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
Michael sends first chapter for The Voodoo Princess of Big Pine Key. The rest of the narrative follows the break. Help the writer with your comments.
“Listen, all I heard from my cousin is that there’s a beautiful Haitian woman down in the Keys who murders young guys and uses their bodies to smuggle heroin into the country,” said Carlos. “The local Cubans call her the Voodoo Princess.”
“Yeah but, we’re not looking for any trouble, all we want is to pick up some of those cute Cuban chickas you told us about,” Stanley Williams said. “We’re not gonna mess with no Voodoo woman.”
“You guys aren’t even able to pick up trash, you’re too square,” interjected Guy from across the senior Pagoda. “Whadda you know about picking up girls?”
“Carlos is going to help us out with some Spanish stuff,” said Dennis, one of Stanley’s sidekicks. “He says they like clean cut guys like us, not a motley crew of greasers like you bums.”
“Shut yer pie-hole, Dennis, afore I send Joe over there to kick your ass.”
“Shut up, Guy,” growled Stanley. “None of your boys are gonna kick anybody’s ass.”
“Up yours, dweeb face. Our guys can beat your guys any day of the week.”
“Any time you want to try it, Guy. You know I can lick you or any one of your gang with one hand behind my back. You ain’t tough, you just talk a big game,” said Stanley.
Guy always had to butt in because he fancied himself the senior bully. He thought his (snip)
The writing is solid and there’s conflict here and an interesting opening line about voodoo and murders, but I soon got lost in the flurry of names/characters—4 are introduced in the first few paragraphs. I could have used some scene-setting, too—the reference to the senior Pagoda doesn’t quite give me a picture. Perhaps this could be simplified by eliminating the Dennis character and giving his lines to someone else. The main thing is that there’s no real story question affecting the protagonist here—which is another thing: it’s not clear who the lead character is.
It turns out that it’s Stanley. I looked through the chapter for a different opening, but I found mostly set-up and backstory and no real “what’s going to happen next” question to pull me through. For me, the rest of the chapter was suspense-free. I think the real story starts later, maybe when they’re in the Keys if that’s where they go.
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 Michael
(continued)
opinion on anything and everything counted, and if it didn’t count he tried to make it count. There were bigger boys in the senior class, but none were meaner. Any provocation on the part of any student in the school might set him off. His rages ranged from serious verbal confrontation and biting name-calling up to and including physical violence.
For instance, in a math class he taunted Stanley by snatching his newly sharpened pencil off his ear and snapping it in two. Stanley had a fetish about having sharp pencils, especially #3’s for math classes. Breaking his new pencil pissed Stanley off big time. Being the nonviolent type, and totally out of character, he leaned over and punched Guy smack in the left jaw. That set Guy off on one of his patented and feared French temper rages. Before he could get out of his desk and reach Stanley, the teacher had stepped between them and prevented any further violence.
“Take it up outside after school and off campus, Guy. You had it coming to you. You didn’t have to break his new pencil. Now, shut up and be quiet. I’m giving a test today, and you’re not going to interrupt class anymore. Understood?”
Guy sneered back, “Yes sir, Mr. Maloney.”
He didn’t say another word until the teacher moved back to the front of the classroom. Then he hissed out of the side of his mouth, “Williams, I’m going to kick your ass.”
It hadn’t always been this way between Stanley and Guy. They had actually grown up near each other. They went to the same elementary school and even played on the same little league team together.
Stanley knew what made Guy so antagonistic towards him, but he didn’t understand why. Both played on the high school football team together. Both played defense, Guy a defensive back and Stan the defensive middle guard. It seemed to Stan that their friendship fractured when Stan earned the job of calling defensive plays. Guy, the more aggressive player, always seemed to find the ball and the ball carrier, but he hardly ever remembered his defensive schemes. But, he wanted to be the boss.
Stan, on the other hand memorized every scheme of every player on defense. He knew where every player should be at any time. Better yet, he had an uncanny knack of predicting the opposition’s play calling. That made him a valuable leader on the field. Coach made him defensive play caller for that reason. He wasn’t a better player physically than Guy. He was just smarter. That rankled Guy and the fissure began to widen through the junior year and escalated into outright opposition in their senior year.
To make matters worse, the team elected Stan as co-captain in their senior year. That compounded Guy’s dislike of Stan to no end. Guy had more tackles, more sacks, and more interceptions than Stan did, but that didn’t count. Stan just out-smarted Guy, plain and simple.
