Submissions Welcome. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.
The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.
Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.
What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.
A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.
Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.
Download a free PDF copy here.
Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.
A First-page Checklist
- It begins engaging the reader with the character
- Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
- The character desires something.
- The character does something.
- There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
- It happens in the NOW of the story.
- Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
- Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
- What happens raises a story question.
Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.
Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.
Carolyn sends the first chapter for The Invisible Assassin. The rest of the chapter follows the break.
An alternative opening and another poll follow this opening.
I woke to rain the first morning in my new home, which some people might take as a bad omen. But to me the sodden gloom was a cozy blanket that would keep reality at bay a little longer. Everything I wanted and needed lay within these walls. Outside them, a Vermont mountain view would be revealed when the downpour ended. I had time now to wait, and was happy to savor the vista in my mind until the skies cleared.
Once dressed and caffeinated, I looked out to gauge the vista’s progress. The distant hills remained shrouded but I could see the near landscape of forests and fields. Only one homestead perched in sight, and only two roads marred the scenery. I now lived at their junction: a paved state route in front of the house, and a dirt dead-end forming one boundary of my twenty acres.
This was as far from civilization as I could get without losing Internet access—my conduit of income. It had let me work anywhere in the world for two decades; and for whatever decades remained to me, it would be my umbilical cord between world and womb. I had pared down my possessions to only those that mattered. Likewise my obligations, reduced now to my furry children, my employer, my readers, and myself.
Feeling free yet secure, I turned to unpacking the rest of my boxes. None of the three cats emerged from hiding to join me, but their empty food bowls showed they had explored while I slept. Good; that meant they were recovering from yesterday’s travel ordeal. Outside the rain (snip)
Very nice writing and a good voice are promising in this opening page. On the other hand, the lack of tension isn’t. What happens here? A person—we don’t know who, or if male or female—wakes up, has coffee, looks out the window, and notices that his/her three cats have eaten. Story questions? None. This is all setup, and, as far as we know, all is well in this person’s world.
Take a look at the checklist. While not everything on it is required, by any means, one item that is helpful to engaging a reader is something happening. For me, waking up and having coffee isn’t something happening—we know of no desire from the character, he/she does nothing to achieve anything. Nothing intrudes on this comfy existence on a rainy day.
Instead, here’s an alternative opening extracted from a later page. Understanding that all the setup material can be woven in as the story continues from this point, what do you think of this as a way to open the story? A poll follows.
I heard the mailman’s Jeep growl and whine as the vehicle plunged and slewed in the hub-deep mud of Rock Maple Road. But then, instead of continuing to the intersection and turning onto pavement, it cut the corner across my front lawn!
I clunked down my mug and scooted to the front windows. The Jeep had gouged the grass and stopped astride my walkway, and the driver was already banging on my storm door. I switched off the alarm system and unbolted the inner wood door to find him pale and bug-eyed. “Please—I’ve got to make an emergency phone call!” he yelled through the glass.
Startled into muteness, I let him in and pointed him toward the kitchen without questions, even though my mind sparked and sizzled with them.
He crossed the living room in three strides, grabbed the handset off the wall phone just inside the doorframe, and punched 9-1-1 with a shaking finger.
I pushed past him to finish pouring my coffee, unsure what else to do. I gave him space but not privacy, for whatever his problem was, it had abruptly become mine. Resentment surged, but I throttled it back to retrieve and nurse later. He was saying into the phone, “Yes, I want to report a death”—which trumped inconvenience by a mile.
Between the muted gobble on the other end of the line and the mailman’s responses, I caught the key words: gunshot, Jake Baldwin, end of Rock Maple Road. Then he closed with, (snip)
Your thoughts?
For what it’s worth.
Ray
Submitting to the Flogometer:
Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):
- your title
- your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
- Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ. Note: I’m adding a copyright notice for the writer at the end of the post. I’ll use just the first name unless I’m told I can use the full name.
- Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
- And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
- If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
- If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.
Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.
Flogging the Quill © 2016 Ray Rhamey, prologue and chapter © 2016 by Carolyn
Continued:
. . . continued, over which I heard a vehicle rumble. I was already used to car sounds passing on the main road, but this one slowed then revved alongside the house.
