The Difference

[VallesMarineris]

I recently discovered and then rapidly read a novel, The Blue Place, the first two paragraphs of which I'm quoting here:

“An April night in Atlanta between thunderstorms: dark and warm and wet, sidewalks shiny with rain and slick with torn leaves and fallen azalea blossoms. Nearly midnight. I had been walking for over an hour, covering four or five miles. I wasn’t tired. I wasn’t sleepy.

You would think that my bad dreams would be of the first man I had killed, thirteen years ago. Or if not him, then maybe the teenager who had burned to death in front of me because I was too slow to get the man with the match. But no, when I turn out the lights at ten o’clock and can’t keep still, can’t even bear to sit down in my Lake Claire house, it’s because I see again the first body I hadn’t killed.”

Excerpt From
The Blue Place: A Novel (Aud Torvingen)
Nicola Griffith
https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-blue-place-a-novel-aud-torvingen/id6670759778
This material may be protected by copyright.

This is a detective mystery thriller, which I don't normally read, but the first page pulled me in and I put aside other books (including a new Adrian Tchaikovsky, one of my faves) to finish it.

In contrast, here are the first two paragraphs from a sci-fi novel I recently tried and did put down:

“Damn it, Brannan Pyke,” she said. “Where the hell are you?”

Dervla was standing at the only window, hands resting on the sill as she stared out at a maze of dilapidated rooftops. The metal mesh fixed to the outside was rusty and dented but fine enough to give a decent view, and to let late afternoon sunlight into the horrible hot compartment they had been stuck in for more than four days. But this was the kind of spartan discomfort you had to put up with on a job like this, especially when your employer was the staggeringly wealthy Augustine Van Graes.”

Excerpt From
Velocity Weapon
Megan E. O'Keefe
https://books.apple.com/us/book/velocity-weapon/id1422602312
This material may be protected by copyright.

I continued reading this for a page or two, but then closed it and won't go back to it.

I like space operas (my guilty pleasure) and rarely read mysteries or thrillers. Both of these are published works, as you can see. But I could tell very quickly that the first one would just flow from the first word to last, and that the second would be a slog.

What's the difference between the two? I can tell intuitively, but I'm having trouble explicating in a logical form what my intuition was telling me. Anyone have an idea?

 

[Cagivagurl]

Emotion.....
Feelings.....
Depth of character...
Important elements. One has them, the other is just flat...
IMO
Cagivagurl

 

[MrPixel]

The first eases you from feeling to feeling and draws you in, the second jerks you around with extreme adjectives and is simply not comfortable at all.

 

[AlinaX]

The first is in first person, which is immediate, and has a nice opening paragraph juxtaposed by a second paragraph that's a blatant attention grab with three deaths that likely won't get elaborated on immediately.

The second is taking its time, is third person, sets an obscure and suffocating setting, mentions two people by name that aren't there. Being Sci-Fi, it's not necessarily building on familiar cliches, and may take longer therefore for the essence of the story to become apparent.

 

[HordHolm]

People talking to themselves is unrealistic - or, at least, people might grumble to themselves when trying to find something at the back of a cupboard or swear as they try to tighten a belligerent screw. But saying something out loud as in example two is something people only do in books. They'll say it in their heads, of course.

Example two then loads on the exposition, whilst the first example is more gentle, giving backstory in a less heavy-handed manner (although it would lose me, too, at that point - but only because I'm not the 'grizzled anti-hero who's seen too much' kind of fan).

 

[THBGato]

The first is in first person, which is immediate, and has a nice opening paragraph juxtaposed by a second paragraph that's a blatant attention grab with three deaths that likely won't get elaborated on immediately.

The second is taking its time, is third person, sets an obscure and suffocating setting, mentions two people by name that aren't there. Being Sci-Fi, it's not necessarily building on familiar cliches, and may take longer therefore for the essence of the story to become apparent.

Yes, I think it's to do with expectations of the genre.

The first immediately delivers what we would expect of a mystery thriller, the setting recalling Chandler. The second doesn't suggest Sci-fi straight away. Expectations are important, I think. Most people read to loose themselves, for comfort, not to be challenged: a text that is trying to defy expectations is probably going to end up with many readers not continuing.

