Flogometer for WD: would you keep reading?

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Tell me something, please
What does FtQ do for you (if anything)? How does it help you (if at all)? Please email me with your feedback. And thanks.

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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, 12-point type, 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.

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WD has sent a prologue that he’s not happy with and a first chapter. The first 16 lines of the prologue:

Our story starts in 1960; that seems about right. Or it could be 1961 or 1962 or 1959.

And our starting place? It's a small two-bedroom house that sits on a small lot on a quiet street. An oak tree grows out of the center of the front lawn, and an apple tree grows in the back.

Just a few tree-lined, red brick blocks away is the main street of the borough, its few blocks the home of various stores, a diner, the library, the post office, the fire house, the police station, a few bars, a movie theater, a gas station and some small office spaces. Many of the buildings are three story, with their businesses on the ground floor and apartments above.

A trolley line connects the borough to the nearby city.

The house and the borough and the city might be in Ohio or Indiana, or maybe Illinois. Or Pennsylvania? Yes, that sounds right. Let's call our little borough Laurelwood, population 17,000 or so, and place it on the eastern shore of the Susquehanna River, just a few miles north of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

And who are the people in our story? Allen and Mary Wheeler and their two boys, Kevin and David: ages 30, 28, 8 and 5, for now. And a few friends and neighbors and... well, we'll meet them all soon enough.

And what season is it? Why, it's the season that matters the most. It's Summer, of course!

And the first chapter starts out this way:

In the house, in the smaller of the two bedrooms, the lights were out and the boys were in their beds, soon to be asleep for the night, tired from a long day's play in their yard, and in friends' yards, and in the nearby woods that ran deeper than the young boys knew.

“Hey, David,” Kevin's whispered in the dark, “are you still awake?”

“Ya. Are you?” whispered five-year-old David.

“Wow, is that a dumb question!”

David let the insult pass. He didn't know why his brother, older by almost four years, thought his question was dumb when it was the same question he'd been asked.

“When I was out on the front porch this afternoon,” Kevin said, “I heard Mom and Dad talking in the living room about maybe going to Robert Hill Park tomorrow. I think they want to surprise us, so don't let on like I told you.”

“What's Robert Hill Park?”

“You were there before, but you must not remember.”

“So what is it?”

“It's a big place with lots of rides and food and stuff, and I know all about it,” Kevin said with big-brother authority.

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Not for this reader
The prologue? Just information that we could have gotten later, woven into a story. If you want to set the scene in a prologue, it needs to be a real scene, with action, a plot, and tension. For me, this gave me no reason to turn the page.

And you already know my problem with the first chapter opening—no tension. I skimmed through the rest of the chapter, and while there’s some nice writing, it’s all about a family getting up in the morning and going to an amusement park. The only bit of tension came at page 14, when the littlest boy sees a roller coaster in action for the first time and it scares him.

To my eye, this is an extended case of “throat-clearing.” There is good writing, but I suspect that this story grows out of the author’s actual experiences in some way, and he is revisiting that time here. But story is about desires frustrated, taking risks, jeopardy, conflict, struggle. In these 14 pages I didn’t see much of that.

If something happens in the amusement park to little David that changes his life, start there. You can fill in who Mom and Dad and Brother are later, as well as the time. And, apparently, the place doesn’t really matter since the prologue tells us it could be any of several places.

The tone in the opening is that of a kindly old storyteller with kids at his feet. The reality is that your first page is confronting a brower in a bookstore or a weary agent. As agent Lori Perkins says on her blog,

“Your novel has to grab me by the first page, which is why we can reject you on one page.”

That’s the standard your first page has to meet. And you’d better be darned tough in your assessment of how well it does the job of hooking the reader.

Comments, anyone?

For what it's worth,

Ray

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Donations go to the cost of hosting FtQ.

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Public floggings available. If I can post it here,

1. send 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter 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.
2. Please format your submission as specified at the front of this post.
3. Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
4. And, optionally, permission to use it as an example in a book if that's okay.
5. If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
6. If you rewrite while you wait you turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

ARCHIVES

© 2008 Ray Rhamey

Comments

[Jon]

Believe it or not (hard on folks as I am), these are both "yes"es from me. Conditional "yes"es, at any rate. I imagine this is going to be a litfic book, not a thriller or a detective story or any such. If that's the intention, the pieces get a yes; if it's not, then no.

