Oops, I got caught up in working on an edit and forgot to post yesterday. Enjoy.
Submissions Welcome. 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.
Elizabeth sends a revised first chapter of Masquerade, (formerly Ace, a YA novel. The original is here. The remainder is after the break.
Please vote. It helps the writer.
Two years ago I made a promise to myself. I would get out of this academy. I would die without its roof over my head.
I hop around my dorm, pulling on the leotard Ella sewed for me. There’s only two ways this morning will end. If I come first, I’ll be allowed to escape into the city outside. If I don’t, I’m stuck inside this prison for another year. I’m dancing for my freedom.
I throw on the cloak and the material falls silken over my shoulders. Ella did a good job with it. She’s only ten and rubbish at performances, but a wonder with sewing. I can’t pick up a needle without pricking myself, so having her make costumes in return for dance lessons has been a good deal.
But I’ve always known Ella would’ve helped me, whether I gave her lessons or not. She used to have the dorm beside mine. I can’t count the nights she came in to hold my hand, while I screamed my head off about some nightmare or another. But these days the nightmares have faded, and Ella knows me better than anyone in the Institution. It isn’t something I’m proud of. Some of the students would kill their opponents for a chance of winning, so I don’t make a habit of trusting them.
I pull the hood low enough that my opponents won’t catch a look at me. To win (snip)
I do like Elizabeth’s voice for this character, and the writing flows nicely for the most part. But, for me, two things held back a page turn. The first was a lack of tension caused by a lack of stakes. It’s clear that she wants desperately to get out of the academy/prison, but there are no troublesome consequences to failing. On the craft side, a pronoun without its true antecedent caused total confusion in one paragraph, a real clarity issue. In reading on, there is a unique and interesting world here, and the promise of a good story. Keep working, you’ll get there.
Two years ago I made a promise to myself. I would get out of this academy. I would die without its roof over my head.
I hop around my dorm, pulling on the leotard Ella sewed for me. There’s only two ways this morning will end. If I come first, I’ll be allowed to escape into the city outside. If I don’t, I’m stuck inside this prison for another year. I’m dancing for my freedom. Not sure how to interpret “prison” here. First it’s an academy, then a prison. Is this just teenage angst, or is it a real prison, or is it an academy that is like a prison? What is she in the prison/academy for? Most importantly, what are the stakes for being stuck there for another year? If her problem is being kept in a school for a year, it doesn’t sound like a big problem. Need to include some stakes here.
I throw on the cloak and the material falls silken over my shoulders. Ella did a good job with it. She’s only ten and rubbish at performances, but a wonder with sewing. I can’t pick up a needle without pricking myself, so having her make costumes in return for dance lessons has been a good deal.
But I’ve always known Ella would’ve helped me, whether I gave her lessons or not. She used to have the dorm beside mine. I can’t count the nights she came in to hold my hand, while I screamed my head off about some nightmare or another. But these days the nightmares have faded, and Ella knows me better than anyone in the Institution. It isn’t something I’m proud of. Some of the students would kill their opponents for a chance of winning, so I don’t make a habit of trusting them. The last two sentences didn’t make sense for me. Why is she not proud of Ella knowing her better than anyone? And the last sentence was a real non sequitur for me—what does her not being proud of knowing Ella have to do with students killing opponents? Is what she’s not proud of trusting Ella? Not clear at all. The problem lies with the use of “It” at the beginning of the sentence—its antecedent lies in the sentence before it, but that, apparently, isn’t what was meant.
I pull the hood low enough that my opponents won’t catch a look at me. To win (snip)
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 Elizabeth
Continued
. . . my freedom, I’ll have to dance so well I’m ranked above hundreds in the annual Student Ability Review this morning.
I check my reflection in the mirror. Where my face should be is just the shadow of the hood. I don’t bother trying to work my black hair into something. If I’m bad at sewing, my hair styling skills would be classed as apocalyptic.
I cross to my bed and pick up the mask. It fastens over my skull with a dull thwack, and takes a little adjusting to get it to mould to my face. It fits, but it should after all the hours Ella spent poking at my head. In the mirror you can see the faint glimmer of the blue and gold but nothing more.
I slip out of my dorm and hover at the entrance. The hallways and staircases of the Institution are dim but there’s enough light to see by. To my left is the path that leads to the Library. It’s forbidden, of course, but that doesn’t stop me sneaking down there every night to practice and read. But the danger’s worth it to read the books. I’m the only student that knows of the world outside the Institution.
I turn away from the library and set off. The coarse carpet nearly muffles my footsteps, but what it doesn’t, I do from habit. Not having the impending fear of capture is a nice change from my nightly routine of creeping around after curfew. I even pass a couple of the patrolling Electroines, but they don’t even look up. I’ve been chased by those machines through pitch-dark hallways before, and I’ve been lucky to escape. No one really knows what happens if you get caught after curfew, except that you disappear.
A pair of huge oak doors spit me into the Dining Hall. The first things I see are the patterns in the stained glass windows- patterns of moons and stars and trees- patterns of things that only exist in the Library’s books.
Maybe I’ll see them for real soon.
The Electroines line us up in front of the breakfast tables. The other students are in all forms of showy attire but Ella falls into place beside me wearing a simple white dress. She only stands to my shoulder, looking like a finch among birds of prey.
She elbows me, “Did you like the costume?” Before I can respond an Electroine calls her name.
“Here!” she says.
“Fife?”
“Here,” I say. The Electroine glances up from its clipboard and Ella withers a little beneath its blank face. It continues with the list, looking bloody in the light from the windows.
I turn to Ella, “Yeah, it’s great. Thanks.” I would have said more but my stomach’s performing its own dance routine. I think she understands though, because she falls quiet for a little while. The Electroine begins calling people to their performances.
I look down and see her hands trembling. I take them in mine and don’t say a word. I feel her gaze on me, but if I meet it I’m scared my hands will shake too, “Ella, I taught you everything I know. You’ll be fine.”
She nods and her little plaits bob, “Okay.”
She doesn’t sound okay. She looks even worse when an Electroine says, “Ella is summoned to the Grand Theatre.”
I let her hands go, but they flit beside mine for a fraction longer than they should. I gather myself and smile.
“Bye-bye,”she whispers. She doesn’t take her eyes off me until she’s swallowed by a door.
The next few minutes are agony. I don’t have Ella’s warm little hands to be brave for. I fiddle with the hood of my cloak, pulling it lower and lower as if I could retreat from everything. Now I don’t have my Library to hide in. Now I don’t have the towering bookcases to shelter me.
All I have is me and my mask.
The Electroine calls and I stumble after it, cloak fluttering on either side of me like flightless wings. I promised myself I would win this. But I’m a liar. I lied to Ella when I told her she would be fine, when I knew she was a terrible performer. I never told her, that while the winner of the Student Ability Review is freed, the loser disappears completely.
“It’s showtime,” the Electroine says behind me. I turn around and the door slams shut.