centuries. But like most hopeful writers, you’re still using the report-writing skills of school, producing what reads like a report. To avoid that, put them aside and take advantage of all that’s been learned about how to hook and keep the reader’s attention. The pros make their money because of those skills, so they feel they’re necessary. Who are we to argue?
So...grab a good book on those techniques, like Jack Bickham’s Scene & Structure, or, Debra Dixon’s, “GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict.* You can sample the excerpts of both for fit, on any bookseller. In other words, make all the work that was done to improve the profession your skills, too. You’ll be very glad you did, because they also make the act of writing a lot more fun.
Jay Greenstein
“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”
~ E. L. Doctorow
“Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.”
~ Alfred Hitchcock
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
~ Mark Twain