Flogometer for Lindsey. Would you turn the page?

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My book, Flogging the Quill, Crafting a Novel that Sells, is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com. I should be printing and shipping within in about 3 weeks, and early orders will be tremendously helpful.

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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). Directions for submissions are below.

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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Lindsey’s first 16 lines:

Man! She is a sea of calm in a world of chaos. Doré rubbed his stubbled chin, and stared past her out the glass walls of the conference room. People rushed by with armloads of stuff, brochures and drawings, flyers and files, like somehow, magically, they were all going to zero in on tidier, invisible places to store them. Amazing. Thumbing the edge of his new business card, he toyed with it, flipping it around in his fingers. Despite the pleasures of crisp cardstock and fresh ink, accepting the promotion was looking like a mistake.

Seriously. He was moving from idea man to responsible for the outcome, and now it looked as though he'd come back to command a battalion of . . . of panicky little Munchkins after the cyclone dropped a house, rather than a company of mild mannered graphic designers. But there she was, riding the eye, Glinda in a bubble. Doré watched her glide over to sign for a package, FedEx-man laughing like she'd told him a joke. The wind slows to a kind of soft breathing.

The rhythm of the words played like song lyrics in his head, or—he glanced around—had (snip)

I turned the page, but then . .
Nice, smooth writing. Starting with a scene. Close in a person’s point of view. Man sees woman, appreciates something about her, and a story question is raised. So far so good, and the page turns.

But then . . . this is the reason I ask for the whole first chapter instead of a couple of pages. I turned the page anticipating a story about these two people, probably romantic. Well, they finally interact on page 16. And it’s not until then that the woman is even aware of the man.

What, might you ask, fills the intervening 15 pages? Separate, unconnected stories about the domestic lives of the man and the woman in their separate marriages. For this reader, a massive amount of throat-clearing. For me, much better to get to the tension between these two people. If there’s attraction, then it will be colored by the guilty fact that they are married. And then that guilt and that attraction and that quandary can color all the domestic stuff that the writer does out with tension. Where will it all go?

I liked this writing, but the detour from what appears to be the story for so many pages was frustrating. On one page 5 the male protagonist is getting antsy while waiting for a rehearsal to begin. Well, I was far beyond antsy by then for the story to begin. I suggest Lindsey start much later and fill in what’s needed about their separate lives (probably not so much as is now here), and color it with the tension of a pending illicit romance. A couple of brief notes:

Man! She is a sea of calm in a world of chaos. Doré rubbed his stubbled the stubble on his chin and stared past her out the glass walls of the conference room. People rushed by with armloads of stuff, brochures and drawings, flyers and files, like somehow, magically, they were all going to zero in on tidier, invisible places to store them. Amazing. Thumbing the edge of his new business card, he toyed with it, flipping flipped it around in his fingers. Despite the pleasures of crisp cardstock and fresh ink, accepting the promotion was looking like a mistake. (The “his stubbled chin” is a tiny point-of-view slip that puts us outside—he wouldn’t think of it as stubbled, but, as someone who has whiskers, he would think of rubbing the stubble. The other edit is just tightening, reducing redundancy and “telling.”)

Seriously. He was moving from idea man to responsible for the outcome, and now it looked as though he'd come back to command a battalion of . . . of panicky little Munchkins after the cyclone dropped a house, rather than a company of mild mannered graphic designers. But there she was, riding the eye, Glinda in a bubble. Doré watched her glide over to sign for a package, FedEx-man laughing like she'd told him a joke. The wind slows to a kind of soft breathing. (I liked the way this added dimension to the character. And it keeps the focus on the woman . . . for now.)

The rhythm of the words played like song lyrics in his head, or—he glanced around—had (snip)

Comments, anyone?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

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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

© 2009 Ray Rhamey

Comments

[Maya]

To me this sounds like a very good first draft. I liked the way we are fully inside this guy's head, the way we see into his process of putting his thoughts together and trying to describe what he sees. And he has an interesting perspective, good tension-- his stress about handling his job contrasted with the woman's appearance of control. However, I got a bit lost in the details in the first paragraph. I wonder if breaking it up into several short paragraphs would make it more engaging? For example, I would break the first paragraph after "Amazing." Then I might actually make "Seriously." A paragraph by itself. You could again break into a new paragraph before "But there she was..." I think it's a matter of taste, but to me short paragraphs are more approachable and easier to follow, especially in the first page of a book. Nice job, though! I would turn the page!

[Liz C]

I had trouble with the staging: 'stared past her out the glass walls of the conference room' made me think he was right in front of her, maybe across a table. But then she glides over to the FedEx man... in the conference room? I couldn't get a sense of what was going on or who was where.

Also, this part totally threw me: 'like somehow, magically, they were all going to zero in on tidier, invisible places to store them'. I just didn't get it. Also, with the mention of chaos and rushing, I couldn't tell whether this was a normal day or there was a fire in the building.

Sorry. I might just be easily confused.

[Jessica]

I liked the setup, liked the narrative voice, but the first paragraph lost me. The first line hints at a woman who is a sea of calm, but we don't get to see her until the second half of the second paragraph. You might consider either losing the first line, or introducing the girl immediately after it.

Other than this, though I thought the writing was clean and strong. I liked the protagonist's voice, and wanted to see what was going to happen. Good luck with this. It looks like it's going to be good.

[hope101]

I agree that I like the voice and the premise but it could use some tightening. I'd be tempted to start like this:

Accepting the promotion was beginning to look like a mistake. (And then justification.)

Then he saw her: a sea of calm in a world of chaos. (And justification.)

Good luck, and keep going.

[mai]

I'd have turned the page. The opening drew me right into Doré's world. It wasn't until others pointed out some issues that those things bothered me. But I was bothered by something else, which, in light of what Ray says about following pages, seems to prefigure what he encountered. It was an intermittent tendency to overwrite, in list style -- as if the throat were being prepared for the later clearing.

There were two places where this bothered me. One was here:

"...People rushed by with armloads of stuff, brochures and drawings, flyers and files, like somehow, magically, they were all going to zero in on tidier, invisible places to store them..."

The other was here:

"...and now it looked as though he'd come back to command a battalion of . . . of panicky little Munchkins after the cyclone dropped a house, rather than a company of mild mannered graphic designers..."

The passage below so fits my sense of what a business cowboy (my term) is about, it brought complete credibility to this character, and set the hook for me, not only because of the credibility, but also because its lyricism, rhythm and texture:

"...Amazing. Thumbing the edge of his new business card, he toyed with it, flipping it around in his fingers. Despite the pleasures of crisp cardstock and fresh ink, accepting the promotion was looking like a mistake..."

I look forward to reading the next version of this opening.

[Business Cards]

Seems like a lot of interesting points for pointers are written in your book. I'd like to get a copy of my own.

[Christine H]

I like the premise, and would probably keep reading this. It sounds intriguing. I anticipated a kind of "Devil Wears Prada" situation (but not as extreme) where the assistant has to live up to his too-perfect boss. I'm waiting to find out that she has some horrible fault.

The thing I want to mention is the references to The Wizard of Oz. Believe it or not, not everyone in the world (or even in America) has seen this movie, so the references to Glinda and Munchkins might totally confuse some readers - particularly those from other countries who might pick up the book in an airport, say. (When it's finally published and becomes a best-seller, which all of our books will, naturally.) Just a thought.