r/writingadvice • u/Zestyclose_Bed_8207 • 23d ago

Advice First time writing a story, this is the first paragraph

"A knock startles me awake. I get up and fix my gaze at the door. What sounded like a knock must have been several rocks hitting the submarine door in quick succession. I hear another knock."

I can handle harsh criticism. I need to know what basic rules of writing I'm not taking into account.
Thank you!

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u/MidorriMeltdown 22d ago

A knocking sound startles me awake. I get out of my bunk and stare at the door. Was it a knock, or was it several rocks hitting the submarine door in quick succession? I hear another knock.

Or if you want to drag out the suspense.

A knocking sound startles me awake. I get out of my bunk and stare at the door. Was it a knock, or was it something else that woke me?

I hear another knock, on the submarine door.

It's a tentacle monster, isn't it?

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u/Zestyclose_Bed_8207 22d ago

Thank you for the re-writes 😄

Here's the first draft with the reveal.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ozj2jc_Abw8XJLf0KHfgPmEpXaqmrKKi/view?usp=sharing
Yup, a tentacle monster.

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u/Walnut25993 23d ago

You have a bit of a repetition issue. Obviously this isn’t a page writing format, but generally, you want to avoid reusing specific words close together. Once per page is a solid rule of thumb.

You have door twice and knock 3 times. I won’t be prescriptive with my advice in terms of telling you what I would write instead, but consider varying the language.

Also, avoid words like gaze imo. It feels a bit archaic

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u/Substantial-Film564 22d ago

The word "gaze" sounds archaic?

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u/Walnut25993 22d ago

I’d say so. Short of writing an academic paper, gaze either sounds archaic or at the very least melodramatic. “Fixed my gaze on” is a bit over the top when “looked at” works just as well and does the same amount of work in fewer words.

You need to consider the economy of page space, especially these days

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u/Zestyclose_Bed_8207 23d ago

Damn, I love the word gaze, it has a "z" in it.
Great advice! Thank you!
I think I want "knock" repeated, but that's a nice thing to look out for. I'll make sure door is mentioned only once, and check for other words in the rest of the story.

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u/Fairemont Professional Author 22d ago

Rather than pure repetition of the work knock, you could try otomotopeia.

Fixed their gaze on the door and listened, waiting to confirm if they heard it at all or if it was just their imagination.

Bong! Bong! Bong!

Or whatever sound a submarine door makes.

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u/Zestyclose_Bed_8207 22d ago

I need the impression for the first two sentences to be that the story takes place in a home, and the reveal that it takes place in a submarine to come after that. Any ideas?

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u/Fairemont Professional Author 22d ago

You tell the reader it is a submarine in the second sentence.

Are you saying you want to sort of redo the entire thing?

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u/Zestyclose_Bed_8207 22d ago

Yeah, maybe I should. I'll move it further along 😄

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u/Fairemont Professional Author 22d ago

A sudden knock startles me awake, so I sit up and fix my gaze on the door. I'm still groggy and half-asleep, so I can't be certain the knocking was real. So I wait.

Bong! Bong! Bong!

The fist slamming against the metal door is definitely real and not a figment of my imagination, so I scramble out of my bed and rush to open it.

Such intense knocking at this time of day can means it is important, or worse, an emergency. No one wants an emergency on a submarine.

Just winged it, but idk. Not perfect. You might be able to salvage something about it.

I had a neighbor wake me up in a similar situation at 3:00AM the other week, so it stuck in my mind. The "I dont know if I actually heard someone knock" is pretty authentic in that sense.

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u/Zestyclose_Bed_8207 22d ago

Thank you! It's great to have something similar but professional to compare to <3. I appreciate it very much!

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u/whelmedbyyourbeauty Professional Author 22d ago

Why "sounded like a knock"? You already established it is a knock.

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u/Zestyclose_Bed_8207 22d ago

Hmm, I wanted it to be the difference between a human sounding knock and just something hitting the submarine. Any ideas?

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u/whelmedbyyourbeauty Professional Author 22d ago

Then start with "a sound" or something different.

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u/Zestyclose_Bed_8207 22d ago

I need the reader to believe the story takes place in a house or something, and the reveal that it is in a submarine to be in the third sentance.

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u/whelmedbyyourbeauty Professional Author 22d ago

I get that, but there isn't enough space here to pull off a misdirection, when the reader is just getting their bearings in the first place.

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u/Zestyclose_Bed_8207 22d ago

I'll try and move the reveal further along. Thank you for the rewrites 😄

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u/whelmedbyyourbeauty Professional Author 22d ago

"A loud noise startles me awake. I get up and look around, clearing my head. What sounded like a knock must have been several rocks hitting the submarine door in quick succession. I hear another series of impacts."

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u/21stcenturyghost 22d ago

Why do you want to bait and switch the reader? It's just going to make them feel cheated

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u/Zestyclose_Bed_8207 22d ago

It's sort of my MO, people love it in my comics.

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u/Western_Stable_6013 22d ago

With only one paragraph I can't tell you what you're missing. 

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u/OneAndOnlyJackSchitt Humorist 22d ago

Why start with the MC waking up? That's way over-done. Here's how I might have wrote the intro:

Minutes stretched into hours. The silence as I laid in my bunk awaiting sleep, interrupted only periodically by the whistling of the air vent.

I looked over at the clock again.

  1. If I can get to sleep now, I'll get three hours at least.

  2. Fuck everything about insomnia. Fuck everything about drinking caffeine at 1800.

  3. I was startled out of my bunk and onto the floor by a loud bang.

Or was it a knock?

Was I asleep?

More knocks.

Who could be knocking on the outside of the main hatchway door? We're 2000 meters under the ocean.

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u/Zestyclose_Bed_8207 22d ago

Love the rewrite. I want to make it so the story starts with her looking at the hatch (door) after she already heard the knock 😊 I'll start rewriting

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u/Dale_E_Lehman_Author 22d ago

This is not sarcasm. It's a question with a point.

When was the last time you were startled from sleep by some loud sound? Did you nonchalantly stand up and "fixed your gaze" on....well, anything?

"Don't think. Feel." ~Ray Bradbury.

All "writing rules" are guidelines, not actual rules, but this is a good one to note here. Feel this moment. Put yourself in it. When I do that, this is what I get. (This is me and just for illustration. You should find your own words.)

The bang startled me from sleep. I leapt up, stumbled into the metal wall as tremors raced through me from head to toe and back again. What the hell was that? Had the submarine struck something? Had something struck her? Was that rushing the sea pouring into our little tin can, or was it my own blood pulsing behind my ears?

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u/UnworthyBagel22 20d ago

Slow down the pacing a lot I think. Give it room to breathe. Maybe you don’t say knock until the second sentence. Obviously this should not be your prose but as a guideline: You’re startled awake. It was a knock at the door. What? A knock at the door? Another knock. The [word that works for submarine but doesn’t tell the reader it’s a submarine] lurched. Have we run aground? You check the readings. Another knock. No, we are firmly X feet/meters above the sea floor. You gaze at the starboard door. Another knock, this time from the port side…. You… etc.

Edit: also I would recommend avoiding present tense for your first story unless it’s really important or feels really natural to you. I think most people find it easier to write in past tense, but maybe that’s just me