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--new: I've added a request to post the rest of the chapter.
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
Gary sends first chapter for This Book Sucks. The rest of the narrative follows the break. Help the writer with your comments.
The first sign of trouble was an Unsatisfactory in recess. As I understand it, the mark was usually accompanied by Does Not Play Well with Others, but I actually avoided the other children pretty well. My father sent me to the piano bench after reading the report card. I had to sit there, kicking my bobby socks, until Mother came home. Even our cat swished her tail at me and stopped beyond a foot of my hand. I considered that to be a bad sign, but she was that kind of cat all the way to the end of her.
Mom came home from her business, looking immaculate in her pinned-up bun and pin-striped dress. She put her purse on the stand by the door and walked past me into the dining room on her way to the kitchen. There she filled a champagne flute with the last of yesterday’s merlot and wandered back into the living room, where she stood by the china cabinet and drank half the glass, with her eyes closed.
“Where’s your father?” she asked after she came up for air.
“Upstairs.” I swallowed and quit fiddling with my bracelet.
She stiffened. More than normal. Put the empty wine flute on the piano. Squinted at me. “What did you do? Why are you in timeout? I thought you were practicing piano.”
My father’s shoes thumped down the steps. “She received an unsatisfactory.”
The squint turned into marbles. She yelled at Father, which didn’t make any sense: (snip)
Love the voice and the strange characters. The conflict is minimal, but it’s there, along with a moderate “what’s going to happen” question. That, plus the voice, got the page turned. The rest of the chapter is fun, for sure, and this is a terrific character. However, I ended it without knowing what the story was about. I suspect this is basically set-up before the real story begins. I urge Gary to consider starting closer to that point. I also didn’t end up knowing for sure what her strange condition is, and I think that should have been included—it’s character and a possible rooting factor. But it is fun. Give it a read and see what you think. I don’t really have any notes other than to question “kicking my bobby socks.” What does that mean? Does she mean kicking her feet? Surely she’s not actually kicking socks.
Comments, please?
For what it’s worth.
Ray
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 include in your email permission to post it on FtQ. Note: I’m adding a copyright notice for the writer at the end of the post. I’ll use just the first name unless I’m told I can use the full name.
- Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
- And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft 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.
Flogging the Quill © 2014 Ray Rhamey, story © 2014 Gary
The story continues:
(continued)
“That’s unacceptable in this house!”
Father straightened his tie and explained.
It didn’t matter to my mother that it was recess. In fact it was worse, “because it’s just recess! How hard can it be?”
“Well, at least it says here that she’s tested at the eleventh grade level in English,” he said, but I could tell he was just as disappointed.
Not that Mother let him off. Now they weren’t going to talk to each other for two days, even though they both agreed that I had let down family, God and country. They’d probably find out at the country club. I was going to end up in a homeless shelter before I got to fifth grade, forced to sleep beside ‘people of color’.
“I can improve, now that I know how they feel about me,” I said, though I knew I couldn’t, not without more therapy, anyway.
I had to sit on the piano stool for the next four hours without being allowed to jam along with the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Divertimentos collection that Father put on the record player. I even missed supper, though so far that hadn’t proven fatal.
###
We’d just gone through the crisis of: Talks too much in class, in the third grade, but I’d fixed that with the hearing aids I’d borrowed from Mister Wilson, who used to live in the house across the back fence. I still feel pretty guilty about what I did to him, but only because I’m supposed to.
The important thing to know is that after he kicked the bucket I didn’t need to worry about taking the hearing aids back. The new people who moved in weren’t even related. They brought my new best friend, Frieda, as well.
I said, “Frieda, do you know who used to live here?”
And she said, “Some old man who smells. We had to change the carpet.”
“He died in the hospital,” I said, because if she knew he’d died in his bed, right where we sat in her bed doing our toenails, she’d chameleon to a color paler than me in a minute. Then she wouldn’t talk to me until she got over it. While she complained, I’d have to Bluetooth my modified hearing aids-turned-ear buds into my secret jump drive and listen to Mandragora Scream, even though we weren’t still in school, and we were instead slumber partying with Alice over.
Alice was a worse gossip than Ann Coulter on that stupid channel my father watched day and night in his study, when he wasn’t secretly watching porn. If Frieda and I got into a tiff, Alice would only exacerbate it.
Besides, Taylor Swift was already singing through the speakers plugged into Frieda’s laptop over on the pink dresser. Taylor sounded way better than Justin Bieber, who made me have to turn on Mandragora Scream anyway and just nod to the drums and freaky lead singer until it went away.
