Tom Mock

NOTE: This is a backlog of my notes from SPFBO9. It may look a little rough. My apologies!

You can read my final thoughts on the contest here: Tom Mock’s SPFBO9’s Opening Reads Final Thoughts | JamReads – Making your TBR closer to infinite

50. Blake Carpenter, DEATHBRINGER
    The story starts well enough here, slowly revealing a farm community before a wedding – a nice domestic opening. However, the writing leaves something to be desired.

Some passive voice, some poor construction of action that makes the subjects unclear, odd order of details, over-active verbs taking the place of action…

The dialogue is competent, though a bit too much of the same thing, so it is feeling a bit like role play chatter, especially since I know this isn’t going to be a domestic story.

I think this author has talent & I’m interested to see how they grown in their craft, but I’m not enjoying this story. The characters are overacting. There’s a stop and start, let-me-tell-you-about-this prose.

This novel may settle into itself latter on once the plot has started to develop and all the introductions are behind us. This isn’t bad, but I’m not enjoying it. Pass.

51. Melissa Bode, Nascent Witch
    This is a bit silly, and that’s to it’s credit. I might say Pratchett-esque. It’s strong on dialogue and voice, light on details (I might almost say weak b/c of some unclear action).

But b/c it’s intention is to be funny, much of this is forgivable, especially since it is also developing fast. And that is, after all, rule 1 of what we’re doing: don’t be boring. In that, this succeeds.

A little more character introduction may have been warranted before the unlikely and unbelievable thing happens. I don’t feel I have any clear sense of our MC yet, so this big change in their life catches me on the hop

This is shaping up to be a light, entertaining NA, modern witch novel. There’s a talking cat who resents being compared to, well, cats, and a down-on-her-luck young MC who’s just gotten surprising news. This could be cozy. Im in.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55665889-nascent-witch

52. Chad Retterath @cmretterath, NOTES ON MONSTER HUNTING
    This short monster hunter’s journal grew on me the more I read. It reminds me of The Black Company, and feels grounded. Female narrator. Camping. Hunting monsters in the cold. Epistolary storytelling. Unique dark fantasy!

I tripped over some things as I read. We have a few sentences of tense shift on page 1. Also, just when I think it’s about to start, the section breaks & we leap around in time.

This beginning is very visually oriented, relying heavily on stage directions. That doesn’t make it bad writing. It’s good to make a picture in the reader’s mind. The problem is there’s not much else & it begins to feel cluttered.

Hemingway said “don’t mistake movement for action.” So far, I feel like this is doing that. Again, not bad, but the story is on thin ice.

Our MC is physically on the page, but not emotionally. They think about the other characters – this one sucks; that one looks nice when he smiles – but they don’t feel like a vehicle for a story, just an observer.

This is stiff criticism, and there’s time yet to find them, but other books in this blog-off have from introduced MCs with goals (however small/mundane/personal) and obstacles to that goal from page 1.

Other books have given me a firm sense of who their MC is and how they feel about the world they’re in (for instance, The Untold Prophecy by @rrhunterbooks which I’ve maybed on this list)

There is a camping, travel log quality to this that I like, and I do think the prose is competent, but I feel like this has two separate beginnings, one after the other.

I’m finally getting some goal/character conflict details, and they has opened the story to me.

I was on the fence about this one, but even though I wanted to get through some more books this morning, the circumstances and straightforward prose were unique enough to hold my attention.

The conceit of an epistolary monster hunting journal has helped smooth over what might have been faults – the bevy of characters who I don’t know much about; the narrator telling me how they feel about them –

It has made these things a feature of the novel and has even lent it a sense of realism. The dialogue is also realistic, though so far is mostly background noise, like a feature of the setting.

At 255 pages, I’m willing to continue to read. It may become merely an episodic collection of monster hunts, I can’t say for sure, but I’d like to read more of it. I’m in.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48508009-notes-on-monster-hunting

53. Katherine Graham, THE VOW THAT TWISTED FATE
    This starts abruptly with a cataclysm, but because there’s not really a point of view it reads like a summary. It is information without feeling.

Our MC is witnessing this, but there is no clear description of where she is, and so no real scene as such.

Characters/armies do things before we’re told they’re there. This author oddly refuses to give me any clear sense what is happening. A character has already said something nonsensical.

I think this is a prologue, because the next chapter seems to settle down and try to create an actual scene. There is a fairytale quality to this story.

Had this started with ch1, I might have read further, but the opening has soured me to the book. It’s breezy reading, with competent, if forgettable dialogue, & might be just the thing for a younger reader. Pass.

54. Sam Pigg, Revolution
    Starting with a page of introduction that then springs into a flashback is not a very elegant way to bring your reader up to speed. You have lots of time to tell me everything.

Get the action rolling a little more. Also, you can let the reader sit for a while with something unexplained. Little mysteries like a birthmark that has started to glow can be just the thing to keep my interest.

The immediate explanation of our mysteriously behaving birthmark is also something that could have been more effectively summarized. The provided dialogue does not carry our flashback.

As is, this opening is very Tell heavy, as in: let me tell you about this and that dear reader. Not in those words, you understand, but with that lack of finesse.

Oh boy, this is flying into another flashback before it’s ever really settled back into the here-and-now. The prose and dialogue are competent enough, but the storytelling is this books downfall.

As I see it, the author had two choices, to start in the present day and present some interesting magical character details that slowly get explained as the action progresses

Or start with boldfaced exposition, skipping from a mother telling their child about what they might become, to a tutor years later, and so on, introducing character and world until our inciting incident finally begins.

This is another book that, once it gets it’s feet under itself, may start to unfold satisfyingly, but this beginning has undermined it. Pass.

