Submissions Needed—None Left in the Queue for Next Week. 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.
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.
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.
Alice sends a revision of her first chapter of When the Tree Is Dry. The previous prologue/chapter are here. The rest of the chapter follows the break.
Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.
"Convince me." The tall man behind the cluttered mahogany desk folded his arms and leant back in his chair. A plastic nameplate beside him identified him as Ryan Channing, Trust Fund Manager.
Keera lifted her chin and studied Ryan’s face. Damn, this wasn’t going to be easy. How best to play it?
"The facts and figures are all here--" she began, pulling a neat, slim folder from her briefcase.
"Figures can be manipulated. Facts are not always facts.” He waited until she looked up at him. “I need something more than that. I need to know why I should take on your project, and not those." He waved his hand at a cabinet stacked with similar folders.
She stared at the wall behind him, her eyes narrowed. "You want something more?" She drummed her fingers lightly on the desk. It was worth a try. "How about this, then?" She reached into the briefcase, pulled out a much larger file and laid it on the desk in front of him. The open edge showed it to be crammed with papers of different types and sizes.
"Bedtime reading for a month?" He smiled, and in that moment, she no longer saw him as formidable. Crinkly lines appeared around his eyes, softening his face. “I’d rather you just told me what’s in it.”
The writing is certainly clean and clear. There’s a little bit of overwriting—I felt the staring at the wall apart, while Alice is trying to help us see the character in action, didn’t contribute much. But that’s not the key issue—for me, there were no compelling story questions raised. There are unknowns that might have helped—convince him of what, for example? And what are the consequences if she fails? As it is, we just know that she thinks it will be tough to convince him of something we don’t know about.
This opening takes place in 2016. A few pages later is a new segment dated 2008. For me, that had the start of an interesting story, so the first lines are below, followed by a poll. See what you think.
In Britain, the jails aren't bad. I had a cell to myself, with en suite facilities—well, a basic loo and washbasin behind a token piece of wall, but hey, they worked. It had a blanket, what passed for a mattress, and even air conditioning. I could have taught Her Majesty’s cleaners a thing or two, but at least they’d tried—the smell of cheap disinfectant proved it. British jails were a whole lot better than the digs I shared in Brixton.
It had all started with a bad Monday. My alarm didn’t go off, I missed the Tube by about thirty seconds, had to wait ten minutes for another, and almost skidded on black ice as I tried to make up time by running the last stretch. I paid no attention to the two scruffy characters bumming around outside the front door of the office building.
I climbed the narrow, dim-lit stairs like I was training for the Olympics, and was halfway across the landing before I saw the cops. Too late—they’d already seen me. No point trying to do a runner – the two lurkers outside were probably plainclothes cops, waiting for someone to try it. I joined about half a dozen of my co-workers, who stood about in the foyer looking as gloomy as the weather outside.
The door to the main office opened, and I peeped through it as old Blaine, my boss, came out escorted by two policemen. Inside, more cops ransacked filing cabinets, while another tapped at the computer.
Submissions Needed—None Left in the Queue for Next Week. 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.
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.
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.
Ted sends the first chapter of Murder at the Country Club, a cozy mystery. The rest of the chapter follows the break.
Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.
Sophia burst through the ballroom doors, “Help! Will’s been stabbed!”
The band stopped playing, the crowd hushed, and everyone could hear her say almost in a whisper, “Someone help, please!”
Her hands, and the front of her gown, were covered with blood. She avoided eye contact with her sister, Nelia, who had become engaged to Will just moments ago, and spying her other sister, Elizabeth, pleaded, “Beth, hurry!”
Beth leaped to her feet, and dashed past the stunned guests. Nelia, seated at the center table, further from the door, was five steps behind.
Beth yelled “Where?”
“By the restrooms.” Beth sprinted down the corridor.
Sophia grabbed Nelia’s hand as she approached, and they ran together, with Will’s best friend, Keith Miller, close behind.
Will was face down in the corridor, near the men’s room, with his head against the marble baseboard. As Beth knelt beside him, they could see that someone had slashed the left sleeve of his tuxedo jacket; it was soaked with blood. He was unconscious and deathly pale.
Nelia had no medical training and felt helpless, but she knew Beth would know what to do; she was an Emergency Medical Technician-Enhanced (EMT-E). Beth applied pressure to the (snip)
Good, clean writing in an immediate scene that includes all the elements, and there are good story questions raised. So far, so good. I would not include the “-Enhanced (EME-E)” information unless it impacts the story later, and I suspect it won’t. It’s just clutter.
A word to Ted regarding the rest of the chapter: You do some “head-hopping” toward the last, getting into Nelia’s head when the scene started with Sophia. You also go on for a lot of time with the details of dealing with the wound. Unless those details matter to the rest of the story, I suggest you cut just about all of it. The key information is that he is treated and could live. The story is not about treating wounds, it’s about what happens to the victim and the other people involved. I’d spend no more than a paragraph or two on dealing with the wound and then get on with the story. Otherwise, I think you’ll lose readers, IMO.
Many of the folks who utilize BookBub are self-published, and because we hear over and over the need for self-published authors to have their work edited, It seemed to me that it could be educational to take a hard look at their first pages. If you don’t know about BookBub, it’s a pretty nifty way to try to build interest in your work. The website is here.
I’m mostly sampling books that are offered for free. I’ve noticed that many of these folks use a prologue—I skip those books. Following is the first page and a poll. Then my comments are after the fold along with the book cover, the author’s name, and a link so you can take a look for yourself if you wish. At Amazon you can click on the Read More feature to get more of the chapter if you’re interested. There’s a second poll concerning the need for an editor.
Should this author have hired an editor? Here’s the first chapter from a book by M. Ruth Myers, offered for free on BookBub.
