Writers, send your prologue/first chapter to FtQ for a “flogging” critique. Just one in the queue. Email as an attachment.
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.
Next are the first 17 manuscript lines of chapter one in a “media thriller” titled The Anonymous Source. A poll and the opening page of the first chapter follow. Should this author have hired an editor?
World Trade Center, South Tower, 99th Floor
Macintosh Hollinger heard a faint rumble. As he set his comb on the edge of the sink, he noticed a small vase of pink carnations wobbling on the marble vanity. When had New York City last been hit by an earthquake? He tried to recall as he checked his short gray hair in the mirror and adjusted the lapel of the blue suit his wife had given him that morning for his eighty-fourth birthday. It wasn’t worth the four grand Sonia had probably spent on it, but he did look sharp. When he glanced again, the vase was still. It was probably nothing.
Winking at himself, he walked out of his executive bathroom into his sprawling office. On the east wall were photos of Hollinger with Elvis Presley, Muhammad Ali, and Presidents Reagan and Clinton. A large gold frame held a photo of Lou Gehrig smiling in front of the dugout at Yankee Stadium.
Hollinger, who was short, but spry for his age, walked briskly across Persian carpets toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that faced west across the Hudson. The morning was bright and clear and he squinted at the horizon, trying to glimpse the conical spire of his New Jersey estate. He hoped Sonia would get soup for the party— but of course she had, she knew how much he loved soup. Lobster bisque, or maybe crab.
A stream of black smoke drifted toward the window. Hollinger lurched back, spun (snip)
Did this writer need an editor? My notes and a poll follow.
This book received 4.5 stars on Amazon. I have mixed feelings about this opening. The first line, which would have been more of a heading on the page, creates instant interest because of what we know happened on 9/11. Even though this doesn’t give a date, we know that the towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed.
So there’s that tension, but what else? What would be the result if that heading wasn’t there and we had only this narrative? By eliminating the heading this line of text would be added:
around, and scanned the three flat-screen TVs on the wall. On WNYW, a wobbly shot showed (snip)
No, that doesn’t add a lot. So the main story question, without the knowledge of 9/11, has to do with black smoke and a tremor in his office, which we can assume is in a skyscraper. I guess that’s enough, but I would have liked to see less exposition and more happening. A reluctant “yes” from me.
I came across a post, She Is Jazz, and Good for Her, by a dad about reading a new picture book to his four-year-old daughter. At one point, after a few pages of what he expected of a picture book with a little girl on the cover, he turned the page and he says this:
“I read the words aloud before fully realizing what they said. And then I paused. And then a wide smile spread across my face and I started laughing.”
He was surprised by the direction the book took with two brief sentences.
“I have a girl brain but a boy body. This is called transgender.”
What the book, I Am Jazz, delivers is, as this dad reader says, “a delightfully modest and straightforward explanation of what it means to be transgender.”
The book is based on the experiences of co-author Jazz Jennings. I say kudos to Jazz, her co-author Jessica Herthel, and illustrator Shelagh McNicholas, and to all the writers and publishers who help to expand our sense of what it is to be a human being. Bravo! And thank you.
This video is about an hour long, and it went too quickly for me. John Cleese talks of creativity and writing in funny and insightful ways that I think you’ll enjoy.
Writers, send your prologue/first chapter to FtQ for a “flogging” critique. None in the queue. Email as an attachment.
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.
Next are the first 17 manuscript lines of chapter one in a mystery novel titled Three Seconds to Rush. A poll and the opening page of the first chapter follow. Should these authors have hired an editor?
Tara’s nose filled with pungent fumes reminiscent of her short lived job as a housekeeper in a run-down motel. The place had always been so dingy regardless of how much bleach she used on the rings in the tub or the amount of muscle she put into ridding the grubby walls of marks. Nothing ever really came clean. But the clientele who frequented the facility didn’t notice. They weren’t on vacation. They were all there to escape, to hide. At the end of every shift Tara would smell like the cleaning aisle of the supermarket and feel like she hardly accomplished anything.
But Tara wasn’t at the motel. She hadn’t worked that job in over two years. So where was the smell coming from? If her eyes could open she’d be able to figure it out. No matter how she ordered her lids to rise, they would not comply. Other senses began to return, however. Incessant beeping and the hum of people clamoring around her suddenly flooded in. Then hands on her body were the next sensation, followed immediately by stinging. Immense pain tugged and shredded her skin, as though she was being yanked in every direction, about to burst apart.
Tara heard a far-off cry, a shriek that petrified her as never before. It wasn’t until she felt her vocal chords strain that she realized the scream was her own.
“Calm down,” she heard a woman order as her shoulders were pressed back violently and pinned. “We can’t help you if you fight.”
Did this writer need an editor? My notes and a poll follow.
This book received 4.7 stars on Amazon, 90% of them 5 stars. This first page has good things going for it—it’s an immediate scene, we’re close in a character’s point of view, and there’s enough information for us to deduce that she is probably in a hospital. Good story questions are raised: What are they trying to help her with? Why is she in pain? Will they be able to help her? A character fighting against pain also sympathetic.
On the strength of the story questions, I would turn the page. However, I would also suggest that Danielle utilize an editor. The narrative could be crisper—it’s an action sequence and could move more quickly. There are authorly words that felt out of place to me, especially in an action scene: reminiscent, frequented, comply. While the first paragraph does some nice work on creating character, I think it could do that with fewer words so that we can get on with what’s happening. And I would try to include this later bit of narrative on the first page to increase the tension.