After Stan’s election to co-captain, Guy began openly trying to sabotage Stan on and off the field. Stan towered over Guy. He out-weighed him by thirty pounds and could look down at him. Guy, fueled by his disappointment at not being elected co-captain and his lower standings in the classroom didn’t let that stop him. His need for revenge caused him to confront Stan at every opportunity.
Stan on the other hand, saw Guy’s machinations as a sign of his immaturity. Most of the time Stan let it pass without response. Occasionally, Guy did get under Stan’s skin, and things came to a head. It didn’t bother Stan that Guy bullied everybody in school. He knew that if Guy made him angry enough with his bullshit picking, he could take him in a fair fight. Almost everybody who had a confrontation with Guy soon found out that he didn’t fight fair. He always made sure he had some element of superiority or surprise on his side, that, and the fact that he made his nefarious reputation by picking on students who were both smaller and underclassmen.
So, it would come to a head just like this in the senior pagoda. Guy, trying to intimidate the underclassmen, and denigrating Stan at the same time, picked a fight again.
“Get that Cuban refugee sophomore out of here,” said Guy. “This pagoda is only for seniors only. Sophomores aren’t allowed in here.”
“Shut up, Guy,” retorted Stanley. “We invited him to meet here with us today. We need his expertise.”
“Oh yeah, what expertise? He can hardly speak good English, and you nerds can’t speak Spanish. What’s he going to do, teach you some Spicish?”
“Yeah, Guy,” chimed in Dennis, the second and shortest of Stanley’s friends, “we want to learn some Spanish. Do you mind?”
“Yeah, I mind,” sneered Guy.
“Well, don’t mind. The rules say that if a senior invites an underclassman to the senior pagoda, he has immunity for the day. We invited Carlos here for some business that’s none of your business.”
The senior pagoda, started by the school’s 1955 senior class, became a special gathering place. When first built, it was nothing more than some wooden slats, set on twelve posts covering a slab of cement in the middle of the campus. The idea was to provide some shade. In just two years, it evolved into quite an elaborate private garden. Seniors planted vines at the base of each of the twelve wooden columns that supported the slatted roof. Eventually they had grown up and over the slats until the pagoda became a cool oasis shaded from the hot Miami sun. The next senior class added some embellishments to improve the livability of the pagoda... It became a truly lovely tropical oasis, cool and inviting, but only for seniors.
The very fact that a sophomore entered the senior pagoda was enough for Guy to have an issue. But that he was a Cuban made him even more agitated. This high school was, up until this year, totally segregated, no colored, no Cubans, no Seminoles, just whites. Guy, although being a French-Canadian, didn’t count as a segregated class He fancied himself privileged above most all the students, especially the first and only Cuban enrolled in the school.
“Just make sure that this is the only time. We don’t want them Cubans thinking they can come in here any time they feel like.”
“Yeah, okay Guy, whatever,” weighed in Marvin, the third member of Stanley’s group, who had invited Carlos to the pagoda. “If you really want to know, we’re getting Carlos to translate us some phrases and words we can use when we go to Key West next weekend. We heard that some of the Cuban chicks living there are really hot, so we just wanted to get something to help us pick them up.”
“Jeeze, shut up, Marvin. You let the cat out of the bag. Damn,” complained Stanley.
“Oh shit, I don’t believe this. You three guys are going to Key West to find some broads to pick up,” smirked Guy. “You couldn’t pick up one of those bitchs if she died in the street. I can just see it now, a dweeb, a nerd and doofus, tooling around Key West trying to convince a hot Cuban chick to hop in the car with them. Ho, ho, ho, that’s rich. Marvin, a skinny dweeb, Dennis, a nerd so short he can’t even see over the back of a cockroach, and Stanley, a big doofus, hanging out the window of his dad’s car, yelling, ‘you want to take a ride with us, senorita’.”
That set off a roar of derisive laughter and hooting from the entourage that always gathered around Guy.
“Shut the f… up,” said Stanley. “You’ll see how good we are when Carlos teaches us Spanish. Come on Carlos, let’s sit over here and get to work.”
Carlos, Stanley, Dennis and Marvin moved over to the opposite side of the pagoda and sat down around a cement table. Marvin whipped out the list of phrases the three had worked on over the last week and handed them to Carlos. The sheets contained at least thirty phrases and sentences that they thought they might use to get a Cuban girl to speak to them.
