Flogging the Quill

Flogometer for Jamie. Would you turn the page?

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But first, have a laugh today. Check out my book on Authonomy —if you like it, register and back it.

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But second, sign up for the “Friends of FtQ NewsNotes” Email me with a "Yes" and your first and last name.

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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 shipping within in a few 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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Jamie’s first 16 lines:

I pulled up to my parents place around nine. My face fell when I saw my brother’s ridiculously large truck already in the driveway. Oh great. I wonder which Delta Tri I-need-to-find-a-husband sorority tramp Derek brought home to meet us this time. Why didn’t he just wait until tomorrow evening, so we didn’t have to suffer through the entire day with her?

I walked in through the front door. “Mom! I’m home!”

The dogs came barreling down the staircase yelping away. How my mom convinced my dad they needed five Pomeranians while making him think he thought of it, I would never know. She had a way of making people believe they were getting what they wanted while she made the sacrifice. I loved my mom’s superpower. I vowed to pay better attention next time I caught her using it so I could learn how to do it, too.

A petit girl, with spiky brown hair and dimples flew around the corner and ran up to me. She wrapped her arms around me in a big bear hug and squealed.

“You must be Amy! Derek’s told me so much about you. He didn’t do you justice. You’re just adorable.”

“Who the heck are you?” A Weirdo, that’s who.

“I’m Molly, your brother’s friend.” She said through her tiny dimpled smile. Scared at (snip)

Voice got me, but. . .
A fresh, charming voice will usually pull me on. For one thing, it inspires confidence, that a good story will be told. Literary agent Andrea Somberg says this:

Every manuscript I take on is distinctive in its own right, but each of them has one thing in common: an engaging narrative voice. By this I mean a writing style that pulls me in and makes me feel like I’m a part of the story and the characters’ lives.

So, yes, there’s not much tension here, but I had hopes that the writer would soon provide it. Didn’t really happen. We find out that Amy is on the lovelorn side of things, but not tragically so. There’ s nothing else in her life in the first chapter that promises trouble, no real stakes to not having a lover. While I liked the writing and voice a lot, I think the lack of story questions will stop an agent from reading. Some notes:

I pulled up to my parents place around nine. My face fell when I saw my brother’s ridiculously large truck already in the driveway. Oh great. I wonder which Delta Tri I-need-to-find-a-husband sorority tramp Derek had brought home to meet us this time. Why didn’t hadn’t he just waited until tomorrow evening, so we didn’t wouldn’t have to suffer through the entire day with her?

I walked in through the front door. “Mom! I’m home!”

The dogs came barreling down the staircase yelping away. How my mom convinced had my dad they needed five Pomeranians while making him think he thought of it, I would never know. She had a way of making people believe they were getting what they wanted while she made the sacrifice. I loved my mom’s superpower. I vowed to pay better attention next time I caught her using it so I could learn how to do it, too. (This is a good example of how voice and little details can quickly characterize. I’m liking this young woman already, and we’re only three paragraphs in.)

A petit girl with spiky brown hair and dimples flew around the corner and ran up to me. She wrapped her arms around me in a big bear hug and squealed.

“You must be Amy! Derek’s told me so much about you. He didn’t do you justice. You’re just adorable.”

“Who the heck are you?” A Weirdo, that’s who.

“I’m Molly, your brother’s friend.” She said through her tiny dimpled smile. Scared at (snip) (I know that you want to stress her size, but is “tiny” the right adjective? I think “wide” might be warmer and give a better picture of the personality she projects.)

As I said, very nice writing. But I urge Jamie to figure out a way to start building some tension into this first page and then the rest of the chapter. Or to abandon this chapter altogether, or to start the story later. Some of the exposition in the chapter is really not necessary yet, including the long story of her brother’s love life. A certain amount of throat-clearing going on, I suspect. But keep at it, Jamie, there’s a lot to like about what you’re doing.

UPDATE: Jamie emailed me and told me that she'd taken out much of this opening chapter, but had not sent it to me. Here's the much-improved opening she sent:

Reaching for the small brown envelope with scribbled handwriting, my pulse quickened. I ran my fingers over the dark script and took a deep breath. Glancing at the return address, I saw his name. My heart did a somersault and my cheeks flushed.

