But first--I'm wondering why submissions to the Flogometer have dried up. While I think it's educational to flog published works, I really like helping unpublished writers get fresh insights into their writing a lot more. So come on in, send your first chapter or prologue as an attachment to me. You could learning something. More that one flogged writer has let me know that they got consideration from agents after rewriting following a flogging, and some have gotten those agents.
Now to the Bookbubbers.
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. 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 are the first 17 manuscript lines from the first chapter of in Blackman’s Coffin: A Sam Blackman Mystery (Sam Blackman Series Book 1. You can turn the page here.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, shaking me awake.
“Now you can pass as a local. They’ve all got one leg shorter than the other. Comes from being raised on the side of a mountain.” The woman sitting beside my hospital bed laughed at her own joke and then offered me a paper bag.
“Who the hell are you?” I pushed the control to incline the bed to where I could see her eye to eye. I didn’t need someone waking me up and rubbing my nose in my predicament.
She tossed the bag onto my chest. “Tikima Robertson. Marine Corps—retired. Never got over it so now I come to the V.A. hospital to harass the leathernecks who feel sorry for themselves.” She gave a salute. The dark metal hook at the end of her forearm brushed her arched eyebrow. “What I figure is if the Marines had had a few more good women, we’d have been out of Iraq three years ago.”
“Then let me be the first to encourage you to re-up.” I glanced down at the bag and saw a hardback copy of Elmore Leonard’s Up in Honey’s Room. I’m a Leonard fan and the gift cooled my anger a few degrees.
“I would have reenlisted, but when I type I tear up the computer keyboard.” She waved the prosthetic hook in front of me. “So the Corps didn’t want me back in public disinformation.”
I snapped off the sheet and uncovered my maimed left leg.
Did this writer need an editor? My notes and a poll follow.
This book received 4.5 stars on Amazon. I looked through several possibilities today, hoping for one that got me to turn the page. For the first few, poor writing accompanied by poor storytelling nixed the book immediately, and I just didn’t want to go there.
But this book starts with a strong voice and an edge between two sympathetic characters—at least, I found wounded warriors sympathetic. There isn’t exactly conflict here, but a sense that it could happen. That was the story question for me—what will happen between these two? I read on and wasn’t disappointed. The characters remained prickly, but did manage to connect, and I wanted more of their story. Spoiler alert: this is a mystery, and it’s her murder that the book is about. In a sense, this is backstory. But it also goes to character, those of both of these people.
There were little things I’d suggest as an editor that the writer look at, but they were little bitty things. For example, the first sentence has a filter—"I felt." It could have been more of his direct experience if it had been:
A hand on my shoulder shook me awake.
Your thoughts?
© 2016 Ray Rhamey