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.
Julie has sent a prologue and first chapter. How does each work for you? The first 16 lines of the prologue:
In his first life, he’d been Greek, but his skins dark tone wasn’t the result of heritage; it was a reflection of his ideals. The chaos he adored had seeped into his appearance and turned his skin the rich color of a festered sore, or malignant cancer. In this life, he was Necroti.
Alkibiades idled in a black sedan and watched as sunrise peeked over the houses to outline the faint green mist of new leaves. He checked his watch; he had waited and planned for three millennium to begin his revenge. He trembled with anticipation; his knuckles shone white where he gripped the steering wheel.
At the bottom of the hill, a small boy in his bright red coat and Superman backpack waved to his mother and cut across the yard to the street. He dragged his feet through the wet grass to make oversized footprints in the dew. Before he crossed to his bus stop, the child carefully looked both ways.
Alkibiades tried to remember being a boy but there was nothing. He had been Necroti for three thousand years. He’d earned the right when he’d discarded the last remnants of his soul. He began to chant words no human had heard in living memory. He gunned the engine, still chanting, and headed for the small target. The impact barely made a thump as the powerful car hit the boy. He was thrown into the air to fall in a lifeless heap. The mother’s mournful wail rang out.
And now the first chapter:
Both worked for meThe bomb shone with symmetric beauty. Red, white, yellow, and blue wires entwined through the C-4, the shapes almost geometric. Arturo focused on the colored lines. There had to be a pattern. If he snipped the wrong wire, Kansas City would explode. So would he, along with two million other people.
Arturo wiped a trickle of sweat from his brow, and took a deep breath. Breathe in with the calm air, out with the stress. He settled the controller more firmly in his real hands. The cyber hands on screen mimicked his movements. His mission was to save humanity he couldn’t fail.
His fingers flew over the buttons on the game controller. They moved with smooth precision between the hundreds of colored wires on the explosive device.
“I own you, man,” Arturo crowed into the head mic. Excitement filled him. ExCIA had beaten him at Homeland Security, everyday for almost a month. It had been one of the most frustration-filled months of his life. At last, he’d get his revenge.
“Heh, you think you do, Junior,” the hollow voice of ExCIA echoed through the headset. “You teenagers think you rule the world, but we old guys still have it going on.”
Arturo had been trying his best to defuse the cyber-bombs ExCIA had created. He had to admit his friend was amazing. He was a real-life ex-agent; one of the few adults he could tolerate (snip)
Despite my usual antipathy for prologues, this one (which was only a part of a page longer) was interesting and, even more important, when I got to chapter 1 I knew that this was no ordinary thriller.
There was some missing punctuation (skins – skin’s; save humanity he couldn’t = save humanity; he couldn’t) and an adjective or two that I’d prune away, but the writing is good, and the story questions raised provocative. Nice work, Julie.
Comments, anyone?
For what it’s worth.
Ray
Your generosity helps defray the cost of hosting FtQ.
Public floggings available. If I can post it here,
- 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.
- Please format your submission as specified at the front of this post.
- 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.
- If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
- If you rewrite while you wait you turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.
© 2009 Ray Rhamey
For me, no and no. Couldn't get past the first paragraph of the prologue, and started to get interested in the first chapter until the "cyber hands" and "game controller".
Cut the first paragraph of the prologue and I might be in.
Posted by: pwstrain | January 16, 2009 at 06:54 AM
Neither is for me, alas.
Both were -written- fine on a sentence level, more or less.
The prologue was for me too cartoonish. That's the only way I can describe it; it reads like a comic-book villain. If that's the vibe the author was going for, it worked, but it still didn't draw me in.
The bomb-disarming...
The first paragraph got me giggling - I'm pretty sure disarming real bombs has nothing to do with geometric patterns, and then... the entirety of Kansas City? Really?
Then it occurred to me (paragraph 3) that it might be a video game. I spent the rest of the read wondering if it was.
By the fourth paragraph, I figured out that it -was- a game (not in paragraph 3, because I know there's been research into using video game controllers to control robots)... but by that time, I realized I didn't care at all about the character.
I don't know what to recommend here, but this, though competently written, just plain didn't do it for me. Sorry!
Good luck!