I peered out the kitchen window to see the flashing yellow light atop the black squarish blur of the mailman’s Jeep. Lucky him, I thought sardonically, having to drive a mile of hub-deep muck down Rock Maple Road for one house’s worth of mail. Normally mud season was over by this time in mid-April, but a deep snowpack had melted late and the spring rains had come early. I used to think being an urban commuter was bad, but being a rural mailman probably made highway congestion look good.
I heard his Jeep coming back while I poured a second coffee. This time the engine growled and whined as the vehicle plunged and slewed. An image sprang to mind, of a Pony Express rider thrashing his mount across a flooded river, accompanied by a voice-over of the unofficial postal service motto: Neither rain, nor sleet, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds . . . Indeed, when I glanced out, the Jeep was bucking past the kitchen window at twice the rate it had gone the first time. But then, instead of continuing to the intersection and turning onto pavement, it cut the corner across my front lawn!
I clunked down my mug and scooted to the front windows. The Jeep had gouged the grass and stopped astride my walkway, and the driver was already banging on my storm door. I switched off the alarm system and unbolted the inner wood door to find him pale and bug-eyed. “Please—I’ve got to make an emergency phone call!” he yelled through the glass.
Startled into muteness, I let him in. All my training screamed against opening doors to strangers, but I knew there was no cell phone reception for miles. That had been one of my reservations about moving to the boondocks. At least I knew this stranger by reference, and understood that something dire had happened. So I pointed him toward the kitchen without questions, even though my mind was sparking and sizzling with them.
He crossed the living room in three strides, grabbing the handset off the wall phone just inside the doorframe and punching 9-1-1 with a shaking finger.
I pushed past him to finish pouring my coffee, unsure what else to do. I gave him space but not privacy, for whatever his problem was, it had abruptly become mine. Resentment surged, but I throttled it back to retrieve and nurse later. He was saying into the phone, “Yes, I want to report a death”—which trumped inconvenience by a mile.
Between the muted gobble on the other end of the line and the mailman’s responses, I caught the key words: gunshot, Jake Baldwin, end of Rock Maple Road. Then he closed with, “Okay, I’ll wait.”
At that, I opened a cupboard and reached for some shock treatment. My editor had given me a bottle of top-shelf whiskey as a house-warming present, which I’d tippled last night in celebration. Now, I plopped a dollop into my coffee then poured a full shot for him.
“Thanks,” he gasped after throwing it down in one gulp. As he returned the glass, we finally faced each other full on. And blinked in surprise upon finding male/female reflections of ourselves. Both of us, average-size white people, age plus or minus forty, brown eyes and hair, no distinguishing marks. Since my name matched the description—Jane Brown (taunted through childhood as “Plain Jane”)—I wouldn’t be surprise if he was John Doe.
But from having been consigned to the visually uninteresting bin all my life, I’d learned to look more keenly at others. The John Doe before me was framed in a pleasingly manly way, with a strong jaw and brow, broad shoulders tapering to narrow hips, and a face warmed with laugh lines weathered by an outdoor life. Even though his eyes were bulging, I could see intelligence within them, sparking behind his distress.
He shuffled in place, waving his hands, looking around without seeing. Then he blurted, “I, uh, they want me to stay put until the cops arrive. I guess I’ll wait in the car. Oh christ, it’s on your lawn—sorry, I’ll move it.” He spun for the door.
“Not until you tell me what the hell happened!” I commanded. He halted, yanking off his wet ballcap with one hand and wiping the other palm up his brow and back over his hair. That revealed a tan line across his forehead. His hair was almost long enough to pull back into a tail.
“Sorry, sorry . . .”
“Here, sit.” I gestured toward the table still hosting my breakfast dishes and paper piles. “God only knows when they’ll get here.”
He obeyed like a robot, but having a target brought his eyes back into focus. When he pulled out the chair, Tommy the Tiger, my brown tabby, leaped off the cushion and shot out of the kitchen. The mailman startled then suddenly laughed and relaxed.
“Thanks. Sure, you’re right. Sorry, it’s not every day you find a dead body on your route.”
“Uh . . . yeah. Can’t say that’s ever happened to me.” We sat opposite each other. “He was shot, you said?”
The mailman looked away and nodded then shook his head in disbelief. “Square in the chest. Looks like he opened the door and got blasted. That’s what caught my eye—the door wide open. In the rain. That old bastard would never do that, let the heat out and anybody come in. But his truck was still in the drive yet nobody around. I looked and I shouted. Finally I went up to the door and found him on his back halfway down the hallway.”