The guy with the bad toupee strolled into my office without bothering to knock. His mustard colored suit set off a barstool gut and a smirk that told his opinion of private eyes who wore skirts.
“Maggie Sullivan?”
I kept filing my nails. “Who’s asking?”
“You’re bothering a friend of mine.”
My legs were crossed on my desk. I have great gams. Sometimes I don’t mind displaying the merchandise, but Mr. Hair wasn’t my cup of tea so I sat up. I blew some filings off my pinkie onto the afternoon edition of the Dayton Daily News where a column predicted the French and the Brits would likely let Hitler have the Sudetenland. The wrong step to take with a bully, I thought, but no one had asked me. I made a couple more swipes with the emery board before I acknowledged my visitor.
“Lose the stogie if you want me to listen.”
I saw his jaw tighten. He didn’t like being told what to do. He looked around, saw the ashtray on the file cabinet by the door, and stubbed out his smoke. A top-of-the-line Havana by its smell, so the guy had money. Or knew people who did.
“Who’s the friend?” I asked.
Did this writer need an editor? My notes and a poll follow.
I love a strong, sassy female protagonist. There’s implied jeopardy here, what with a tough guy apparently not liking what she’s doing and there to stop her. Good story questions: what will he do next? Will he stop her? What’s she doing that bothers his presumably nasty friend? This is a case when a strong voice makes a big difference, and this writer has one in No Game for a Dame. I turned the page. In fact, I downloaded it to read (it was free when I discovered it, might not be today). What are your thoughts?
Submissions Needed—None Left in the Queue for Next Week.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.
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.
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.
Jared sends the first chapter of The Third Cryogenic War. The rest of the chapter follows the break.
Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.
Death wasn’t what I expected. No heaven. No hell. I figured either would be warm—just one noticeably more so. And if neither existed, I assumed I wouldn’t either. Death would be oblivion. Instead, I remained conscious, stranded in a dark, lonely abyss with only my thoughts to keep me company. But most of all, I was bitterly cold.
I’d been this way a long time. A really long time. Not that I could keep track of days or years or millennia, but at this point, I would have welcomed oblivion. Anything but this.
Funny thing is, I don’t even remember dying.
“This one looks promising.” A distorted, muffled voice slipped through the darkness, the first sound I’d heard in ions.
“Hello?” I tried to shout, but managed no sound.
“He’d better be.” A second voice. Deeper than the first.
The men sounded as though they were old records being played on a slow track.
“Caleb Tillman.” A third voice. Female. Smooth like an angel. She knew my name.
“It’s me! Where are you?” I shouted. Still no sound.
“It says he was frozen on October 9th, 2016,” the woman said.
Frozen?
“Really?” the first man said. “That’s old. Maybe even one of the first.”
I like the voice, and the wry sense of humor in this character (one place being “noticeably more” warm) made him likeable. His situation is interesting, death being an eternal interest to we mortal beings. So there’s a strong “what happens next” story question for me, so I turned the page.
Just one note: it’s “eons,” not “ions.” There are similar errors in the rest of the chapter, but this is a first draft. Still, Jared, you’ll need an editor before you send this out. Nonetheless, I would love to read the rest of the story.
Submissions Needed—None Left in the Queue. 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.
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.
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.
Tom sends the first chapter of Aftershock. The rest of the chapter follows the break.
Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.
I was thinking about my Studebaker when the quake hit. Though it’s not exactly a showstopper, it’s a ’63 Lark, and pretty sweet. The Studey was on my mind because a moment before the building went bonkers I’d been looking at Diana’s legs. She was wearing one of those napkin-sized skirts she sometimes wears and her legs are all the way up to there anyway. I always try not to stare—I’ve perfected this method of looking off in a fake distracted way and then flicking my eyes back. I can get away with zeroing in on her without getting caught, I think. It was almost quitting time, and I wasn’t paying much actual attention to anything.
So there I was standing in my cubicle holding some papers and Diana was standing at the copy machine in that skirt and I was thinking that maybe if those Nazi mechanics of mine would fix that problem on the Studey, this time I could finally ask Diana out without worrying that my car would stall at a light and maybe leave us in the Tenderloin without wheels and me looking like Doofus Number One. And then the quake hit.
Now it’s not like I’m a quake virgin or anything. I’m a California boy all the way, and have been through more than a couple shakers in my thirty-plus, including one in the 70s when I was staying in Santa Barbara where I watched a nearby hillside seem to turn to liquid—but that was just my eyes jiggling. And since I’d moved to San Francisco, I’d felt the earth skip a beat more than a couple of times. I’ve always sort of liked it—the land stretching its legs a bit and all. And (snip)
Strong writing and a clear, likable, and on-the-charming-side voice were good to see in this opening. He uses an interesting technique to add to tension—springing a dramatic even on us (a quake) and then postponing showing it while he spends some time on other things that are going on in his head. Then the quake resurfaces, and then he goes on to other things for a bit. It worked okay for me on the first page, but I found myself feeling “Okay, okay, but can’t we get on with it?” towards the end of the page. We’re in the middle of a dramatic, traumatic, life-threatening event in this man’s life and, rather than be submerged in the quake, we’re treated to well-written backstory and sidebars. Will the rest of the narrative take a similarly leisurely approach? See what you think of the rest of the chapter.
Many of the folks who utilize BookBub are self-published, and because we hear over and over the need for self-published authors to have their work edited, It seemed to me that it could be educational to take a hard look at their first pages. If you don’t know about BookBub, it’s a pretty nifty way to try to build interest in your work. The website is here.
I’m mostly sampling books that are offered for free. I’ve noticed that many of these folks use a prologue—I skip those books. Following is the first page and a poll. Then my comments are after the fold along with the book cover, the author’s name, and a link so you can take a look for yourself if you wish. At Amazon you can click on the Read More feature to get more of the chapter if you’re interested. There’s a second poll concerning the need for an editor.
