Flogging the Quill

Flogometer for Anthony—would you turn the page?

---

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
  

---

Anthony’s opening lines:

There is no day God has created that is more useless, more depressing than the last Sunday of summer. My eyes opened to this reality and I faced the wall to avoid the sunlight bursting through the window. Throughout the Macgregor house, I heard breakfast plates clatter, my brother Rex brushing his teeth in the hallway bathroom, Mom humming a hymn and all the joy in my life seeping out like air in a leaky space capsule.

Through the window I could hear the neighborhood kids riding bikes, laughing with delight and milking summer’s Last Day of every beam of sunlight. I, however, would be spending most of the day on a hard wooden pew in Salvation Station Children’s Church hearing God’s Word recited by hand puppets. What was even worse - tomorrow, school starts.

Mother opened the door and walked in, her hair crowned in a bouffant, and adjusting an earring and humming “A Closer Walk with Thee.”

“Jack. Get up. Get up. It’s a beautiful day the Lord has made. Time to go to church.” She said is a musical tone. She opened the curtains and sunlight flooded the room. I threw the sheet over my head, avoiding the it like a vampire. I think I even hissed.

Even through the white sheet, the sun filtered through. As if to appreciate the futility, I threw aside the sheet and rolled over to face it. Mother slid open the closet and started picking out a suit.

Didn’t turn the page

Despite a pleasing, inviting voice, there were no story questions or other tension-inducing elements on this page to force (or even invite) a page turn. Except for a couple of typos, the writing is good. The rest of the chapter is much like this page—pleasing, nicely written exposition that lays out this boy’s world. And not a single thing happens other than him getting up, getting dressed, having breakfast, and leaving for church. Nothing happens to him to force any kind of action, nothing happened to make me wonder what happens next for this character—he is on his way to church, and that’s it. There’s nothing in the chapter to make me think something could happen there that’s a problem for this character. Anthony, I suggest you read the posts above on Story as River and Kitty-cats in action to get a feel for what I’m talking about. Notes:

There is no day God has created that is more useless, more depressing than the last Sunday of summer. My eyes opened to this reality and I faced the wall to avoid the sunlight bursting through the window. Throughout the Macgregor house, I heard breakfast plates clatter, my brother Rex brushing his teeth in the hallway bathroom, Mom humming a hymn and all the joy in my life seeping out like air in a leaky space capsule. (I liked the opening line, although I wonder if this is the kind of thought a 10-year-old boy would have. The language level throughout was more like an adult telling the story of those days than that of a boy, which would be the way to deliver his experience rather than a recollection. There is a little tension in his expectation of joylessness, but I didn’t think it was followed up.)

Through the window I could hear the neighborhood kids riding bikes, laughing with delight and milking summer’s Last Day of every beam of sunlight. I, however, would be spending most of the day on a hard wooden pew in Salvation Station Children’s Church hearing God’s Word recited by hand puppets. What was even worse - tomorrow, school starts. (I don’t think you can actually hear kids riding bikes—they’re pretty much silent vehicles. He can hear the kids laughing, etc., and assume they’re riding bikes.)

Mother opened the door and walked in, her hair crowned in a bouffant. , and adjusting an earring and humming She hummed “A Closer Walk with Thee” as she adjusted an earring. (I did the rewrite to suggest how to smooth out a long, complicated sentence and get rid of the more passive participles by using active verbs.)

“Jack. Get up. Get up. It’s a beautiful day the Lord has made. Time to go to church.” She said is a musical tone. She opened the curtains and sunlight flooded the room. I threw the sheet over my head, avoiding the it like a vampire. I think I even hissed. The cut sentence had a typo and didn’t really seem necessary. I like this boy and the reference to a vampire, but what’s the story? Where’s the tension? Saying he thinks he hissed suggests that this is a recollection by an adult -- otherwise, it would be "I even hissed." -- but there's nothing else in the narrative to suggest this.)

Even through the white sheet, The sun filtered through my sheet. As if to appreciate the futility, I threw aside the sheet and rolled over to face it. Mother slid open the closet and started picking out a suit.