I also think that the second text is trying too hard. Maybe the alliteration ("metal mesh", "let late", "horrible hot") wasn't deliberate, but it reads like a GCSE student trying to tick a box on a list of techniques the teacher has told them to use. Likewise, words such as "dilapidated", "spartan" and "staggeringly" make it seem like the writer raided a thesaurus (something I am also guilty of, on occasion). As a result, the lexis they are using just isn't as accessible as that in the first, where I would argue only "azalea" might cause a reader to pause. Hence, the first is so much easier to immerse yourself into.

 

[JayHawnee]

I recently discovered and then rapidly read a novel, The Blue Place, the first two paragraphs of which I'm quoting here:



This is a detective mystery thriller, which I don't normally read, but the first page pulled me in and I put aside other books (including a new Adrian Tchaikovsky, one of my faves) to finish it.

In contrast, here are the first two paragraphs from a sci-fi novel I recently tried and did put down:



I continued reading this for a page or two, but then closed it and won't go back to it.

I like space operas (my guilty pleasure) and rarely read mysteries or thrillers. Both of these are published works, as you can see. But I could tell very quickly that the first one would just flow from the first word to last, and that the second would be a slog.

What's the difference between the two? I can tell intuitively, but I'm having trouble explicating in a logical form what my intuition was telling me. Anyone have an idea?

I think from 2 paragraphs it is hard to drag conclusions

But what springs into my eyes immediately from a structural side is, that the Paragraph 1 of Story 1 raises a question in the reader's mind (why isn't he tired) that is immediately addressed in Paragraph 2 and a new more important one is raised - that drags me, as a reader, into the story and makes me want to find out more.

The second story starts to raise a question, but Paragraph 2 feels like an info-dump, that addresses a question, that Paragraph 1 hasn't really raised. I, as a reader, would rather like to read something about what is with "Brannan Pyke"? It's okay, if more infos are presented while this questions is addressed. But without addressing it at all, the two Paragraphs feel disconnected.

Suspension might work, if one has got the reader already interested in the story, but so early it feels like a downer.

 

[StillStunned]

One of my philosophies of writing is that the author has the reader's attention on credit. They've already started reading your story - perhaps even paid money to - without knowing for sure what they'll get out of it. They have no reason to keep reading, to extend more credit, unless you start giving them something early on.

One way to do that is by engaging them and intriguing them. Probably the worst thing to do is make them work.

The first example creates a vivid picture and mood in a few words, then drip-feeds the intrigue. There's enough information for the reader to start making some educated guesses about who the narrator is: the first guess might be a murderer, then you think police.

The second example tries to go in medias res, but for all the words it uses the description reads like a list of ingredients. Add in three random unknowns in "Brannan Pyke", "Augustine Van Graes" and the mysterious "job". The names are unusual and require more effort from the reader; "Dervla" in particular is just clumsy to read, even without speaking it out loud.

The result is that with the first example you've put in minimal effort and already received rewards (an idea of the setting and the narrator). The second example has demanded more effort for far less reward. Unless the blurb has already revealed the plot, you're left even more confused than when you began.

All in all, the first story seems to be written with the reader's experience in mind, while the second feels like it's all about the writer trying too hard to be a writer.

 

[TheLobster]

It’s the pacing. The first one grabs you in with its short, snappy sentences. It also has action, or at least activity, even if it’s just walking.

The second one is full of exposition done in long, clumsy sentences. The content doesn’t help either, but you could still convey the same stifling atmosphere in a much more intriguing manner through better flowing prose.

 

[Actingup]

The weather is handled a whole lot better in the first example. Location, time of year, humidity, expectations, atmospheric drama. Torn leaves and fallen azalea blossoms (the first storm was violent, the damage is a metaphor for what has happened in this guy's life, and there is another storm to come - brilliant foreshadowing).

The second story gives you an ugly landscape and a hot box - it doesn't compare. Then the 'staggeringly wealthy Augustine Van Graes' sinks the whole bloody thing.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

The second one could be made much snappier. No-one uses two names after a "Damn it". "Damn it, Pyke," would sound way more natural. ('Don't tell him, Pyke!)

Dervla is a perfectly normal name to me, eg the actress Dervla Kirwan. Be glad it's not spelled the Irish way.

The next para is a mix of attempting to be vivid and exciting, but using long flabby phrases.

