Flogometer for Jaqui --would you turn the page?

Call for submissions: If you’d like a fresh look at your work, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

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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

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Jaqui has sent the first chapter of Deliverance (historical fiction).

Drumossie Moor, Scotland
16 April 1746

Acrid smoke drifted across the battlefield. Bodies lay strewn across the sloping moor. Cries of mercy, pleas of aide, echoed beneath the leaden sky.

I ignored them all.

I kept my gaze fixed on a wellspring of water; the last place I had seen my beloved alive, broadsword raised, screaming in rage before disappearing into the smoke of enemy fire.

The dead of Chatten: Mackintosh, MacGillivray, MacPherson, and McBean lay strewn before me--some three, and four deep. The corbie’s cawed brazenly, disturbed by my presence from their ghoulish feast. I said a brief prayer, and began to examine the faces of the dead. I committed their names to memory as I could.

I found my brother Robert, propped up against the bodies of our men. Our father, Simon, lay lifeless cradled upon his lap. The brave clansmen of MacGillivray of Dunlichity, lay surrounding their chief, as if in death they had rallied to one final macabre embrace.

I knelt beside them, cold wetness seeping through the layers of my skirts. I laid a hand upon each chest felt fleeting life in one. “Rob?” I caressed his face, called to him again. Blood crusted eyelids fluttered and then opened. No words sounded but my name was upon his lips.

“You survived.” I said.

Yes

The scenario is interesting, and there were story questions for me. The voice is good and  seems appropriate for the era. There were craft shortcomings, though, comma faults (some missing and some that shouldn’t be there) and misspellings—the ms will need a good copyediting, I suspect. Notes:

Drumossie Moor, Scotland
16 April 1746

Acrid smoke drifted across the battlefield. Bodies lay strewn across the sloping moor. Cries of mercy, pleas of aid aide, echoed beneath the leaden sky. Unless you think “aid” was archaically spelled with an e, “aide” means a  person, not assistance—and wouldn’t it be pleas for aid, not of?

I ignored them all.

I kept my gaze fixed on a wellspring of water; the last place I had seen my beloved alive, broadsword raised, screaming in rage before disappearing into the smoke of enemy fire.

The dead of Chatten: Mackintosh, MacGillivray, MacPherson, and McBean lay strewn before me--some three, and four deep. The corbie’s corbies cawed brazenly, disturbed by my presence from their ghoulish feast. I said a brief prayer, and began to examine the faces of the dead. I committed their names to memory as I could.

I found my brother Robert, propped up against the bodies of our men. Our father, Simon, lay lifeless, cradled upon his lap. The brave clansmen of MacGillivray of Dunlichity, lay surrounding their chief, as if in death they had rallied to one final macabre embrace.

I knelt beside them, cold wetness seeping through the layers of my skirts. I laid a hand upon each chest and felt fleeting life in one. “Rob?” I caressed his face, called to him again. Blood-crusted eyelids fluttered and then opened. No words sounded, but my name was upon his lips.

“You survived.” I said.

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):

1. your title
2. your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
3. Please format with double spacing, 12-point font Times New Roman font, 1-inch margins.
4. Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
5. And, optionally, permission to use it as an example in a book if that's okay.
6. If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
7. If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

© 2012 Ray