He gulped. “And promptly lost my breakfast.”
I cringed and felt my own meal turn over inside. I shouldn’t have offered him that bracer, but I’d not been thinking about the fine points of booze on an empty stomach. However, it was bringing color back into his face.
Before I could try another tack, like maybe offering him some toast, he leaned back in the chair. “Sorry to bust in on you like that. But, you know, you’re the closest phone . . .”
“That’s okay. You did the right thing. I know there’s nobody else.”
I didn’t mention that the curmudgeon at the dead-end—who had just come to his own dead end, how karmic—had sicced his dog at my car while I was on a recon mission before buying the house. Between my place and his lay a deer camp, a ski house, and a second home, all closed up until their appropriate season, plus a resident retired couple who always went south to avoid the mud. These dwellings were spread evenly out of sight from each other along Rock Maple Road. About its halfway point, the road dipped into a valley with stunning views, where a young couple raised children, alpacas, and a market garden. They were the obvious place to stop for a telephone, except that their property access was a gated two-track for farm equipment and ATVs, and their main driveway lay farther beyond mine on the main road.
The mailman stood again. “I should probably block the road with my Jeep or something. At least get it out of your yard.” He started off then turned and held out his hand. “Oh, I’m Ned [lastname]. Was hoping to meet you some other way.”
His smile warmed the room. And along with color in his cheeks, light had returned to his eyes. They had first looked dark and blank but now glowed caramel. Sort of like mine, enlivening plainness. Brother from another mother, I thought, and shook his hand.
“Jane Brown.”
“I know. I’ve got your mail outside. Might as well give it to you now. Oh crap, I’ve got to call my supervisor—I’m off the route for the rest of the day, gotta get someone to cover. Can I use your phone again?”
“Of course.”
I tidied up while he called, my actions automatic while I recalculated time and chores and deadlines. The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, said an olden-days poet. More recently, some wiseacre had condensed the thought to Shit happens. And: Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.
In this case, death happened, and everyone around it had to make other plans. Including me, who had ab-so-lute-ly nothing to do with it, and had gone to great effort and expense to mind my own affairs. Then again, as a guilt-free writer of adventure stories for teenage girls, I should be happy that fresh fodder had delivered itself to my door.
Followed, now, by cops. First came the hiss of tires on pavement and the splash-thump of a new vehicle turning onto Rock Maple Road. Ned and I popped to the window to watch the County Sheriff’s SUV go by, sans lights and siren. I’d thought he would stop here first to interview the guy who found the body, but instead he churned down the road to verify that a body was really there.
He must have called his boss, because while we debated what Ned should to, a second County Sheriff SUV lunged around the corner. Also no lights or siren, and wipers slapping across the windshield at a speed he tried to match.
“Crap,” Ned muttered. “I was worried about what tracks I might destroy, but these guys will obliterate them.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Only one way in and out from the murder scene, with evidence already compromised by a deluge. Three days’ worth.
“How long do you think . . . the body’s been there?” I asked.
Ned kept his face to the glass. “I saw him Saturday morning.”
Given that it was now Monday, that meant a forty-eight hour window wherein the killer must have passed my house, the last twenty-four of which I’d been there and could have seen him. Except I didn’t. And that’s assuming he’d driven, not walked in through the forest. Either way, the rain had done a number on his tracks, making the killer either very lucky or a good planner.
Presently the first SUV returned and parked across the entrance to Rock Maple Road with all lights on. Ned put his cap back on and said, “I think that’s my cue.”
He hadn’t removed his jacket so marched straight outside. I followed, stuffing my arms into a slicker and feet into rubber garden shoes, catching up to find Ned already bent toward the officer’s open window, talking. He straightened at my arrival, jerking his head toward the house to signal, About-face. The officer said, “Please wait inside, ma’am. A detective will talk with you shortly.”
It was more longly than shortly, but investigators did eventually come. During the interval we watched the County deputy reposition his SUV to admit a State Police trooper in a green Crown Victoria, then a second one just like it, and soon after, an unmarked in darker green. The local rescue rig arrived and took over road-blocking duty so the deputy could return to the scene. Before the rig had finished juggling into position, another unmarked that Ned guessed was the coroner’s vehicle followed the tire-sucking, slurping ruts down the road.