Here's my rewrite: "Dervla stood at their only window, hands on the sill, staring through rusty metal mesh at a maze of dilapidated rooftops. Little late-afternoon sunlight could enter the rancid room they'd now been trapped in for over four days. You had to put up with crap conditions on these jobs. Especially if employed by Augustine Van Graes.”

Could get rid of 'hands on the sill', too. I lost 'she' making clear Dervla is female, and the wealth of Graes, but even if not already apparent, I'm sure it'll be very clear soon.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I generally agree with the comments above.

I'd also note that the first sample has a lot more variety in its structure. Long sentence, then a two-word fragment, then a mid-length sentence, then two more fragments and some purposeful repetition ("I wasn't... I wasn't..."). The second just kinda plods along with a bunch of mid-length sentences.

I don't mean to suggest that great writing can be achieved just by varying the sentence length according to some particular schedule. But when something interesting is going on, that ought to be driving the tempo of the language; if it just feels like a metronome beating time, it might be that there's not much to drive it.

Related, the second starts with somebody being bored, which is not a very compelling opening, and it feels like we're headed for some exposition before anything much happens. I wouldn't throw the book away just yet - two paragraphs isn't very much to go on - but it's not a promising start. With the first, I don't really know what's going on with the protagonist yet but it doesn't sound like it's boring.

 

[lovecraft68]

Its all subjective. TBH neither grabbed me, but that's me. I'm sure some would like the second better than the first and some would like both.

I think the 'what's different' is not worth the discussion from a writing standpoint because to me, its more about the reader.

 

[Britva415]

I recently discovered and then rapidly read a novel, The Blue Place, the first two paragraphs of which I'm quoting here:



This is a detective mystery thriller, which I don't normally read, but the first page pulled me in and I put aside other books (including a new Adrian Tchaikovsky, one of my faves) to finish it.

In contrast, here are the first two paragraphs from a sci-fi novel I recently tried and did put down:



I continued reading this for a page or two, but then closed it and won't go back to it.

I like space operas (my guilty pleasure) and rarely read mysteries or thrillers. Both of these are published works, as you can see. But I could tell very quickly that the first one would just flow from the first word to last, and that the second would be a slog.

What's the difference between the two? I can tell intuitively, but I'm having trouble explicating in a logical form what my intuition was telling me. Anyone have an idea?

In the first excerpt, there isn't a lot which happens in those two paragraphs, but there are references to a whole bunch of things that happened and are going to happen.

In the second excerpt, not only did nothing at all happen in those two paragraphs, there isn't even any hint about anything else that ever happened or is going to happen.

 

[AG31]

I recently discovered and then rapidly read a novel, The Blue Place, the first two paragraphs of which I'm quoting here:



This is a detective mystery thriller, which I don't normally read, but the first page pulled me in and I put aside other books (including a new Adrian Tchaikovsky, one of my faves) to finish it.

In contrast, here are the first two paragraphs from a sci-fi novel I recently tried and did put down:



I continued reading this for a page or two, but then closed it and won't go back to it.

I like space operas (my guilty pleasure) and rarely read mysteries or thrillers. Both of these are published works, as you can see. But I could tell very quickly that the first one would just flow from the first word to last, and that the second would be a slog.

What's the difference between the two? I can tell intuitively, but I'm having trouble explicating in a logical form what my intuition was telling me. Anyone have an idea?

I like little writerly puzzles like this, but the puzzle for me here is that I would have kept going with both of them. Nothing in either puts me off, and I'm quite able to put a book down after one or two pages for a host of trivial reasons. I'll be interested to see what others say.

 

[AG31]

there isn't even any hint about anything else that ever happened or is going to happen.

This was enough of a hook for me to want to find out what was going to happen: "But this was the kind of spartan discomfort you had to put up with on a job like this, especially when your employer was the staggeringly wealthy Augustine Van Graes.”

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

People talking to themselves is unrealistic - or, at least, people might grumble to themselves when trying to find something at the back of a cupboard or swear as they try to tighten a belligerent screw. But saying something out loud as in example two is something people only do in books. They'll say it in their heads, of course.

Example two then loads on the exposition, whilst the first example is more gentle, giving backstory in a less heavy-handed manner (although it would lose me, too, at that point - but only because I'm not the 'grizzled anti-hero who's seen too much' kind of fan).

I do it all the time, out loud. I'm auditory. It helps me process information more efficiently.

 

[alohadave]

I do it all the time, out loud. I'm auditory. It helps me process information more efficiently.