Not hearing what everyone had to say wasn’t a very big problem like flunking recess. My psychiatrist says I’m intuitive. When people talk to me I usually don’t have to totally hear what they’re saying in order to understand. I did a thesaurus search on it, and after six degrees to Kevin Bacon I found the coolest word for my condition: Osmosis.
“Know what? I have osmosis.” I said.
“That’s really amazing.” Alice said. Her hair was as white as my face. She wore it pageboy. Sometimes her freckles glowed like the red stars in the Milky Way. “My Aunt Cindy has shingles. Does it itch? Do you have to take pills?”
I didn’t itch or take medicine, but I thought it’d be a better conversation if I nodded while appearing extra sad. I was like everybody and wanted to be an actress when I grew up.
Alice’s eyes blossomed even bigger than normal. Her bottom lip fell open as she studied my face like her mother probably did when she found out Alice had a temperature.
Alice was Frieda’s friend first. I liked her alright, mostly when she wasn’t thinking about what she was saying, which was all but once or twice a week. I scooted over so she could have a seat on the bed and so I could secretly scoop up the jump drive with Justin Bieber on it. I squeezed real hard and the plastic crumbled before melting into the metal parts.
“Is the osmosis disease why you’re so bad at recess?” Frieda asked. “I thought it was because you hid in the girls’ room and wouldn’t come out.”
I kept it at a nod. Excellent acting is not always about the words.
“I can’t believe it. You’re so good at kickball. You bounced it clear off the wall before they said you’d break the ball and couldn’t play anymore.” Alice put her hand on my forehead, checking for a temperature. She yanked her hand off and shook it. “You’re too cold. It’s like the opposite of a temperature. That could be just as bad.”
“Being cold runs in the family,” I lied.
Alice went to the bathroom.
“I’m going to be a lesbian when I get older.” Frieda twirled a curl in her long amber locks.
“You’re only saying that because you’ve got an annoying brother and haven’t gone through puberty. My psychiatrist says we’re confused until later.”
“I know.”
###
Later comes fast, and only your mother cares if you never pass recess.
The cure is Estee Lauder 'Double Wear' Maximum Cover Foundation. The problem is I was almost out of high school, eight years later, before my mother stopped paying attention enough to let me get away with wearing it.
By my senior year I could go out in the noon sun all I wanted—or at least a lot.
Still, there were routines beyond the afternoon smearing of foundation that helped prolong my tolerance for the sun.
“Get up. Didn’t you hear first call?” Alice crawled close and kicked the gym bag I used as a pillow at the track meet. If you wedge far enough under the stadium steps it’s almost dark in the middle of the afternoon.
“Alright, thanks for waking me up.”
“Did you see the one thousand?” she asked. “I got fifth. That’s three points. In the States! Three points; did you hear me?” Her words were a bit breezy, and her face still red from exhaustion.
“I would’ve watched if it wasn’t for my condition.” I really did feel guilty. “Did your mom get a video?”
“You could have sat under the umbrella.”
“It’s the States. There are too many people in the stands. They’d complain about an umbrella. And I have to be ready, not worn out by sun poisoning.” I retied my spikes and straightened the pins holding the paper number on my uniform sweat jacket.
Alice gave me the smiling silent treatment, so I added, “You can sleep over. We’ll watch your mom’s video. I’ll break down every little part. You probably got boxed in; I know how you are. I’ll bug you about it all you want.”
“It was three points,” she repeated, still smiling.
Three points was pretty fantastic. “That’s enough for a scholarship, I bet. If not, you should ask; someone will make an offer, even this late in our senior year.” I needed to pep her up. I pulled my blue (team color) fishing hat down over my ears, zipped my Gahanna Lions sweat jacket and slung my sports bag over a shoulder. We started walking all the way around to the starting line of the 300 meter hurdles.
We passed Frieda near the end of the stadium. She and Andy were morphed into a single mass of sweating flesh between the purring soda machines. They danced around in a pile of empty coffee cups and soda cans. Only about twenty people a minute walked by those two machines, so I was guessing they’d picked the spot because of the seclusion.
Frieda wasn’t on any of the teams, and she never really watched sports, either, but she never ever missed coming to the games.
“Mort’s up!” Alice yelled.
“Oh!” Frieda unhooked herself from Andy’s limbs and spun around while fixing her bikini top so at least only the shapes of her nipple showed. “Coming.” She caught up, fast walking out the camel toe. Andy followed for a half second then diverted to the snack bar.
“You going out with him, now?” I asked.
“Who? Andy?” She took a while to think about it. “No way. Or, at least I don’t think so.”
I stopped for a sip from my thermos before we broke into the sun. The loudspeaker screeched then settled. “Second call, women’s three-hundred-meter hurdles.” I took my time putting the thermos back into my bag.
