There’s Someone In The House by Johann Thorsson

The opening chapter of There’s Someone in the House shows a major reversal, starting out with a husband, Michael Stillwater, eagerly arriving home from a business trip to see his wife, and ending with–I think–the husband, possessed by some entity–killing his wife. The smooth flow and building suspense keep me reading to the end of the chapter.

The chapter also has some nice writing that draws me in. The ends of the first two paragraphs–“It bored him” and “A bit of an enigma, called in for specialized jobs”–provide intriguing hints that Michael is not the standard protagonist. Once he gets home, some of the descriptions help to evoke fear. I particularly like “Her voice was a rush of leaves,” which I can actually hear, and the paragraph in which Michael hears a soft hello, “Deceptively quiet and menacing, heard like you ‘hear’ the words someone mouths from across a crowded room.” That is very evocative.

So the chapter has a lot going for it. I found after reading it, though, that I didn’t have any urge to continue. Pulling readers through and leaving them satisfied can work well for a short story. But a novel chapter, especially a first chapter, needs to leave readers eager to turn the page. I think there are several elements in the chapter that could be revised to help make that happen. Of course, it’s difficult to know exactly what to suggest without knowing where the novel is headed, but I’ll try to cover various possibilities.

One reason I don’t feel a strong need to continue reading is that I’m not attached to Michael, and I’m not terribly upset about his wife’s death. If I really cared about Michael or I really cared about Ellen and couldn’t walk away without a better understanding of her death, then I’d want to keep reading. But I barely know either of them. The first two paragraphs tell me some interesting things about Michael’s work life, but they don’t show Michael. It’s exposition, what is often called “driving to the story,” or in other cases “walking to the story,” “flying to the story,” or “riding to the story.” This means that the story starts with the character on the way to a place, and that place is where the true story will begin. As he travels, the character thinks about his life, filling the reader in on various facts. This is generally not a strong way to open a story or chapter. These paragraphs do get me interested in Michael’s work, but they don’t allow me to get attached to Michael, because I don’t see him in action. And once he arrives home, all of that information seems irrelevant. He becomes what seems to me a much more standard protagonist. He doesn’t act in any way that seems connected to his life as a contract lawyer to the stars. If his profession is going to be important later in the novel–and I suspect it is because it’s included here–then the novel could open with a scene of Michael doing his job, creating suspense over this false celebrity meltdown or some other issue, and making us care about Michael (either in a positive or negative way) by seeing how he operates in this milieu. This could help set up some plot elements that will become important in later chapters and create suspense that will make us want to keep reading after Chapter 1. It can also make us care more about Michael, so when he’s possessed, we’ll be upset. Ellen could even call several times during the meeting, but Michael can’t take the calls, so there can be conflict between the two parts of Michael’s life. Or maybe it appears that Ellen is calling, but when he checks the voicemail, he hears only a weird whisper he can’t understand, and when he calls her back, she says she never called. (And once he gets home, he can be getting calls regarding his job while he’s searching for the intruder. Job’s like Michael’s generally don’t limit themselves to work hours and can easily be all-consuming.)

For me, starting a horror novel with a character being killed feels quite familiar and gives me the sense that the author doesn’t have faith in his ability to get my attention without killing someone. But the writing in this chapter indicates to me that the author could definitely pull me into a novel with a scene in which no one dies. So why not establish Michael and get readers attached to him, and show his relationship with Ellen, so we can care about her too.

Another reason I don’t finish the chapter eager to turn the page is that the plot feels self-contained. It provides the reversal I mentioned above, and then ends with Michael discovering what has happened. I’m thinking that Michael is going to be arrested for his wife’s murder and go to jail for life. That doesn’t leave me a lot of reason to keep reading. I’m not terribly curious about who possessed Michael–I’m imagining it’s some dead, disgruntled celebrity client. But I don’t really care. I’ve read lots of possession stories, so for me, that’s the least interesting aspect of the chapter. I was more interested when there was a mysterious shadowy presence in the house that whispered to them. But if the chapter ended in an unexpected way that shed new light on either the characters or the possession plot, I could be excited to continue. If I had some intriguing suspicion, such that his wife made this happen so she could get revenge on Michael for cheating on her, I would want to keep reading to see if my theory was accurate. Or if Michael had an unusual reaction to events, such as he buried his wife in the backyard, or jumped in the car and headed out of the country, or called an enemy over to the house to frame him for the murder, or the experience gave him an idea how to solve the celebrity problem he was working on earlier, I would be eager to turn the page to follow his character and see how that played out. Or if there was some clue or strange element discovered at the end, such as his wife’s body parts were arranged to spell out a message, or some old (and lost) item of Michael’s was left beside the body, then I would want to keep reading to learn what that meant.

