Under the microscope:

Author and lecturer James McCreet applies his forensic criticism to a reader’s first 300 words

A reader’s first 300 words critiqued

Liam Tullberg graduated with an MA in Professional Writing from Falmouth University in 2007 and has been writing on and off since. He’d like to get back into a regular writing routine and is working on a collection of short stories.

Mother was right,1 Agata thinks,2 kneeling on the floor and restocking the mini-bar in room 334.3 English people really do drink a lot.4 Agata5 positions the tiny bottles carefully, making sure all the labels face out neatly like6 she’s seen their full-size counterparts in the supermarkets. It’s unnecessary, perhaps,7 but she takes pride in making up the rooms as she’d like to find them.8 Not that she could afford to stay somewhere like The Manor Hotel, of course,9 which has bedrooms bigger than the entire tiny flat she shares with four other girls on the outskirts of Hammersmith.10

With the bedroom just how it should be, she heads into the en-suite and pulls on her rubber gloves to make the sink sparkle and the shower gleam;11 as she scoops a tangle of long blonde hair out of the plughole,12 she recalls that yesterday the hair she retrieved13 was equally long, but a chestnut brown.14 Maybe the woman staying here has dyed her hair, Agata thinks.15 Out of curiosity,16 she checks her job sheet and sees that the room is a five night17 booking for a single male occupant. A girlfriend, she thinks.18 Or a one night stand.19 Maybe both. She smiles to herself.20 Two months into the job and she’s discovering more about the human condition than she’s learnt anywhere else in her 19 years.21

She’s polishing the mirror above the sink - avoiding sight of her sweaty reflection -22 and listening to one of the ‘Learn English’ tapes that Mira leant her23 when she becomes aware of a presence in the doorway beside her.24 She turns and is startled by the sight of a man she assumes to be the guest of this room.25 He is tall - at least a foot above Agata -26and dressed smartly in a suit. There is a grave look on his movie-star face.27

It’s an interesting gambit to open with this in media res reference to a mother we know nothing about. It puts us directly into the thoughts of the narrator’s perspective and is a good focussing technique. We need to read further to find out why mother was right. Just one minor problem: beginning the piece with reference to mother we subsequently hear nothing about and on a subject that Agata must already have decided for herself (see no. 4) means that the impact of the opening is minimised by its lack of relevance or significance over the subsequent words.

There’s something not quite right about putting the name before the verb. It’s perfectly correct but doesn’t seem natural. Maybe putting the verb closer to the thought itself is a more intuitive order.

The room number is a nice note of specificity. It probably means nothing to the reader but it’s relevant to Agata and helps contextualise her world.

This is the mother’s opinion. But if Agata has been doing the job for two months, she must have restocked a lot of mini-bars and come to the same conclusion herself. So why bring up the mother?

Do we need to use her name again? Using ‘she’ won’t confuse the reader because nobody else is there restocking the bar. Moreover, using the pronoun helps to erase the author from the scene and make this more about the character’s thoughts.

‘Like’ is too imprecise. It could mean ‘as if’ but what we really mean is ‘in the manner of’ or ‘similar to’. ‘As’ would be better.

Is it necessary or not? The equivocation of ‘perhaps’ is useful in the sense that we’re experiencing her thoughts and thoughts are often like this, but it raises a question the reader shouldn’t be asking because it’s not relevant. Either she’s been told to do this or she hasn’t.

In fact, it’s not necessary. It’s her choice. This is a useful insight into her personality.

As in no. 7, the ‘of course’ could be Agata’s internal voice, but it’s not necessary to the meaning. Indeed, the rest of the sentence makes the obviousness clear.

A useful bit of background information about Agata’s life. It’s deftly dropped into the sentence without interrupting the flow.

There’s no reason to use a semi-colon here, though it’s not wrong. For a clear break like this, simply use a full stop.

This is the second (longish) sentence in a row to begin with a subordinate clause. It’s a kind of syntax that makes sentences more complex than they need to be and therefore less readable.

Do we need ‘she retrieved?’ The context is clear that we’re still talking about the plughole. Also, the verb ‘retrieve’ suggests the act of reclaiming something purposefully left there. One retrieves a pair of shoes left at the cobblers for repairs.

The comma is not necessary here. It’s correct, but it fractures the flow for no good reason.

Cut ‘Agata thinks.’ We established at the outset that this is all Agata so the author no longer needs to show their hand with such housekeeping measures. This is known as ‘free-indirect discourse’ – when the characters’ thoughts are related directly without signposts from the author. It’s the most powerful way to get inside a character.

Why else would she check her sheet if not through curiosity? Let the context do its work; don’t second-guess the reader.

‘Five-night’ should be hyphenated. It’s a compound adjective.

The meaning is clear, but the juxtaposition of ‘male occupant’ and then ‘a girlfriend’ is mildly jarring. Since we’re seeing Agata’s deduction it’d be more intuitive as: ‘A girlfriend, then.’

‘One-night stand.’ Another compound adjective.

The choppy sentences are good. They replicate the fragmentary nature of thought. But is it necessary to add ‘to herself?’ She’s clearly alone.

I’d cut ‘anywhere else’ because life experience is not limited only to physical or geographical location. Revealing her age is economically and subtly done.

Avoiding her reflection is a wonderful touch that rings true. It’s also gratifying not to read the hackneyed technique of having a character look in a mirror just to describe them to the reader. The aside, however is separated by hyphens rather than dashes.

It would have been good to know earlier that she’s been listening to an English class all along (or did she start only in the bathroom?) You could have a bit of fun interspersing the narrative with snippets of what she’s hearing.

The meaning is not clear. We assume she’s not standing in the doorway herself if she’s cleaning the mirror. Where is the man? In the bathroom doorway or the room doorway? And isn’t he more behind her than beside her

Surely she was startled when she became aware of the presence rather than when she turned.

It’s an economical bit of description, but hyphens again instead of dashes.

Again, I like the concision of the description. We’re not given much detail, but I think every reader will fill in the blanks.