In the morning, when there was nothing but birdsong and grey walls and the cramping in his joints for company, regrets and misgivings gathered in a half circle around him and waited for answers.

He was a little late to this party. Coming to terms with these entities should have been a priority long ago. Now there would be no convoluted explanations forthcoming. He had no excuses except for his overactive libido and greed, but they were failings.

There were no logical reasons for his unacceptable behavior. A loser didn’t have answers. A loser didn’t think in terms of logic. Hell, a pathetic simp like himself was nothing but a waste of life.

Perhaps if he had Tapped a little less and taken more responsibility for his charge, the world might have remained a pretty decent place.
—Mindy Peterman

Developmental Edit

I’ve got to say, I’m riveted by the word Tapped. I have no idea what it means in context, but if this is a story about how someone went to prison for Tap-dancing when they shouldn’t have, they have my UNDIVIDED attention.

Ominous? check
Pointed? check
Raises a question? check What did this person do?
Drop-kicks us off the end? check Apparently, it was powerful enough to ruin the world for somebody.

What does this tell us about the book we’re starting? A male, possibly late in life, regrets something—probably a lot of somethings—caused by his overactive libido and greed. He’s a loser, a pathetic simp, a waste of life. Apparently not a sympathetic character. AT ALL.

Do I want to follow this character through a whole novel? Not necessarily. I like a protagonist I can relate to, someone with failings, yes, but also with some redeeming qualities that make me feel good about identifying with them. Unless this narrator is highly-unreliable, I don’t right now expect this character to do anything I’m going to admire.

Genre? Fictionalized memoir, I’d say. Unless someone pulls out a gun in the next paragraph.

Do we need to know who the character is, how they got here, where they were before? I get the clue that they’re in jail. I’m not certain there’s birdsong in jail, but I could be wrong. That’s enough information to place us in a hook.

Do we need to know what’s going to happen next? I think something should. I’d like to see this character do something active to attract my interest. Passive protagonists do not engender reader loyalty.

Does this drop us into a moment in the character’s story? Sort of—we’re waking up with sore joints. But we segue immediately into character analysis.

Let’s talk about structure. Is this a highly-charged moment? Apparently not. It’s morning, and there’s birdsong. Does it work for it to be talkative? Because this is not a fun or silly or witty character, but actually kind of a jerk, it would be better to keep the words to a minimum. It’s extremely difficult to create an unsympathetic character, and the best way to do that is with mystery. The less said the better. What does this tell us about the story? Character-driven.

There’s a problem here with abstractions. Abstractions are telling. They are the antithesis of showing. They interfere with your story and, because they take brain power to grasp, they disengage the reader. The only time to use abstractions is when you have something so unbelievably profound to say that you’ve built up entire scenes and episodes around this very moment.

Also, unless there’s a specific reason, I don’t think the verb Tapped should be capitalized.

Can this hook be made any simpler and more intriguing, while creating a mysteriously-unsympathetic character and avoiding the problem with abstractions? Let’s save the backstory info and cut straight to the most intriguing line.

Copy & Line Edit

Perhaps if he had tapped a little less and taken more responsibility for his charge, the world might have remained a pretty decent place.

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