Flogging the Quill

Flogometer for Anne—are you compelled to turn the page?

Submissions Needed—Only One 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.

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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.

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Anne sends the first chapter of Uncalculated Risks. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

FBI Special Agent TC Atkins’ head ached from the relentless rhythmic pounding of the Seventies club dance music. He stood just inside the double doors of the Roosevelt Ballroom in the Capitol Hotel in Washington, D.C. He’d waited until the function was almost over when no one paid attention to who entered the ballroom. He came tonight out of curiosity.

So this was a high society charity gala. What the wealthy did on Saturday nights. The rich invited their peers to a party where they dined, danced, and then opened their checkbooks to benefit some good cause

The gala was being held by the Declan and Elizabeth Logan Foundation. He wanted to get a look at Elizabeth Logan—size her up without her knowing—before he formally met with her on Monday. The FBI White Collar Division had opened an investigation on the Logan Foundation. It was alleged that funds were being stolen and Elizabeth Logan was the foundation administrator.

He scanned the room and saw middle-aged fashionably dressed people, old enough to have made lots of money, and still young enough to want to dance to that Seventies disco crap. He marveled at everyone’s perfect tans even though it was only the beginning of June.

The music stopped. TC heard a faint tapping noise which became more audible as the room quieted. Here come the obligatory speeches. He walked into the room and joined the one (snip)

Clean writing here, and we’re in an immediate scene, all good. But we spend a fair amount of time with setting and not much on story. I think it needn’t take as much to set up a gala event in a ballroom. We can fill most of that in, I think. What I’d like to see is a strong story question but, for this reader, there isn’t one. This scene is used to introduce the woman and her husband, primarily.

The chapter goes on to a meeting between Elizabeth and TC after more setup. I suggest taking a look at starting the chapter much later and getting to the heart of the issue as soon as possible, preferably on the first page. Get the agent into her conference room while in her POV, get his accusation on the first page, and use internal monologue to set up the problem—she’s guilty and needs to figure a way out. That seems like where the story actually begins.

Your thoughts?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

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Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

1. your title
2. your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
3. 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.
4. Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
5. And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
6. If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
7. 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 © 2016 Ray Rhamey, prologue and chapter © 2016 by 2016 by Anne

Flogometer for Ilena—are you compelled to turn the page?

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.

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.

---

Ilena sends the prologue and first chapter of Exhonerated. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

 Prologue:

The Homestead Herald

13 Years Earlier

CONVICTED MURDERER GETS THE DEATH PENALTY

By Cindy Margolin

A double murder shocked the sleepy town of Homestead last fall, when two young girls disappeared after last seen walking home from their bus stop. Today, Thomas Wilkes, 43, has been sentenced to death row for the murder of those two young girls.

In the week after they went missing, Donald and Marie Walcott, the parents of the two girls, held a press conference seeking the public's help in solving the mystery over their disappearance. Banners and newsletters with their photographs were distributed.

Homestead's Chief of Police Glenn Frye said that the scene was "gruesome." The bodies of Melanie and Daisy Walcott, ages 13 and 7, respectively, were discovered nude and floating face up in a canal located a quarter mile from their home. An autopsy revealed that the causes of death resulted from blunt-force trauma to the side and back of their heads.

Almost a week passed after their disappearance before two eyewitnesses came forward, stating that both had witnessed Wilkes driving near the bus stop around the time the girls vanished.

 Chapter 1:

Georgia Wilkes heartbeat rises in tandem with the needle of her truck's speedometer –already pushing past 90 m.p.h. Her hair flies around in all directions from the wind blowing through the window. It's as if a mini tornado is passing through, leaving nothing in its wake. Any rogue receipts or other little pieces of paper, remnants of a truck requiring an overdue cleaning, are pushed out by the violent gusts. The clock reads 10:32 a.m. Because she was driving south, the sunlight shines from the east and exposes only the left side of her body to the UV rays. If someone paid close attention, they'd notice that her arms were unevenly tan. A result of time spent in her truck. It was her preferred method of relaxation.

