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.
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
John sends the first chapter of A Consort of Kings.
Vladimir Trotsky’s lips are wrapped around the barrel of a gun. His teeth ache from clenching down on the metal suppressor while he awaits his fate. He would die tonight, of that he was sure. The only person surer of that was John Archer. Archer is the man holding the gun. Archer’s certainty stemmed from the fact that if he didn’t pull the trigger in the next two minutes, then he will die tonight as well. And it wouldn’t be a clean shot through the head. There would be chunks and pieces. Painful chunks of bloody pieces. In black-ops terrorism, you kill who you’re told or you become the target.
Trotsky is the Russian Minister of Energy. He is a rising star in old school politics. A gifted orator, well liked and back from seven days in the desert where the envoy charmed his way through the Middle East. That is his sin. The eighth deadly sin: Ambition. Tonight, he is a guest at the American Embassy in Russia for Trans-Caspian pipeline negotiations. Moscow thought he would be safer in the American Embassy. They thought wrong. Dead wrong. The Kremlin could have wrapped the Russian dignitary in Kevlar and stuffed him into the back of an armored truck in the basement vault of Fort Knox and Archer would have gotten to him. That’s his job. To get to the people that can’t be gotten too.
The clock is ticking. The meter is running. Vladimir’s heart is still beating. No time like the present. The gun suppressor chirps, brains and blood hit the wall in high-velocity splatter.
Yes
Sounds like a good thriller opening to me, and I wanted to know more about Archer and what this story is about. Strong, clear voice, good writing. Some notes:
Vladimir Trotsky’s lips are wrapped around the barrel of a gun. His teeth ache from clenching down on the metal suppressor while he awaits his fate. He would die tonight, of that he was sure. The only person surer of that was John Archer. Archer is the man holding the gun. Archer’s certainty stemmed from the fact that if he didn’t pull the trigger in the next two minutes, then he will would die tonight as well. And it wouldn’t be a clean shot through the head. There would be chunks and pieces. Painful chunks of bloody pieces. In black-ops terrorism, you kill who you’re told or you become the target. The lines about Trotsky’s teeth aching and him being sure he would die is a little shift out of Archer’s point of view, in which we seem to be as the story continues. Archer can think or assume these things, though. I didn’t care for being told about black-ops terrorism—I’d rather be shown what Archer is. In this case, you could substitute something like In Archer’s business, you kill…etc.
Trotsky is the Russian Minister of Energy. He is a rising star in old school politics. A gifted orator, well liked and back from seven days in the desert where the envoy charmed his way through the Middle East. That is his sin. The eighth deadly sin: Ambition. Tonight, he is a guest at the American Embassy in Russia for Trans-Caspian pipeline negotiations. Moscow thought he would be safer in the American Embassy. They thought wrong. Dead wrong. The Kremlin could have wrapped the Russian dignitary in Kevlar and stuffed him into the back of an armored truck in the basement vault of Fort Knox and Archer would have gotten to him. That’s his job. To get to the people that can’t be gotten too. The repetition of “sin” didn’t work well for me. More than that, the antecedent for “that” –in That is his sin—is charming his way through the middle east, not ambition. Thoughstarter: The sin that put a gun barrel in his mouth wasn't his success, it was his ambition. I felt “dead wrong” could go—it’s a bit of a cliché, and not needed.
The clock is ticking. The meter is running. Vladimir’s heart is still beating. No time like the present. The gun suppressor chirps, brains and blood hit the wall in high-velocity splatter.
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, 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.
© 2013 Ray Rhamey
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