“Adam Makin.” I sighed his name, remembering just how much I had loved that nerdy boy.

Stretching against the edge of my bed I turned over the letter. I tore off the back taking extra care to keep from ripping his handwriting. Why did this note matter so much to me?It didn’t mean anything. My relationship with Adam ended years ago. Ugh, just open it, Amy.

I see you found your presents?” Mom walked into the room, carrying a peanut butter sandwich, and sat on the bed. I slipped the card in my pocket to open later in private, and took the plate.

For what it’s worth.

Ray

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Tips & Subscriptions Your generosity helps defray the cost of hosting FtQ.

---

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. 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

Flogometer for Tom (again). Would you turn the page?

---

But first, have a laugh today. Check out my book on Authonomy —if you like it, register and back it.

---

But second, sign up for the “Friends of FtQ NewsNotes” Email me with a "Yes" and your first and last name.

---

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

---

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.

---

Tom returns with a different novel. His first 16 lines—it wasn’t labeled as a prologue, but I think it is:

The man who had known January did not sleep well, that night in the forest. The croaking of bullfrogs woke him once, and later an owl hooted. There were nightmares, too. When he finally awoke just before dawn, it was to the immediate knowledge of why he was there, stiff and aching, wrapped in a thin blanket on the damp ground. He had come to hear a dead man speak.

He smelled wood smoke in the mist, among the trunks of the msasa trees, and saw a small group of his companions huddled round a new-lit fire. Stifling his coughs, the man who had known January rose awkwardly and shook out his blanket. Wrapping it round himself, he shuffled across to the fire, where they made room for him. As the men sat silently round the crackling twigs, the night-sounds of the forest gave way to bird song and the sky began to pale behind Maiguru’s mountain.

Minutes before, the sun had reached up from the Indian Ocean to warm the Mozambique shore; now light struck the eastern escarpment of the African plateau and spilled out over the central watershed of a vast table land. Light touched the sacred mountain where Maiguru waited; a bald dome looming above the spring greenery of the valley. The sun gleamed off sheets of moisture, seeping from exfoliated granite slabs. This water looked like snail-trails on a pebble to the pilgrims in the forest, as they gazed at the mountain from far off.

I hesitated, and then turned
With the exception of one line that was a strong hook, it wasn’t story that did it (although it should have been). Along with “He had come to hear a dead man speak,” the voice and the promise of an exotic world got me to the next page. But it wasn’t a full-throated dash, but more of a level of curiosity that I didn’t want to resist.

This has one of the problems of Tom’s last submission, namely distance from the character we first meet. After looking through the chapter, I don’t think he’s the protagonist, nor was anyone else in the narrative. That’s what leads me to believe that this is a prologue.

But the descriptions were rich and nicely written, though could have perhaps been more effective if they were experiential. But to be that, we would have to have been in a close point of view with the character, and we’re not. The rest of the chapter also did a fair amount of information dispensing, as is the nature of prologues, but still promised an interesting story. I have to wonder if it was all necessary, though, and would like to have seen what the next chapter was like. If it was the “real” story, I’d wonder why not start there. Some notes:

The man who had known January did not sleep well, that night in the forest. The croaking of bullfrogs woke him once, and later an owl hooted. There were nightmares, too. When he finally awoke just before dawn, it was to the immediate knowledge of why he was there, stiff and aching, wrapped in a thin blanket on the damp ground. He had come to hear a dead man speak. (The “January” turns out to be misleading. It’s not the month that you would normally expect, but the name of a man. I think this is a mistake in that it creates a false expectation in the reader. Adding the second name might not help, either—it was “Beeswax,” which makes it sound comical, and opposite the tone of the story. As I said earlier, this is quite distant from the character, as in awakening “to the immediate knowledge of why he was there.” I’d like to see a version where we’re experiencing what he thinks, not being told about it.)

