Call for submissions: the end of the queue comes next week. If you have a chapter or story that could use some outside eyes, please see the submission directions below. Thanks.
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.
A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.
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.
- Story questions
- Tension (in the reader, not just the characters)
- Voice
- Clarity
- Scene-setting
- Character
William has sent the first chapter of a memoir, The Delta Convergence.
Robert McClain stared at the wrecked maroon Ford F-150 pickup. What caused Tony to go off the road like that?
It was noon on the day after Labor Day when McClain waded through the sweltering Mississippi heat and edged around the front of the pickup. With each step, his loafers made a crunching noise in the gravel. He didn’t know what he expected to find. Tony was dead, and McClain wanted to see the vehicle that killed a man he had known since junior high school.
The pickup truck stood alone inside a chain-link fenced enclosure next to a red brick building that housed the service bays and office of the combination service station and wrecker service. Dead weeds lined the bottom of the fence, victims of a herbicide. The stillness of the enclosure was broken by the sounds of traffic rushing by on U.S. Highway 61, the main north-south route through the mid-delta town of Cleveland.
McClain stopped at the driver’s door. He mopped sweat dripping from his eyebrows with a handkerchief from his chinos and brushed a lock of prematurely gray hair into place. With the same hand he shaded his slate-blue eyes from the sun to get a better look at the truck. He wished he had brought his sunglasses.
At first glance, the truck looked like any other wrecked vehicle. Its fenders and sides were bent and crushed. The hood had buckled upward into a v-shape. Its roof was caved in somewhat.
Nope
Besides the lack of tension in this story, there are fixable craft issues. In his effort to help the reader see what he knows about the character and the scene, there’s a plethora of description that both bogs the pace down and takes us out of the third person close point of view.
As for tension, I would cut much of the scene description and detail to get this line from a later page on the first page:
A few inches below the door handle, in a fold of steel, were two round holes. Each hole was about the diameter of a dime.
That little detail sparks a strong story question. Notes on the narrative:
Robert McClain stared at the wrecked maroon Ford F-150 pickup. What had caused Tony to go off the road like that? There’s no real story reason for this kind of description--as far as I know, it’s the fact that it is a pickup that has bearing, not its color or model.
It was noon on the day after Labor Day when McClain waded through the sweltering Mississippi heat and edged around the front of the pickup. With each step, his loafers made a crunching noise in the gravel. He didn’t know what he expected to find. Tony was dead, and McClain wanted to see the vehicle that had killed a man he had known since junior high school. The first line I cut seems to be mostly there for getting in the fact that he wears loafers. While clothing may characterize in some circumstances, it doesn’t seem like wearing loafers contributes a lot. The second sentence cut was both telling and, it seems to me, obvious. The opening paragraph has him wondering what caused the wreck, so it’s clear he doesn’t know what to expect to find.
The pickup truck stood alone inside a chain-link fenced enclosure next to a red brick building that housed the service bays and office of the combination service station and wrecker service. Dead weeds lined the bottom of the fence, victims of a herbicide. The stillness of the enclosure was broken by the sounds of traffic rushing by on U.S. Highway 61, the main north-south route through the mid-delta town of Cleveland. Now we’re veering into overwriting--the inclusion of detail that neither advances the story nor characterizes. While it’s important to set the scene, do it in swift, broad strokes that give the reader an environment for the context of the action, but no more--unless there are details that have story consequences. None of these do.
McClain stopped at the driver’s door. He mopped sweat dripping from his eyebrows with a handkerchief from his chinos and brushed a lock of prematurely gray hair into place. With the same hand he He shaded his slate-blue eyes from the sun to get a better look at the truck. He wished he had brought his sunglasses. Now the description gets into what I see as a point-of-view slip. These details--chinos, gray, slate blue--are all what someone would see from the outside. But no one would think of these things, especially in the midst of doing things. My view: in third person close POV a character never does something that a character would NOT normally think, say, know, or do. I don’t, for example, put on my faded blue denim jeans, I just put on my jeans.
At first glance, the truck looked like any other wrecked vehicle. Its fenders and sides were bent and crushed. The hood had buckled upward into a v-shape. Its roof was caved in somewhat. While this is okay, for my money, since we are at the driver’s door, the first thing that should come out is the sentence about the holes that I referenced before.
William, practice the use of your delete key and try stripping everything down to the action and bare-bones description and see what you find. You can always expand it, but it would be good to boil the narrative down to its bones and muscle and see how it plays.
Comments, please?
For what it’s worth.
Ray
Submitting to the Flogometer:
Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):
- your title
- your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
- Please format with double spacing, 12-point font Times New Roman font, 1-inch margins.
- Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
- And, optionally, permission to use it as an example in a book if that's okay.
- If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
- If you rewrite while you wait you turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.
© 2012 Ray Rhamey
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