The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective. Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.
What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, etc.) there should be about 16 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page).
Some homework. Before sending your novel's opening, you might want to read these two FtQ posts: Story as River and Kitty-cats in Action. That'll tell you where I'm coming from, and might prompt a little rethinking of your narrative.
This is a YA paranormal novel, and the flogging is for Nicole. Here are the first 16 lines:
A Gnome Takes A Club To My Knuckles
Until I lived at Helping Hand, my life was pretty normal. There was school, baseball games, friends, and the usual stuff. The plantation changed it all.
Angel, one of my friends there, said that the plantation was on the between. Things crossed over like in the Bermuda Triangle. Sometimes
-- as with the disappearance of Buddy Knoll-- the between just sucked someone or something into itself as if it was hungry.Mick Grady
#My name's Michael Grady, but my friends call me Mick. I'm fourteen. Aunt Liza brought me to The Helping Hand Plantation on a Thursday afternoon in early June. Helping Hand is a temporary place for children who have a family, but their family can't take care of them for a while. Aunt Liza had lost her job, so I had to live there until she got back on her feet.
I was assigned to the North Swamp Dorm and my dorm mother, Ms. Porter, led me up a winding staircase and down a long hallway.
"All the children, except for Tate Thunder, are on a field trip to New Orleans today," she said, her shoes tapping a beat on the hardwood floor. "Tate hurt his leg playing basketball, so he's around somewhere." She stopped outside a door. "You're in here."
I stepped in and Ms. Porter disappeared down the hall. There were six twin beds, separated by a nightstand
-- three were on the right wall, three on the left. I spotted my luggage
No go for me.
I'm sure many will disagree (remember how subjective this is), but I
wasn't compelled to turn the page. What, you might ask, stopped me,
considering that enticing tidbit at the top about a kid's disappearance
and the between? And what about the gnome?
Because that was the only really interesting stuff on the page. After the narrator told me (didn't show me) some information, we got into an entirely mundane arrival of a boy at a temporary housing site. Yes, he has difficulties, what with his Aunt Liza and all, but there doesn't seem to be much jeopardy attached.
I guess that, for me, this lacked the promise of a well-told story. First was the authorial intrusion to tell me things about this place that, I think, would have better been discovered. Second was the lack of tension in what followed.
It's not that this writer can't do that. In fact, she did, just a
sentence or two beyond this opening page. Cutting and rearranging just
a little, here's what she had. Imagine the manuscript starting with
this:
There were six twin beds, separated by a nightstand
-- three on the right wall, three on the left. I spotted my luggage on the right middle bed. Fear crawled inside me and-- just for a minute-- I pictured myself stuck in this place until I turned eighteen."No," I said. Hot tears teased the corners of my eyes.
I sat on the bed next to my luggage. That's when a tiny man jumped on the bed and beat on my hand with a small wooden club.
Now, this was just 6 lines of narrative, and I'm a whole lot more hooked than I was by the original 18. All that stuff about where he is and why he's there can be handled by slipping it in with bits and pieces as this interesting scene develops.
Look at all the story questions raised in these 6 lines:
- Where is the boy?
- Why is he there?
- How could he be stuck there?
- Why does it make him cry?
- And what's with the tiny man whacking him on the hand?
This narrative even lets you know that the narrator is a boy under
18 without telling us so. The only area for improvement, at first
glance, is the reference to "tiny" and "small wooden club." Tiny could
be better defined
That's when a tiny man no taller than a coffee pot jumped on the bed and beat on my hand with a wooden club the size of a spoon.
My advice, Irene, is to skip all the explanations and get to the STORY. Find a way, with dialogue and internal monologue, to weave the rest in.
Comments, anyone?
For what it's worth,
Ray
Public floggings available. If I can post it here,
- send 1st chapter or prologue as an attachment (cutting and pasting and reformatting from an email is a time-consuming pain) and I'll critique the first couple of pages.
- Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
- And, optionally, permission to use it as an example in a book if that's okay.
ARCHIVES .
© 2007 Ray Rhamey
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