The prologue felt like the Narrator from Our Town, an informal vibe, a plush and beaten-up couch with the comfortable spots worn in. I'd be happier if it were a chapter 1; I liked the voice so much that I wanted more of it, and "prologue" implies that we're going to leave it behind.

The next to last posted paragraph actually broke the mood by reminding me that I was being told a story, if that makes sense. I'd find some other way of getting into the characters, or just eliminate the paragraph. Other than that, for me, the prologue was note-perfect. I can hear Jim Dale reading the audiobook version.

The chapter 1 segment abandons the narrator's voice, which is a shame.* I'd trim the "soon to be asleep for the night" as redundant, particularly in a paragraph 1. The line "that ran deeper than the young boys knew" is a nice one.

The dialog -is- a little talky, and Kevin in particular seems a little more adult in his sentence structure ("When I was out..." paragraph in particular) than I'd imagine is accurate for his age. But I really liked the way David was confused and Kevin was know-it-all; that felt authentic.

I'd read on, wanting to see where it went.

That said, by the end of chapter 1 I'd like to see it go -somewhere-. It doesn't have to be the eventual direction of the story, but somewhere.

In the page following this, I'd expect to see a Want set up for one of the two boys, to bind me to them in a way that a charming narrative voice can't maintain for an entire book. But I'd certainly turn the page to see if I -did- bind to them.

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*note that I'm not suggesting the narrator stay in every scene; that would get old. But making appearances from time to time, particularly in chapter beginnings, would have made me happy... perhaps more frequently in the first 1/4 to 1/5 of the book, then fading out as the characters took over? Just a thought.

[Deana]

At least it was different from what we see so much of nowadays.

But as Ray pointed out, that prologue wasn't a prologue. It was just a huge chunk of back-story tacked on at the front. Plus it was just too much like listening to Mr. Rogers.

Think of your story like a train. What goes first in a story should be the ENGINE. The pulling force. Get inside your POV's head and pull us into an exciting, tense scene where a lot is at stake.

I think if you learned to do that, you would definitely succeed and this story could be good.

[Jon]

Deanna, Ray, I respect both your opinions greatly. But at the same time, may I quote something briefly?

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Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors. The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.

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Now, that said, the last line on page 1 (current "10th anniversary edition," on Amazon), is:

The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that

Which DOES support the "have a hook" on the first page bit quite nicely. But when I picked up Harry Potter at a friend's recommendation, the first two paragraphs were the sell for me, not the last - the voice, evoking Roald Dahl as it did, was a HUGE sell for me. I'd have kept reading just to keep hearing that voice in my head.

THAT said, Ms. Rowlings did go through quite a number of rejections before HP found a home; on the other hand, who doesn't?

[Deana]

Jon, not quite sure what you're getting at with the HP comparison.

Are you trying to say that the current flog is so similar to HP that it should succeed as is?

[Ray Rhamey]

A couple of thoughts: the first is that liking or not liking an opening page is entirely subjective. It's totally possible that a first page could be compelling not because of tension but because of an incredibly seductive voice.

I think that an agent who represented literary novels could, indeed, turn the page on this one.

Me, I wouldn't take the chance if it were possible to have my voice and an intriguing story element on the first page.

Why not? In this case, and in every case that I've seen, it's possible. Considering the competitiveness of the publishing marketplace, I think it's smart to start strong, and a strong start, IMO, always involves story.

[Jon]

Not to turn this into the Jon show, but... eh, probably too late anyway.

What I'm saying is that It Depends. HP took, what, 30-some agents (more?) before someone loved it? I didn't post the HP sample to say "this is like HP," but rather to say "this has a strong voice, like HP, and that may engage an agent/editor in a slushpile of same-ish beginnings, in the same way that it engaged me.