Thinking about plot on a larger scale, if Michael is the protagonist of the novel, the end of the chapter feels like the end of Act 1. I feel that he’ll change his goal in the next chapter (which will start a new act) to figuring out who possessed him and getting revenge on that person. But Act 1 (in a three-act novel) usually involves the first 25% or so of a novel, so things are feeling a bit out of balance. The novel feels like it’s rushing through important Act 1 elements. Having Act 1 build suspense through about a quarter of the way through the novel allows the crisis that ends Act 1 to have more power. The other possibility I see is that Michael is not the protagonist and this chapter is playing the role of a prologue–establishing an evil that will go after the protagonist. I don’t think that’s where this is going, but if it is, that’s an overused structure in horror that I wouldn’t recommend. I think it would still be better to develop Michael over several scenes/chapters so we care more when he’s faced with a possible intruder, possession, and murder.

I enjoyed many elements in this chapter. I hope my comments are helpful.

–Jeanne Cavelos, editor, writer, director of Odyssey

The Totem by Kevin Zarem

Spoons by Robert Tarrant

“Spoons” has a fresh, delightful premise. A ladle gathers spoons from around the world for their ascension, and they attack a few humans who know too much. The story has some great absurdist humor, as when the spoons start spelling out messages to the humans. Their messages made me laugh out loud. The story also provides some vivid and entertaining descriptions of the spoons in action. I enjoyed reading the story quite a bit, but I do think it could be made stronger.

For me, the story seems to be caught between two possibilities rather than fully realizing either one. Stories with prominent, original ideas (like spoons attacking) generally work best in one of two ways. One possibility is to simply focus the story on showing the idea and ending the story. That way, you highlight the story’s main strength. To move “Spoons” in this direction, the plot needs to be simplified. Instead of moving between two settings, it could take place in just one. Instead of having three characters, the story could have just two, or even one. Instead of six scenes, it could have one to three. For example, in a three-scene version, the first scene could show Avery, the main character, at home, trying to eat ice cream and being attacked by the spoon. He might trap the spoon. The second scene could show Avery discovering a bunch of spoons coming out of his drawers to free the imprisoned spoon, and they have a bigger battle. Avery could defeat them and think his problems are over. Then the huge flood of spoons arrive with the ladle. They tell him he knows too much and must be destroyed, and then they kill him, or he flees and gives up his house to them. This structure would focus on showing us the unusual, fun idea. Such stories are often pretty short. A flash piece or something up to 1800 words or so could work well.

The other possibility is to make the story about more than the idea. There are a number of ways to do this, but one common way involves developing the characters more and making readers really care about them. The current characters work to show the idea, but they don’t really make me believe in them or care. That would be fine if the story were shorter and more idea focused, but as it is, I find the story appealing to emotions I don’t have, as when we learn that Martha has been tormented by the spoons (and we should feel compassion for her) and when Harold is killed (and we should feel upset about that). Those moments fall flat for me, and I find myself wishing the story was more like possibility 1, showing me the cool spoon idea and then ending. But if I had gotten to know Harold better, if I had understood why he and his wife suffer this tragic lack of communication, then I could care about them. While I know some facts about Avery, I don’t feel I know him. He seems to become a rather standard protagonist once the action begins. This type of story would require two plot threads: one with Avery struggling toward some goal and one with Avery fighting the spoons. The first plot thread would allow us to get to know Avery more and to get to know any other characters. We would also need more connective elements to further develop the story, such as theme, symbolism, and resonance (all elements of subtext). To develop these, it may be helpful to ask some questions. For example, what makes Avery the best protagonist for this story? What does fighting spoons mean to him? How is his reaction to the spoons going to be more interesting than any other possible character’s reaction? Perhaps we would cut Avery from the story and make Harold the protagonist, so we can narrow our cast to two characters, Harold and his wife. He’s a bitter skeptic whose wife is falling into dementia. The woman he truly loved married someone else, so he married his second choice, Martha. She can’t help him at the hotel anymore and spends all day buying expensive items on the Internet that she doesn’t even remember buying. These meaningless purchases are sending them into bankruptcy. Harold has to search the house every night when he comes home for new items that have been delivered and return them. In this context, Harold’s discovery of a new set of spoons and a big expensive ladle carries more emotional weight. These items–and especially the spoons, the most expensive purchase Martha has made–embody his unhappy relationship. The spoons work both on the surface level of story as an expensive purchase for him to return. And they work on the level of subtext as a symbol of everything that is weighing him down and destroying his life. Then when the spoons come to life and attack him, the event is more emotional and more tied to his character. He must return them (the way he might wish to return his wife), but they won’t let him. The spoons might kill Harold and triumph, which would make the story a tragedy, with Harold overcome by this meaningless chaos of his wife’s purchases. Or perhaps Harold is about to be killed when Martha helps him, destroying the ladle, so they both survive–and Harold is stuck back where he began. Or Martha could help the spoons, and Harold could take the ladle and kill her, ending up a servant of the spoons.

Anyway, that’s just an example of how this second possibility might work. There are many ways to develop the story in that direction.

Either possibility could generate a compelling story. Moving it closer to the first possibility would allow your idea to shine out all the stronger; moving it closer to the second possibility could deepen readers’ engagement and emotions.

But the story has many strengths as it is; I don’t think I’ll soon forget it. I hope my comments are helpful.

–Jeanne Cavelos, editor, writer, director of Odyssey

Beneath The Canyons Chapter 1 by Kyra Halland