This was Dayton. The officials in Dayton couldn’t hold a two hour track meet in anything less than eight. I’d already spent an hour at the starting blocks for the hundred meter hurdles. I’d been so drained by the time the gun sounded I’d only managed fourth place. And that was a morning run when I’d been trying a little. I glanced up at the sun and felt a spike of pain clear to the back of my eyeballs. The shades were where I’d left them in the pocket of my bag, thank God!
“You’ve got ketchup on your lip,” Frieda said when I leaned up.
“It’s fruit punch Gatorade,” Alice said.
I rubbed the drop with my thumb and sucked.
“Coach says, ‘If you take off your glasses, hat and sweats… and long stockings… tutus and whatever else you have on—a pound of makeup—you’ll finish in the top three,’” Alice said. “If someone falls or their steps get messed up….” she added. “And there’s no wind on the finish straight. Could be everybody false starts.”
“She’s being nice,” I said while getting passed through the Events-Only gate and onto the track. Frieda and Alice had to go find a seat up near the finish line, which was close to the gate, but crowded. More than likely the race would be over before they climbed to the top deck, even in Dayton.
Several hurdlers near the blocks were taking off sweats or stretching. A couple clanked out of the blocks. One took it over the first hurdle before jogging back with exaggerated bounce in her stride. I should have been doing some of that; one could pull a muscle.
All seven of my opponents were gazelles. I was looking at scholarships: Texas, Indiana, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Bowling Green. Harvard didn’t give out scholarships for running around an oval, and my parent’s favorite argument had been that or Yale. I figured, at least they’d given me a choice, and in spite of all the complaining, we didn’t need the money.
A man in umpire stripes and black shorts passed out bottles of ice-cold water. I took one, splashed the first half over my face and stuffed the still-cool bottle down in my windbreaker, wedging it in my cleavage. I’d have to remember to take it out; there’d been a particularly embarrassing moment during league semifinals, giving me a boost in that department.
I waved to the dots that were my parents. They occupied seats away from the finish-line crowd, to the right of the far stands. My mother was the only one wearing a Christian Dior sundress and pink hat with lace veil. Her dress was the same one she’d worn at the Kentucky Derby. My father perched beside her, under a bowler hat and black umbrella, kind of like a penguin. The other parents didn’t talk to them much, probably because they didn’t know what to say.
“You holding sweats?” the Ethiopianish gazelle beside me asked. She handed me her sweat jacket and started undoing the little zips on the outside of the calves of her pants.
“No, I have lane two.” I neatly folded her jacket and set it behind her blocks while she glared at me like I had a wart.
I held out my hand. “Morticia Rosini.”
She didn’t shake it.
So I added, “I heard you tried out for the Olympics in the four hundred hurdles last year and almost made it.”
“No, that was me,” the Norwegian goddess in lane four said. Her shoes were gold. When she removed her sweats, the suit looked like sealskin and appeared aerodynamic with sweeping stripes.
“It must have been the hair.” I smiled, so they’d think it was a joke and not because they both wore cornrows. Diplomacy mattered. The hurdles were dangerous; everyone had those little spikes and everything.
“When you fall, don’t land in my lane,” Ethiopian Gazelle said, confirming my fears.
The girl in lane one stepped up beside me, close enough to notice that she had armpit hair because her pits came up to my eye level. Her muscles were bigger than her boobs, so in one way I felt a little superior. She put her sweats into a Texas A&M bag.
“Two minutes. You need to get your sweats off,” the man in the umpire shirt said. He had a starter gun in a belt holster and a whistle around his neck.
“This is my first year running track,” I explained while kneeling and setting my blocks to where I always put them. “Senior year, go figure.” When he said one minute, I added, “I’ll have to run in these clothes because of a religious issue.” That always worked. Nobody messed with a religious issue. “I also don’t want people seeing my stuff bounce.” Which reminded me to take the bottle out of my cleavage.
“Honestly, who did she pay to get here? Were there a lot of disqualifies in her regional?” the cheetah way over in lane six asked.
Almost everyone tittered.
That got me a little upset. At first I was thinking I’d go for sixth place. It was still a couple points, but all the ridicule had me doing math in my head. I could maybe do better, and probably nobody would notice, given it was the end of the year and almost graduation. After all, I’d gotten four points in the 100s, and Alice had gotten three. Heather finished second in the shot. It’d be a shame to waste fifteen points in the States. Our team had a chance at overall fourth or fifth if I ran five seconds better than ever and won—otherwise known as a miracle. You didn’t need a lot of points to do well in the States, coach told us.
“One minute.”
I tied my shoes tighter and also secured the little straps I’d sewn onto my boonie hat to keep it from falling off while I ran.