55. Jack Batchen THE OUTSIDE
    Great cover. Really striking, nice colors.
    This has a very competent introduction, focused on our MC working hard towards a unique goal. I’m slowly getting a sense of the world, of personal conflicts, of a loved-one lost…

I find myself pulled into the slowly unfolding story. The dialogue feels natural, the circumstances we find our MC in are mundane to her but unusual to me, and so are deeply intriguing.

Sometimes I’ve noticed authors writing characters who are a lonely island in their world, ready and waiting for the plot to whisk them away, but Kaere feels fully a part of her community with friends, rivals, a loving father…

I could muster up some criticism about syntax, but that doesn’t really matter. The style is consistent.

I might have like the narrative to pause a moment and explain some things to me in greater detail – exactly what Kaere’s dance is meant to do, how often they do it, etc, to better understand the context of her life

But I find I’m so enjoying what I’m reading for the moment this is more something I think might be nice to have than a fault of the story. I may get this information soon anyway.

I have, for the moment, only the vaguest sense of the plot of The Outside, but I would happily spend the rest of my morning turning these pages. For me, that’s everything. I’m in!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62674963-the-outside

56. Heidi K Allen, Where Madness Lies
    Alex wakes up in a mental hospital. She’s been there for 3 days. She doesn’t want anyone to touch her. She works in a mortuary because at least corpses don’t give her visions … until now

This opening was everything I would want from a novel. It starts immediately, isn’t in a rush to explain everything to me. Has good dialogue, expressive prose, an MC at the center of the story, a problem

I see it’s in Greco-Roman myth & fantasy on Amazon which sparks my internet even more. It’s a contemporary fantasy, I wonder where it will go. Time slipped away while I was reading it.

Fantasy book critic has cut Where Madness Lies from the blog-off. By all means seek out there review, b/c Esmay had great things to say about it. This opening has my attention. Writers, read it and reflect. I’m in!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/170403935-where-madness-lies

57. Melissa Polk, BEAUTIFUL UNDONE
    From the first few paragraphs, I think this is interesting. I say “I think” because I’m not really sure what’s happening. I find myself saying aloud, “Wut? … Huh? … what’s that supposed to mean?”

The prose is a bit purple with over-active verbs. Sighs don’t rip out of people, especially relatively calm people.

I am given odd details that not only have nothing to do with the story, but are at odds with the tone.

I am told an awful lot of things all at once, but I get almost nothing from what I am told. It feels like the narrator is trying, at a sprint, to remind me of a previous novel I should have already read.

I’m entirely at a loss what I’m supposed to do with this. There was a bit of a scene, but now I feel like I’m reading someone’s ttrpg character backstory notes.

This is not competent storytelling. It’s confusing, ungrounded, in a rush to give me information without the experience of a story, and has no emotional tone. Hard pass.

58. Jayme Hunt, Marked by Fate
    Another opening that’s purplish and relying on overactive/descriptive verbs to seem active rather than any actually interesting action.

Resist, if you can, having characters tear their eyes away from a mirror, say, if there isn’t anything special or emotionally absorbing about the reflection.

Your writing teachers have done you wrong if this is how you’re trying to apply the advice “show don’t tell.” Perhaps the most misunderstood aphorism in fiction.

If you just narrate the physical actions, facial quirks, huffing and sighing and stalking and other bits of overacting of your MC, I might understand they’re … annoyed? Agitated?

But because we’re still introducing everybody (your book description doesn’t count) I won’t know why they’re annoyed unless you tell me. I won’t understand what the story is about.

And because I don’t understand what they’re emoting has anything to do with, it won’t be interesting.

It could be interesting if they were actually don’t something. If they were getting into a fight, say, I might think “jeez, this MC seems like a real problem. He’s so violent.”

And then later when you reveal that his father has passed away, I, as an attentive reader, will understand that his erratic actions (the actions, mind, not the erratic verbs) were motivated by his distress.

This will create an experience for me as a reader that will be more immersive and rewarding than if you merely told me from the jump that your MCs father died and he had been in a bad way, etc. That wont feel the same.

But when we begin a story, tell me what’s going on, even if the circumstances you describe are only the first level of your MC’s motivation. Set the scene.

This opening hasn’t committed any grave sins, but I have a headache and it begins very mundanely in our very mundane world.

The author does get around to explaining what is bothering our MC, and that is much more interesting than them stomping around their room & looking at their reflection (so we can picture our MC).

Some action finally begins to take place, introducing other characters and the circumstances of their life after a page or two. This is probably an entertaining YA at just over 300pgs, but not for me. Pass.

59. Frank Borelli, Reign of Extinction
    This opening is trying very hard to ensure that I know it is grimdark. This is what can, at times, make me roll my eyes at the genre.

The opening line is good, but the action of the story reverts immediately to a flashback. It is brief, but not brief enough. We need to spend more time in the present before we hurtle into the past.

Once we return to the present and a dead child in the street, we are oddly detached from our MC. I’m not even sure he is there. He isn’t named. I’m not sure why.

I’m also not sure what’s happening. I don’t know what the body looks like or what apparently killed him. The novel is resistant to being clear. It’s more interested in gritty atmosphere.

The story is oddly distant from its subjects. It’s resisting helping me understand what’s going on and if the characters have any sense of this deadly rain that’s killing them.

I’m also not sure who our protagonist is. I thought it was one character, but they’ve disappeared and now it’s maybe someone else who just woke up?

This has lost me. There’s a lot about it that is potentially interesting. The prose can be expressive and descriptive. I have a sense that this is a Witcher-esquires world, but only a sense.

There’s action, but no characters, nor context for the action, and so no story. I thought there was an MC, but we’ve lost him. I guess that was why he was never named. Pass.