The road was mostly empty, allowing her to stay on the lane designated for faster traffic. Once in a while, she came upon a driver oblivious to the unspoken rules of the road and she'd have to switch lanes to pass them. She's about to slow down, bored of this game she was only playing with herself, when she notices a man beside her, speeding and keeping up right next to her. He smiles at her and she waves at him, placing both hands on the wheel, affirming her acceptance to race. The cat-and-mouse game continues for a couple of miles. Georgia feels the adrenaline course through her as she manages to stay ahead by employing clever driving maneuvers. A skill she possessed but one she had no use for listing on a resume. The man somehow ends up behind her, which allows her to check him out more closely. He is 24-years (snip)

Once again we have strong writing and a good voice. The prologue reporting a crime was good at raising story questions—I wanted to know more about the crime and the story behind it:

As for the first chapter, though, for me the only possible reason to read on was that the girl has the same last name of the accused murderer. But nothing that happens in this page—she drives fast in a truck is about it—did anything to provoke a desire to know more. The chapter is pretty much setup to give us an idea of this girl’s character, but nothing in terms of a story comes along to create real story questions. I think the real story starts later and I urge Ilena to consider starting the story at that point, the place where Georgia’s life is thrown out of whack by something that threatens her and causes her to take action. I suspect that the information in the prologue could be woven in later, thus eliminating the need, but I can’t be sure.

Your thoughts?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

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Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

1. your title
2. your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
3. 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.
4. Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
5. And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
6. If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
7. 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 © 2016 Ray Rhamey, prologue and chapter © 2016 by 2016 by Ilena

Flog a BookBubber 15

Submissions needed for flogging. None in the queue for this week. Let us cast fresh eyes on your opening page and see how well it works. Email your opening prologue or chapter in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

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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—BookBub says that readers are 10x more likely to click on a book that’s offered for free than a discounted book. Following is the first page and a poll—this was a trilogy for free. Then my comments follow, 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 page in a trilogy by Robert J Crane.

When I woke up, there were two men in my house. As alarming as that would be for most girls, for me it’s doubly so; no one but Mom and I are allowed in our house. No one. That’s rule number one.

I sensed them creeping around in the living room as my body shot to instant wakefulness. It probably sounds weird, but I could hear them breathing and an unfamiliar scent filled the air, something brisk and fresh, that brought with it a chill that crept into my room. They did not speak.

I rolled off my bed, making much less noise than either of them. I crouched and crept to the doorway of my room, which was open. It was dark; dark enough for me to tell they were having trouble seeing because one of them brushed the coffee table, causing a glass to clatter. A muffled curse made its way to my ears as I huddled against the wall and slid to my feet. We had an alarm, but based on the fact that a deafening klaxon wasn’t blaring, I could only assume they must have somehow circumvented it.

I didn’t know what they were looking for, but I’m a seventeen-year-old girl (eighteen in a month, and I guess I’d say woman, but I don’t feel like one – is that weird?) and there were two strange men in my home, so I guessed their motives were not pure.

How did they get in? The front door is always locked – see rule number one. I peeked (snip)

Did this writer need an editor? My notes and a poll follow.

A strong example of opening in media res, right in the middle of something happening. No backstory, though bits are woven in unnoticeably, such as the rule of no one allowed in the house. The writing is strong (though I’d change the filter phrase “my body shot to instant wakefulness” to “I shot to instant wakefulness.” The voice is a good, clear one, and the character clearly in jeopardy. And sympathetic, too—a teenage girl with home invaders. I not only wanted to know what would happen next, I downloaded the trilogy and am currently enjoying it. What do you think?

You can turn the page here.

Your thoughts?

Ray

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© 2016 Ray Rhamey

 

Flogometer for Samantha—are you compelled to turn the page?

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.

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.

---

Samantha sends the prologue and first chapter of her current untitled WIP. The last submission is here. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

Prologue:

As a young boy, Albert never slept when it snowed. Even without the wind, Albert imagined he heard the crystals whispering against the old shingles of the house. They murmured change. Transformation.

The windows of the attic sat low to the floor and Albert would turn onto his belly, position his elbows in the hollows of the bedsprings, and watch his backyard morph into a silver dream. Mostly, Albert watched his father’s barn, the way snow gathered on the eaves, piled in soft heaps, tumbled to the ground, piled up again. (His father built the barn long before Albert was born, felled the trees himself and painted it canary yellow—“ghastly” yellow, his mother called it. Every few years his father repainted the barn, brought it back to its original stunning glow, amid much of the family’s teasing. Some things you do only because they make you happy, his father told him with a wink.) In the night snows, the barn turned silver with the rest of the world and Albert lay for hours, watching the snow pile up and tumble down. Pile up. Tumble down.