“Are you going to stay dressed like that? Honestly you are insane,” the girl in lane five said.
So, I confessed: “If I win, people are likely to make a big deal out of it. You have no idea how that feels.” I took a swig out of my bottle and burped. “I have a compulsive disorder regarding too much attention. I’m terrible in crowds and get a rash. Good thing I’m way over here and behind most everybody.” The starting blocks were staggered, meaning I would have to catch everyone in lanes three onward, supposedly on the curve a hundred meters distant.
“Don’t worry about winning,” the gazelle in lane three said.
“You’re not going to sick up on us, are you?” Armpit Hair asked from lane one, a little behind and to my left, and thus most vulnerable.
“Alright. Not unless I lose my hat,” I answered them both, even though they’d pissed me off and didn’t deserve it.
“Ladies, on your mark. Set….” Bang!
That osmosis thing always helped me shoot ahead the first few yards, but the phobias usually kicked in over the hurdles. Almost nobody came to track meets, so it had seemed like a safer sport than the others. Even here, there weren’t a lot of people straight ahead, so I churned away and passed the gazelle before the second hurdle.
The thing I always loved was the curve, even if it was tighter than can be from the second lane. I had to jump toward the inside of my lane because of the sailing. My lead leg landed on the outside of my lane anyway. That forced me to cross over with the right foot, like sewing a zigzag seam in Home Ec. It could be a dance of beauty. I was all alone. Free. Like a bird. A roadrunner, to be exact. I always loved the curve for the things it did to me inside.
There were a lot of people up ahead, maybe thirty or forty thousand. No way could I totally avoid so many by only getting second or third. But a spark of brilliance hit me and I went ahead and passed the Norwegianish girl in lane four. She’d really been annoying when she’d not shown any humility after I’d mentioned her Olympic trials experience.
Most of the people who’d been yelling and screaming quieted some, which was excellent, proving my plan might be working, after all. A smaller number of fans cheered in their place. Smaller=gooder.
I clipped the last two hurdles perfectly with my lead ankle and trailing heel, not wasting an inch of air and driving my leg down hard to the sprint. Instead of slowing, I picked it up through the tape.
Here’s the brilliant part that I’d come up with on the fly—and because they’d annoyed me so much, making me get creative: I kept running, almost as fast. When I got all the way around through the second curve, an extra hundred meters to the starting blocks, I tail-hooked my gym bag and hightailed it through the back contestant gate.
The coach had a camper set up in the parking lot where everyone but the contestants had eaten lunch off a barbeque grill. I headed for that.
Nobody was there, but the awning was still up and the lawn chairs awaited. I cranked the awning down as low as it’d hang and grabbed a Code Red out of the cooler. I nearly swallowed the can, though something about the taste just wasn’t perfect.
About an hour later the coach’s husband wandered by. “Everyone is crazy, trying to find you. Nobody knew where the hell you went. Contestants are supposed to report back to the starting line.” He was a teacher, too.
“Well they have those photo finish machines and everyone was shooting videos. A million people saw! And I had to pee.” Which I did, but only after I’d said it. Thus I had to say, “Now I have to pee again. I’ll be right back.”
Coach’s husband punched numbers on his cell phone, calling in the troops.
The Porta-Potties were clear across the parking lot, and even though it had turned to late afternoon, it only meant the sun had an easier time of sneaking in under my hat and enormous sunglasses.
###
“Did you hear me in there?” Coach Bayers asked the top of my head. “Thirty-nine, fifty-nine. Under forty!”
“I’m sorry, I was in a hurry. Did your husband tell you I had to pee? I also got carried away in a pack of gazelles,” I said from the back of the stubby school bus that they usually used for the special kids, but also used for our track team when only a few people were going. “Honest. Forget it happened.”
“Jesus, Mort, that’s a state record,” Frieda said. “It’s only one hundredth away from the national record, they said on the loudspeaker.” She was pretending to be a statistician so she could cop a free ride—my idea. Now I was considering regretting it because she, along with Alice, wouldn’t stop. Strangers were going to be coming up to me all last week of high school saying, “Oh my God, oh my God!”
I resolved I’d wear my brown costume burka without cutting out the niqab from now until college. Sometimes that looked realily cool with sunglasses and a hat. I’d hemmed mine up to half calves. My rainbow socks with my Polo Ralph Lauren Patchworth ankle boots made the whole statement come to life. It also helped keep people from getting too close because it was impossible to understand. Even my psychiatrist asked about it and I was clueless. Probably at Harvard it was normal. If I went there it might save my parents a hundred bucks for the half hour, though it always made them feel better when I spent time with a professional.