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 protagonist
- Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
- 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.
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.
Roz sends a prologue and a revised first chapter for The Devil's Dice. The first submission is here. The remainder of the chapter follows the break.
An agent told her she should start with the crime so she added a prologue, but wonders if it’s the right thing to do. Give her your thoughts on this issue.
Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.
Prologue:
He clambered into the cave on shaking legs, sucked in a lungful of stale air and stared wide-eyed into the blackness. When the dark mellowed, he shuffled inside and sank onto the seat that a long dead troglodyte had hewn into the cave wall. The familiar coldness seeped through his trousers and into his flesh. The discomfort pleased him.
He pictured bats hanging above, their tiny feet grasping at the rock, furry bodies tucked into cavities. He fished out his torch and stood it upright, so the light beamed up and bounced back onto the glistening floor.
The solitude was soothing. No judgemental glances from colleagues. No clients clamouring for his attention like swarms of angry insects. No wife shooting arrows of disappointment his way.
He placed the book by his side. Eased the cake from his pocket, pulled open the crinkly plastic wrapper and took the soft weight in his hand. Hesitated a moment; brought it to his lips, bit firmly and chewed fast. Then another two bites. An odd, almond taste.
The air went thick. His throat tightened. He leant back against the cave wall and gasped. Clamped his eyes shut. An image of his long-dead mother slid into his head. Slumped in her wheelchair, head lolling to one side. And an earlier one – way back when his memories flitted like fish in shining water – smiling down at him and walking on her legs.
He rose. Stumbled to the back of the cave, grasped at the ferns on the wall, fell against them.
Chapter 1
I trudged through the woods. The mud sucked at my feet with an intensity that felt personal, and the trees tapped in the breeze like impatient fingers. It made me think murder, even though I knew it would be natural causes. We didn't get murders, not in B Division. A hiker with a dicky heart, most likely. And even if it was a suicide, I'd be fine. I was over all that. I could act like a proper detective and not freak out just because some poor sod was dangling from a branch. Mission Reinvent Self in Derbyshire was on track.
Despite the Autumn drizzle, I felt sweat prickling under my armpits. I needed to rethink my fitness regime, which mainly consisted of reading articles in New Scientist about the benefits of exercise. It wasn't cutting it in my chubby mid-thirties.
Finally, through the trees I saw the face of a cliff, tinted salmon-pink by the evening sun. A clearing at ground level was surrounded by rocks and stunted saplings, twisting up towards the light. A uniformed inspector stood more solidly than the trees, legs apart, hands on hips.
I walked over. "DI Meg Dalton. You've got a body?"
He smiled through a beard. "Inspector Ben Pearson," he said. "Yeah, a walker."
"Is it iffy at all?"
"Probably not. Outdoor clothes. Boots. Heart attack, I guess, although he's a bit young . . ."
I scanned the area. There was no-one who was obviously dead.
As before, I really like Roz’s writing and her voice, especially when in the first person with her protagonist. For me, the prologue didn’t compel. The character is anonymous, and he seems a little creepy. Not caring much about him, I don’t think I’d have read on. In the end, I didn’t feel the prologue contributed much to creating tension in me. So much referenced other things without giving enough to understand.
The first chapter is nicely done, but didn’t create a lot of tension and story questions for me. I looked back at the first submission where I’d voted for a page turn. The difference is that in the first version it was clear that the protagonist had fears of failure that connected me to her. It has to do with the notion of engaging with the protagonist as noted in the checklist.
In this one, I think the same fears are there in the opening paragraph, but the clues were (for me) too subtle. Without that connection with the character, the only story question is whether or not there was a murder, and the pros on the scene seem to think not. Sure, that signals that a reversal is coming, but I didn’t care a lot. Strengthen my connection with Meg and you’ll keep me involved. An “Almost” this time.
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 Roz
Prologue continued:
His stomach clenched and his upper body folded down towards his legs. He was retching, coughing.
More snapshots in his head. Kate's face on their honeymoon. Beaming in the light of a foreign island, laughing and raising a glass to sun-chapped lips. Air wouldn't come. Drowning. That time in Cornwall, still a child. Beach huts against the bright blue sky and then the waves throwing him down. Dragging him along the sea bed, his terror bitter and astonishing.
He crashed to the cave floor. Now an image of a childhood cat, orange-furred and ferocious, but loved so much. The cat dead on the lane.
Blackness coming in from above and below. Agony in his stomach, retching, heaving, gasping.
The image of his mother again, in bed, both emaciated and swollen. Suffocating. Pleading.
Chapter 1 (all)
I trudged through the woods. The mud sucked at my feet with an intensity that felt personal, and the trees tapped in the breeze like impatient fingers. It made me think murder, even though I knew it would be natural causes. We didn't get murders, not in B Division. A hiker with a dicky heart, most likely. And even if it was a suicide, I'd be fine. I was over all that. I could act like a proper detective and not freak out just because some poor sod was dangling from a branch. Mission Reinvent Self in Derbyshire was on track.
Despite the Autumn drizzle, I felt sweat prickling under my armpits. I needed to rethink my fitness regime, which mainly consisted of reading articles in New Scientist about the benefits of exercise. It wasn't cutting it in my chubby mid-thirties.
Finally, through the trees I saw the face of a cliff, tinted salmon-pink by the evening sun. A clearing at ground level was surrounded by rocks and stunted saplings, twisting up towards the light. A uniformed inspector stood more solidly than the trees, legs apart, hands on hips.