Finally, a crime-scene unit with all the fancy gear needed to finish the job lumbered in and barely made it up the hill to where road snaked out of sight. Out on the pavement, a few passers-by hovered in their cars, with some getting out to talk to the EMTs in the rescue rig, whom they’d probably known since kindergarten. A media van came along and tried to gain access, but the road guards shooed them away. Then shooed them more forcefully after the van seemed to move on then parked on the shoulder just past my place, and reporters headed back for my door.
The first State Police car to return, the unmarked, slithered up to the intersection and paused to wait for the rig to move. Ned sucked air through his teeth and said, “Here we go.”
The car hooked a right onto the pavement and a second right into my little stub of a driveway. At that I hissed through my own teeth, suddenly realizing I was a newcomer flatlander to be interviewed by the police about a murder, within camera range of reporters. There went my hopes of living in quiet obscurity.
As the unmarked’s doors slammed, I conquered the urge to hide with the cats and instead unbolted the inner front door again. No need to deactivate the alarm since I hadn’t turned it back on after admitting Ned. He hung back as I opened to a pair of men as cool as he’d been frantic, standing shoulder to shoulder under my front rooflet, wearing trench coats over weary suits with mud splattered up to their knees.
“Good morning, ma’am, I’m Detective Lieutenant Johnson of the Vermont State Police, and this is Detective Sergeant Greene.” He pulled ID from an inner pocket and held it up for me to peer at through the glass. It looked real enough; how would I know? I believed him without it. No pretend-cop criminal could arrange the spectacle we’d been watching. I unlocked the storm door and stepped aside for them to enter.
Instinctively, I did not invite them to sit down or offer anything to eat or drink. They seemed prepared to just stand there right inside the door.
“As you know,” said Detective Johnson, “there’s been an incident on your road, and we’d like to ask a few questions. Ma’am, are you the homeowner here?”
“Yes. I’m Jane Brown.”
“May I see some ID, please.”
While I rummaged for my purse and then inside it, the sergeant watched me. To make sure I didn’t pull a weapon, I supposed.
Detective Johnson turned to Ned. “And you, sir, I understand, discovered the body?”
“Yes.” He knew not to reach for his wallet in back pocket until the detective nodded.
“We’d like to take your statements, please. Ms. Brown, do you have a second room here.”
Not a question. They could see for themselves without moving, but I recognized they were giving me the choice of which room with a closed door to use for private talking. I chose my office, which, though still an mess, was immediately to hand, as well as my stronghold. The Detective Sergeant entered with me while the Detective Lieutenant took Ned.
We remained standing. Detective Sergeant Greene took out a notebook and opened, “I gather you just moved in.”
“Yes, sir.” Did I have to say sir? Would I seem impudent if I didn’t?
“And when did you arrive?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“Just yourself.”
An assumption he wanted clarified. “Well, I came ahead with the cats, then the moving guys brought everything else. No partner, if that’s what you mean.”
He waited. I added, “I’ve been here a few times since the closing two weeks ago, but yesterday is when I actually took occupancy.” Jeesh, I sounded like the Realtor.
He jotted then looked up. “Where did you move from, Ms. Brown?”
[city]
“And do you have any connections with North Allenburg that led you to move here?”
I shrugged. “I used to ski around here, so I know the area and like it.”
The real reason was my friend and former boss, Lucinda Johnson, who had a second home in the next town over—the one serving the ski area, with higher property values and taxes. When I’d told her I wanted to retire to the country, she had located this place for me. But the cops didn’t need to know that, so I stuck to the minimal response.
Detective Green finished jotting down my statement. “Did you see or hear any vehicles entering or leaving the road since you arrived?”
“Sorry, no. Between the rain and all I had to do, I would have missed a parade.”
“Are you acquainted with your neighbors on Rock Maple Road?”
“Only by gossip. I’ve not met any of them yet.”
“How about Jake Baldwin.”
“Well . . . I’ve heard he’s the town bully, to put it nicely.” I hesitated, knowing this was who I should tell about the dog incident but not wanting to disparage the dead or inject myself into the equation as anything more than innocent bystander. But duty called. “I sort of didn’t meet him when I was first checking out the neighborhood. He came out into his yard when I was turning around at the dead-end, and I waved, but he gave some command to his Rottweiler to rush my car and chase me off.”
