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 engaging the reader with the character
- Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
- The character desires something.
- The character 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.
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.
Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.
Cristina sends the first chapter of a young adult story, Sui Generis. The remainder is after the break.
Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.
I glanced in the rearview mirror and noticed the car behind me was gaining. The thought that it was going too fast flashed through my mind, and just as I decided to move out of the way it rear-ended me. I felt the jolt down to my bones and as I was thrown forward, my foot pressed down on the accelerator. My fingers tightened around the steering wheel, whitening my knuckles. A cold sweat broke out all over my body and my heart picked up its beat, driving the blood into my eardrums, muffling the crunching and squealing of the two cars fighting for control. I reached the curve on the road and crashed through the guardrail and into the ravine. As the windshield gave way, the glass cut into my face and arms as I went flying through it and….
I jolted up in bed, a thin film of sweat covering my skin. The sheets tangled in my feet as I tried to swing my legs off the bed. Rubbing my hand across my face, I tried to get the dream out of my mind. It wasn’t the first time I’d been woken up by the dream. Ever since my mother had been killed in a car accident when I was ten years old, six years ago, it had become part of my nightly repertoire of dreams, although, now that I thought about it, I hadn’t had the dream in at least three weeks.
Taking a deep breath I looked around for my comforter and noticed my hand was shaking. I closed my eyes and clenched my hands into fists at my side. There was no way I was gonna be able to go back to sleep. I was too amped from the dream, still feeling the glass cutting (snip)
Ah, the dream opening. I’m sure there are FtQ readers ready to nay-say that, and I’m among them. While brief, and that’s a good thing, this dream snippet only serves as an entry into backstory and setup, which is what the remainder of the chapter is. There’s musing about the mother’s death that I think I could do without.
There is one juicy bit relegated to the second page by all this dream stuff that had the potential to hook me. It is this:
I’m being taught by my father to follow in his footsteps. My father is, for lack of any other term, a hit man, although, I like to think of him as a conflict resolution specialist. In fact, that’s what I tell people when they ask about my father’s job.
But then we leave that for more about the dream, the dead mom, etc. I think this story starts too soon—it needs to find the point where the character (I think it’s a boy named Jake, but am not certain) has his life interrupted by something that forces him to react, that creates a need in him that he cannot deny. In other words, the inciting incident. Start as close to that as you can and weave in this material as needed when it is necessary for understanding what’s going on. The tidbit posted above, about his father, might make a good opening paragraph if the narrative then went immediately to a problem related to his training as a hit man. A boy being trained by his father to kill people promises an interesting story—get to it, please!
On the writing side, it's clean, but for me the narrative could be crisper and there are lots of filters that it would be nice to do without. Notes:
I glanced in the rearview mirror--and noticed the car behind me was gaining. The thought that it was going too fast flashed through my mind, and just as I decided to move out of the way it rear-ended me. I felt the jolt down to my bones and as I was thrown forward, my foot pressed down on the accelerator. My fingers tightened around the steering wheel, whitening my knuckles. A cold sweat broke out all over my body and my heart picked up its beat, driving the blood into my eardrums, muffling the crunching and squealing of the two cars fighting for control. I reached the curve on the road and crashed through the guardrail and into the ravine. As the windshield gave way, the glass cut into my face and arms as I went flying through it and….For me, this takes too long to develop. It’s basically an action sequence, and a dangerous one. Do we need all the internal stuff about sweat and muffled sounds and white knuckles? And some of the scene is missing—is it day or night, for example. How can the driver move out of the way unless it’s on a four-lane highway—is it? The highlighted parts are action and “body part” filters that can distance the reader from the character’s experience. Also, modern windshields don’t usually shatter into pieces—they hold together in a web of cracked glass. However, if his head is going through the windshield, then jagged edges could cut him--that needs to be clear. If you’re going to do this, make it “hotter” and quicker. For example: A car raced up behind me and rammed my car. I was thrown forward and my foot jammed the gas pedal to the floor. Out of control, I swerved across two lanes of traffic toward a ravine. I crashed through the guard rail, the windshield gave way, glass cut my face as I flew . . .