Nice writing, and it’ll be even nicer when the story actually starts. I think you need to either foreshadow the event that starts the story, or start later.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

---

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

Flogometer for Jeff—would you turn the page?

---

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
  

---

Jeff’s opening lines:

On the day Janet Feffle's novel Dream of the Seven Sleepers went into a second printing, I received an unexpected delivery. The package, wrapped in plain brown paper, leant against my door. It bore no address.

I turned to the office secretary. "Who sent this?"

She looked up from her terminal. "I don't know, Mr. Gugel."

"Was it here when you arrived this morning?"

She shook her head. "I didn't see it when I put the regular mail on your desk."

I picked it up, glancing first at it, then back at the secretary, who shrugged. I sat at my desk and unwrapped the package. Inside was a book: The Court of Love, by Ernesto Savonthary.

For me to receive a book in finished form such as this was unusual, unless I was involved in its publication. I had never heard of this title or author. The publisher was a small press called Furst and Sons. I peeked inside for some note or inscription that might explain the book's appearance on my doorstep. There was none.

I glanced at my schedule and hailed the secretary through the open door. "Will you get Miss Feffle on the line?"

Many of my new authors were tiny stars with originality and charm but whose individual (snip)

Would you turn Jeff's first page? Be tough. Comments help the writer.survey software


Didn’t work for me

Keeping in mind that the goal here at FtQ is compelling, what happens here? A man receives a book. Oh, he doesn’t know who it’s from or why he’s received it, but are those compelling story questions? Not for this reader.

It turns out that the man is a literary agent, which makes receiving the book even less remarkable. About 2 ½ pages in we get to the interesting part—the book is from a man who committed suicide 5 years earlier. That starts to be interesting. Jeff, I saw evidence of overwriting in this mammoth 30-page chapter, something to watch out for. Notes:

On the day Janet Feffle's novel Dream of the Seven Sleepers went into a second printing, I received an unexpected delivery. The discovered a package, wrapped in plain brown paper, leant against my door. It bore no address. (The part I cut is “telling.” Just who us. I think this is more interesting without the telling. I’m not sure about the opening line, but it may have significance later—but it doesn’t lend to the tension.)

I turned to the office secretary. "Who sent this?"

She looked up from her terminal. "I don't know, Mr. Gugel." (This action beat doesn’t add anything. Later she shrugs, which would work better here and contribute to the mystery.)

"Was it here when you arrived this morning?"

She shook her head. "I didn't see it when I put the regular mail on your desk."

I picked it up, glancing first at it, then back at the secretary, who shrugged. I sat at my desk and unwrapped the package. Inside was a book: The Court of Love, by Ernesto Savonthary. (The sentence cut is a bit of overwriting—micro-detailing action that doesn’t contribute much to the story.)

For me to receive a book in finished form such as this was unusual, unless I was involved in its publication. I had never heard of this title or author. The publisher was a small press called Furst and Sons. I peeked inside for some note or inscription that might explain the book's appearance on my doorstep. There was none. (More telling. For his thinking this was unusual to be meaningful, the reader should know that he’s a literary agent. Actually, in these days of print-on-demand publishing, I suspect it’s not all that unusual for an agent to receive a printed book these days.)

I glanced at my schedule and hailed the secretary through the open door. "Will you get Miss Feffle on the line?" (Why is he doing this? Why not stay with the mysterious book? For me, this deferral is not increasing tension but rather letting the air out of the tire. This is the page to hook the reader—maybe with that bit about the author having committed suicide?)

Many of my new authors were tiny stars with originality and charm but whose individual (Oops, we’re slipping into exposition. No, get on with the story about the mysterious book!)(snip) (Oops, we’re slipping into exposition. No, get on with the story about the mysterious book!)(

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

---

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

Why we’re doing this

---

I’ve decided to post a chapter from my book, Flogging the Quill, Crafting a Novel that Sells., once a week. Partly because maybe writers will buy a book or two, but mostly because, if you’re to believe the reviews left by readers on Amazon, it’s helpful stuff. If you’ve read the book, well, you know that much of it is fun to read, and it never hurts to be reminded of craft techniques.