Should this author have hired an editor? Here’s the first chapter from a book titled Nightmares of Caitlin Lockyer.
They took her away from me.
I mumbled a protest through the haze of pain and exhaustion that had turned me into little more than a zombie. I'll never be able to watch a zombie movie again without remembering this night, I thought.
"It's all right – we have to move her somewhere else to take care of her. She's hurt worse than you," I was told. "We need to treat you, too. There's a gunshot wound in your shoulder."
I couldn't remember how long it had been since I'd last slept, so it took a few seconds to register what she'd said. Gunshot wound. My shoulder. Oh yeah, it hurt. I couldn't help her 'til that was sorted. Hospital staff would take care of her until I was okay.
The pain began to dull as a local anaesthetic took effect. I turned to look at the mess of blood my right shoulder had become. The smell of disinfectant jolted my brain out of sleep and most of the way to alertness. All that blood and it was barely more than a graze. A few stitches would sort that.
One of the hospital staff held a clipboard while she spoke to two police officers just out of earshot. She nodded, looked grim and came over. She started firing questions at me.
"Name?"
"Nathan Miller."
Did this writer need an editor? My notes and a poll follow.
Good strong prose and there are definitely strong story questions raised. If I were this author I would have cut the line about watching zombie movies. It seems an inappropriate thought for the situation—hurt girly, gunshot wound, police. But I definitely wanted to turn the page, and, while hiring an editor never hurts, the prose doesn’t call for a line edit. What are your thoughts?
Submissions Wanted. 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.
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.
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.
Debbie sends the first chapter of Instrument of the Devil, a suspense novel. The rest of the chapter follows the break.
Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.
Happy 50th Birthday, Mom. Love, Neal. Tawny Lindholm glared at the message label on the bubble-wrapped package, torn open on her chipped Formica breakfast bar. Inside lay a new smartphone, without any instructions, no clue how to operate it. Her son meant well, but he knew how much technology intimidated her. Besides, with him seven thousand miles away in Afghanistan, he couldn’t help her here at home in Montana.
The shiny black screen reflected her scowl while its bell dinged. The device barely fit in her hand. No matter how much she swiped the face or pressed the buttons on the side, the display remained black. Every time she touched it, the sound changed. Whistles, chirps, rodent squeaks, a woodpecker tapping, a chainsaw buzz. It was laughing at her.
Other people managed to zip around on their devices to get directions, play games, and now and then, make a plain old phone call. It looked so simple. “Damn you, I can’t even call 911.” The monster had her talking to herself.
Good, clear writing and voice in this opening scene—but what happens here? A woman receives a phone from her son and she can’t operate it. Hmm. Sure, she has a goal and is frustrated in achieving it, but what are the stakes here? There’s no hint that not getting the phone to work will be anything other than an annoyance.
What’s really happening here is setup that doesn’t provoke any story questions other than “will she get the phone to work?” The setup does lead to an interesting twist, and there are clear hints of someone plotting to do something to her. Rather than open with all of this, I suggest you consider opening with the suspenseful part, Kalhil reporting what has happened. Then go on from there to the mysterious deposit in her bank (without all the setup about the son and family). You need to get this story going and cut out as much of the background exposition as you can.
As Steven James says in Story Trumps Structure, “If it’s in the story, it must matter. If it doesn’t matter, delete it.” Of course, sometimes the hardest part is deciding what matters. I put it another way: if it doesn't impact the story, then it doesn't belong in the story.
While her husband Dwight was sick, she’d used a basic cell, no problem. Flip it open, punch in numbers, and connect with doctors, the oxygen company, the pharmacy, and finally, on a July night nine months ago, one last call, to the funeral home.
With Dwight gone, she’d ditched that old phone, needing the fifty dollars a month more than cell service.
This screen remained blank, indifferent to Tawny’s frustrated prodding. She didn’t want a phone smarter than her. Since Neal ordered it from an online retailer, she couldn’t even take it back to a local store. If it wasn’t a gift from her son, she’d gladly smash it against the wall. Still might.
A different tone warbled five times. An incoming call? Or had she accidentally told the thing to launch a missile?
“You’re the instrument of the devil,” she said. “Your name is Lucifer.”
She twisted the tail of her auburn French braid and studied a postcard that had also arrived in the mail. Baffled by your smartphone? Free class. Easy, fun, impress your children and grandchildren.
If Tawny went, she’d be the dumbest person there. But how else could she learn without instructions?
The oldies station Dwight had liked played in the kitchen. “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” by the Temptations faded out. “I’m begging someone to put me out of my misery,” she answered. Without her husband, she’d been reduced to talking to the radio...often. And now to a damn phone.
The announcer came on, promoting the same free class described on the postcard. Tawny frowned and turned up the volume. “Learn how to operate your smartphone. Tonight, seven o’clock, at the library in downtown Kalispell.”
First, the postcard, now the radio ad. Might as well pay attention to these signs. Besides, she didn’t have anything better to do than sit home in the silent old house, listening to mysterious beeps and whistles from Lucifer.
#
Just walking through the entrance of the Colonial Revival-style library building caused Tawny’s palms to sweat, yanking her back to seventh grade when the teacher of “Dumbbell English” sentenced her to extra tutoring. She always felt claustrophobic among books, as if the looming shelves full of knowledge might cave in and bury her. The tutoring table still sat in the corner, reminding her of endless hours while the tutor pounded at her to sound out words she didn’t comprehend. Years later, when her daughter Emma also couldn’t read, Tawny learned the term “dyslexia,” but knowing what was wrong didn’t cure her problem.
Tonight, kids sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor, hunched almost double, their little noses buried in books. Adults in reading glasses tiptoed fingers along the shelves. How she envied people who read easily, even doing it for pleasure.
