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.
Devin sends a rewrite of his first chapter of Bugsy’s Moll. The previous version is here. The rest of the chapter follows the break.
Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.
Even before the Chicago Outfit accepted me into its folds, the rackets were a part of me. Always would be. Just like the loneliness that refused to budge from its perch on my shoulder. I realized so much when I was seventeen, around the time I served Greasy Thumb’s wife cannelloni at the San Carlo Italian Village.
She looked like the sun in a yellow linen, wide-shouldered bolero jacket, her blond, frizzy hair, a corona of light. Leisurely she sat sipping her coffee cup of Chardonnay while I waited, pad in hand, for her to order. The way she studied me was unnerving from the moment she had walked into the restaurant, and now under her unrelenting scrutiny, I chewed the end of my pen, tugged the white scalloped collar of my uniform, smoothed my apron.
But rather than pick a dish, she spat, “I am Alma, wife of Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik. You’re familiar with him, right?” She said it like an accusation, as though just knowing Jake Guzik was a sordid thing in itself. Perhaps it was. A chubby-faced, pin-striped tough with a handkerchief exploding out of his pocket and wise-cracks out of his slack-jawed mouth, word around the restaurant was that he ran a string of cathouses throughout Chicago.
“Yes, I suppose I’ve seen Mr. Guzik around,” I replied uneasily.
She kicked out the chair opposite her with a yellow empire sandal, and motioned for me to sit.
I like the voice, and the writing is good, though there are some little fixes needed. I like the world that I’m being invited into, and the scene is set pretty well. My only real issues is a story question. There’s none in these lines. I’ll suggest some cuts in the notes in order for the following two lines to make it onto the first page.
I hesitated. What did a gangster’s wife want with me, a lowly waitress?
“Fine, don’t sit, but I’ve come to make you a proposition, Virginia.”
They would make this a page-turn for me instead of an almost. Notes
Even before the Chicago Outfit accepted me into its folds, the rackets were a part of me. Always would be. Just like the loneliness that refused to budge from its perch on my shoulder. I realized so much when I was seventeen, around the time I served Greasy Thumb’s wife cannelloni at the San Carlo Italian Village. I liked the first line and how it clues me in to story. I know the line I cut goes to character, but I’d rather get involved with story first. I’m sure there’s a good spot for it later. I didn’t understand what was meant by “realized so much”—so much about what? Perhaps, instead, if the above cuts are made: And then, when I was seventeen, I served cannelloni to Greasy Thumb’s wife at the San Carlo Italian Village.
She looked like the sun in a yellow linen, wide-shouldered bolero jacket, her blond, frizzy hair, a corona of light. Leisurely she sat sipping her coffee cup of Chardonnay while I waited, pad in hand, for her to order. The way she studied me was unnerving from the moment she had walked into the restaurant, and now under her unrelenting scrutiny, and I chewed the end of my pen, tugged the white scalloped collar of my uniform, smoothed my apron. Sipping implies leisurely, no need for the adverb.
But rather than pick a dish, she spat, “I am Alma, wife of Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik. You’re familiar with him, right?” She said it like an accusation, as though just knowing Jake Guzik was a sordid thing in itself. Perhaps it was. A chubby-faced, pin-striped tough with a handkerchief exploding out of his pocket and wise-cracks out of his slack-jawed mouth, word around the restaurant was that he ran a string of cathouses throughout Chicago.
“Yes, I suppose I’ve seen Mr. Guzik around,” I replied uneasily.
She kicked out the chair opposite her with a yellow empire sandal, and motioned for me to sit.
With those cuts I’m pretty sure the two intriguing lines will be on the first page. I think this is much improved over the first version.
For what it’s worth.
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 Devin
Continued
I hesitated. What did a gangster’s wife want with me, a lowly waitress?
“Fine, don’t sit, but I’ve come to make you a proposition, Virginia.”
Virginia? The broad knew my name? I didn’t wear a nametag. I hadn’t introduced
myself. And yet the smug way she pronounced, “Virrrrginya” sounded as though she had been reciting it all her life! Like it belonged to her and not me!
