I’ve posted this on my site, but thought I’d try it out here in front of a true community of writers.  I’m seeking critique and suggestions on the opening four paragraphs of a story I’ve been working on for a while.  After this opening, the circular narrative structure goes back to a week prior to this, meets, and extends briefly just beyond it.  There is little reference to past events or any backstory, so I wanted to get it upfront and in minimal form at the beginning.  My question is if it drags out too long before the real start of the story.  (Other comments have been made about the excessive metaphors in these paragraphs as well.)

If you have a few minutes and are willing, I’d really appreciate any suggestions.  Thanks!

Big Tim Dawson

There was a reality about him, an earthy prominence that drew you to reach out and lay a hand on the rock of his arm or pat a mountainous shoulder.  His wife saw dawn in his rising each morning.  Always him first, the great gradual weight of his body leaving their bed like the ball of sun pushing through the horizon while the mattress resettled into the lonely flat of the delta. By the time she was fully awake, he’d be washed, dressed, and in their small kitchen where he’d have the scent of perked coffee mingling with the browning bread smell and the click of the toaster.

Big Tim Dawson had lived in Okeepa all his life.  He?d worked on the docks since the age of twelve, three days after his father died, unloading the freighters that came up and down the river, reloading them from the flat tin-roofed warehouses.  He?d learned to catch the catfish and black eel and gar, and the long-legged frogs and the crawfish.  He knew the swamplands as well as the banks of the river and could smell the subtle difference in seasons. 

Everybody in the small town on the Louisiana Gulf coast liked Tim Dawson.  He was six feet-four with the solid heaviness of a lighthouse, iron stanchions of legs and arms as strong as steel I-beams.  He had a voice that boomed thunder and a laugh that galed like the late August hurricane winds.  His wife Jessie in contrast was teeny, and bouncy as a buoy riding the waves around him. 

When the fourth storm of the season broke down the levee and the waters rushed through in the dead of a Saturday night, the sleep-dazed folk who had no time left to do else but climb up on their roofs, on Sunday afternoon looked down in despair to watch the body of Big Tim Dawson floating through the street like a great whale returning to sea.

Hi, Susan.  I was out of town or I’d have replied earlier.  I’m edified to see the boards, under Bud’s ever watchful eye, haven’t devolved into a haven of toxic abuse and inappropriate propositioning.  Anyhoo, I’m going to post a suggestion.  I’m not trying to write this for you, but sometimes I find it easier to show what I mean than find the words to explain.  Pretty damning trait for a writer, eh?  Here goes:

There was a reality about him, an earthy prominence.  His wife saw dawn in his rising each morning.  Always him first, the great gradual weight of his body leaving their bed.  By the time she was fully awake, he?d be washed, dressed, and in their small kitchen where he?d have the scent of perked coffee mingling with the browning bread smell and the click of the toaster.

When the fourth storm of the season broke down the levee, and the waters rushed through in the dead of a Saturday night, the sleep-dazed folk had no time left to do else but climb up on their roofs.  On Sunday afternoon, they looked down in despair to watch the body of Big Tim floating through the street like a great whale returning to sea.

I think, in a first chapter I’m working on now, that I have a similar issue to yours.  I have a compelling action to begin, but because of the overall tone, I really feel I need to begin with character.  Enough about me, though.  Let me try to explain the draft above.

I do think you may be diluting your metaphors by quantity, and some of them are very fine and deserve focus.  You’ll notice I scooped out the ones I thought were more common, and kept the ones especially that related to Tim’s reliability (as the dawn) and his community stature.  I especially like the lighthouse reference because it makes sense to a coastal man, emphasizes not only size (as the mountain comparisons did), but also his reliability and the fact he would be a natural refuge in times of trouble.  This makes the vision of his floating corpse far more frightening and disheartening, I think. 

I loved the phrase “earthy prominence” and thought it earned a pause for impact, and felt his wife seeing the dawn in his rising was so nice that the elaboration couldn’t improve it.  I also separated another long sentence that read a little awkwardly to me in the fourth paragraph to highlight the impact of the shocking sight, and called him simply Big Tim to emphasize the closeness of the community’s relationship with him.  I slightly reworded a couple other sentences for similar reasons, but always to highlight the lovely concreteness and rhythm you’ve got.  I switched paras 2 and 3, because I felt then we started with the personal descriptions of the man to his wife, then his community, then his activities, and then to plot action, creating a micro to macro flow rather than addressing his big body in 1 and returning to it in 3.  All of these are just hypothetical suggestions, and you’ll decide what you think about them.  But I’m intrigued by this story, and think in a few words, you’ve created a specific and poignant portrait of this lost man.

Why thank you!  For putting in the time and effort, and especially for making some wonderful suggestions as to the impact of the piece.  I do tend to get wordy, and while I’ve overcome a recent problem with lack of imagery, have perhaps swung too far the other way on metaphor--thanks to Poetry studies!  I’ve copied and pasted this into another doc file and will--as I’ve done with another excellent suggestion on my own weblog posting of this that affects voice and tone as well as pace--will try it on and see if it’s more comfortable (it seems to be already!) and proceed into the story re-reading it in this “tighter” pattern.  Thank you--you’ve been a big help.  We know when we’re antsy to press that “print” button yet when something makes us hesitate, there’s usually a real good reason.

I’m glad if you found it helpful.  As soon as I can get one of my short projects completed (tough, since I am also a multitasking scatterbrain), I’ll need your objective perspective treatment, too.

I am coming to this late, but thought I would chirp in.
I have to agree with your thought process, Henway. However, your solution still leaves Tim’s wife in the middle of the first graf separated from her in the end of the second. Also the town is separated the first line of the second graf from the first line of the third. I only point this out, though, Susan, I won’t rewrite it for you--that’s your job. You definitely have some nice metaphors.

I felt it lacked some tension and balance. The guy resembles a Greek god, not someone to mourn. There needs to be a let-up somewhere so that the reader can get their bearings, otherwise we’re swamped with encomia. The flow of the words is measured and the metaphors seem precise, but overall the passage is slightly monotonous. Just because his wife likes him, it doesn’t mean that we must also. For example, I felt that “the rock of his arm” was a bit much. It makes you feel like you’re obliged to admire. The danger is that without any choice in the matter, the reader will begin to see caricatures, rather than real people.

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but instead of just bolstering your confidence, I thought it might be novel to say something I really felt. I don’t think you’re being wordy, as you put it.