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.
Download a free PDF copy here.
Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.
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?
Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.
Isaiah sends the prologue and first chapter for A Shadow Among Light.
Prologue
Spots of light danced across Justin’s vision as he lay on the hard ground in the darkness, momentarily stunned. A lightarrow had crashed down just beside him, sending off a massive shockwave that set off a pile of explosives nearby. Distantly, he heard Mara, his partner, shouting.
“Justin! Justin, come on! We have to keep moving!” A triplet of Maras leaned over Justin, helping him to his feet.
“I’m fine, I’m fine!” Justin exclaimed, brushing off his tight tunic and trying to ignore the ringing in his ears. “We’d better find some cover and come up with a strategy to stop this whole thing before it’s too late.”
“If we can,” Mara muttered doubtfully, her blonde hair rippling as she shook her head slightly. “The enemy has never been big on being stopped.”
“True, true,” Justin replied. “But this whole fiasco will have to end sometime.”
“If only they had a leader…” Mara muttered.
“But they don’t,” Justin retorted. They had been over that before. “If they did, we would have won by now.”
“But they have to have a head of some sort! They can’t be following the orders of no one!”
Chapter One
Kavin spun and drew a lightbow, feeling the familiar vibration as the bow sent a charge into the arrow. The wiry fibers of the bowstring slid smoothly off of his gloved fingers as he released. Streaming wisps of white light, the arrow flew, screaming through the air. It smashed into a robotic sentry, and the bot vanished in a flash of burning plasma. Dropping to the ground and sliding, Kavin barreled into another sentry, stabbing it with a knife that pulsed with white light and destroyed the sentry as it fell. Springing up, he spun and cast a small grenade into an approaching Manta. The creature was vaporized in an instant.
“Getting better,” a deep, refined voice said.
Kavin held back ten thousand burning retorts that leaped to the tip of his tongue, turning with a blank face to look at his supervisor.
“Hait,” he said, slapping his fist to his chest in a salute. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me until you hear me say that I’m impressed, or that you’ve done well, or that you are the best you can be,” snorted Hait. He began to walk toward Kavin, his black uniform standing in stark contrast against the glistening white floor of the training room. The man had an obsession with darkness; he wore black, his eyes were black, his short hair and goatee were black. Even his weapons – when he was bold enough to even fight – were black.
Too obsessed with black, Kavin thought.
You know me, the first determinant of a page turn is the raising of a compelling story question, followed immediately by a well-written narrative that moves forward. The prologue works at creating a tense situation and raising story questions with some dramatic action, but fell short on a couple of counts for me. The scene isn’t clear, and that may be because it isn’t in the writer’s mind. There is an explosion that sends the protagonist to the ground and sets off nearby explosives—yet, it turns out, they’re in a room and go into a hallway. “Ground” generally means dirt outdoors. There’s some overwriting that doesn’t bode well, too. At the end of the page, rather than moving on with the action, the characters get into a discussion of the “As you know, Bob . . .” kind. This in the middle of life-threatening action. It slows the narrative and detours the path of the story.
The chapter starts with interesting action and world features, but then quickly devolves into a non-threatening training situation where, one assumes, the character won’t be harmed. So there is no jeopardy and no compelling story question raised. There are signs of a good story here, but the narrative needs to focus more on a couple of things—setting the scenes in a quick, accurate way and action or dialogue that makes us wonder what will happen next. Some notes on the text:
Prologue
Spots of light danced across Justin’s vision as he lay on the hard ground in the darkness, momentarily stunned. A lightarrow had crashed down just beside him, sending off a massive shockwave that set off a pile of explosives nearby. Distantly, he heard Mara, his partner, shouting. Good opening paragraph, though where this is isn’t clear. It reads as if outside, but later in the chapter they’re inside.
“Justin! Justin, come on! We have to keep moving!” A triplet of Maras leaned over Justin, helping him to his feet.
“I’m fine, I’m fine!” Justin brushed exclaimed, brushing off his tight tunic and tried trying to ignore the ringing in his ears. “We’d better find some cover and come up with a strategy to stop this whole thing before it’s too late.”
“If we can,” Mara muttered doubtfully, her blonde hair rippling as she shook her head slightly. “The enemy has never been big on being stopped.” No need for weak adverb to describe the dialogue, what she says expresses doubt just fine, the reader doesn’t need this. The rest about her blonde hair rippling and head-shaking that’s “slightly” is a bit overwritten and not a smooth effort to include description. What makes it overwriting is that none of it affects the story, it just takes up space.
“True, true,” Justin replied. “But this whole fiasco will have to end sometime.”
“If only they had a leader…” Mara muttered. Here she is muttering again. Avoid the close echo of a word used before.
“But they don’t,” Justin retorted. They had been over that before. “If they did, we would have won by now.” Dialogue tag issues are showing up. Instead of “said,” so far we have exclaimed, muttered, replied, muttered again, and retorted. With the exception of the first muttered, they can all be “said” or written out. This is also where the narrative diverges from what’s happening into exposition trying to set things up. Didn’t work for me.
“But they have to have a head of some sort! They can’t be following the orders of no one!”
Chapter One
Kavin spun and drew a lightbow, feeling the familiar vibration as the bow sent a charge into the arrow. The wiry fibers of the bowstring slid smoothly off of his gloved fingers as he released. Streaming wisps of white light, the arrow flew, screaming through the air. It smashed into a robotic sentry, and the bot vanished in a flash of burning plasma. Dropping to the ground and sliding, Kavin barreled into another sentry, stabbing it with a knife that pulsed with white light and destroyed the sentry as it fell. Springing up, he spun and cast a small grenade into an approaching Manta. The creature was vaporized in an instant. This is just fine as an action opening nice writing. However, we don’t know where we are. Perhaps that should follow.
“Getting better,” a deep, refined voice said.
Kavin held back ten thousand burning retorts that leaped to the tip of his tongue, turning with a blank face to look at his supervisor. Here’s where the steam starts to leak out of this opening page. Similar to opening with a dream sequence, we’ve been subjected to a little bait-and-switch: there’s really no danger at all. As we soon learn, it’s training.
“Hait,” he said, slapping his fist to his chest in a salute. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me until you hear me say that I’m impressed, or that you’ve done well, or that you are the best you can be,” snorted Hait. He began to walk toward Kavin, his black uniform standing in stark contrast against the glistening white floor of the training room. The man had an obsession with darkness; he wore black, his eyes were black, his short hair and goatee were black. Even his weapons – when he was bold enough to even fight – were black.
Too obsessed with black, Kavin thought. This opinion of his supervisor’s appearance falls far short of contributing to a strong story question. The tension falls right out of the narrative for me here.
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.
Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.
Flogging the Quill © 2015 Ray Rhamey, story © 2015 Isaiah