“I’m just here to earn my wages, Mrs. Guzik!” I sputtered. “I ain’t done nothin’ wrong with your husband! Or any other fella’ that works or dines in this joint, for that matter, so I got no idea what this is all about, and—”
“Hold your water, Virginia. I’m not worried you spent a night on the pillow with Jake. Gingers aren’t his type.” She laughed wickedly.
Self-consciously, I smoothed my long, auburn hair.
“No, actually Virginia, I’m here because I hear you’re the coldest dish on the menu. Jake tells me you don’t put out for no one,” she jeered.
Why had Jake and Alma Guzik been talking about me?! And what business was it of theirs the relations that I did or didn’t have?!
“Frankly, Mrs. Guzik, my interest in the men that I meet here at the San Carlo runs about as thick as the stack of bills I make in tips each shift, and not a bit above that.”
“Are you that proud at the end of each night when it’s just you and an extra long, fat breadstick you’ve copped from the restaurant?”
I gasped.
“Now really, what better reason to be loosey goosey than money? There are plenty of well-heeled fellows dining here. Paint your face with a little drugstore make-up and bed a man a day until you land a husband. I wouldn’t think it would take too long with those crystal blue eyes and that lion’s mane of hair.”
“Don’t matter how lovely you are to look at, Mrs. Guzik, throw yourself at your male customers, and they’ll lose interest before their spaghetti cools. And I need this job! It’s not like I’m flickin’ caviar eggs against the wall for sport! I don’t got a single crumb in all of Chicago I could rely on in a pinch!”
“Exactly why you should play ball with the fellows, not sit on the sidelines!”
“Mrs. Guzik, men ain’t never to be trusted! That’s what my momma says. Best to ply your own trade so ya got the wherewithal to leave your two-bit sucker when the time comes. Because it always comes.”
Alma Guzik clamped her lips shut to that, deafening silence descending like an angry hailstorm. A moment passed. “Give me the cannelloni, Virginia.”
I scrawled the order on my pad, and turned toward the kitchen, when Alma began again.
“As you may be aware, Jake and I are in the business of… remunerated sexual art.” She chuckled.
I spun back around.
“You aren’t run-of-the-mill cathouse material, darling, because I don’t see any desperation in your gaze…” and here she stopped, her eyes boring into mine, as if to make sure that indeed there were no signs of the hopelessness that normally pushes a woman to take on the streets. Or was there? “But we always need hot dishes. Keep off the needle and you could command the big bucks. The common hooker is just out there peddling ass, but there’s a high rolling breed—the gals that are mistaken for Fifth Avenue debutantes.”
An offer to prostitute myself?
I was so taken aback I probably couldn’t have gotten out the word “fire!,” had the table burst into flames at that moment. My rear-end touched down on the chair Alma Guzik had kicked out for me earlier.
Meanwhile, she took a giant swig of her wine and rolled it around her mouth. She ran her finger around the rim of her cup slowly, making a squeaking sound, pink lipstick on her fingertip. “You know, Virginia, there ain’t no doll out there that doesn’t want to feel like a thousand bucks… or to make a thousand bucks… should the opportunity present itself.”
Well, I hated to admit it, but she was right—I could certainly make do with that kind of dough… Move into nicer digs, shop a bit maybe, send a little cash back home to Georgia…
Suddenly I was impatient to know more! Spill it, lady! But just at that moment the cook arrived with Mrs. Guzik’s food.
“Mmmm, I love the smell of garlic,” she said while meticulously twisting the pasta around her fork leaving not a string to dangle.
I watched her take several bites, chewing each mouthful deliberately, swallowing with notable satisfaction. For Chrissake!
“You do like money, don’t you, Virginia?” she suddenly hissed.
Of course, I did!
But in exchange for sex?
I was no prude, damn it, but I was no maestro of “sexual art” either. “Well, how much would I make exactly and what do I gotta do?”
“Slow down, Virginia. We don’t know each other very well yet, do we? There is plenty of time to talk about the ins and outs of the job, so to speak.” Again she laughed. “But first we should make sure you aren’t a waste of my time. I don’t need to groom a gal so frigid she has to perform on a double-burner hot plate, now do I?”
“No?” I guessed.
“Tonight Jake and I will be entertaining a few friends at our home on the Drive. Are you available to join us?”