I am sending the first 4 chapters of "The Stranger," the second mystery in the T.K. & Associates series. This is actually a re-writing of what I originally submitted in April, 2012. I went back to the comments from Riley, Andy and Alan, then rewrote after reviewing in depth what they had to say.
Their comments + Mary K's comments gave me exactly what I was looking for.
Please review and let me know what you think of these chapters as a stand alone chapter book. Do they work for kids that haven't read Tramp 1?
Will send the manuscript in a separate email.
Thanks to all for being the best writer's group on this earth.
Writing that kicks your ass
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Bill,
ReplyDeleteYou asked if these chapters will work for readers who haven’t read Tramp 1. I believe the answer is yes. Your opening scene is an affective introduction to the main characters and what the story will be about. You then slide seamlessly into the backstory. This combination gives enough info that a reader could easily move forward with this new Tramp adventure. The additional info you’ve added along the way fills in any gaps that a reader new to Tramp’s world will come across.
I won’t go into the many things I like about Tramp that I’ve mentioned before. I will say that I enjoyed the bit about creatures establishing their own justice system for criminal animals like they have in New York. That helps expand Tramp’s world. It also gives you a lot of places to take future books.
Here are a couple of small things that might help the story along. Don’t be fooled by the word count. They are small things.
In the first paragraph it says, “The velvet blackness of the night was beginning to vanish behind slivers of golden light. It would be just warm enough to keep the sidewalks clear.” A Minnesotan will automatically know that means cleared of snow. Having lived much of my life in warmer climates I wondered what it was warm enough to keep the sidewalks cleared of. Then I remembered my time at Hamline. For desert and southern folk it might be helpful to add, “clear of snow”.
I almost didn’t mention this next part because I’m not sure it matters. Then I thought that since I’m not sure it matters I’d ask for the sake of my own education. On page 9 Officer Johnson mentions that he sees tears rolling out of Tramp’s eyes. This anthropomorphism effectively shows that Tramp misses his family. Anthropomorphism has been used many times in Tramp’s world and in ways that I find delightful and engaging. The tears momentarily gave me pause because I happen to know that although dogs have tear ducts they shed tears back inside to their throats and nasal cavities rather than down their faces like humans. If you do see a dog shed tears it is because the tear ducts are clogged. I may be using too many words for a non-issue. Just curious what others think. Would the story be just as served by Tramp showing his sorrow in some other way? Or is this the most powerful and effective way to show that emotion and the most appropriate since Tramp is practically a human in dog form anyway? Or could this be an opportunity where addressing a small thing might make it easier for readers to accept the big things such as Tramp being able to communicate with some humans and being able to read Moriarty’s thoughts? Will the Tramp’s audience care one way or the other?
There are some opportunities for minor tightening. I commented where I think these are on the MS I’ll email you.
I’m intrigued by Moriarty. I want to know how he’s going to tie into the story as I don’t doubt he will. PTSD is current and very relevant with so many of our soldiers back with us.
Tramp is delightful and so is the world you’ve created for him. You continue to add interesting secondary characters and to deepen characters we are already familiar with. Not only is this story easy for new readers to jump in on, it adds interesting layers that will keep old fans reading as well.
Bill, garrr!! I just lost a long letter I wrote to you about this and I am frustrated! Ah well, I'll try to remember the essential parts of what I wrote.
ReplyDeleteI love how playful this fresh adventure with Tramp starts out. It is so much fun with touches like the nod to yourself or the Dragnet reference. And it is endearing how clearly the reader feels the author's affection for his characters.
Like Alan, I am intrigued by Moriarity because the idea of healing dogs is resonant and captivating. Reminds me of the the Warrior Canine Connection: https://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-news/canines-help-soldiers-connect-heal-counseling-233403041--abc-news-health.html. Can't wait to see where this leads!
I had a bit of a different experience in terms of your question about this story standing alone. Keeping in mind that I tried to read as if I had never read Tramp, there were some vagaries that I think could lose some readers early on. Here are some questions I had.
1. Why is secrecy so important for distributing the business cards?
2. Who is Mrs. Oliver?
3. Who is Rodney (quick reference to the earlier adventure right away)?
4. Why does Mrs. Patterson immediately open up about everything in her life to a strange dog? Only clue is he that he stared into her eyes. Perhaps more explanation of how this works here.
A few other thoughts I had. Quite subjective, so take them for what they're worth to you.
I love how you introduce the cast of characters, almost like a roll call. It's a nice place to add even a touch more characterization. Perhaps one defining trait (either physical or personality) for each. Like how you have Flip the bulldog flipping over. Charming and memorable!
I wanted Tramp to get his turn for an introduction when you give him dialogue on page 6. It's our first time to meet him other than when he dials the phone number. You use his name a lot for the rest of the page when you talk about the team and the previous adventure. But I don't care as much because I still don't know who he is.
At least as an experiment, consider separating "Being a detective was Tramp's true calling" from his desire to find his real family. At least in the sentence on page 7. One sounds like his passion or purpose and the other sounds like his wanting, not quite the same things. It's a lot for me to swallow that quickly. And at least for me, I didn't want to essentially be told that he solves other animals' problems in hopes that it will lead to him finding his own family. Maybe Tramp needs to know this. I just think it would be rather exhilarating to be shown this, both his wanting it and getting it, in the story itself rather than told what to look for. What a lovely over-arching mystery, this lost family!