At the front desk, she found a kind-faced young librarian. Tawny held out the phone in her damp palm. “There’s, uh, a class, I think….”
The librarian nodded and pointed to stairs at the far end of the room. “Second floor. In the meeting room. Lot of seniors.”
Seniors? How old did she think Tawny was? Well, according to AARP, she was now technically a senior. Tawny thanked her and turned toward the stairs.
“Good luck,” the librarian called after her.
Was she being sarcastic?
I’ll show her who’s a senior…Tawny skipped up the steps two at a time.
On the second floor, more walls of books hemmed her in, centuries of knowledge other people read and understood, but never her. She followed a pathway to a glassed-in cubicle. About a dozen gray-haired people milled inside the room, wearing mystified expressions as they chatted and displayed their own Lucifers. Did she really look as old as these folks? In the eyes of the young librarian, probably. At least Tawny had company in her ignorance.
A dark attractive man at the entrance made Tawny draw in a breath. Strong wiry build, an inch or two under six feet. Crisp white shirt, ironed jeans, tweed sport coat. About forty, she guessed, with shaggy black hair and a thick mustache.
And startling, soulful green eyes.
He held a clipboard. Must be the teacher. Tawny approached him with a shy smile. “Smartphone class?”
He grinned, showing straight teeth below the dense mustache.
Would that tickle if he kissed her? What are you thinking? Stop that!
His eyes crinkled with warmth and humor, almost as if he’d read her mind. “Welcome. I am asking people to sign in with their name and cell number.” A hint of accent she couldn’t place touched his speech. He handed her the clipboard and a pen.
“I can give you my name, but I haven’t a clue what the number is. It goes ring-a-ding-ding, but the screen just stays black.”
“May I?” He held his hand out for her phone, which she gave him.
While she wrote her name on the sign-in sheet, he flicked the screen with a feathery touch. Suddenly the phone lit up, a bright glowing mountain scene. His index finger flew, changing the screen to strange icons she didn’t understand. Might as well have been scratches on the stone wall of an Egyptian pyramid.
A few more flicks and he handed it back to her, the heat of his palm lingering for a second. “This is your number.”
Tawny felt embarrassed she needed to put on her glasses to see the display. “How’d you do that?” Her voice sounded breathy. Must be amazement, or a surprise rush of hormones. Yet when she looked into his green eyes, she felt a connection.
How she’d missed her man’s closeness during the eight long years of Dwight’s illness. She hoped she’d never let on to him the hunger she felt when he could no longer make love.
She shook the memories from her mind.
The dark man peered at her, black brows drawn together, searching deeper into her thoughts. “Are you all right?” He glanced at the sign-in sheet. “Tawny? May I call you Tawny? I’m Kahlil Shahrivar.”
“Nice to meet you.” Beyond his good looks, she sensed concern, empathy, and depth of soul in those eyes. “Thanks for making it work.”
His smile warmed her. “No inconvenience. Your brightness control was turned all the way down, that’s all. No magic.”
“Might as well be magic,” she murmured. “To me, it is.”
He brushed her upper arm, directing her through the door. “Let me show you how to peek behind the curtain. When you’re finished with this class, that phone will do everything for you except fold the laundry.”
She moved into the room, wishing his hand had stayed longer on her arm. “In that case, I need a different model. I specifically asked for one that folds laundry.”
#
During the next two hours, Tawny learned how to take photos, find the weather forecast, record appointments, and keep track of her workout. Kahlil was a patient teacher. When he demonstrated a security feature using a thumbprint, he chose Tawny as the model. He enfolded her thumb in his warm hand, rolling it slowly and carefully around on Lucifer’s screen, sending shivers up her neck.
Students practiced calling and texting each other. Tawny discovered a text from her son already on her phone, Hv fun w/ ur new toy. Watch 4 email w/ updated Rear D contact #. Love, Neal. I ought to spank your butt, you little brat, she thought, even though the little brat now stood six-two, a no-nonsense Army sergeant.
As people tried various tasks, she felt relieved not to be the dumbest student, even though Kahlil seemed to spend more time with her than the others. Hopefully nobody picked up on how she had inhaled his masculine scent as she leaned close to him. Close enough that she spotted a small hearing aid inside his ear. Young to be going deaf. Probably too much loud music as a teenager.
When the class broke up, a white-haired lady winked at Tawny. “Teacher’s pet,” she said with a sly smile. Tawny’s cheeks burned. So she wasn’t the only one who’d noticed.
This is ridiculous, she thought. I can’t be interested in a younger guy, or any guy. She hurried from the room before the other students, clipping down the stairs, out to Dwight’s old Jeep Wrangler.
She now knew the basics of using Lucifer. Mission accomplished.
#
Sitting in his BMW Z-4 parked outside the library, Kahlil tapped an encrypted text, Contact initiated, response exceeded expectations, then sent it.
Operating in a small town made contact simple. Two nights before, he’d placed the package and postcard in Tawny’s mailbox. Combined with the advertising blitz he paid for on the radio station he knew she listened to, he felt confident she’d show up at his class. And she had.
She was taller than surveillance photos showed, matching his height of five-ten. Slender, long legs in black tights, a light orange sweater hugging lovely curves. Glossy auburn hair plaited in a braid that hung over her shoulder. High cheekbones and wide-set brown eyes befitting a model, which she’d been in her youth. A charming, self-deprecating sense of humor.
Her technological ignorance was obvious, as preliminary research had indicated. Leading her along would be simple. She’d made several comments that hinted at self-consciousness about her lack of education. Good. He’d play on that. Flatter her, praise her intelligence, but never let her grow too confident.
A successful evening’s work with a beautiful woman. Much superior to the other targets in his database. An unexpected pleasurable interlude amid the complex intensity of the mission.