I jolted up in bed, covered with sweat a thin film of sweat covering my skin. The sheets tangled in my feet as I tried to swing my legs off the bed. Rubbing I rubbed my hand across my face and, I tried to get the dream out of my mind. It wasn’t the first time I’d been woken up by the dream. Ever since my mother had been was killed in a car accident when I was ten years old, six years ago, it had become part of my nightly repertoire of dreams, although, now that I thought about it, I hadn’t had the dream in at least three weeks. A little info-dumping here. It’s never easy to work in the age of a character, but this felt a little clunky.
Taking a deep breath, I looked around for my comforter and noticed my hand was shaking. I closed my eyes and clenched my hands into fists at my side. There was no way I was gonna be able to go back to sleep. I was too amped from the dream, still feeling the glass cutting (snip) “noticed” is another filter. Just have his hand shake.
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 Cristina
Continued:
. . . into me, and the weightlessness as I flew through the air. I was going to deal with this, take the edge off, the only way I knew how. Physical exertion. Running in the dark to hone the skills my father had been teaching me for five years now.
I’m not your typical sixteen-year old. Sure I do typical teenage activities like go on dates, attend parties thrown in houses with absentee parents, greatly dislike school and the authority figures that reside there, and come up with ways to annoy my younger siblings and older brother. Where I differ from my peers is in my after school activities. I’m not involved in any of the numerous athletic teams the school supports, nor am I a part of the drama club or into school politics. I don’t have to rush to a menial job in a fast food restaurant or at a movie theater. I’m being taught by my father to follow in his footsteps. My father is, for lack of any other term, a hit man, although, I like to think of him as a conflict resolution specialist. In fact, that’s what I tell people when they ask about my father’s job.
My education began a year after my mother’s death, when I was eleven. After my father had managed to drag himself out of the bottomless pit of self-despair he had fallen into, he had seen the wreck I had become and decided to do something about it. He took me under his wing and began teaching me about his business. A way to deal with my grief is how he had explained it to my older brother, Michael.
I was eleven years old the first time I killed somebody, actually, two somebodies. My father asked me later that night how it had made me feel and the answer I gave made him cringe. I liked it. I like it still. Don’t get me wrong I’m not a psycho, itching to kill anyone that crosses my path. At the time, it made me feel in control and for the first time since my mother’s death, calm. Now, it gives me a purpose in life. Sure, I feel guilty that I took someone’s life, that I ended their dreams and hopes and they probably have someone out there that will miss them, but they shouldn’t have become involved with the wrong people. My father has always told me that I didn’t need to worry about any of that, that our job wasn’t to judge, that had already been done. Our job was to just do the deed and move on, but sometimes that’s hard to do when I have a voice in my head that sounds suspiciously like my mother’s telling me that what I’m doing is wrong.
Since that first time so long ago, I have been involved in many more jobs and seen many more gruesome things. So it surprised me that a dream about a car accident would leave me feeling so queasy. If I really wanted to, I could think about it, analyze it, as Theresa, the family therapist my Uncle Jesse had recommended, liked to say. ‘Analyze your dreams Jake, they’ll give you the answers you’re looking for.’ I can hear her now, trying to get into my head and help me, all the good that did. Each and every time after a session with her, the dreams are worse.
I can feel myself lose control of everything when the car crashes through the railing and be at peace only to be jolted awake by the harsh landing of the car. Sometimes I’m the one in the car behind, pushing my mother to her death. And while I scream at her to move out of the way, plead with her to try a little harder, my foot just pushes down on the accelerator and pounds into the rear of the car, sending my mother to her death. I wake up bathed in sweat and tears, the overwhelming feeling of guilt over killing my own mother, taking root in my heart.
I know it’s ridiculous, it’s only a dream and besides, there’s nothing I could have done to stop it. I wasn’t even in the car. But knowing that doesn’t keep me from feeling responsible for my mother being killed. Theresa has insisted that until I stop blaming myself I’m going to continue having these dreams. I sighed as I dressed in my dark sweat pants and t-shirt and pulled on my running shoes. I know she’s right but it’s a lot harder to do than it sounds. So, for now my daily early morning runs will have to be enough.