Flogometer for Stella—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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Stella’s opening lines:

Spare time was a mortal sin to be avoided at all costs. I was even running errands for old Mrs. Beaton next door to keep busy. Keeping busy meant keeping my sanity.

I grabbed my backpack off the floor, tossed in a water bottle and a clean towel. The rigged apartment door slammed shut behind me. I glanced at my watch. If I ran the whole way I could still make it.

I took the stairs two at a time, running out the main entrance. I held the door open for little Mrs. Beaton as she entered. The ‘little’ part only referred to her height not her waistline. Time had shrunken her vertically, but had stashed the extra inches in her horizontally. This only made her more endearing.

Wrinkles creased her eyes as she smiled at me. “Thank you, Mia.” She said in her timorous voice. “But eat something, you’re wasting away. How are you going to find a man? You’re too skinny!” She waved a plump hand at me.

Finding a man was the last thing on my mind, but it was always on Mrs. Beaton’s. I’d spent the better part of four years around a flock of sex-deprived Marines. Thinking of men was like a day in the sun with a Drill Instructor, painful.

I ran up the hills of San Francisco following the direction of my morning jogs. What still (snip)

There’s great stuff ahead, but…

I really liked the voice and the writing in this chapter, but the opening here didn’t compel me into a page turn. There’s a hint of a story question in the first paragraph, but that’s not followed up on. Then the narrative seems to focus on getting a man, which makes it seem like a romance novel. From what I read in the rest of the submission, it’s not, at all.

For several pages more, high-quality writing laid out backstory and other exposition, plus internal monologue, that characterized this person and let us know where she’s coming from. But still no real tension. In other words, well-done throat-clearing.

A lot of that material could be filled in later, after the encounter that leads to a big change in the character’s life. Instead of this opening, I suggest that Stella consider the following, which comes from later in the chapter, instead.

I was almost at the dojo when a cry and flash of movement in an alley caught my eye. I ran into the entrance of the alley to see three guys kicking something on the ground.

I was going to be really late.

The one in the hoodie said, “Hey, check out the thing in his hand.”

The man on the ground pleaded. “Please! Don’t hurt me!” The three men kicked him again.

One of them wrenched the object from the man’s hand. “Hey I think it’s an MP3 player.”

His body snapped back with the impact of my kick. His head flew backward over his feet. The backside of his melon thumped against the concrete, he laid still.

One of them yelled, “Bitch!” The other rushed me. He swung at my head.

I dodged out of his way and grabbed his wrist, pulling his shoulder over mine. Using his own momentum I sent him flying. He fell to the concrete with a thud and screamed, a broken tailbone perhaps.

Karma’s a bitch.

The last of the Three Stooges pulled out a knife.

“Come on, baby. We don’t need to fight when we can have some fun.” He leered.

“It’s hard to believe you beat a hundred thousand other sperm.” I pulled my pack off and dropped it. “Get lost.”

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

[fairyhedgehog]

Well, so far it's 100% for the second opening, which really drew me in.

It's great that the author can write this well, it's just a matter of starting later on.

I'm beginning to see why agents and editors complain that most of us start our books in the wrong place.

[Deb]

Sorry, I still voted no on the second. The dialogue was too formal to be beleivable to me.

'The three men kicked him again.' Brought an odd picture of all three of them drawing their feet back at the exact same time.

"One of them yelled, “Bitch!”" I don't think you need either the exclamation point, or one of them yelled. I prefer the "one of them yelled" cut, and the whole thing changed to "Bitch." He yelled as he rushed at me. It speeds up the action for me.

The bad guys say the word "Hey" twice, which popped right out at me.
I would change this "“Hey, check out the thing in his hand.”" to "What's that in his hand?" and this "Hey I think it’s an MP3 player.”" to simply "An MP3 player.Nice."

'The man on the ground pleaded. “Please! Don’t hurt me!”' to me would be better if you cut 'the man on the ground' until after the dialogue, because we know it isn't the bad guys saying it, and maybe gave us a little description of the guy, like blood already ran from the cut on the top of his balding head.

