Just 2 floggings left! Submissions invited: If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post. Otherwise you’ll have to endure me pontificating about something or simply blathering.
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
Frankie has sent a revision of the first
chapter of The Musubi Murder. The first round is here.
I scanned the Campus Dining Center, spotted a vacant chair between Mercedes Yamashiro and a man I sort of recognized, and beelined over. I felt relieved that I wouldn’t have to make conversation with strangers. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have to talk much at all.
“Professor Molly!” Mercedes’ bob glowed burgundy under the fluorescent lights as she leaned toward me. I poked my head forward to catch her kiss, then smiled at the familiar-looking man as I sat down. He grinned back. His crisp aloha shirt, crimson with a yellow taro leaf print, set off his dark eyes to pleasing effect. I realized I was staring, and quickly glanced away.
“I don’t see our guest of honor,” I said. “I’m doing the lei greeting.” I was feeling a little nervous about planting a kiss on The Most Hated Man in Hawaii.
“Jimmy is staying at my place,” Mercedes said. “You know. The Cloudforest,” she elaborated, apparently for my benefit, even though I knew her bed and breakfast well, having stayed there myself.
She lowered her voice to a whisper that only a few tables around us could hear. “I’m kind of worried. I went over this morning and knocked on his door to see if he wanted to drive up with me but there was no answer so I thought he had already left. But when I got here? No Jimmy.”
“He might have stopped to check on the Hanohano,” said the man. He had a pleasant (snip)
Closer, but . . .
I think getting the reference to “the most hated man” on the first page is a big help, but it still wasn’t enough for me. I think that if you added something like “He would die before he missed this.” could do the job for this reader.
However, the rest of the chapter is mostly set-up exposition. And there’s no murder. For my money, if a story is a murder mystery, something related to the murder really ought to be in the first chapter, and not very long after the first page is turned. I think this story starts too early. Good writing, though, so I’m sure you can do it. Notes:
I scanned the Campus Dining Center, spotted a vacant chair between Mercedes Yamashiro and a man I sort of recognized, and beelined over. I felt relieved that I wouldn’t have to make conversation with strangers. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have to talk much at all.
“Professor Molly!” Mercedes’ bob glowed burgundy under the fluorescent lights as she leaned toward me. I poked my head forward to catch her kiss, then smiled at the familiar-looking man as I sat down. He grinned back. His crisp aloha shirt, crimson with a yellow taro leaf print, set off his dark eyes to pleasing effect. I realized I was staring, and quickly glanced away. Unless Mercedes’s hair is a significant factor in the story, neither that nor the fluorescent lights add anything—and take up valuable story real estate. Is an aloha shirt ever crisp? I think of them as soft and full and comfortable.
“I don’t see our guest of honor,” I said. “I’m doing the lei greeting.” I was feeling a little nervous about planting a kiss on The Most Hated Man in Hawaii.
“Jimmy is staying at my place,” Mercedes said. “You know. The Cloudforest,” she elaborated, apparently for my benefit, even though I knew her bed and breakfast well, having stayed there myself. I don’t really see the need for her to mention something Molly already knows. I would just cut this and make it the beginning of the next paragraph.
She lowered her voice to a whisper that only a few tables around us could hear. “I’m kind of worried. I went over this morning and knocked on his door to see if he wanted to drive up with me but there was no answer so I thought he had already left. But when I got here? No Jimmy.”
“He might have stopped to check on the Hanohano,” said the man. He had a pleasant (snip) this is where something needs to happen or be said to increase the potential stakes to suggest a murder in the offing. This sentence is a detour from the interesting stuff created by the preceding two paragraphs.
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 for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.
© 2012 Ray Rhamey
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