I walked over. "DI Meg Dalton. You've got a body?"
He smiled through a beard. "Inspector Ben Pearson," he said. "Yeah, a walker."
"Is it iffy at all?"
"Probably not. Outdoor clothes. Boots. Heart attack, I guess, although he's a bit young . . ."
I scanned the area. There was no-one who was obviously dead.
Pearson pointed to the cliff. "In the cave house."
The rock glistened as if slightly damp. I had to squint to see the narrow set of steps, smooth and concave through years of use, which marched sideways up the face of the cliff. At the top, about fifteen feet up, a dark, person-sized archway led into the rock.
"There's a cave house up there? And a body?"
"Yep," Pearson said. "Found by a dog, as per usual."
"Where's the owner? Has someone taken a statement from him?"
"It's all here for you." Pearson inched towards the cliff and gave the rock an affectionate stroke. "Interesting spot."
I nodded. "I've always been kind-of fascinated by cave houses."
Pearson's face brightened. "Me too. Actually I'm a caver, so . . . " He hesitated as if wondering whether to say more, given that there was a corpse waiting for my attention.
"I'd better press on," I said, although I wasn't looking forward to getting my bad foot up the stone steps. Besides, there was something unsettling about the black mouth of the cave. I looked up and imagined pale figures emerging from the deep and prodding our dead man with long fingers.
"So, he was dead when he was found?"
"That's right. Although I've seen deader. Paramedics came and attempted resurrection."
"Well the police doctor's on his way. And SOCO. I'll go up and have a look."
I edged towards the steps, took a fortifying breath and started to climb. A few steps up, I felt a twinge in my foot. I paused and glanced down. Pearson held his arms out awkwardly as if he wanted to lever my bottom upwards, a prospect I didn't relish. I kept going, climbing steadily until I could just peer into the cave. A faint shaft of light hit the back wall but the rest of it was in darkness. I waited for my eyes to adjust, then climbed on up and heaved myself in.
A musty smell caught in my throat. The cave was cool and silent, its roof low and claustrophobic. It was the size of a small room, although its walls blended into the darkness so there could have been tunnels leading deeper into the rock. Two tiny windows and the slim door cast a muted light which didn't reach its edges. I pulled out my torch and swooped it around. I had an irrational feeling that something was going to leap out of the darkness, or that the corpse was going to lunge at me. I scraped my hair back off my clammy face and told myself to calm the hell down and do my job.
The dead man lay at the back of the cave, his body stretched out straight and stiff. One hand seemed to clutch at his stomach and the other grasped his neck. I shone my torch into his face. His eyes were open wide and he looked shocked. I felt a wave of horror. This was a real person, not just a body. He was only about my age. I thought about his years lost, how he'd never grow old, how his loved ones would wake up tomorrow with their lives all collapsed like a sink-hole in a suburban garden.
I breathed out slowly through my mouth, like I'd been taught, and crouched next to the dead man. Resting near one of his bent arms was a book. "The Discourses of Epictetus". A plastic wrapper also lay on the stone floor. I could just read the label. "Susie's Cakes. Dark chocolate and almond." The wrapper was clean – no crumbs.
I stood again and shone my torch at the wall of the cave behind the man's body. Water seeped from a tiny crack in the cave roof, and in the places where light from the door and windows hit the wall, ferns had grown. Some were crushed where it looked as if the man had fallen against them, and others had been pulled away from the cave wall.
I stepped closer and pointed my torch at the area where the ferns had been flattened. Was that a mark on the stone? I gently pulled at more ferns, trying to reveal what was underneath. It was a carving, clearly decades old, with lichen growing over the indentations in the rock like on a Victorian gravestone. It must have been completely covered until the dying man grasped at the ferns.
Something pale popped into my peripheral vision. I spun round and saw a SOCO climbing into the cave house, fully swathed in white. He shuffled around the body, removing a wallet and phone, bagging up the cake wrapper and the book.
"Do we have a name?" I asked, and he peered into the wallet.
"Peter Hamilton." His voice cut into the silence. "There's a driving licence in the wallet."
"Could you take some photos of this back wall, where he pulled at the ferns?"
The man nodded and his camera's flash flared into the dim light.
When he was done, I pointed at the marks I'd seen in the rock. "Let's see what's under there."
Together we tugged at the ferns, carefully peeling them off the cave wall.
The SOCO took a step back. "Ugh. What's that?"
We pulled away more foliage and the full carving came into view. It was an image of The Grim Reaper – hooded, with a grinning skull and a skeletal body, its scythe held high above its head. The image was simply drawn with just a few lines cut into the rock, but it seemed all the more sinister for that. It stood over the dead man as if it had attacked him. I took a slow breath.
"Hold on a sec," the SOCO said. "There's some writing under the image. Is it a date?" He gently tore away more ferns.
I crouched and directed my torch at the lettering in the rock. "Not a date. What was his full name on the driving licence?"
"Peter Hugh Hamilton." The SOCO leant closer to the rock. "How can that be? That carving and the writing must be a good hundred years old, and covered up for years before we cut the foliage back. I don't understand."
I didn't understand either. I stepped away from the cave wall and wiped my face with my green-stained hands. Carved into the stone below the Grim Reaper image were the words, "Coming for PHH".