“Carlos, this is what we want you to translate into Spanish for us,” said Marvin.
Carlos took the list and read it slowly, so slowly that Marvin thought Carlos couldn’t read his writing.
Carlos finally couldn’t contain himself any longer. He burst out into hysterical laughter, and handed the list back to Marvin.
“Man, you guys are freaking dopes. You think if you say something like this to a Cuban girl, or any girl for that matter, is going to get them to hop in your car with you. Shit, I’m not as old as you guys are and even I know better than this. ‘Wanna make out, sweetheart?’ is not the way to start a conversation with anyone. You gotta be really smooth when you come on to a Latin girl.”
Carlos continued his counseling, “They mostly got boyfriends by the time they are 13 or 14, and they are pretty sophisticated by the time they get to be 16 and 17. They’ve heard all the crude lines used on them and they don’t like to be talked to like that. You have to show them you are cool, and hot, at the same time, muy caliente, very hot. You have to treat them like young women, as if they were twenty or twenty-one. Show them ‘cool’ man. Say, ‘Buenos tardes, Senorita. Como sta? Habla Inglis? Then let them answer you back. You’ll find out right away if she is impressed with you or not. If she starts laughing, you’re done, man. If she just stares down at the ground and doesn’t say anything, she might be interested. If she looks straight into your eyes and cuts a big smile, you got a chance. You just have to learn how to read those girls.”
“Well, that’s what we need to learn, what to say and how to say it,” responded Stanley.
“Yeah, we gotta know how to hook up with one of them chicks real quick. We’ll only be in Key West for two nights,” Dennis said.
“Look you guys, I got to tell you something else about the Cubans in Key West. They’re not the same as us here in Miami. They came over to Key West when Castro first started his revolution. They are mostly the rich friends and relatives of Dictator Bautista. They came over bringing their money with them, the money they stole from the people of Cuba. If the revolutionistas caught them, they would kill them right pronto, no questions asked. Bautista, and those associated with him are bad people. They are mean and have no concern for anyone’s life. That’s why Fidel started the revolution, to free Cuba from that dictator and his henchmen.”
Continuing his social history lesson Carlos expounded, “So, most of the Cubans in Key West right now are some way associated with the Bautista regime. When they hopped on their yachts to make the trip, they brought everybody with them. They brought the servant girls, the yardmen, the cooks, the butlers and anybody else they could cram on their boat. The servants brought their families, too, young and old. Even the family’s pets got a free ocean voyage.
“I’m telling you this to save your worthless asses,” he continued. “Those young chickas, as you call them, either daughters of the rich, or their servant girls, or the daughters of the servant girls, are all protected by the Cuban men. The men own them. They use them as they wish. They don’t want any outsider dipping into their wells, if you get my meaning.”
“What are we supposed to be afraid of Carlos?” queried Dennis. “We’ll just pick up some that don’t have any guys around. That way we’ll be safe.”
“Man, you don’t understand. The girls may be out alone, but they still belong to someone. That someone will eventually be out looking for his private property. I'll tell you one thing; you don’t want any of those Cubans to catch you with their private property. Those hombres can be mean, very bad. They learned violence in their homes and practiced it, as they got older. They developed some of their violent ways into sheer horror. I heard the guys carry machetes down their pant legs and aren’t afraid to use them.”
“So, what you’re saying Carlos, is that if we are lucky enough to pick up a girl, we may not be lucky enough to what? Live?” said Stanley.
“That’s about it guys. I know that in Cuba, these guys don’t just kill you quick, but they know how to make it slow and painful. You’ll be begging them to kill you before they are done with you. And guess what? The girl you just sweet-talked into a ride to the hamburger joint is going to be standing right there, getting off on the whole bloody scene. They love tough hombres and the tougher the hombre the more they love them. Someone told me that sometimes the girls pick up unwary gringos and lead them into a trap, just to see their boyfriend torture them. They’re all a bunch of mean ones, that’s for sure.”
“Oh, shit,” exclaimed Dennis, “I thought this was going to be a good time for us, you know, some fishing, swimming, some dancing and maybe a sweet young honey to kiss. If it’s going to be this bad, maybe we should call off the whole trip or at least the part when we go in to Key West. We’ll just stay on Big Pine Key where we’ll be safe.”
“Oh, don’t be a chicken-shit, Dennis,” chided Stanley, “Carlos is just trying to scare us. Remember, he hates Bautista and loves Castro. Nothing’s going to happen to us. But, we’ll be extra careful, just in case.”
