Flogging the Quill has been named one of the 100 best writing sites here. There are other sites of interest, so you might want to give it a look.
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 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page).
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.
James sent a prologue/first chapter combo. The prologue’s first 16 lines:
Things aren’t always what they appear to be.
Take Salt Lake City, Utah, for example, nestled snugly below the Wasatch Mountains of the Rocky Mountain Range. By the looks of things, as you walk around those wide streets lined with modern skyscrapers, you might think there is more interest in business conventions and shopping malls than in the goings-on behind the closed doors of the Latter-Day Saint Temples.
Why the hell do I know this?
Because I was right there - in that very city! - pacing through a half empty Wal-Mart parking lot pushing my groceries toward my truck when I decided that our relationship had to come to an end.
I sought a quiet spot and parked my cart next to a cement pillar.
In England it was late afternoon, and because it was mid-summer, it would be as light there as the late morning sun is here in Utah.
I took my cell phone from my pocket and pulled up the contacts. S, P, E.
A full name lit up the screen.
I pressed SEND and brought the phone to my ear.
And now the opening of the first chapter.
April, 1978
It was such a windy day... as if a storm was looming.
It was the 17th of the month and the headlines all over the front page of the local newspaper read:
Boy Raped and Left Hanging from Tree
Augustos Santo's (age 9) was stabbed, raped and strangled with his own shirt and left hanging from a tree in the Harbour Area Square, not far from the train tracks that link the harbour to the meat packing plant, Anglo Inc. The boy’s naked body was found Sunday morning around 7 a.m. There were reports by neighbors that they had seen the boy walking in the company of a tall, fair skinned man wearing a long sleeve white shirt and a blue baseball cap. The neighbors also reported that on Saturday evening....
Chapter One
Was it the best decision I ever made?
Probably not!
I should have been home by 4:30, but I wasn't.
It was already past 5:00 as I sprinted down Gomez Carneiro Street sweat streaming down my chest onto my stomach. The wind making me shiver as I ran. It would have been easier if I had taken the bus from work. But instead I threaded my way back and forth along the back streets through Central Square and headed south towards the Harbour Area.
Heavy detail tripped me up
Despite clean writing, and then a good start with a nice, hooky first sentence, the prologue wandered off into the mechanics of making a phone call—overwriting. How important is it for the reader to see the character pull the phone from his pocket, and a name (that we don’t see) appear on the screen, and that he presses send and puts the phone to his ear. Not for me, and what tension was created by the opening line was long gone. More than that, the space taken up by non-contributory detail keep anything compelling off the first page.
On the chapter opening, the news item was riveting, but then the story part did the same thing as the prologue. Interior monologue about the decision (that we don’t know what was) by the character, the physical sensations of running down a street as opposed to alternative transportation. . .and it went on. For me, the second part of the opening was more throat-clearing—where’s the story? What does this narrator have to do with the first one? What does he/she have to do with the hanged boy? Those questions shouldn’t even have to be asked (they are more technique questions rather than story questions).
While the writing is good and clear, on the storytelling side the writing alone isn’t capable of creating the tension needed to compel a turn of the page. As the little old lady once famously said in a television commercial, “Where’s the beef?”
Comments, anyone?
For what it’s worth.
Ray
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Public floggings available. If I can post it here,
- send 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter as an attachment (cutting and pasting and reformatting from an email is a time-consuming pain) and I'll critique the first couple of pages.
- Please format your submission as specified at the front of this post.
- 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.
© 2009 Ray Rhamey