Submissions wanted. 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
Michael sends the prologue and first chapter of Neon, which he describes as “a sort of cyberpunk noir tale with an 80’s/90’s perspective on what the future would look like.” Please vote—the feedback helps the writer.
Prologue:
“Welcome to the sprawl, chum. Sexy isn’t She? Not traditionally of course – all coarse verticals built up from rough hewn horizontals, right angles replacing curves, rigid concretes in place of supple flesh – but alive and haunting and beautiful just the same. She’ll take you, given enough time. That’s how She works you know, that’s Her gig. Subtle. Tricking. She devours you and you don’t even know She’s biting you until you’re wholly gone, consumed and digested and turned into something not quite yourself. Harder. Darker. A new you, laced through with all those hard cold angles, those neon shadowed alleys, more animal than man now – you’ll have become. Born again, ya know?
The trick is seeing that it’s happening, being aware of the fact that it is, that you are, and that the city knows you. Sees you. Wants you. You can use that strange power, if you can just keep your eyes open long enough to outlast the night, to be standing there when it’s all over and dawn has broken through the steel sky, knowing who you are independent of who you are in the sprawl. Strong magic that. But it’s hard to keep that image fixed when you’re in it – I mean really in it – living and bleeding and fucking dying in the streets, surrounded by everything and everyone that’s out to distract and erode and destroy; the bangers and pimps, prostitutes and dealers, hackers and junkies and every other hat any lost soul has ever wore in this concrete jungle. Like I said man, beautiful.
Good, interesting writing, but ultimately not engaging for this reader—I’m a hardcore story fan, and that’s what I come to a novel for. This sort of philosophical overview, absent story, just don’t work for me, though I’m sure it will for others. Engage me with story first.
My vote on the prologue: no.
Chapter One
The dull thump of the house bass beat rhythmic patterns through the club, hitting like machine gun fire before dumping down to a softer caress, bouncing around the walls the way good bass does. Like it’s coming from inside you, and completely enveloping you all the same. The music in the CryJack was always solid, but it wasn’t why I was there that night. The music wasn’t why anybody was there.
I sat in a back booth, sickly dim lighting from a hundred different sources all bleeding together into that sort of ambient green glow you find in any decent hacker bar. Everything looked a little grimy, a little forgotten, but when you took the sum of all the LEDs and neons and painted their light across everything, it gave it an edge. Somehow redefining the age and condition of everything into something newer, something sharper, and definitely something a bit more dangerous. Part of the allure I guess, but it was a good a place as any for a face to face, probably better than most. Here people knew to mind their business, staying in their own circles, keeping to their own. I was completely surrounded by the crowd of players, but I was effectively alone – or I would have been, had it not been for the client sitting across from me, looking for all the world as self-assured as he could be.
I had my deck out, sitting on the table between us, cables and various hookups going this way and that to other pieces of hardware. A credstick reader, a traceback whisperbox, all typical (snip)
I like the voice quite a lot, and the writing is clean. The scene is set nicely, perhaps a little too nicely in the sense that nothing much happens and, for me, no story questions were raised. As is my practice, I looked through the rest of the chapter but was left still not knowing what the story was about, and no problems for the protagonist had shown up. In other words, it was all world-building and set-up, not story.
My vote: no.
Comments, please?
For what it’s worth.
Ray
My editing clients talk about the work I do:
"What should I thank you for the most? Being always there for me to hammer you with questions? Encouraging and coaching me? Teaching me the ropes in a way no business-weary pro would? Going way beyond our agreement and your duties just to make sure everything was the best it could be? Giving me fair and blunt criticism at all times? Suggesting ways to fix the many problems you pointed out?
No. That would be incomplete. It would only recognize you as the professional editor that you are.
I want to thank you for making polishing my book--given the shape of the first draft, a daunting and apparently impossible job--a real pleasure.
" Georges Melhem
Visit my website for more info on services and fees.
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