The opening chapter concerns the evidence regarding the necessity of crafting a compelling first page. Here goes.

It’s harsh out there

Today’s publishing climate is tougher than ever. To get an agent, your work has to stand out from hundreds and hundreds of submissions. For your agent to get you a book contract, your novel has to cut through hundreds more.

Your book has to be polished, diamond-sharp, and a rarity–you not only have to have professional-caliber writing and a great story, your novel needs to kick-start with compelling tension.

You only have seconds in an agent’s hands

Established authors can ease into a story with description and mood (and even they aren’t safe in the bookstore), but unpublished writers face a very different reality—agents suffering through heaps of submissions and looking for reasons to reject while at the same time hoping for a story worth reading.

On her blog, Agent in the Middle, 20-year veteran agent Lori Perkins said this:

“Your novel has to grab me by the first page, which is why we can reject you on one page.”

Dan Conaway, literary agent at Writers House, adds this.

“I know most of what I need to know about a writer’s chops in about a line and half.”

The odds are excellent that an agent will see all the reasons she needs for passing—or for reading more—on your first manuscript page. Just like agents and editors who see rivers of submissions, as a result of seeing hundreds of opening pages for novels, I can tell you that the first page typically foreshadows what’s to come, story-wise and writing-wise. One quick skim usually provides all the reason I need to decide whether I will turn the page or decline the opportunity.

Often I see competent writing that fails to connect because the writer doesn’t get what the novel’s opening must do to hook a reader. Frequently I find a gripping opening pages later—too late. Most often a bog of exposition or backstory—what one writer calls “throat-clearing”—drags the story to a halt.

You still only have seconds on an editor’s desk

Let’s say you do land an agent, and the agent sends your story to an acquisitions editor. The same grim reality opens its maws—an audience of one with sharp, particular tastes who has an agenda that your story may or may not fit, who wants a great story but has a pile of submissions to go through, and for whom quickly finding a reason to pass is a good thing. One slip, and chomp, you’re gone.

You still only have seconds at the bookstore

Okay, so your talent and work and luck pay off and your novel is published. Now it faces the cold, pragmatic reality of the bookstore. Sol Stein, a remarkable publisher/editor/author/playwright, writes in Stein on Writing of his observations in a bookstore.

“In the fiction section, the most common pattern was for the browser to read the front flap of the book’s jacket and then go to page one. No browser went beyond page three before either taking the book to the cashier or putting it down and picking up another to sample.”

What did those readers see in the novels they chose to purchase, and what did they fail to see in the rejects?

You know.

Ask yourself what readers buy novels for. Is it. . .

• Lush descriptions?
• Great dialogue?
• Fascinating characters?
• Deep themes?
  

Nope. Just one thing.

Story

Those bookstore browsers—and the agent and editor before them—either saw signs of a story they wanted to read, or they did not. They either felt compelled to keep reading, or not. That quickly. You do it too, don’t you?

It’s not like when you ask a family member, or a friend, or even a critique group to read your new novel—they have to read your stuff.

No, in the real world, you have a page or two. And if it’s that difficult with a bookstore browser who is on the hunt for a story to read, how tough do you think it is with a jaded, weary agent or a jaded, way-too-swamped acquisitions editor?

As Chuck Adams, Executive Editor of Algonquin Books says,

“You can usually tell after a paragraph—a page, certainly—whether or not you’re going to get hooked.”

To move your book toward the cash register. . .or generate a request by an agent for the full manuscript. . .or make it to an editorial meeting by an acquisitions editor. . .you need to kick-start your story, sentence by sentence, on your opening pages.

To maintain your focus, it wouldn’t hurt to print out the following definition and put it somewhere you will see it when you sit down to write:

com•pel
verb
a: to force
b: to urge irresistibly

For what it’s worth.

Ray