Flogometer for Pauline—would you turn the page?

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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 or 17 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.

Storytelling Checklist

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this list of 6 vital storytelling ingredients from my book, Flogging the Quill, Crafting a Novel that Sells. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Evaluate the submission—and your own first page—in terms of whether or not it includes each of these ingredients, and how well it executes them. The one vital ingredient not listed is professional-caliber writing because that is a must for every page, a given.

• Tension
• Story questions
• Voice
• Clarity
• Scene setting
• Character
  

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Pauline has sent a prologue and first chapter. This is the entire prologue:

The electricity hums through her fingers and up her arms until her teeth clench and eyeballs rattle. Laura blacks out and wakes feeling weak. The sin might not be completely out just yet though. It might take a few tries.

Oh God. Oh Richard. I don’t know how to stop this. Dear Lord, please help me! Please! I’ll do anything, I swear. Just...not Hayley, please not my baby!

Laura scrubs at the black marks on the wall where the toaster plugs in. She blew a fuse too so now Richard’s going to have to fix it. She’d done her best to recreate the therapy she’d learned about at the library this morning. The fact that this could fix her gives her hope.

The first chapter opens this way:

Laura nods as Jenny pulls out her mother’s wedding dress from the dress up trunk. Playing house is her very favorite. They’d been playing it all summer. Laura never minds being the daddy because this means she gets to give Jenny a good night kiss.

‘Oh daddy, baby Christopher’s cryin’ again. You go and get him this time. I got to put my feet up.’

Laura goes over to the playpen. They get to have a real baby when they play at Jenny’s house because they look after her brother while her mama is doing her nails on the porch. Christopher doesn’t like it when they put doll clothes on him. Laura figures it’s because he doesn’t like wearing dresses. She doesn’t like dresses either. She struggles to lift him up but manages to lug him over to where Jenny’s sitting on the couch with her feet on the trunk.

‘Here, you take him. I’m gonna read the paper.’ She takes the coloring books and flips through the pages just like she’s seen her daddy do with the Saturday newspaper. Sitting up extra straight, she brushes her long, sandy blonde hair from her face and wishes her mother had put it in a ponytail for her.

It’s too hot to play outside. Summers were hot back in Iowa too but it’s different here in Texas.

Almost, and no

The prologue made me want more of that story, but then it ended, which was frustrating. The first chapter is a trip back in time to the protagonist’s childhood when she is first called a sinner because of her feelings and actions toward girls. In other words, backstory. Is it necessary? In most cases, probably not. This prologue seems like an attempt to hook the reader enough to then go through the history. Not a good idea.

Readers want to know what’s happening in the NOW of a story, not the THEN. If I were Pauline, I’d keep going with whatever it is that happens next in what was the prologue. The childhood stuff doesn’t really matter to the adult who is trying to shock her sinfulness out of her body.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

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Submitting to the Flogometer:

1. Email your 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter as an attachment (.doc or .rtf preferred, .docx okay) and I'll critique the first page.
2. Please format with double spacing, 12-point font Times New Roman font, 1-inch margins.
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.

© 2010 Ray Rhamey

Comments

[Q of D]

Well written. You have a great voice!

But I voted no because I got the impression that the whole story will be not much besides a woman who fears being gay.

It's not enough of a hook for me personally, so despite your promise of true talent as a storyteller I'd put the book aside and look for a first page with more signs of the winning combination of a good writer AND a good (to me) story.

[glj]

I voted yes. I found the premise intriguing enough to read farther. Same with the chapter, it had promise. I might find it interesting as to how she could have become so twisted as to try to shock the sin out of herself. And she has a baby of her own, so she has a reason to live. Careful with the self-electrocution, there, Laura!

You might have a hard time maintaining present tense in a full novel. There is nothing wrong with present tense, but it is easy to slip into past-tense usage (such as the use of "she'd" which is the contraction of "she had").

You have "She struggles to lift him up but", it seems like you should have "and" here, as there is no contradiction or change; she struggles to lift him AND she struggles to carry him over to Jenny.

Punctuation nits: "Summers were hot back in Iowa, too, but it’s different here in Texas." And: "She blew a fuse, too, so now Richard’s going to have to fix it."

[Dan]

The flashback to childhood is a miscalculation. I can get from this that she's gay and she's in some quacky "therapy." But we don't need to open with her playing house as a child.

It's a low-stakes scene, and the reader isn't engaged enough with the character to really want to push forward through something like that. You're better off starting with a problem, getting the plot rolling, and filling in the background as it becomes relevant.

The present-tense narration also doesn't work well with a flashback-heavy structure.

[Doug]

There's promise, but I don't think you're there yet. I pretty much agree with what Ray and the others said.

Chapter 1 is too early for a flashback. Get the ball rolling and keep it rolling long enough that the reader gets invested in the story. We keep reading because we want to know what happens *next*. Keep that carrot in front of us.

I'm not a fan of present-tense to begin with, and third-person present tense doesn't work for me at all, ever. It reads like a screenplay where you're giving stage directions to the actors: do this, say that, here's your motivation. I can't engage with the characters when I'm continually reminded that there's an author who is controlling how the story will go.

On a detail level, I felt like the first and last sentences of the prologue were bordering on passive voice. In the first sentence I'd like to see Laura taking ahold of the wires. The last sentence would be stronger if it was re-ordered, in my opinion.

I also felt like the prologue was disjointed. The last paragraph, for example, covers two separate topics, each only two sentences long. Maybe Laura feels that way, almost scatter-brained (perhaps from the shock), in which case it's fine. But a smoother sentence/paragraph flow would be more to my liking.

[Pauline]

Thank you for the helpful comments so far. I have a version of the first chapter that stays in present tense and only occasionally uses flashbacks and I believe I’ll stay with that one and work it through. As this is my first attempt at writing, I think I got carried away with trying to say everything all at once – past, present and future! Again, many thanks for the different perspectives.