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
Carol sends the first chapter of Knot Theory, historical fiction that takes place in 1943. Please vote—the feedback helps the writer.
On this ordinary night, in his discounted apartment with contractor-white walls, on this breathy late summer night of no stars, a moist night in which rain never quite materializes, Lucas Miller sleeps deeply, but not peacefully. His eyes flutter with the same dream that always troubles him. He dreams of a woman in gossamer clothes. She reaches for him, and he wants her, but her hands liquefy. Time and again, he wants her and he waits, but her hands liquefy.
It’s midnight at the corner of Elm and Brinker streets in Tibbit, New York, a town of 10,000 locals, more or less, and 3,000 college students, more or less. Lucas Miller knows he is the unwanted child of both.
He imagines that answers will arrive as a woman. She will walk toward him with great energy, in long strides, with her arms held wide. She will walk into his fears, and into his cringing shadows, right through the harsh light of his shame.
He sleeps in the purple light of his discounted apartment above Zelly’s Deli. Outside, the breeze lifts a sub wrapper from the top of Zelly’s door-step trash can and delivers it into the yard of the lawyer’s office next door. In the morning, the lawyer, the asshat lawyer, will cuss Lucas.
Lucas is afraid his voice will go brittle when the woman arrives. That he will speak only in half-notes and hesitations while she enters and passes through his stuttering body with the force of music that layers and propels itself relentlessly forward, without hesitation or (snip)
Nice, confident voice and clean writing are all to the good in this narrative. But, as a famous commercial once said, where’s the beef? I didn’t see much in the way of story questions or feel any tension, so this was a pass for me. I looked through the rest of the chapter—11 pages—and Lucas gets laid, learns that his job and apartment will be lost when the owner sells the deli (but it’s not even on the market yet), and he sees a pretty girl. At the end of the chapter I had no idea what the story was about, nor did anything happen to Lucas that troubled his life. In other words, it’s nicely written set-up, and the real story starts sometime later. I’d love to see that opening.
Comments, please?
For what it’s worth.
Ray
My editing clients talk about the work I do:
"I'm quite stunned really because your edit and advice are so utterly fantastic! I paid for an edit of a different novel a few years ago and was thoroughly disappointed, but you really hit the mark with everything you said (and you spotted straight away one of my main weaknesses: scene-setting - I can see it in my head and struggle to get it onto the page!). I was really blown away." Keris Stainton
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