Posted by: Jon | January 16, 2009 at 07:13 AM
Sorry, both no. Mechanically almost sound but it all felt vaguely like something I've already seen in some movie a year or two ago. Nothing was subtle, no well-planted cues, it was all obvious setup. IMO while it might sell with some polishing, what I've seen wouldn't rise to the level of breakthrough. The writer is skilled so I guess it just depends on what the writer's intentions are. If you're satisfied with "B" list, fine. As for the mother who didn't walk her little boy to the bus-stop...sorry, no sympathy from this reader.
Posted by: Deana | January 16, 2009 at 07:24 AM
I liked them both, and would have read more. I found them both very compelling, and would read on to see how they mesh together. I loved how the bomb-diffusing turned into a video game.
Well done.
Posted by: Sheila | January 16, 2009 at 07:46 AM
I am surprised at the number of people who said no to these passages. In my opinion the writer has started off well in both the prologue and the first chapter.
There are always things that we would like to change, but its good writing, and it creates both tension and further story questions.
Posted by: Scott V | January 16, 2009 at 10:35 AM
Scott, I, too, am a little surprised at the results so far. I'm thinking it's a "flavor" thing, not a writing thing. For example, I love cauliflower but don't like mushrooms, so don't serve me the latter. Nonetheless, I can appreciate the skill with which a good cook creates a mushroom dish.
This is a certain genre of fantasy fiction that people may not care for. But for purposes of this blog, the comments ought to focus on the storytelling, not the flavor. Many agents might not be huge fans of a certain genre, but if a writer presents one in a gripping and salable way, I don't think they'd be so quick to reject.
Posted by: Ray Rhamey | January 16, 2009 at 10:59 AM
FWIW, Ray, I like alt-reality fantasy quite a bit, so that's not my complaint at all.
On a sentence level, the piece worked for me, but on a broader 'does this feel right' level it didn't.
Examples: someone planning revenge for 3 millenia. Really? 3 millenia? He couldn't have found an opportunity in millenium 2 year 446 day 37?
He began to chant words that no human had heard in living memory. Really? That's 110ish years at the outside. Which, y'know, isn't so long for someone working ancient magic.
This isn't a knock on the writer - it's just examples of what I was talking about when I said it read as cartoonish to me.
Another problem in the prologue is that the Necroti is emphatically -not- human, but in the writing if the character wasn't telling us he wasn't human at every step, we'd have no way to know, if that makes sense.
The net effect is a sense of unbelievability, for me.
And I've already commented on what didn't work for me in the chapter 1 segment. If it was clear from the beginning that it was a game, and the sympathy for the character was built into the character's success at the game, then it might have had a chance for me... but instead, I was worrying about a city, and then it was only a game. (Substitute "only a dream" and you'll see why this is distancing.)
At root, we were given two characters, in a story constructed in such a way as to lead us to particularly care about neither of them. In that light, the fact that folks didn't care for the story doesn't surprise me.
Posted by: Jon | January 16, 2009 at 01:17 PM
I have to agree with Jon on this one. The writing itself is fine. It's just not maintaining suspension of disbelief. There are logic and characterization errors, and the 'it's just a game' took a high-stakes situation and bottomed it out.
I'm also not so happy with the opening paragraph in the prologue. I have all the info I need about this guy in paragraphs 2 & 4. Is it really important that we know he has dark skin?
He also trembles with anticipation. Why? What does he get out of running over a child? It's like he's killing for kicks. That doesn't sound like an ancient being kind of thing. More like common psychopathic wacko thing, which isn't interesting enough to make me want to read more. And this bad guy? He has to be so fascinating that I can't look away if I'm going to read past a kid getting run over.
Posted by: Kami | January 16, 2009 at 01:42 PM
Ray,
I agree. I don't consider many of the novels out there particularly believable, but that does not mean I don't like the story, or the writing.
And for me..its asparagus.
Posted by: Scott V | January 16, 2009 at 01:49 PM
Conflicting imagery put me off right at the start. For example, rich doesn't work as an adjective for a festered sore or cancer. Though sores' and cancers' colorings may in some stages be flamboyant, the adjective rich is always associated with positive qualities, not with dangerous skin lesions. Necrotic skin loses color, and either pales or darkens, as its blood supply lessens, so the name Necroti doesn't support the idea of richly-colored skin, either. Also, there's a bit of a jumbled quality to the story. In a normal reading setting, I'd have stopped reading after the first paragraph of the prologue. Some work on word choices, especially words' implications, and a stronger focus on the flow of the story, will better support this author's work. I like the vivid boldness and energy of this author's style, generally, and look forward to reading her work in the future.
Posted by: Mai | January 17, 2009 at 09:53 AM