#
The next morning, wrapped in her blue fleece robe, Tawny sipped coffee and nibbled rye toast while she labored to compose a thank-you text to her son, although she didn’t know when or if he might receive it. Neal’s deployment to Afghanistan three months earlier made her heart ache with worry, but he had chosen the Army for a career, rising through the ranks quickly. She was proud of her son, even though he never talked about his work. She guessed he had confided in Dwight, a Vietnam vet. Father and son used to spend hours huddled in the downstairs den, turning up the TV, she figured, to keep her from overhearing their conversation.
She appreciated their close relationship. Dwight had been a good dad and Neal was a good son. She’d been lucky, but how she missed them both. Silence hung heavy in their old house, so empty and hollow now. At least, one day, she’d be able to hug her boy again, admire the square jaw and steady gaze he’d inherited from his father.
She tapped the phone’s virtual keyboard, which kept correcting her spelling, changing Neal to neat. “Dammit!” she muttered. “Neal, what were you thinking, sending me this instrument of the devil?”
Fed up, Tawny padded barefoot on the hardwood floor through the living room, down the hall, to check email in Neal’s old bedroom, now her office. On her laptop, she found the promised message from him with a new phone number to the Rear Detachment. Dwight used to poke fun at the “rear echelon motherfuckers” in Vietnam who stayed at a base safely behind the action. He scoffed they were only useful for emptying trash cans.
But Tawny appreciated Rear D for the emergency lifeline between deployed soldiers and family back home. They had treated her kindly and helped her get a message to Neal during the last gasping week of Dwight’s life. She carefully copied the new Rear D number into Lucifer’s contact list and saved it.
She finished off the text to Neal and sent it. At least she hoped it had been sent. Every time she touched the smartphone, a new unexpected screen popped up, full of choices she didn’t understand, like Tethering, NFC, screen mirroring.
Kahlil had helped her through basic tasks at the library. She might’ve learned more if she hadn’t been so distracted by his sensual way of stroking the screen, his softly accented speech. He reminded her of Omar Sharif from the old movie Dr. Zhivago.
Kahlil. What kind of name was that? Sounded exotic, romantic, yet vaguely familiar. Then it hit her. In her daughter’s purple bedroom, Tawny pulled down a box of books from the top shelf of the closet and set them on the zebra-striped bedspread. When she’d wanted to donate them to Salvation Army, Emma protested. Somehow, unlike Tawny, Emma had overcome her reading difficulty and loved books. Whenever she came home, she promised to get her own place and give the books a place of honor. Hadn’t happened yet. She lived like a nomad in a van with her tattoo artist boyfriend.
Tawny opened the flaps on the cardboard box and dug among the books. Phew, mildew. The slim volume she was looking for turned up near the bottom.
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. That’s where she knew the name Kahlil from. Emma had all but memorized the book during high school. At the dinner table, she was forever quoting passages of romantic, mystical poetry that didn’t rhyme. Tawny understood the appeal. Dwight would never have written such words to her, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t have loved to receive them.
Tawny carried the books outside and spread them on the picnic table to air out in the warm April sun. Then she forced herself to pull on black leggings and a sleeveless chartreuse top for Zumba class. Working out had been her salvation while Dwight was sick, a temporary escape. Now, she had to push herself to leave the house, even though she knew exercise would temporarily lift her out of the pit of loneliness.
In the mud room, she donned a denim jacket and left by the back door. In the detached garage off the alley, she climbed up into Dwight’s Wrangler. The rig bounced like a balky mule, but her brawny husband had loved it. She’d sold her comfortable Explorer because driving the Jeep made her feel closer to him, and no point paying insurance on two cars anymore.
On the way to the gym, Tawny stopped at the bank ATM, withdrew $300, and plucked the receipt from the machine. The balance caught her eye. Can’t be right. She dug in her bag for her readers, put them on, and verified the amount.
$47,281.06.
Impossible.
The account normally hovered around $5,000. $42,000 too much. Must be a computer error.
She parked the car and went inside the lobby, irritated. Once she’d badgered herself into leaving the house, she hated to miss Zumba class, especially for a bank error.
Fortunately, her favorite teller Margaret was on duty. The grandmotherly plump woman listened to Tawny’s explanation of the mistake, and tapped the keyboard to access the account. She rotated the screen to show Tawny. “Here’s the deposit yesterday. $41,500 in cash.”
Tawny stared at the screen, first without her readers, then with. “But I didn’t make that deposit. It’s wrong. Can’t you tell where it came from?”
Margaret shrugged. “If it was a check, we could backtrack the account number. Harder with cash.”
Tawny’s checkbook always balanced to the penny, a source of pride. She might struggle with reading, but she knew her numbers. “I did not make that deposit,” she repeated, as if her disclaimer would alter the figure flickering on the screen.
Margaret tapped again. “It wasn’t made at this branch,” she agreed. “Let’s see, it was done at the Helena branch.”
“That’s a hundred and fifty miles away,” Tawny answered. “I haven’t been to Helena in more than a year.” An unwelcome memory of that last trip to the Fort Harrison VA returned, the black day when doctors finally admitted defeat and pronounced Dwight’s death sentence. She shoved the bitter memory aside. “I couldn’t have made the deposit.”
“I don’t know what to tell you.” Margaret glanced over Tawny’s shoulder at customers lining up, then back at a couple of young tellers chatting as they ignored the growing queue. She raised her eyebrows and shook her head.
Ridiculous. In the age of computer tracking, IRS monitoring, and surveillance cameras, a bank had to be able to figure out where the cash came from, and where it should rightfully go. “Is the manager in?” Tawny asked.
“Sorry, she’s out of the office at a seminar.” Margaret pursed her lips and gave her a you-know-how-things-are shrug.