Yep. My wife thinks I'm weird because I talk to myself, but it helps me organize my thoughts.

And I'm the one person I can tell my ideas to without any fear of rejection or criticism.

 

[VallesMarineris]

Thanks everyone. I understand that two paragraphs are not much to go on, but I didn’t want to burden everyone with pages of text. But these small samples were enough to generate many incisive comments. I think @THBGato hit the bull’s eye for me with their analysis of the language in the second excerpt:

I also think that the second text is trying too hard. Maybe the alliteration ("metal mesh", "let late", "horrible hot") wasn't deliberate, but it reads like a GCSE student trying to tick a box on a list of techniques the teacher has told them to use. Likewise, words such as "dilapidated", "spartan" and "staggeringly" make it seem like the writer raided a thesaurus (something I am also guilty of, on occasion). As a result, the lexis they are using just isn't as accessible as that in the first, where I would argue only "azalea" might cause a reader to pause. Hence, the first is so much easier to immerse yourself into.

I hadn't consciously noticed the alliteration or the multiple latinate adjectives and adverbs, but they do distance the reader from the scene. And adding to that, as several replies mentioned, the pile of names and the clumsy, monotonous sentence structure made reading the second text less a joy and more something to work through to get to the story.

It's like observing a runner on the street: you can tell immediately whether they're an experienced, maybe champion athlete or a weekend warrior just getting through their exercise routine. One goes farther, faster, but somehow with less effort, and is a pleasure to watch. The other you have sympathy for and want to encourage, but you soon turn away in favor of more pleasant views.

@StillStunned's comment is relevant overall:

One of my philosophies of writing is that the author has the reader's attention on credit. They've already started reading your story - perhaps even paid money to - without knowing for sure what they'll get out of it. They have no reason to keep reading, to extend more credit, unless you start giving them something early on.

This seems to be a version of the classic principle of "suspension of disbelief". How much effort are you asking of the reader to make your world real in their mind? All writers, even those not writing sci-fi or fantasy, need to be aware of this principle.

@StillStunned's comment adds to that principle: however much the story's world, plot, and characters require (and both examples above ask a lot), the language itself, as @StillStunned points out, also requires the reader's effort. The first example asks less and begins repaying the reader immediately. The second example asks more, delivers little, and hints that even more will be asked.

Now the question for me is how to create, evaluate, and edit my own work to make it as effortlessly smooth and seductive as the first story. That's going to take more thought.

 

[HordHolm]

I do it all the time, out loud. I'm auditory. It helps me process information more efficiently.

My wife interviews people while she's in the shower, so I'm aware of the general idea. What I doubt you do, though, is conveniently say something out loud that advances the plot in such an obvious way. I can almost feel Dervla clenching her fist as she says it...

 

[Britva415]

This was enough of a hook for me to want to find out what was going to happen: "But this was the kind of spartan discomfort you had to put up with on a job like this, especially when your employer was the staggeringly wealthy Augustine Van Graes.”

You're right, the reference to "a job like this" does indicate that something might be going to happen.

Did the paragraph make me even notice or realize that, much less care? Not me personally, no.

 

[crookedletter]

I'd put it down to style. The first has tone and atmosphere, the sentences have a rhythm that keeps the reader moving through them. You're hit with characterization, subtle allusions to backstory, and an overriding darkness. You can tell right away this story is going to have action, it's going to get dark, and it's going to be well written.

There's nothing wrong with the second, I don't think. It provides some good details that ground you in scene, that hint at character relationships. But I think it tries to shoehorn in too much plot context, and the result is awkward.

The metal mesh fixed to the outside was rusty and dented but fine enough to give a decent view, and to let late afternoon sunlight into the horrible hot compartment they had been stuck in for more than four days. But this was the kind of spartan discomfort you had to put up with on a job like this, especially when your employer was the staggeringly wealthy Augustine Van Graes.”

All of these details are interesting on their own. But it's too much for two sentences. Describe the sweltering heat and the sunlight glinting through the screen*, or lay the groundwork for the fact that they're on some kind of job for this Van Graes who seems almost certainly to be some kind of villain.

I'm not sure I'd bail after those two paragraphs. But I wouldn't be sold, I'd be starting to wonder already if the writing was going to annoy me.

* also, are they just describing a window screen? Don't describe the window screen.