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.
Note: adult language ahead. Andre sends the first chapter of Tin Monkeys. The remainder of the chapter follows the break.
Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.
The woman at the end of the bar is giving me fuck-me eyes. Just a glance here and there—she’s too timid for prolonged eye contact—but I know what she wants. I, however, am far from timid. I can’t help staring at her like she’s a piece of filet mignon. Even now, even tonight of all nights, I can’t help but fantasize about pulling her dress down and plunging face first between those titanic breasts. And she’s alone; has been for the better part of an hour. Already three appletini’s in. One more and she’ll fall off that bar stool. I’m alone too for that matter, and though she’s no runway model, any other day of the week I’d have her up to my apartment and out of that black silk dress faster than you could say prophylactic.
But not tonight. Definitely not tonight. Tonight I have some serious drinking to do. Tonight I need to get myself good and numb. I need to push down every ounce of humanity I have left; just drown the fuckers in a lake of scotch. It’s the only way I’ll be able to do what has to be done. It’s the only way I’ll be able to pull the trigger and put a good woman to rest. It’s the only way I’ll be able to murder my partner.
It’s not like I’ve haven’t killed anyone before. Seven human beings are no longer on this earth because they met me. Four I put in the ground during my military career—three all in the same firefight. Two I shot during my tenure with the FBI, and the seventh, well, the seventh I don’t talk about. But this is different. All seven of those people were rotten, they were evil, they (snip)
Strong voice and strong story questions here created tension in me. As noted in the checklist above, a first-person narrative can sometimes ignore the suggestions in the list. For example, here we have some backstory slipped in—but it’s brief, and it definitely characterizes. I wish the first page could be a little shorter as there are a couple of lines that follow on the next page that I’d try to get on the first, so I’ll do some trimming with that in mind. Notes:
The woman at the end of the bar is giving me fuck-me eyes. Just a glance here and there—she’s too timid for prolonged eye contact—but I know what she wants. I, however, am far from timid. I can’t help staring at her like she’s a piece of filet mignon. Even now, even tonight, of all nights, I can’t help but fantasize about pulling her dress down and plunging face first between those titanic breasts. And she’s alone; has been for the better part of an hour. Already three appletini’s in. One more and she’ll fall off that bar stool. I’m alone too, for that matter, and though she’s no runway model, any other day of the week I’d have her up to my apartment and out of that black silk dress faster than you could say prophylactic.
But not tonight. Definitely not tonight. Tonight I have some serious drinking to do. Tonight I need to get myself good and numb. I need to push down every ounce of humanity I have left; just drown the fuckers in a lake of scotch. It’s the only way I’ll be able to do what has to be done. It’s the only way I’ll be able to pull the trigger and put a good woman to rest. It’s the only way I’ll be able to murder my partner.
It’s not like I’ve haven’t killed anyone before. Seven human beings are no longer on this earth because they met me. Four I put in the ground during my military career—three all in the same firefight. Two I shot during my tenure with the FBI, and the seventh, well, the seventh I don’t talk about. But this is different. All seven of those people were rotten, they were evil, they (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 Andre
Continued:
. . . didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as the rest of us. But my new partner, Anne Goodwin, she’s, well, she’s a good person. She doesn’t deserve any of this, least of all to die. But what choice do I have? I tell myself it’s a mercy killing. If I don’t do it, they’ll haunt us both until we blow our own brains out. This is mercy I’m giving her!
“Brian, another,” I say to the bartender. He’s the closest thing I have to friend anymore. He pours me another glass of Macallan Single Malt. I’m drinking the good stuff tonight. And why shouldn’t I? It helps. It really helps. A few more glasses and I won’t even hesitate. A few more glasses and I’ll wake up tomorrow free from all of this; free from her, free to forget all about the Mad Doctor, free from the demons in my head.
“Tying one on tonight, Bill?” asks the bartender. “Rough day at the office?”
“You could say that.” My rough day is just getting started.
A woman’s voice at my back; “Bill Singer?” A familiar voice. High and reedy like a child’s…most likely she was molested at a young age. I don’t turn to face her though. I need time to remember her name, to remember how we left it. Luckily, recall has never a problem for me, even after eight glasses of scotch.
“Sarah, how are you?”
“Good. Great. I’m just fucking great, Bill.” She sits down in the empty bar stool next to me, grabs up my glass of scotch and guzzles it down like its cheap well whiskey. “Oh wait. No, no I’m not great. Actually, Bill, I’m pretty shitty. Actually, Bill, I have the clap. Thanks for that, asshole.”
Don’t mention it. “The gift that keeps on giving,” I say. “Brian, one more scotch, please. Better make it two.”
Eyes ever forward. I don’t look at her but I can see her wobbly double image in the mirror behind the bar. It’s hard to look at yourself in the mirror when you’re a piece of shit and you know it. It’s even harder when one of the people you stepped on is sitting beside you poised to stab you in the neck with a cocktail straw.
“So you admit it? You knew?”
Why would I even bother answering her? No I didn’t know. Some Georgetown freshman gave it to me the night before I met her. I didn’t start pissing razors until two days later. Actually, up until now I figured Sarah had given it to me. But who cares? STDs are an occupational hazard for people like Sarah and I. She’ll figure that out soon enough if she keeps spreading her legs for men she just met at a bar, and forgoes a rubber because, as she put it, “I have trusting eyes.” Trusting eyes won’t spare you a trip to the doctor, sweetheart.
Brian places two glasses of scotch down on the bar, one in front of each of us. As she reaches for hers, I snatch it away and gobble it down, then take a firm hold on the single remaining glass. “Something I can do for you?” I take another swallow, eyes ever forward. It’s not that I’m scared to look at her, more that I simply don’t care enough to turn my head.
“Something you can…? Fuck you, you piece of shit! You told me you’d call me. You told me we had something special. That when you got back from wherever the fuck they were sending you, you wanted to take me somewhere tropical.”
I really don’t have time for this bullshit. I have to get ready, mentally ready, and Sarah the “slap me, daddy,” one and done hairdresser from three weeks ago is not helping one bit with the mental gymnastics I’m trying to perform here.
“Somewhere trop—I was drunk, Sarah. You were drunk. We fucked. It was magical. I’ll never forget our night together. Now let’s just move on, okay?”
“Magical? Oh was it magical? I could barely walk the next day!”
“Sounds like a job well done to me.” Another sip of scotch. With each swallow I grow more and more tired of her whinny, baby voice. It’s like an icepick in my ear. How on earth I ever found it sexy, even for an instant, is beyond comprehension.
“You think because, what, because you’re some bigshot FBI man, because you did all that hero shit that the rest of us are just your urinal to piss on? You think just because you saved a few lives that you can shit all over the rest of us? Well I got news for you, motherfucker.” I wait for it. I wait and wait and wait but the news she promised me never comes. So finally I turn to her and stare her straight in the face. She looks ready to explode. She has the mien of three-year-old about to launch into an uncontrollable temper tantrum.
“You can’t!” is her final edict. Then she reaches for my scotch to most assuredly dump it over my head but I deftly slide the glass aside, safely out of the toddler’s reach. Frustrated and defeated, instead she picks up a dry bar napkin and tries to toss it in my face. It makes lazy snowflake arcs down to the floor. And then she’s gone…hopefully forever.
The woman at the end of the bar in the silk dress is no longer too timid to hold eye contact with me. Only now she wears a mask of disgust. It’s alright, beautiful. I disgust me too. One more big gulp of scotch and I feel ready to do something truly disgusting. I feel ready to go kill my partner.