Albert wondered about that single snowflake, the flake that brought it all down. It would have floated so gently from the blackened sky, light as air, unaware.

It shook Albert, caused a deep shudder somewhere in the regions of his maturing mind, to think that such a thing could happen. That something so small and insignificant, so ignorant of its own power could, without warning or provocation, bring the whole world crashing down.

Chapter 1:

At eighty-three, Albert Henry Hallam was prepared to go to jail. He thought it preferable to a nursing home where the bars were made of bingo nights and tapioca pudding. He worried, though, that his age would land him in a minimum-security facility with some soft-bellied roommate named Montgomery or Chase and with whom he might still be forced to play bingo and eat tapioca pudding. His skin color, however, could mitigate the situation. Over the slow decay of dementia, Albert thought he might happily choose a good shanking. Or was the verb form shiving? Does one shiv with a shank? Or shank with a shiv?

“You worry too much. I didn’t forget.”

Turning away from the mirror, Albert opened the drawer of the table beneath it, rummaged through the loose papers, stacks of mail, dried up pens, muttered under his breath, winced when he banged his bandaged hand against the wood—“didn’t forget, with a piddle-paddle pet, the cat got wet, and he lost his bet.” Blood seeped, unnoticed, beneath the poorly-wrapped gauze.

Several minutes later Albert found his house keys half-buried in the dirt of his potted peperomia. He never would have found them at all if not for an errant ray of light that flinted off the metal. Albert had no memory of placing the keys in the plant, nor had he reason to do so. He fought a chill, an image (cold fingers creeping over his brain, plucking out items at will); the (snip)

Good writing and voice here but, for me, the prologue ended up being a little too vague for me to understand its importance to the story. While it seems to start out being a scene, nothing but musing and backstory happens. Gets a “no” from me.

The chapter did begin a scene, and there’s a promise of story in the opening paragraph, plus some good writing—I really liked the idea of bars made of bingo nights and tapioca pudding. The characterization of a doddering old man worked as well, although I was confused by the unattributed dialogue in the second paragraph, and I didn’t understand what it referred to—forget what? That could use clarification. And in the third paragraph we were surprised by the fact that he was looking into a mirror—that should have been included in the first paragraph as scene-setting.

Was the narrative enough to be compelling? I ended up with an “almost.” However, later the narrative refers to his “crime spree,” and I would definitely have turned the page if the third paragraph had opened like this:

Ready to continue his crime spree, Albert opened the drawer . . . etc.

Your thoughts?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

Tweet

Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

1. your title
2. your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
3. 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.
4. Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
5. And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
6. If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
7. 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 © 2016 Ray Rhamey, chapter © 2016 by Tamara

Start strong or lose your readers.

My buddy Therese Walsh, Writer Unboxed, clued me into an interesting study of when readers quit on a book. The article on Digital Book World, Start strong or lose your readers by Andrew Rhomberg reinforces the message you get on this blog. Not only does the first page have to be compelling, so do the rest. It was interesting to me to see that, on average, about 40% of readers finish a book, though one of the books they studied lost 90% of its readers before the third chapter started.

Here's a little from the article--you should check it out, though; the graphs of how a reader's attention decays while progressing through a book is worth a look and a thought.

“In today’s world of infinite distractions, you need to capture the reader’s attention within the first 50 to 100 pages. . . . If they are women, you have 50 pages, maybe even 100, to woo them. If they are men . . . you may have just as few as 30 pages to achieve that goal. Men are simply more fickle; women persevere for longer. Though once committed men are equally likely to finish a book as women are, except if the book is about feelings and relationships. Then all bets are off.”

Check it out.

For what it's worth.

Ray

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© 2016 Ray Rhamey

Flog a BookBubber 14

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—and here’s a complete trilogy for no cost. How can you resist? (By reading the first page.) Following is the first page and a poll. Then my comments follow, 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 prologue from the first book in a trilogy by Steven F. Freeman. The promo billed it as “A pulse-pounding trio of thrillers!"