I think that's the gist. Sorry for being more opinionated than usual! It's truly good to see Tramp back again, Bill, on another adventure that will hopefully lead him closer to his own origins and family.
It's so cool to watch you taking Tramp and company into the next story, Bill!
ReplyDeleteI think it's because you know these characters and this setting so well that you're able to tell this story with such texture. Some wonderful texturing, for example, occurs when Tramp notices everyone in the neighborhood being on alert since the Rodney case went down. This is a subtle and wonderful detail that a writer who has spent a lot time imganing this setting would conjure--a detail that has to do with the "rippling outward" from a big event (a pet-napping ring being busted) into the broader community. And then there's the cinematic opening--Tramp and his colleagues out together in the morning, united in purpose, distributing their business cards. As the characters sweep through the neighborhood, you move the camera from character to character, letting us meet them. Excellent.(Perhaps Tramp could "take the lead" a little more once they've all regrouped. He does take the lead, but it seems to take a few beats.)
Will this story work as a "stand alone"? For me, yes for the most part. I did share Dave's questions #1 and #4. These aren't major concerns, I think--they may be "passage level" concerns, which I'm thinking are a little smaller than "page level" concerns.
Alan brings up an interesting concern with the dog tears. My feeling is that I do want some true canine behavior to be what Officer Johnson notices and uses to determine that Tramp is feeling sad. What do dogs do when they're sad? I'm thinking of whimpering, moaning, groaning, pinching up their eyebrows, etc. At least I think. In such cases, when some research might give us a cool detail, I think we might as well go ahead and research. Also, the research may offer great words we can use to describe what it is we're trying to describe.
The scene in which Tramp and Officer Johnson bond over what drives them to pursue justice (loss seems to be what drives them both) is very touching. I wonder if this scene could even be pushed a little more, explored a little more. Dave mentioned that he felt it was a little unclear precisely what Tramp's passion/motivation was, and maybe you could communicate it through scene--through action and dialogue and Tramp's interaction with Officer Johnson. This scene has two crimefighters having a heart to heart--very awesome. And a "heart to heart" scene--in which characters are baring their hearts to each other--would be a great place for a powerful dramatization of the main character's passion.
Also, I like how Colin is such a great sidekick. He's positive and encouraging and loyal--very much the kind of kid that a dog wants with him on a caper!
As you tell this tale, trust your wonderful canine detective and his team--they've triumphed for you before, in their last caper! And made the antagonist or antagonists formidable--they should be a foe even more formidable that the pet-nappers from the last book! Challenge your hero to rise to even greater heights!
Thank you for sharing, Bill!
I think you've set up the beginning of Tramp's second adventure well, Bill. The card distribution plan is a great way to introduce all the animal characters and lay out the backstory. I also had the question about Mrs. Oliver - and one other, one page seven: "Tramp had heard of animals handling their own arrests and trials in NYC, but so far Minneapolis didn't have an animal justice system. At the time, it seemed like a long way off."
ReplyDeleteThese two lines make my ears perk up. "At the time, it seemed a long way off." - are you saying that at the time Tramp had heard of animals handling their own justice in NYC, this seemed like it wouldn't happen anytime soon in Minneapolis? OR, or you foreshadowing that this second case will take Tramp et al to NYC? i.e., that the "it" that seemed a long way off is NYC - geographic distance, not temporal distance?
I feel when I read it like you're implying the second, and getting my juices going. If you're not - if it's just about there not yet being an animal justice system in Minneapolis - I think you should delete the "At the time it seemed like a long way off." Because that sentence seems to set us up for something in NYC. IMHO. FWIW.
LOVE the moment between Tramp and Officer Johnson.
Does the card distribution need to be secret because Tramp & Co want the PETS to find the cards and put them in an appropriate spot for their owners to find them - not the owners to see the animals running around and then just toss the cards away? Maybe clarify this?
In Chapter Two, LOVE how Tramp is immediately inside his DOG BRAIN - engulfed in a tornado of odors, absolutely compelled to get the old lady out of the middle of the road. I, personally, loved "with a hand that looked like a road map with blue highways" but wonder if a dog would be so poetically observant. Does Tramp look at road maps a lot? LOVE, LOVE, LOVE that now he's looking for his sister, possibly, Phoebe. Extremely compelling.
LOVE the addition of Moriarty. For me there was the instant echo of Arthur Conan Doyle, although Moriarty was Holmes's nemesis, not an ally. That didn't bother me. Just seemed like a teeny tiny homage to the Master. Great character, and also I think that if he is observant, he could be really useful, because he'd be invisible - just the slightly damaged crackpot who's always there in the background. (I say that as a person whose first novel's theme is "We're all mad here," so I mean no disrespect to crackpots."
Bill, you've got a little funkiness going on in your tenses. I'll get you a copy with track changes tomorrow. I was in the Twin Cities July 9- 13 - at Hamline, at a funeral for a 58-year-old former neighbor, visiting with a friend whose 23-year-old son just tried to commit suicide for the second time - then in Lanesboro at Caren Stelson's adorable, serene, tranquil former B&B that she and her husband bought as a writing retreat/vacation home. Wrote 25 more pages of my almost finished 2nd novel (not the one with the guy in the car accident with the ghosts in his head) and benefited from Caren's brilliant insight - she really helped sharpen the ending. Ambulated up and down the Root River on bike and foot. Now trying to reorient myself to Real Life in the swampy Mid-Atlantic, but I hear it's become swampy in Minnesota now, too.
Darn, that should be a close paren after crackpots, not a close quote. My bad.
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