Flogometer for Liz—would you turn the page?

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Interesting Writer’s Digest article on writing the genders here.

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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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Liz’s opening page of Changeling Project, a sequel to a previous submission

Pulling his hand away from the wall, Azrael took one unsteady step, and then another down the narrow alley. His body ached with bruises he did not remember receiving, and his legs wobbled with unfamiliar weakness. Shards of glass crunched beneath his feet with the snow. A lean cat darted from a broken-down dumpster. The smell of cheap beer and rotting vegetables wafted from inside. At the end of the alley, a street slashed across the pale snow. He felt much too fragile to dare that just yet.

Snow gilded the billboards and streetlights with a soft halo. The simple purity of the scene was completely unfamiliar to him, but he liked it just the same.

A lone snowflake brushed against his nose. He shoved his chilled hands into his pockets. The move was natural, but caught him by surprise. He was wearing a pullover shirt, frayed jeans, and scuffed tennis shoes -- not the correct clothing for winter. That much he knew.

If he knew that now, why had he dressed this way? The thought was puzzling. When he tried to concentrate on the morning, his head hurt.

The setting sun washed the horizon in purple dye. At the edge of the sky, neon stars twinkled and gleamed. He strolled in that direction. Maybe there he could find answers.

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Eric Lunday made it a point to know everybody. As the owner of a small general store, it helped (snip)

I turned the page, but almost didn’t

The story questions had me going—I wanted to know what had happened to Azrael. The writing is good and the voice confident. But the shift in pov almost lost me only because I wasn’t ready to leave that of the character that opened the story. I wanted more of him, and here Liz was darting away.

As it turned out, the new pov is where Azrael goes for answers—it’s in a store. I think the gap between “neon stars” twinkling at the edge of the sky and the mundane “general store” was too great, and I did not think of them as being the same. So a little more clarity in the “setting sun” paragraph instead of colorful language would have helped me. Notes:

Pulling his hand away from the wall, Azrael took one unsteady step, and then another down the narrow alley. His body He ached with bruises he did not remember receiving, and his legs wobbled with unfamiliar weakness. Shards of glass crunched beneath his feet with the snow. A lean cat darted from a broken-down dumpster. The smell of cheap beer and rotting vegetables wafted from inside. At the end of the alley, a street slashed across the pale snow. He felt much too fragile to dare that just yet.

Falling snow gilded the billboards and streetlights with a soft halo. The simple purity of the scene was completely unfamiliar to him, but he liked it just the same. (I’m not convinced that “gilded” is the right word here if we’re talking about the appearance of a halo. Gilded seems to be more of something on something, not a shape in the air surrounding something. How about something like Falling snow haloed the billboards and streetlights.)

A lone snowflake brushed against his nose. He shoved his chilled hands into his pockets. The move was natural, but caught him by surprise. He was wearing wore a pullover shirt, frayed jeans, and scuffed tennis shoes -- not the correct clothing for winter. That much he knew. (Good mystery and story questions in this paragraph.)

If he knew that now, why had he dressed this way? The thought was puzzling. When he tried to concentrate on the morning, his head hurt.

The setting sun washed the horizon in purple dye. At the edge of the sky, neon stars twinkled and gleamed. He strolled in that direction. Maybe there he could find answers. (As mentioned, the colorful description here gave me no idea that he was heading for a building. I’d also look for a verb different than ‘strolled’ that continues to give the picture of someone who is unsteady and possibly injured.)

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Eric Lunday made it a point to know everybody. As the owner of a small general store, it helped (snip) (I think this would be more likely to keep me reading if something in the opening of the change related to the first section. For example: Erick Lunday looked up from sweeping when the bell over the door clanged and a cold-looking skinny guy limped in.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

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Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred):

1. your title
2. your 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
3. Please format with double spacing, 12-point font Times New Roman font, 1-inch margins.
4. Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
5. And, optionally, permission to use it as an example in a book if that's okay.
6. If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
7. If you rewrite while you wait you turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

© 2010 Ray Rhamey

Comments

[Darcy]

I turned. However, I was almost lost by the setting sun paragraph. I liked the descriptions and imagery in the first part. Story questions there pulled me along and it seemed like it we were getting to a plot development (which I was eager for, after the scene-setting build-up). The sentence about the setting sun felt like a slow down or a step backward toward setting. But I got over it! :) And I would definitely have kept reading.

[glj]

I did not turn the page.

Overall, well written. The fourth paragraph was compelling. And so was the first part of the first paragraph. But the other paragraphs were not. The problem for me was that the descriptive text was too poetic and too over-the-top. Part gritty man-can't-remember-who-he-is and part beautiful scene. I found it incompatible.

