SUFP Challenge, Applying Lessons Learned

What's the point, besides fame, glory, and winning, of Nathan's Stupendously Ultimate First Paragraph Challenge if you don't learn anything? And what better than your own work to apply those lessons learned?

Ladies and gentlemen, what you are witnessing is real. Your eyes do not deceive you. Below is my actual, definite, very real submission to the SUFP Challenge. Comment #458 in fact. Strangely enough, I did not win. My genius must have been overlooked. Let us examine the entry and see if we can improve upon perfection.

“Molly Anne McCoy!”

That was my name. It had a nice ring to it, I thought, as I rolled over on my side and wriggled under the covers. I inhaled deeply, taking in the earthy scent of soot and coal that was ingrained into my blanket.

My little two-year-old sister, sleeping right next to me in the narrow bed, kept kneeing me in the ribs. I inched a little to the right to give her some room, coming dangerously close to falling out onto the floor.

A moment later, the entire house rattled as a train lumbered by. Being no more than thirty feet away from the tracks, our house did that a lot. I drifted easily back to sleep, the comforting rumble of the locomotive like a lullaby to my ears.

There it is. Ta-da! Were your socks knocked off? Were you blinded by the sheer literary brilliance of my writing? No? OK, let's work on that.

When looking over the contest entries, I noticed certain things that didn't work. I'm going to list them below, but feel free to list anything you, the readers, can think of in the comments.

1. Awkward metaphors.
2. Awkward language usage.
3. Use of cliches.
4. Too much information given to the reader all at once.
5. A surprise twist that fell flat due to insufficient characterization/information overload.

First question, did my opening suffer from any of these problems? Maybe a bit of #1 and #2, with most of the issues being in that third paragraph. This is one of those times where I wish I could apply a red marker to the computer screen, but that would probably damage my monitor, plus it'd look silly, so let me re-post the opening and highlight what I think the problem areas are:

“Molly Anne McCoy!”

That was my name. It had a nice ring to it, I thought, as I rolled over on my side and wriggled under the covers. I inhaled deeply, taking in the earthy scent of soot and coal that was ingrained into my blanket. (Let me try taking out "earthy." I think it's unnecessary. Otherwise I like this paragraph.)

My little two-year-old sister (If she's two-years-old, she's probably going to be little, let me strike that too.), sleeping right next to me in the narrow bed, kept kneeing kneed me in the ribs. I inched a little to the right to give her some room, coming dangerously close to falling out onto the floor. (I don't think this paragraph is bad either, but I tossed out a couple of words I felt were redundant and tightened the language.)

A moment laterAs I shut my eyes, the entire house rattled as a train lumbered bytraveled past. Being no more than thirty feet away from the tracks, our house did that a lot. I drifted easily back to sleep, the comforting rumble of the locomotive like a lullaby to my ears. (THIS is the problem paragraph. I don't like the "a moment later" transition. I'm not sure if "lumbered" really works to describe the train as it goes by and "like a lullaby to my ears" may not work as a metaphor. I like it, but I know at least one of my readers who doesn't.)

All right, it's not perfect, but here is my re-worked opening. I'm going to take a look at it tomorrow and make some more changes once I can look at things with fresh eyes.

“Molly Anne McCoy!”

That was my name. It had a nice ring to it, I thought, as I rolled over on my side and wriggled under the covers. I inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of soot and coal that was ingrained into my blanket.

My two-year-old sister, sleeping next to me in the narrow bed, kneed me in the ribs. I inched a little to the right to give her some room, coming dangerously close to falling out onto the floor.

As I shut my eyes, the entire house rattled as a train traveled past. Being no more than thirty feet away from the tracks, our house did that a lot. I drifted easily back to sleep, the comforting rumble of the locomotive like a lullaby to my ears.

Hrm, still not right, but I'll work on it further in the afternoon...

Update:

Once more, with feeling! Changes are in red.

“Molly Anne McCoy!”

That was my name. It had a nice ring to it, I thought, as I rolled over on my side and wriggled under the covers. I inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of soot and coal that was ingrained into my blanket.

My two-year-old sister, sleeping next to me in the narrow bed, kneed me in the back. I inched a little to the right to give her some room, coming dangerously close to falling out onto the floor.

As I balanced on the edge of the bed, the entire house rattled and shook. Being no more than thirty feet away from the railroad tracks, our house did that a lot. I drifted easily back to sleep, the comforting rumble of the locomotive like a lullaby to my ears.

There. Better!... I think.