Yeah, Tawny knew the damn bank had been going downhill ever since a multi-national conglomerate bought it a year before and renamed it United Bankcorp. The former manager had taken early retirement, replaced by a snooty woman from San Francisco Tawny hadn’t met and didn’t particularly want to. Every time Tawny caught a glimpse of her, usually glaring down at the lobby from the mezzanine, the woman averted her eyes.
Margaret had confided her new boss didn’t like being stuck in the backwater town of Kalispell, Montana. One by one, familiar employees left, replaced by twenty-somethings with inflated titles whose main function seemed to be kissing the manager’s butt. Only Margaret remained, trying to hold out till she could collect Social Security. Tawny wondered how much longer till she too was swept aside.
She leaned forward. “I better see the operations supervisor.”
Margaret spoke into the phone, then gestured at a desk on the opposite side of the lobby. “He’ll be with you in a moment.” She mouthed good luck, as if she expected Tawny would need it, and made a face, warning you won’t like him.
Tawny sat in front of the desk and scanned strangers in glass cubicles along the wall, missing the atmosphere of the old neighborhood bank where she knew everyone’s names. Back when she and Dwight had their diesel repair business, an error like this would never happen, or if it did, the problem would be solved immediately with apologies.
A twenty-ish young man emerged from behind a solid wood partition, newly built since the takeover. He approached, looking as bored as if he were flipping burgers and scooping fries. Black horn rims accentuated his vampire-pale complexion.
Tawny pushed the ATM receipt across the desk. “I have a problem. Someone deposited $41,500 into my account yesterday.”
“Wish somebody’d do that for me,” the kid scoffed.
Tawny forced herself to keep smiling. “It’s not my money. Obviously someone must have keyed in the wrong number and it got put into my account by mistake.”
He stared at her through his horn rims.
This nitwit was the operations supervisor? Trying to hide the irritation in her voice, Tawny explained, “I’m sure whoever this money belongs to is expecting it to be in their account. Maybe they’re writing checks that are going to bounce. Don’t you think they might be a little upset?”
“The manager’s out,” he answered blandly.
“So I hear. Meanwhile, how do we straighten this out?”
With a put-upon sigh, he asked, “Are you sure it’s a mistake?”
She wanted to reach across the desk and swat him. “Look, a forty-one dollar error, maybe I could’ve screwed up. But I guarantee you I didn’t screw up $41,000 worth.” She sucked in a deep breath. “Look, why don’t you call the Helena branch and talk to them?”
He peered over the top of his glasses, plucked a bank business card from a holder, circled a phone number, and handed it to her. “Here’s the 800 number. You can explain directly to them.”
She took it. “Is this the branch number?”
He heaved another sigh. “It’s the 800 central number for the whole bank. They’ll help you.”
Useless talking to this clown. Tawny grabbed a pen and scrawled her name and phone number on a slip of paper. “When the manager gets back, please have her call me right away.” She rose and stalked toward the door.
“Have a wonderful day,” he called. How politely and professionally he told her to go fuck herself.
#
Tawny couldn’t wait to get home. Wait till Dwight heard about this ridiculous mess. He’d blow a gasket and they’d be out looking for a new bank tomorrow….
Realization hit her like an ice cube down the back.
Dwight was gone. Forever.
Tears burning, she pulled over and parked. “Dammit, Dwight!” She pounded the steering wheel. “Why aren’t you here to help me?”
Most of the time, she held grief at bay…until the smallest trigger set off the horrible replay of his death. She felt as if she’d been hanging on a sheer cliff with one hand, desperately clinging to her husband with the other, as her strength ran out until she could no longer hold him. When he fell into the abyss, she tore apart, half of her falling with him.
She knew it wasn’t the bank and its corporate indifference—it was the silent emptiness she faced at home, no one to share her frustration with. Guilt filled the hollowness inside her, multiplying and swelling, like Dwight’s cancer, seeping into the ragged edges of her soul.
When he had lashed out against the cancer, she took it personally. When exhaustion dragged her down, she longed for relief, an end to the constant burden of juggling his medicines that acted more like poisons. She hated arguing with doctors who never hesitated to remind her how smart they were and how ignorant she was, even when she caught their mistakes.
How she begged Dwight to eat as he wasted from two hundred pounds to eighty. How she held his head while he retched and blamed her for making him eat. How she dreaded the sleepless nights, listening to him moan and thrash in bed beside her.
Now their bed was silent and empty. Only his childhood teddy bear to hold, a pitiful substitute.
It was her fault—she had wished for the end. Now, she regretted the wish with all her heart.
Drained and sniffling, she pulled herself together and blew her nose.
No matter how much she screamed and pounded, Dwight would still be dead and she still had $41,500 of someone else’s money. She needed to fix that.
At home, she steeled herself and called United Bankcorp’s 800 number. The voice mail runaround offered to make a loan, open a credit card, consolidate her debts, and rattled off locations of branches in fourteen states. She heard a prompt for every possibility except what to do when someone else’s money winds up in your account. After twenty minutes of circular trips back to the main menu, she repeatedly pressed zero hoping to connect with a human being. The recorded voice sincerely apologized, but did not recognize that command. When she heard for the eighteenth time how important her call was to them and how valued she was as a customer, she disconnected.
“Valued, my ass,” she muttered. “If I’m so important, why can’t I talk to anyone but a damn machine?”
Then she remembered the Slocums, neighbors who had retired from banking, Sheryl as a loan collector, Phil as a vice president. Maybe they could give her advice.
Tawny walked down the avenue under mature maple and linden trees, past small well-kept 1920s Craftsman homes like hers, interspersed with century-old mansions on corner lots, landmarks built by early Kalispell movers and shakers. The Slocums’ was a two-story Colonial with a former carriage house converted to a double garage.
She rang the bell and heard Sheryl lumbering across the hardwood floor entry with heavy dinosaur steps.
“Hi, Tawny, what’s up?” Sheryl always looked vaguely annoyed, as if her bunions hurt or her bra chafed.