“Well, if that ain’t gonna scare you enough, take a gander at this.” Carlos pulled a newspaper out of his notebook and unfolded it. “Look at this picture. Right here on the front page of yesterday’s Herald.”
He laid the paper on the table. The headlines screamed in heavy black type, ‘Six Cubans Murdered in Key West’. Under the picture of six bodies covered with sheets, the story continued,
Six Cuban men found murdered on a Key West street. All six men had their throats slashed. On each body, was a bundle of blood-covered feathers tied together and hung around their necks. Police speculate that a rival Haitian gang executed the Cubans. The feathers are apparently a warning from the Haitians that more killings may happen. The entire Cuban community is up in arms and demanding that the police bring the Haitians to swift justice. Authorities speculate further that this may have been a drug related killing.
“See what I mean,” continued Carlos. “There are some bad hombres down there. You’ve got to be careful. The Cubans are probably on edge now and even a little misstep, like them catching you with their girls, could provoke them into doing something rash.
“Oh yeah, and one more thing,” added Carlos. “I’m warning you to watch out for those Haitian girls. I know they practice voodoo in the Keys. You don’t want to come back with a curse on you.
“Let me tell you a story my cousin told me about this one Haitian girl. He told me she was one of the most beautiful girls in the world. She was some kind of a princess, born of a royal family or something. He said she would kidnap sailors from the naval base and use her Voodoo to turn them into Zombies. Then she would get them to do all kinds of things, like killing Cubans or smuggling heroin into the country. When she got through using them, she and her gang just dumped the bodies in the ocean. He made it sound like they were worse than the Cubans were when it comes to killing. So just be careful of who you pick up.”
“We’re not going to Key West to look for Haitians. We’ll steer clear of them for sure. We’ll wear our crosses and carry our rosaries just to be safe. That way they won’t be able to hex us,” said Dennis. “Right, guys?”
“That’s right. Our crosses will save us,” added Marvin.
“Yeah, maybe save you from the voodoo, but who’s gonna save you from hell if you get into the pants of one of the girls you pick up? You’ll be commitin’ a mortal sin,” said Carlos.
“We’ll just have to go to confession when we get back, that’s all,” Marvin said.
“I think we’ll just concentrate on the Cuban chicks and forget about anything else,” said Stan. “Now, can you write up some Spanish lingo that’ll help us with the girls when we get to Key West?”
“Yeah, sure, I’ll get something written up for you by Wednesday, OK?”
“Yep, that’s perfect. We’ll study it all the way down to Key West.”
The bell rang to end the lunch break. Everyone hurried back to class except Guy. He waited just outside the pagoda partially hidden by a large areca palm. Stanley passed by, Guy jumped out and grabbed him by the back of his shirt and pulled him close to his face. He stuck his mouth right up to Stanley’s ear.
“Don’t think I forgot about that ass kicking I promised you Stanley. It’s coming. You won’t know when or where, but when it comes it’s gonna be bad, real bad. So you just keep thinking about it all the time, day and night, wherever you go,” growled Guy. Then he hooked his foot around Stanley’s leg and pushed him forward. Stanley fell like a ton of bricks, flat on his face, his glasses knocked askew and scratched by the gravel on the path. Guy jumped over him, already half-way back to the main building, when Stanley recovered enough to blurt out, “you effing bastard, I’m gonna get you someday.” Stanley heard Guy chuckling as he hurried away.
* * *
The rest of the school week progressed uneventfully. Carlos delivered as he promised on the Spanish pick-up lines; Stanley secured permission for the use of the family car. Marvin detailed a checklist for essential items needed for the trip to the Keys. Dennis kept saying they shouldn’t go all the way to Key West to look for girls, due to his perceived fear of their violent guardians. And best of all, Guy didn’t bother Stanley again.
He didn’t bother Stanley, but that didn’t mean he was completely unaware of the trio’s plans. Guy, being mister tough-guy, had quite a following of seniors, juniors and even sophomores who found it better to be on the good side of Guy rather on the bad side. This gave him a comprehensive network of spies throughout the school. Anything Guy wanted to know about anything going on in school he could find out just by asking. This week he wanted to know about the plans of three seniors who were going to the Keys.
Within hours, his spies had befriended all three of the seniors and got the complete itinerary for the trip. They reported all these details back to Guy.