Some over-writing. For example, "a street slashed across the pale snow". Streets don't move, but the word slash implies movement or action. Trying too hard to be dramatic here. Or "Snow gilded the billboards and streetlights with a soft halo". First, so maybe stick with one, either gilds OR haloes and not both. Gilding is coating with a thin layer of gold, and snow won't make objects look gold. And maybe the snow creates different effects on the billboards than against the streetlights, but this implies both effects to both items.

"He shoved his chilled hands into his pockets. The move was natural, but caught him by surprise." Why would putting his hands into pockets surprise him? And it is distant, we are watching the character and not experiencing what he experiences.

"He was wearing a pullover shirt, frayed jeans, and scuffed tennis shoes -- not the correct clothing for winter. That much he knew." Why not: "His pullover shirt, frayed jeans, and scuffed tennis shoes were not the correct clothing for winter. That much he knew. (less distance from the character)

[Deb]

A lean cat darted from a broken-down dumpster. The smell of cheap beer and rotting vegetables wafted from inside. (This could be tightened into one sentence.)

The smell of cheap (no way to know it’s cheap and it doesn’t matter. You are going for the smell and the word cheap just takes away from the effect.) beer and rotting vegetables wafted from inside.

At the end of the alley, a street slashed across the pale snow (this doesn’t make sense to me). He felt much too fragile to dare that just yet.

Snow gilded (? Gild means to make gold or better than it is. It works for me with the streetlights, but not the billboard) the billboards and streetlights with a soft halo. The simple purity of the scene was completely unfamiliar to him, but he liked it just the same (if he’s in bad shape would he like this or think this now?).

A lone (scratch lone IMO) snowflake brushed against his nose.

He shoved his chilled hands into his pockets. The move was natural, but caught him by surprise (I liked this and wondered why, so I thought this was good).

He was wearing a pullover shirt, frayed jeans, and scuffed tennis shoes -- not the correct clothing for winter. That much he knew. If he knew that now, why had he dressed this way? The thought was puzzling. When he tried to concentrate on the morning, his head hurt. (This could be tightened into one sentence.)

The setting sun washed the horizon in purple dye. At the edge of the sky, neon stars twinkled and gleamed. He strolled in that direction. Maybe there he could find answers. (He’s finding answers from a sunset?)

(I think being pretty is getting in your way of the story, but I would have turned the page.)

[Heather]

I turned the page. But I wasn't sure what I was getting into. The stark shift in perspective really threw me. Like Ray, I wanted to know more about Azrael, and I wasn't quite ready to leave his perspective (1 page didn't let me attach to him quite enough). So, while I did turn the page to find out what was going on, knowing it was the store owner's head I'd be in and not Azrael's, made it a grudging act. Is it *imperative* that the next scene be from Eric's viewpoint?

If it is, I suppose I could get by if Ray's suggestion to give a little more transition in the last Azrael paragraph (I also didn't know what the neon stars signified) is implemented.

Nitpicking that no one else will probably be bothered by: "If he knew that now, why had he dressed this way? The thought was puzzling." For me, that's kind of repetative. The thought is obviously puzzling. I don't need to be told it is.

I was a little confused by the surprising pockets. I didn't know whether I should assume that while putting hands in pockets is a natural move for most people, it isn't for him... or if those weren't the pockets he'd expected to put his hands in (i.e., "hey, these aren't my pants!" or "Where the devil's my coat?") I feel like, since the move is natural, it shouldn't be the move that catches him by surprise but the result.

For me, there was *slightly* too much alley description in the first paragraph. Don't get me wrong, I liked the prose... but you really detail the alley. We quickly leave it, though, so give special focus to things that will continue to be important.

[Greg]

Liz, I turned the page, but…

I didn’t like “a street slashed,” had to sit there for a minute and ponder the meaning of that one. Also, for some reason when I read “Shards of glass crunched beneath his feet…” I got the impression he was barefoot, and later when I read “tennis shoes” I had to go back and see if I’d missed something. How about, “Shards of glass crunched beneath his shoes.”

And I too didn’t care for the POV shift at the bottom of the page. Wasn’t ready for it.

On the other hand, I had no problem with the character’s uncertainties about hands in pockets, improper winter attire, etc. The title put all that in context. Some confusion in a changeling’s mind made perfect sense.

However, the page did feel a little wordy. A bit too colorful, particularly given the snow and the character’s frame of mind. A little bleaker atmosphere with more austere descriptions might be in order.

I liked the story line. That definitely would have driven me onward.