“Hi, I wondered if I could talk to you and Phil about a banking problem I’m having.”
Sheryl looked her up and down, eyes gone flinty. Heaven help anyone who might fall behind on their payments to Sheryl. “You know we’re retired. We really don’t like to talk business anymore.”
Phil approached behind Sheryl with a leering smile, the kind Tawny dreaded from husbands because it made wives hate her. “Howdy, neighbor!”
Tawny tried to back away. “I don’t want to bother you.”
“So what’s the problem?” Phil all but pushed Sheryl aside. “I heard something about banking?” He motioned Tawny into the house. “Come on in, sit down. Want some coffee?”
“No, thank you. I won’t take up much of your time.” She grimaced an apology to Sheryl who narrowed her eyes and closed the door.
Seated on antique chairs in their living room, Phil asked, “Now, what’s this about?”
Tawny released a breath. “This is going to sound weird, but United Bankcorp put money in my account, a lot of money, and I don’t know where it came from. I think it must be a computer mistake and it should have gone into someone else’s account. But I can’t get the bank to look into it. They insist I made the deposit yesterday in Helena. I haven’t been to Helena lately, so it can’t have been me.”
Phil hunched forward, elbows on knees, belly hanging. “How much are you talking about?”
“Forty-one thousand five hundred dollars.”
He whistled softly. “You sure it couldn’t have been a direct deposit, like from a life insurance payoff, or a tax refund you forgot about, or a settlement in Dwight’s estate?”
Tawny shook her head. “None of those. I think I’ve got our finances pretty well squared away. No, this is completely out of the blue. And it’s cash. The trouble is I can’t get anyone at the bank to pay attention. I’ve told them it’s an error, but they blow me off.”
Phil rubbed his chin. “This could be more of a problem than you think. Even before 9/11, regulators tightened restrictions and increased reporting to try to track money laundering that finances terrorism. Any time someone makes a cash deposit of more than $10,000 to an account outside the normal ordinary course of business, banks have to file a CTR within fifteen days of the transaction.”
“What’s a CTR?” Tawny asked.
“Currency transaction report. That goes to the feds so they can monitor unexplained movements of large amounts of cash—you know, like from drugs or weapons smuggling. If something alerts the teller to unusual behavior, he or she fills out an S-A-R, suspicious activity report.”
Tawny’s stomach clenched. “What the hell? I’m no drug smuggler or terrorist. I just want the mistake fixed.”
“That’s all well and good, but the bank has probably already filed the CTR, so you may still come under scrutiny unless you can explain the source of funds.”
“What’s to explain? It isn’t my money. I don’t know where it came from.”
“You need to talk to the manager and ask about putting the money in a suspense account until they find out the source.”
“What’s a suspense account?”
Phil crossed his legs, ankle on knee. “To put it in basic terms that you could understand, it’s an internal account where banks stick money they’re not sure what to do with until they figure it out.”
Tawny tightened at his condescending tone, but said nothing. She needed the ex-banker’s information.
Sheryl cleared her throat. Tawny recognized the wifely signal—wrap this up and get her out of our house.
Phil shifted, uncrossing his legs. His belly spread across his thighs. “You’re absolutely sure you don’t know about this cash? You’ve had a lot to keep track of with Dwight’s illness and death. Maybe something slipped your mind in the turmoil.”
Tawny pulled herself straight. “More than forty thousand dollars is not going to slip my mind.” She rose. “Thanks for taking the time. I’ll see the manager tomorrow.” As she went toward the front door, she felt Sheryl’s glare on her back, and heard Phil mutter something to his wife.
They think I’m crazy. If my own neighbors don’t believe me, how can I convince the feds I haven’t done anything wrong?
Submissions Wanted. 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.
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.
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.
Maya sends the first chapter of Different. The rest of the chapter follows the break.
Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.
"Bring me some grapes!" Caspian ordered as the butler entered his room. "Yes master. What is your preferred variety?" The butler asked slowly. Caspian narrowed his eyes and picked up a book. "I don't care! Just get me some grapes!" He yelled as he threw the book towards the butler. The butler swiftly exited the room before he got hit and the within seconds of his departure, the novel had hit the door and landed on the ground with a thud.
Caspian was the secondary master of his mansion. He was next in line to become the Lord of Salisbury Estate. Although only 15 years old, he had nearly full control of the entire house and made his butlers and servants do as he pleased with just a few commands. This made Caspian rather lazy and unknowing - having people do things for him twenty four seven made him virtually unable to do anything himself. But he wished to pay attention to only his requirements and continued to splash out orders to his unwilling helpers. Caspian had dark hair, like his father, which he kept neat and tidy nearly all the time. His eyes were crystal blue, and created a stunning portrait of a young wealthy boy. But behind this beauty was insolence and dominating proclivies and that consumed him almost entirely. In a word, it was the ugly truth.
Soon after his servant had left his room, Caspian rolled over on his bed and sighed. He was getting bored of this high-and-mighty lifestyle. And the thing that bugged him the (snip)
“Telling,” credibility, and no story question are roadblocks to a page-turn for this opening. I was immediately stopped by the book-throwing action. For the book to have hit the door “seconds” after the butler had exited and shut it, the book would have had to have been traveling in slow motion. It would take no more than a second or two for the book to travel through the air. More likely the butler would have to dodge the book than exit and shut the door. A credibility issue caused by not thinking through the staging and action as it would really happen.
The character is unappealing, but I can deal with that as long as there’s a strong story question. But the narrative lapses into telling us backstory and details about the character rather than showing us in a scene. Even with the quicker delivery of information through telling, though, the narrative brings up no story question. You need to think this through and then give us a scene that isn’t all setup. The very end of this brief chapter works toward that with his decision to escape, but even if it opened there we would need something to block his desire, to cause him trouble.