Captain Alton Blackwell had nearly reached the end of his twelve-hour shift in the mobile communications—“ mobcom”— vehicle, a command-center van mounted along the length of a chassis roughly the size of a commercial bus. The mobcom housed arrays of cutting-edge communication equipment packed along shelves. Along each side of the van, long, mounted tables with chairs provided just enough space for sixteen soldiers to operate the equipment. Alton’s Army unit, the 76th Brigade Combat Team, was stationed in the desert near Gazib, about two hundred miles north of Kandahar. Aton, commander of the soldiers operating the mobcom van, was responsible for establishing and securing the brigade’s communications network.

Alton leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms straight up.

“Long shift, huh, Captain?” asked Lieutenant Anders, his second-in-command.

“Yeah, but at least we’re inside. I guess being in the Signal Corps has its advantages. We’re in here with the A/ C, not outside in that oven.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

“Lieutenant,” said Alton, “have you finished the conversion of the signal scramblers to NORAD’s new encryption protocols?”

“No, sir. We have to replace the motherboards, and the space behind the wall panels is (snip)

Did this writer need an editor? My notes and a poll follow.

Hard to believe a typo such as misspelling the protagonist’s name would be on the first page, but there it is. But what’s not on the first page is a story question, bogged down as it is by the long and not very interesting setup about the “mobcom.” As it happens, an attack comes soon—but I wouldn’t have gotten there. No page turn for me despite that this is a free trilogy.

You can turn the page here.

Your thoughts?

Ray

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© 2016 Ray Rhamey

 

Flogometer for Kelsey—are you compelled to turn the page?

Submissions Needed. 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.

---

Kelsey sends a revision of her first chapter of This Bitter Cup. The last submission is here. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

I closed the door softly and crept down the hallway. It was dark as the castle’s torches were not lit at this hour. I quickened my pace and just as I checked the hallway behind me I walked straight into a man.

No, a boy. My age. He was not wearing the uniform of the castle guard or a servant’s livery. His clothing was a muted shade of black, as if to hide among the shadows between the lines of moonlight shining through the balistrarias. We locked eyes for a moment before he continued running down the hallway.

I continued in the opposite direction from him and threw myself headlong down the spiral staircase into the bowels of the castle. I exited through the scullery entrance into the cool night. I pulled my hood close to hide my porcelain skin; it would instantly tell any guards I wasn’t the servant I was dressed as.

I followed the narrow river that bisected the city to Madge’s Inn. Upon entering I was startled to find Madge herself sitting behind the counter. No one knew how old Madge was but no one could remember a time before her Inn either. I had assumed she’d died but I was glad she hadn’t.

Madge nodded at me and moved her stool and the rug beneath it to reveal a small trapdoor. I opened it and climbed down the ladder into darkness.

I do like the voice here and the atmosphere of this opening. It’s clear that the protagonist is up to something she doesn’t want anyone to know about . . . but what? She avoids discovery, but what are the consequences if she is discovered? What is the story about? These aren’t story questions, they are information questions, and it would be stronger if there were answers here. A hint of her mission, the stakes, any consequences to create a little tension. As it is, there wasn’t quite enough to pull me forward. As it turns out, even though we go with her to a secret meeting, we end up not knowing what it’s about, nor what the story concerns. We need more chew on before we can develop a taste here, Kelsey. But keep at it, there’s plenty of potential in these pages, and you've improved on the original. Some notes:

I closed the door softly and crept down the hallway. It was dark as the castle’s torches were not lit at this hour. I quickened my pace and just as I checked the hallway behind me I walked straight into a man.

No, a boy. My age. He was not wearing the uniform of the castle guard or a servant’s livery. His clothing was a muted shade of black, as if to hide among the shadows between the lines of moonlight shining through the balistrarias. We locked eyes for a moment before he continued running down the hallway. It seems to me that black is black and there are no shades of black. Those are called “gray.” And the boy/man wasn’t running when she walked into him, he just seemed to have been there. I would change “continued running” to “ran.” for this to track in a meaningful way.

I continued in the opposite direction from him and threw myself headlong down the spiral staircase into the bowels of the castle. I exited through the scullery entrance into the cool night. I pulled my hood close to hide my porcelain skin; it would instantly tell any guards I wasn’t the servant I was dressed as.

I followed the narrow river that bisected the city to Madge’s Inn. Upon entering I was startled to find Madge herself sitting behind the counter. No one knew how old Madge was but no one could remember a time before her Inn either. I had assumed she’d died but I was glad she hadn’t.