Nod, followed by jotting. “Did you ever see him again?”
“No.”
“Do you know anyone who might want to hurt him?”
Yeah, the whole town—according to what Luce had told me. But I knew nothing for a fact, so shook my head. When he looked up at me, I verbalized, “No.”
He held my eye. “But you still moved here after being menaced by a neighbor. Why is that?”
I stifled a jerk of surprise. Good lord, did he see me as a potential suspect? No, no, he was just doing his job. I should take this as merely the first challenge to the promise I’d made myself as part of moving: to live an honest life. So, after mulling how to phrase things, I said, “The rumors about him, along with lack of cell service, did give me pause about buying here. But the house suits my needs, so I figured a mile was enough distance from a creep if we both minded our own business. Being chased off gave me the impression he wanted to mind his own, and minding mine was the whole point of coming here.”
Detective Green allowed himself a quiet sniff and a tweak at the corner of his lips. Then he returned to business. “Did you happen to hear any sounds like gunfire?”
“No, just the rain.” The hours-long, drilling rain. I would have masked it with music, but my sound system was still in boxes. So were my guns—which I hope-hope-hoped he wouldn’t ask about. It seemed a logical question, in the circumstance.
But either he didn’t think me having firearms was relevant or he considered me beyond suspicion. Detective Green wrote a final note then asked, “Are you in residence full time now?”
At my nod he said, “Please provide your full contact information.”
Since we were in my office, I was able to turn and put my hand on a box of business cards. His eyebrow arched when he read it.
“So you live and work at home.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re a professional writer?”
That’s what the card said, but he needed it confirmed. For all he knew, I could be running scams through my computer while self-publishing Nazi sympathizer tracts. I knew I’d get researched online later.
“I write series fiction for a New York publisher. Under a different name.”
He looked at the card again. “Kat [lastname].”
“Yes.”
He nodded and inserted my card into his notebook upon flipping it closed. “Thank you, that’s all for now.”
He gestured for me to precede him back into the living room, just as Detective Johnson finished with Ned. Johnson said, “Please call us if you remember, see, or hear anything that might help, no matter how trivial it may seem.”
“Of course,” Ned and I chorused. Ned followed with, “Are we clear to go?”
“Yes. We’ll contact you if we need you.”
The detectives nodded and headed for the door. Before departing into the rain, now just a spatter, Johnson paused. “Thank you for your time, and sorry for this welcome into our state, Ms. Brown. But both of you, think about keeping your doors locked.”
We mumured thanks and assurances, then I closed the storm door behind them. Through it I saw the media van still parked on the shoulder, while some of the lookers had gone home, and the rescue rig had been replaced by the County SUV.
I closed them out of sight with the inner door and locked it by reflex, even though Ned would be leaving soon.
Indeed, he turned to me and said. “I’m going to attempt getting home. Lead those reporters away from you, if nothing else.”
He smiled, showing where his laugh lines had come from. He also had a full set of white teeth, uncommon enough among rural natives to make me wonder if he was a transplant from downcountry, too. A flatlander, they called us.
But I didn’t inquire, just flashed my own smile back—hoping he wouldn’t notice my two front teeth were fakes, owing to a skiing accident—and said, “Thanks. I really don’t want to start my time here as a headline.”
“Even if you are, it won’t be a problem. As long as you’re Lucinda and Peter’s pal, everyone will assume you’re good, rather than a suspicious stranger.” He took his cap off, slicked his hair, and put the cap on again. “Besides, you’ve already made more friends than you might think from all the jobs you contracted.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” Truly. I had hoped that hiring locals for repairs and renovations would start me off in good social graces. The physical results were a little iffy . . . but everything functioned, nothing leaked, and the place was spic and span. Except where we’d just tromped mud and water through it. I’d laid down vinyl runners for the moving men, meaning to keep them down until I’d finished unpacking, but the extra traffic had overshot the paths. And probably scared the cats into hiding for another week.
Ned unlocked the door himself. “I’ll come back in a day or so to resod those ruts.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do. I’ll see you then. Take care.”
He sprang out the door and into his Jeep, entering it from the passenger side because it was one of those converted-to-right-hand-drive vehicles used by mailmen. As he drove off, I realized he’d never delivered my mail.