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—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.
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.
Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. 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.
A First-page Checklist
- It begins connecting the reader with the protagonist
- Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
- What happens is dramatized in an immediate scene with action and description plus, if it works, dialogue.
- What happens moves the story forward.
- What happens has consequences for the protagonist.
- The protagonist desires something.
- The protagonist does something.
- There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
- It happens in the NOW of the story.
- Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
- Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
- What happens raises a story question—what happens next? or why did that happen?
Colleen sends a first page of Zondar Apocalypse.
I was hatched on the Planet Zondar in the year of our Lady, 39-trillion 12-billion and 6. (They're still on the Reagonomics Calendar.) Okay, I wasn't really hatched. I just tell that story because it's way less traumatic than my actual birth. I was supposed to arrive like most Zondarian babies do -- by stork. However, the stork got waylaid by an errant superhero flying well above the speed limit, causing an inter-celestial collision that necessitated the dreaded ethereal womb extraction with a fibre-optic chainsaw. Also, the Ob-Gyn was stoned on Kryptonite, and epidurals had been outlawed following the All-Natural She-Woman Revolution.
As harrowing as Zondarian obstetrics are, my birth wasn’t horrific enough to make Mom want to leave her home planet, but Dad was desperate to get the hell out ever since that run-in with the Bustyernards Clan. Good thing politics were shifting. Before I'd learned to change my own diapers, The Grand Lizardess of Zondar decreed that no sporting events shall be televised. Mom, a closet fan of sportshagging, simply couldn’t abide, so we became Earthlings.
We fit in on Planet Earth, despite the sideways looks we got when people saw our pet. Thor was a neurotic rabbit who had the run of the house. Wasn’t weird to us because most Zondarian families have a pet Kangadile slither-hopping about. They're so cute with their beady reptilian eyes and scaly pockets with the beadier eyes of its young peeking out at you, just like a built-in purse dog. Thor wasn’t nearly as cuddly, but we loved him. Unfortunately, so did the gas man, who turned out to be Bustyernards kin.
Okay, here’s one of those first-person narratives that can ignore many of the guidelines for what works on a first page. A fine, tongue-in-cheek voice that romps through a parody of science-fiction worked for me. There is a stream-of-consciousness aspect to this that Colleen may have to be careful with as it can toss in some confusion now and then, as it did for me and the part about the pet. But carry on, this promises to be fun. Just one note:
I was hatched on the Planet Zondar in the year of our Lady, 39-trillion 12-billion and 6. (They're still on the Reagonomics Calendar.) Okay, I wasn't really hatched. I just tell that story because it's way less traumatic than my actual birth. I was supposed to arrive like most Zondarian babies do -- by stork. However, the stork got waylaid by an errant superhero flying well above the speed limit, causing an inter-celestial collision that necessitated the dreaded ethereal womb extraction with a fibre-optic chainsaw. Also, the Ob-Gyn was stoned on Kryptonite, and epidurals had been outlawed following the All-Natural She-Woman Revolution.
As harrowing as Zondarian obstetrics are, my birth wasn’t horrific enough to make Mom want to leave her home planet, but Dad was desperate to get the hell out ever since that run-in with the Bustyernards Clan. Good thing politics were shifting. Before I'd learned to change my own diapers, The Grand Lizardess of Zondar decreed that no sporting events shall be televised. Mom, a closet fan of sportshagging, simply couldn’t abide, so we became Earthlings.
We fit in on Planet Earth, despite the sideways looks we got when people saw our pet. Thor was a neurotic rabbit who had the run of the house. Wasn’t weird to us because most Zondarian families have a pet Kangadile slither-hopping about. They're so cute with their beady reptilian eyes and scaly pockets with the beadier eyes of its young peeking out at you, just like a built-in purse dog. Thor wasn’t nearly as cuddly, but we loved him. Unfortunately, so did the gas man, who turned out to be Bustyernards kin. I became confused here. Is Thor a rabbit or the Kangadile? Thor wasn’t as cuddly as what? A Kangadile? If Thor is a rabbit, why fill us in on what most Zondarians have?
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 Colleen