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?
Sherry sends a first chapter of Undefeated. The rest of the chapter follows the break.
By the time I hit 16 I'd been playing football for ten years. Two things kept me connected to football. My dad and my hope for a scholarship to a Division One school. Lately, those two things hadn't felt like enough. I'd had enough of football, and really, enough of my dad. And now I suspected my coach would risk anything to win this football season.
Dad had shown up unannounced, as usual, at Nan’s today. Nan is his mother, my grandmother, and I've lived with her most of my life. After Dad divorced Mom, he'd lived all over the place, leaving Mom behind in the cottage on the back of Nan’s property and me behind with Nan. Mom had been too sick with cancer to take care of me. He'd done me a huge favor when he'd left me behind. Today he just happened to be in Kentucky.
We always ended up outside tossing the ball around. Dad never stayed indoors any longer than he had to. Today was a balmy late summer day, just enough breeze to rustle the leaves and control the sweat of playing hard. Late summer in our neighborhood smelled like chlorinated pools and new-mown grass.
“Go out for a long one, Hunter,” Dad said as he threw the football. Blasting in the background was Dad’s latest CD from his band, not bad if you like pop rock in the nature of Maroon 5.
I caught that long throw and a few dozen more before Dad said, “I'm going on the road (snip)
Once again, we see good writing and a good voice, but no story question raised. There’s exposition and backstory here that, while some contributes to character, none seems to contribute to story. The actual story later in the chapter seems to be about the protagonist’s concern about doping on the football team. Here’s an alternative opening using material from the next page.
By the time I hit 16 I'd been playing football for ten years. Two things kept me connected to football. My dad and my hope for a scholarship to a Division One school. Lately, those two things hadn't felt like enough. I'd had enough of football, and really, enough of my dad. And now I suspected my coach would risk anything to win this football season.
Dad had shown up unannounced, as usual, at Nan’s today. Nan is his mother, my grandmother, and I've lived with her most of my life. After Dad divorced Mom, he'd lived all over the place, leaving Mom behind in the cottage on the back of Nan’s property and me behind with Nan. Mom had been too sick with cancer to take care of me. He'd done me a huge favor when he'd left me behind. Today he just happened to be in Kentucky.
We always ended up outside tossing the ball around. “Go out for a long one, Hunter,” Dad said.
“Did you ever get tired of football, Dad?”
“Hell no, best time of my life. Don't you let anything get in your way. College football is golden. You'll be big man on campus, all the women you want…”
“It's different now, they expect you…” I said, before he interrupted me. I wanted to tell him my suspicions about Coach dosing players.
“You just do whatever your coaches tell you to do, you hear me. Whatever they tell you, they're the boss, no questions asked.”
What do you think? For me, it introduces conflict on more than one level.Would the opening page be stronger with this content on it?
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 Sherry
(continued)
for at least two months.”
I wasn’t surprised that he'd leave for two months, but during football season, that shocked me.
“What's up with that?” I asked.
“The SkreeminDemons got a long-term gig in Chicago, in a decent bar. Good money,” he said, “But I know you'll do me proud this season. You're on the fast track to follow in my football footsteps, boy.”
“Did you ever get tired of football, Dad?”
“Hell no, best time of my life. Don't you let anything get in your way. College football is golden. You'll be big man on campus, all the women you want…”
“It's different now, they expect you…” I said, before he interrupted me. I wanted to tell him my suspicions about Coach dosing players.
“You just do whatever your coaches tell you to do, you hear me. Whatever they tell you, they're the boss, no questions asked.”
When one of the senior players I really liked ended up in the hospital right after football practice one day recently, I was afraid I knew why. He’d been hinting around that he was pumping up in a big way at his new gym. I'd thought he meant with weights, but maybe there was something pharmaceutical involved.
“Marcel is in the hospital. They think it was drugs,” I said.
“That’s what happens when college gets close. He's a senior right?”
“They say he's in bad shape,” I said.
“Nothing you can do about it. Keep your own nose clean and don't worry about it.”
“It just seems really dangerous if someone is hooking players up with drugs…” I wanted to tell him how scared I felt.
“Mind your own business. Things happen. Players use stuff sometimes. No big deal.”
Dad picked up the football and headed toward the house to say his good-byes.
“Will you be able to come home for any games?” Not sure why I even asked, I'd learned not to expect anything from Dad. His last remaining thread of commitment to me had been football and now that was getting cut, too.
“Naw, we’re not getting paid enough to travel back and forth. But I'll come home for Thanksgiving for sure,” Dad said, “I'll be ready for some of your Nan’s turkey and dressing.”
And that quickly, Dad was gone again. I was left on my own to find out if Coach was playing fair, before someone else got hurt, or killed.