My monthly post on Writer Unboxed is up. It’s about staying true to your writing self.
A sample of The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles is here. You can order a
paperback or e-book copy there, too. 
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). 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.
Molly’s opening lines:
A gryphon gargoyle shuffled through the trash strewn alley below her, red eyes glowing in the darkness. If having the body of a lion, head of an eagle, and wings of a dragon didn't mark it as unusual, being five feet tall and weighing six hundred pounds would. Not a creature one woman should take on alone. And here Lily was, alone. Again.
"Dammit," she whispered. She tried her partner, Billy, three times. Three times she listened to his cheery voice mail greeting. They'd been separated about twenty minutes ago and now she couldn't find him. Just like the last two jobs they'd been on. She couldn't wait any longer and Billy could be dealt with later. This was the best opportunity she'd gotten all night, and she wasn't going home empty handed.
Rain pelted her face in a light drizzle and thunder rolled above. She tucked an errant strand of chestnut hair behind her ear and adjusted the scope on her rifle, fixed the red crosshairs on her target's big gray head. She'd tracked him for nearly two hours, through dangerous neighborhoods, on foot, in a downpour. When he ducked into a dead-end alley, she bolted into the nearest building, sprinted up four flights of stairs and then scared the shit out of an elderly woman dumping her trash down the garbage chute.
People's reaction to her didn't bother her. She understood a six foot tall woman with (snip)
Got me to turn the page
Liked the voice, liked that this is an immediate scene with the
character in action, I was curious about a world where gargoyles walk
down alleys. There are some craft niggles, but the storytelling part is
good. Notes:
A gryphon gargoyle shuffled through the trash-strewn alley below her, red eyes glowing in the darkness. If having the body of a lion, head of an eagle, and wings of a dragon didn't mark it as unusual, being five feet tall and weighing six hundred pounds would. Not a creature one woman should take on alone. And here Lily was, alone. Again. (The staging isn’t clear in the first sentence—what does “below her” mean? Where is she? Place her so we can see. For example, below her position on the roof. )
"Dammit," she whispered. She had tried her partner, Billy, three times. Three times she had listened to his cheery voice mail greeting. They'd been separated about twenty minutes ago and now she couldn't find him. Just like the last two jobs they'd been on. She couldn't wait any longer and Billy could be dealt with later. This was the best opportunity she'd gotten all night, and she wasn't going home empty-handed.
Rain pelted her face in a light drizzle and thunder rolled above. She tucked an errant strand of chestnut hair behind her ear and adjusted the scope on her rifle, fixed the red crosshairs on her target's big gray head.
She'd tracked him for nearly two hours, through dangerous neighborhoods, on foot, in a downpour. When he ducked into a dead-end alley, she bolted into the nearest building, sprinted up four flights of stairs and then scared the shit out of an elderly woman dumping her trash down the garbage chute.(I don’t think a light drizzle “pelts.” Rain does that. It’s a tiny dissonance, but you don’t want any at all; they add up. The reference to the color of her hair is a small point of view slip—in close third person, the character doesn’t think, say, do, or know anything she wouldn’t normally. She wouldn’t normally be thinking that her hair was chestnut, so this is the author intruding. While scaring the woman is a subtle way to getting to the description that follows, I don’t really think that description is needed just yet. Stay with the action a little longer to hook us, you can work this in later. In fact, I cut that chunk of backstory because it doesn’t really contribute to the NOW of the story—in the NOW, she is about to shoot a gargoyle. This is no time to retrace her steps because it doesn’t matter how she got here, it’s what happens next.)People's reaction to her didn't bother her. She understood a six foot tall woman with (snip) (As noted, I wouldn’t be slipping description here, not in the heat of a chase. Stops the action that had engaged me cold.)
Comments, please?
For what it’s worth.
Ray
Submitting to the Flogometer:
- Email your 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter as an attachment (.doc or .rtf preferred, .docx okay) and I'll critique the first page.
- 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.
© 2010 Ray Rhamey