Many of the folks who utilize BookBub are self-published, and because we hear over and over the need for self-published authors to have their work edited, It seemed to me that it could be educational to take a hard look at their first pages. If you don’t know about BookBub, it’s a pretty nifty way to try to build interest in your work. The website is here.
I’m mostly sampling books that are offered for free. I’ve noticed that many of these folks use a prologue—I skip those books. Following is the first page and a poll. Then my comments are after the fold along with the book cover, the author’s name, and a link so you can take a look for yourself if you wish. At Amazon you can click on the Read More feature to get more of the chapter if you’re interested. There’s a second poll concerning the need for an editor.
Should this author have hired an editor? Here’s the first chapter from a book titled Malevolent.
The phone rang and rang.
On the seventh or eighth ring, I answered. I already knew who it was. “This is Kane.”
“Kane, we have one.”
I let out a puff of air in disappointment. I hadn’t gotten a decent night’s sleep in weeks. “You really need me there?”
“Yeah.”
“Fine. Where?”
The captain rattled off the address. “Right away,” he said and hung up.
The address was the Manchester office building a couple miles from my condo.
While my schedule said I had Sundays and Mondays off, I couldn’t recall the last time I didn’t work a Sunday. Mondays were the only days I could somewhat count on not being bothered— murderers weren’t as active on Sunday nights and Monday mornings. However, as a department lead, I was always on call. That led to a lot of overtime. The clock on my nightstand read 7: 33 a.m. I rolled out of bed.
I rummaged through my closet and selected my day’s attire. The pants, shirt, and tie tucked under my arm were somewhat clean. The walls of the hallway guided me toward my bathroom. I splashed water across my face and ran my hands across my couple-day-old stubble. (snip)
Did this writer need an editor? My notes and a poll after the break.
Submissions Wanted. 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.
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.
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.
Elizabeth sends the first chapter of an untitled novel. The rest of the chapter follows the break.
Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.
The wheels of the Dispatcher are eating miles of road beneath me. Its metal grate rumbles beneath my combat boots, and I stand firm with my back to the wall like I’ve been taught. But it takes all my self-control to not move as Commander Jakob, or Grumps as I like to call him, lowers his mouth to hover beside my ear. “This is your final training mission before your coronation, Fife. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, would we?”
His hot breath hangs in wisps around his whiskers. I’m about to reply with the customary “No, sir” like the other soldiers, but I stop myself before I can. Grumps is my subordinate. I’m not going to let him forget that. So instead I just shake my head.
He straightens and grates it out, “I would like to take this opportunity to wish you good luck in your future endeavours, Fife. Let’s hope you’re a better ruler as the Astrixys, than you are a soldier.”
I nod, “Let’s hope so.”
Grumps turns on his heel and retreats to the front of the Dispatcher. What he really wanted to say is that I suck so much at combat training, it’s obvious I’m a human. Because when it’s a human vs a Saeptose, the Saeptose will always win. Whether it’s with smarts or speed or strength.
My eyes travel to the other side of the Dispatcher. I can barely make out the other (snip)
I like the writing and the voice quite a lot and, as a science fiction fan, the new world that’s opening before me. All that said, what this opening page lacks is a story question. Fife doesn’t have a need or desire expressed at this point, nor is there a sign of jeopardy ahead. Later the Dispatcher opens and she is greeted with this:
The Dispatcher grinds to a halt. There’s a groan and sickening clunk as the wall on my left folds outwards. Dust swirls from where it touches the ground outside, forming a ramp I’ve walked down on similar missions many times before. A crowd of humans meets my eyes. Outside, meters away, is the Lower World.
We’re parked in a long kind of concrete hall. The ceiling hangs low and yellow markings are painted across the floor. A parking lot? Whatever it is, it stinks of piss. At least twenty humans are gaping at us, with ripped shirts and rotting teeth and filthy faces. Their eyes are hollow as their stomachs. But it’s not like I haven’t seen humans from the Lower World before. What makes me freeze all over is the weapons they carry.
I’m the closest soldier to the humans. I’m closest to their curved hunks of metal- clearly salvaged from junkyards and hacked till sharp enough to slice.
The page as it is gets an almost from me. Put the above on the first page and I’ll guarantee you a page turn. Notes:
The wheels of the Dispatcher are eating miles of road beneath me. Its metal grate rumbles beneath my combat boots, and I stand firm with my back to the wall like I’ve been taught. But it takes all my self-control to not move as Commander Jakob, or Grumps as I like to call him, lowers his mouth to hover beside my ear. “This is your final training mission before your coronation, Fife. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, would we?”I think the “Dispatcher” is a case of too much in the world-building. I had no idea what one was for a couple of sentences. It would have been so clear and simple to use something like “troop transport” or “troop transporter” instead.
His hot breath hangs in wisps around his whiskers. I’m about to reply with the customary “No, sir” like the other soldiers, but I stop myself before I can. Grumps is my subordinate. I’m not going to let him forget that. So instead I just shake my head.
He straightens and grates it out, “I would like to take this opportunity to wish you good luck in your future endeavours, Fife. Let’s hope you’re a better ruler as the Astrixys, than you are a soldier.” Clarity issue here. I didn’t have a clue to what “as the Astrixys” meant. I think context would have helped me if, instead, had been “when you become the Astrixys.” I still don’t know exactly what it is, but I get more out of it.
I nod, “Let’s hope so.”
Grumps turns on his heel and retreats to the front of the Dispatcher. What he really wanted to say is that I suck so much at combat training, it’s obvious I’m a human. Because when it’s a human vs a Saeptose, the Saeptose will always win. Whether it’s with smarts or speed or strength.How does one retreat to the front of something? I think stride or some other verb would be more clear for me.
My eyes travel to the other side of the Dispatcher. I can barely make out the other (snip)