Madge nodded at me and moved her stool and the rug beneath it to reveal a small trapdoor. I opened it and climbed down the ladder into darkness. Here, if not earlier, would be a good place to hint at some aspect of story. For instance: I opened and climbed down the ladder into darkness to join my fellow conspirators.

For what it’s worth.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

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Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

1. your title
2. your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
3. 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.
4. Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
5. And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
6. If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
7. 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 © 2016 Ray Rhamey, chapter © 2016 by Tamara

Would you visit my design website?

Hi. I want to ask you to please take a look at samples of my book design work--while you may not be in the market, at some time you may know someone who is, and it might be fun for you to see all the variety that's there.

You'll see designs for fiction, memoir, and non-fiction.  Click on a cover to see the full front/spine/back cover in a larger size. I hope you'll drop in for a minute or two. A screen chapter of the samples page is below. To visit, go here or click the image below. Thanks for your time and consideration.

Ray

Flog a BookBubber 13

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—this one does, but it’s so short I’m skipping ahead to the first chapter. 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 the first page from a book by Dick Cluster.

“… too many changes at once,” Alex was saying. He recognized this for a rationalization, and an old, barnacle-encrusted one to boot. He wondered how many other times it had been enunciated, sotto voce, over this same slippery table, by men or women whose fingertips traced, as his did, circles of diluted bourbon on the black Formica top. He envied the piano player, whose dry fingers glided brilliantly over shiny keys.

The pianist, Meredith had said, was playing a song cycle by Franz Peter Schubert. Alex hadn’t been able to identify the composer, though he could have said it was a European who worked after Bach and before Stravinsky. He did happen to know one surprising fact about Schubert— at least it had been surprising to him— which was that he had died even younger than Mozart, at the age of thirty-one. “Hey, listen,” Alex had said more than once since coming upon this fact, “I’ve already outlived Schubert by nine years, and Che Guevara by one.”

Tonight Alex had expected jazz piano, not classical. And why not, when he had watched the pianist amble in from his break: a dapper man, rimless glasses and well-shaped mustache, a sort of older Herbie Hancock, though then Alex had realized that Herbie Hancock himself wasn’t so young anymore. The musician had sat down, flexed his long brown fingers, and conjured these august Germanic rhythms out of the machine.

Did this writer need an editor? My notes and a poll follow.

The writing and voice are good, but, as a little old lady once said in a hamburger commercial, “Where’s the beef?” A man sits at a table in a bar, musing. Then there’s some backstory. Then a piano player plays music. Story questions? None here and, with an opening this languid, I suspected it wouldn’t appear for far too many pages. I passed. You can turn the first page here.

Edit poll

Your thoughts?

Ray

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© 2016 Ray Rhamey

Flogometer for Tamara--are you compelled to turn the page?

Submissions Needed. 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.

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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.

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Tamara sends a revision of her first chapter of This Bitter Cup. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

“Cora, get away from the window!” mother shrieks. “Someone will see you.”

I leave the small window with murky glass, allowing the curtain to drift back into place. “Mother, just who is ‘someone’?”

“Them! They will never stop until they have us. They seek us relentlessly and we must not let them win. We must not.”

“Let them win what? Since father died, we’ve lost everything.” My words come out too curt and I hadn’t intended that. So, I pull in a deep breath before trying again. “Exactly who is out there?”

“It doesn’t matter if you know who they are. You could know precisely who they are and still never find them. They are quiet clever, ingenious with disguise. Practically imperceptible. I keep telling you­­­­­­­­­­―do not trust anyone. You must listen to me; our lives depend on it and much, much more,” she declares, her agitation growing until she chokes with intensity. She swallows hard to compose herself. And when she speaks again, her voice is soothing, comforting, almost like a real mother. “Cora, I trust you.”

I want to believe her, but I see the manic eyes and crazed expression. They make me want to shout, yank out my hair, or run through the door, but instead I utter, “Then why won’t you tell me something—anything.”

Good story questions and tension in this opening, enough to make me want to know more. The writing is pretty clean, but you should capitalize Mother and Father when they are used as names as you do here. And I think you meant “quite clever,” not “quiet clever.” Stay with it, there’s promise here.

For what it’s worth.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

Tweet

Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

1. your title
2. your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
3. 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.
4. Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
5. And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
6. If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
7. 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 © 2016 Ray Rhamey, chapter © 2016 by Tamara