He smelled wood smoke in the mist, among the trunks of the msasa trees, and saw a small group of his companions huddled ’round a new-lit fire. Stifling his coughs, the man who had known January rose awkwardly and shook out his blanket. Wrapping it ’round himself, he shuffled across to the fire, where they made room for him. As the men sat silently round the crackling twigs, the night-sounds of the forest gave way to bird song and the sky began to pale behind Maiguru’s mountain. (“small” is a conclusion word that doesn’t give a picture in most cases; why not a number? Watch out for repetition, as in”’round.” I like the description of the change in light. We could have been given a little more hook with “Maiguru’s mountain”—turns out that Maiguru refers to a woman who speaks prophecies, and a reference to that would have made this stronger.)

Minutes before, the sun had reached up from the Indian Ocean to warm the Mozambique shore; now light struck the eastern escarpment of the African plateau and spilled out over the central watershed of a vast table land. Light touched the sacred mountain where Maiguru waited; a bald dome looming above the spring greenery of the valley. The sun gleamed off sheets of moisture, seeping from exfoliated granite slabs. This water looked like snail-trails on a pebble to the pilgrims in the forest, as they gazed at the mountain from far off. (While evocative, it would have been more involving if this description were experiential)

I ended up with approach/avoidance, liking what I was reading in ways and at the same time wishing it were crisper and had more story, more tension. Lots of promise, though, and I think that, with firm-handed self-editing, it can get there.

Comments, anyone?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

---

Tips & Subscriptions Your generosity helps defray the cost of hosting FtQ.

---

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

Flogometer for Tom. Would you turn the page?

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Interesting post on prologues
This is especially timely as we're looking at another prologue today. Agent Nathan Bransford discusses prologues here. “The reader knows full well while reading a prologue that the real story is waiting. A prologue makes a reader start a book twice, because it doesn't always involve the protagonist...”

---

Sign up for the “Friends of FtQ NewsNotes” Email me with a "Yes" and your first and last name.

---

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 a few weeks, and early orders will be tremendously helpful.

---

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.

---

Tom’s first 16 lines (a prologue):

Steve Stevens stands alone on the moonlit veld, in fear of death. The terrified nineteen-year-old clutches his only comfort, an automatic firearm he scarcely knows how to use, and peers into the night. He can see a distant glow on the edge of the tobacco land, half a kilometre away. It brightens, and moves from side to side, as if signalling to Steve – or to someone behind him.

The boy is a feather edge away from panic; he has never been so afraid, and yet, oddly, there is no sign of the asthma which ruled out his conscription into the Rhodesian Army. But there is no escape from the terminal agonies of a lost colonial cause, at a time when all white men must serve, regardless of age or infirmity. Steve is a long way from home, doing his bit as a ‘bright light’. This means providing an armed presence on Vergenoeg, Otto Moodie’s farm on the Umniati River near Riversdale.

He turns and looks back at the dark farm buildings two hundred metres away, where Otto is waiting for him to investigate and report back. The farmer has a hunting rifle and a shotgun close to hand. He is also linked to the military Agric-Alert network, and will call for help if Steve fails to return, or if he hears shots.

I wasn’t compelled forward
The writing is good (I liked “feather edge” even though it’s not in the character pov), but the narrative is so distant from the character. We are told he is afraid and near panic, but not made to experience it. It’s all from the author’s point of view, not the character’s. There’s a little info-dumping going on, too—the “This means” part. While this may be necessary to know at some point, surely not on the first page when the writer needs to hook the reader’s interest and emotion.

I’ve another wee gripe—at the end of the prologue, we learn that the light is a mysterious globe of light that floats through the air. That’s fine, though it would have been good to know about this perhaps paranormal bit at the first. And we could have—it turns out that Otto, the farmer who is waiting, knows about this “ghost.” Why didn’t he tell Steve? Seems like it would be the first thing he’d mention when the light was first spotted and Steve went to investigate.

I was interested in the time and world of the narrative—Rhodesia in the time Mugabe led his uprising. But the story needs to take hold of me, and this prologue didn’t. I suggest Tom either look at opening with a gripping first chapter, or put us inside Steve’s head and help us experience the story from his point of view.

Comments, anyone?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

---

Tips & Subscriptions Your generosity helps defray the cost of hosting FtQ.

---

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