While you're both right in that a strong beginning is preferable, I think the definition of "strong" depends on who's reading it. For me, the voice in the prolog clicked; I found myself trusting the narrator and wanting to be told the story they were telling. For me, that fits the bill of engagement. For you two, not so much. You're not wrong; neither am I.

I think there's a push to least-common-denomenator 'This Will Work'ism in workshops in general, and there's certainly validity to the conclusions they draw. Certainly most of the books that are published fit this criteria, and as more books fit it, readers come to expect it, and thus more books are written to fit it. There's nothing -wrong- with it, but I'm hesitant to tell an author with a strong voice that that voice won't work; it might not hit blockbuster, but... well, it might, too; see Potter, Harold.

All that said, Ray's not wrong in saying that a strong, seductive voice paired with a "hook" of some sort might improve the book's chances. For me, the voice was enough, but it won't be for others (such as you two :) )

Okay, I'll stop now so other folks don't get intimidated that I'll go after them :). I just wanted to be sure that the author wasn't discouraged from pursuing a voice-driven narrative if that's what s/he feels the story requires.

[Sheila]

Jon, I'm beginning to think you are a contrarian. Which is a good thing. Really.

I think that the HP lines you quoted, while you commend the voice, there is also a hint of something interesting to come. "They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious-" seems to imply that they will be. And that makes the reader want to read on and find out what it is.

Here, in the prologue, there's no such hint. And while I agree that voice can carry an opening (for me, a good example is the first page of Jim The Boy-nothing happens but a boy waking up on his birthday, but the writing hooked me.) Here, the voice wasn't special enough to pull me onward.

While I was a "no" for the prologue, I would have read more of the first chapter. I have three boys, and I love books that give me a glimpse into the inner workings of the mysterious boy brain and the relationship between brothers.

Good luck!

[mai]

I liked the prologue's POV and style. I thought more economy would make it more powerful, though. It seemed too show-offy, style-wise.

In the chapter opening, the language was pretty much under control. The author's style generally created a feeling of freedom and energy, for me. But these two paragraphs...

"...David let the insult pass. He didn't know why his brother, older by almost four years, thought his question was dumb when it was the same question he'd been asked.

"“When I was out on the front porch this afternoon,” Kevin said, “I heard Mom and Dad talking in the living room about maybe going to Robert Hill Park tomorrow. I think they want to surprise us, so don't let on like I told you.”..."

...broke the fine, light style by being too wordy again. And the older brother's dialog, in the second paragraph above, is too adult -- if he's young enough to confide in his 5-year-old brother, he's not old enough to speak that maturely, I think.

Both sections created tension between apparent innocence and a sense of upcoming adventure, danger, and/or mystery, that I liked a lot.

My biggest quibble was with the prolixity of the prologue, which not only seems unnecessary, but also self-defeating, in terms of effective story-telling and expression of the author's style.

Because I liked the style and the subtle tension, I'd have turned the page on both sections. The style was the bait, and the tension was the hook, for me.

[mai]

Putting my comment about prolixity on the line, here is the prologue, cut almost in half, with a little bit of punctuation changed, and two words added. The style is pretty much preserved. For me, this heavy pruning allows the prologue to lead into the story more strongly.

- - - -

Our story starts in 1960; that seems about right.

Our starting place? A two-bedroom house on a quiet street. An oak tree grows on the front lawn, an apple tree grows out back.

A few blocks away is the main street, home of stores, a diner, library, post office, fire house, police station, bars, movie theater, gas station and small office spaces. Many buildings are three story, with businesses on the ground floor. A trolley connects the borough to the nearby city.

The borough city might be in Pennsylvania. Let's call it Laurelwood, population 17,000, on the eastern shore of the Susquehanna River, a few miles north of Harrisburg.

Who are the people in our story? Allen and Mary Wheeler, their boys, Kevin and David, and a few friends and neighbors.

And it's the season that matters the most, Summer, of course!

[Norm]

I agree with Jon about the prologue. I think the first chapter suffered from the loss of the narrator.

The prologue's narrator had the kindly but somewhat absentminded elder setting the stage. The fun in that is that the narrator's facts cannot be taken at face value all the time, but the truth of the story isn't in doubt. It did have that Roald Dahl vibe going a little didn't it?