'I was almost at the dojo when a cry and flash of movement in an alley caught my eye. I ran into the entrance of the alley to see three guys kicking something on the ground.' And I don't know what dojo is maybe everyone else does, but I would like this better if it were tightened up to something like. I was near the dojo when a cry and flash of movement caught my eye. Three guys were kicking what looked like a body.

It definitely has potential for me, but I just feel like it's overwritten in some places and not enough description in others.

[Doug]

The original opening is an uninteresting slice-of-life scene. The scene that Ray extracted is not just an action scene, it's one where the protagonist definitely isn't passive, and it shows some important facets of the protagonist's character. This is someone who'd be interesting to read about.

The writing still needs some polishing, in my opinion, but the content of Ray's selection is a fairly strong opening scene.

[glj]

The second opening is more interesting. However, it still didn't draw me in that much. The writing is good, but for me, it just doesn't catch my eye. I don't know why not. Maybe the fight scene is too detached (hard to achieve emotional involvement in only a first page) and I don't have a sense of anything other than the protagonist helping some victim. There is no other reason why the protagonist is involved.

"One of them wrenched the object from the man’s hand. “Hey I think it’s an MP3 player.”" If the attacker already was holding the item, he wouldn't say "I think it is . . ."

"Time had shrunken" should be "shrunk".

"Keeping busy meant keeping my sanity." This single sentence hints at some conflict. But we see nothing more of it, at least here. Maybe punch this up, put in enough detail of this conflict to hold interest until it develops full?

[Dai Alanye]

The writing is clear but both openings strike me as somewhat trite. This is especially true in the second where we have an all too typical skinny-babe-kicks-multiple-male-butt scene.

This rarely happens in life because not all men are klutzes, nor do they obligingly attack one at a time. The heroine would need to do something to isolate her attackers, possibly by retreating to draw a single one after her, and always hoping none was trained in martial arts or even a superior athlete.

[Botanist]

I've said this before on this blog: I have no problems with slower openings.

I agree with Ray that the second opening threw us straight into the action, and for me seemed like a good place to start. BTW I laughed aloud at "It’s hard to believe you beat a hundred thousand other sperm."

However, if I already knew that this was an action story, say from the cover blurb, then the writing in the original start was also solid enough to keep me interested. I do agree that the question of keeping my sanity could be strengthened a bit on that page.

[Ray Rhamey]

Botanist, thanks for your comments. I think the salient fact to keep in mind is that, with an agent or an acquisition editor, there is no blurb.

Well, sort of. You write a query letter, and the agent pushes it with blurbliness.

But the test still lies with the first page. Would it make any sense to give less than your best shot at something that COMPELS a page turn?

I'm not saying that my solution is the best one, that's up to the author. The whole point is to give the writer guidance to what works from word number 1.

[Mim]

I think if the first were slimmed down a bit so that some of the action could start sooner it might work. Like the description of Mrs. Beaton. That early on, I don't really care what she looks like. And the protagonist's pause to think about Mrs. Beaton and take in the dialogue from her slows it down for me.

The second part might need some edits too, like fixing the multiple "heys". I think I would read on, if the first part were slimmed and the second part started earlier. Maybe I'm a sucker for "skinny-babe-kicks-multiple-male-butt" scenes, but partially because I know for this to be the case, there's got to be something special about this skinny babe. And I would want to find out what. Done well, it could be a good story. Yeah, it's been done before, but what hasn't? People like it, and there is an audience for it.

[Bree]

I actually would have been more likely to turn the page with the first one. It still didn't hook me enough, but I really enjoyed the voice.

I wasn't quite sure what turned me off about the second one until I read Deb's comment about the formal dialogue. In my opinion the dialogue doesn't fit the scene. And the voice that I was loving so much in the first passage has faded to the background.

[Christine H]

I agree with Ray that there is probably some interesting stuff here, but neither excerpt did it for me. Assault scenes on women don't work for me as openings; the make me cringe and want to read something else. I like the voice and the setup of the first opening, but there wasn't much to propel me forward in terms of tension.

The opening line about spare time being a mortal sin hooked me, but it wasn't followed up. At first I thought she was a novice in some kind of training program, or that she was part of a strict religious sect, or even that she had an overbearing mother, but it fizzled out. I would suggest building on that internal conflict, as it seems to be the main thing driving this character.