“Wylie,” she bellowed as she began flailing her arms and legs again. “My son. Where is my son?”
“Fiction was useful as a reminder of the truths under the surface of what we argue about every day.”
So we are again reminded that fiction, even though made up, is about the truth of things, particularly our lives.
He also cited a reason that many of us read fiction when he said
“. . .there’s been the occasion where I just want to get out of my own head. Sometimes you read fiction just because you want to be someplace else.”
The article reported that he sees fiction as a valuable contributor to what the future holds.
“When so much of our politics is trying to manage this clash of cultures brought about by globalization and technology and migration, the role of stories to unify — as opposed to divide, to engage rather than to marginalize — is more important than ever,”
About his time in New York, during which he read a great deal, both fiction and nonfiction, he says
“. . . it reintroduced me to the power of words as a way to figure out who you are and what you think, and what you believe, and what’s important, and to sort through and interpret this swirl of events that is happening around you every minute.”
Did you know that Obama wrote short stories? I didn’t.
“. . . writing was the way I sorted through a lot of crosscurrents in my life — race, class, family. And I genuinely believe that it was part of the way in which I was able to integrate all these pieces of myself into something relatively whole.
“People now remark on this notion of me being very cool, or composed. And what is true is that I generally have a pretty good sense of place and who I am, and what’s important to me. And I trace a lot of that back to that process of writing.”
I was delighted to learn that his reading is eclectic, and that it includes science fiction and thrillers. There’s much more of interest to writers in the article, so check it out here.
The point of all this? Keep at it, you’re contributing to us and to yourself.
Submissions welcome. There’s naught in the queue. Get fresh eyes on your opening page, and you could get a little free line editing, too. Submission directions below.
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 to engage the reader with the character
Something is wrong/goes wrong or challenges the character
The character desires something.
The character takes action. Can be internal or external action: thoughts, deeds, emotions. This does NOT include musing about whatever.
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.
The one thing it must do: raise a story question.
Caveat: a first page can succeed without including all of these possibilities. They are simply tools you can use. In particular, a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and a create page turn without doing all of the above. On the other hand, testing pages with the checklist no matter where they are in a story can help identify where a narrative lags and why it does.
Kevin sends the first chapter of an action thriller, Insomnia. The rest of the submission follows the break.
I was trying to get the dirt off my hands from the graveside service. It wasn't until the hot water from the kitchen sink started to burn me that I realized I had already washed off all the soap. I turned the tap off and dried my hands. I wasn't sure why we were preparing to eat, I knew I wouldn't be hungry. As I sank into my usual spot at the table, Dad was slunk into his chair, elbows on the table. Mom would have scolded him for that.
“Bekah, just sit your butt on your chair and we can eat,” that was Dad, voice cool as the grave.
“No need to be frustrated,” her face was still red from tears but you would never know it from her calm composure.
Everyone was a little on edge. As if funerals weren't hard enough, there had been a noisy construction crew not far from mom's grave that had really ruined it for me. We had finished the service, but I felt so vulnerable and self-conscious with men looking in from every direction I was eager to get out of there and didn't feel like I had given Mom a proper goodbye.
“I'm not frustrated,” Dad's voice was rising, “I just want to eat and you're holding us up.” He was yelling. I don't think I'd heard him yell much, at least not since we were little and misbehaving. But the glaring fact that one of the chairs at the table was now empty was obviously hanging heavy on him.
I picked up a slice of egg salad sandwich. It was on white bread, cut into four slices. It was leftover from the funeral. I had never thought about how gross the texture of egg salad was before, but (snip)
I like the voice of this narrative, and liked it even more as I read on. As a whole, the writing is good, though there are usage ("your" for "you’re") and punctuation issues. Characterization through the chapter was strong with lines such as “There was something soothing about starting a fight.”
However, for something categorized as an action thriller, nothing happens. There are no story questions raised until, possibly, the end of the chapter. A family in the shadow of grief has supper and quarrels, that’s about it. I should mention that I’ve seen a number of death-of-a-mother-or-father-or sibling openings, and they are seldom the actual inciting incident. Same goes here: the first chapter is devoted to setup, as far as I can tell. I think the story starts later, and I’d like to see that opening page. Notes:
I was trying to get the dirt off my hands from the graveside service. It wasn't until the hot water from the kitchen sink started to burn me that I realized I had already washed off all the soap. I turned the tap off and dried my hands. I wasn't sure why we were preparing to eat, I knew I wouldn't be hungry. As I sank into my usual spot at the table, Dad was slunk into his chair, elbows on the table. Mom would have scolded him for that. The use of “slunk” here for his posture didn’t work for me. Did you mean “slumped?”
“Bekah, just sit your butt on your chair and we can eat,.”that That was Dad, voice cool as the grave. Some scene-setting is needed here. We don’t know who or what Bekah is or that she was in the room. She should have been established before he says this to her. It could have come in the first paragraph. And there’s a punctuation issue in how the dialogue is presented—“that was . . . etc.” is not a dialogue tag. This happens again in the following narrative. You need to study up on the punctuation for quotes with dialogue tags.
“No need to be frustrated,.”her Her face was still red from tears but you would never know it from her calm composure. Punctuation issue.
Everyone was a little on edge. As if funerals weren't hard enough, there had been a noisy construction crew not far from mom'sMom’s grave that had really ruined it for me. We had finished the service, but I felt so vulnerable and self-conscious with men looking in from every direction I was eager to get out of there and didn't feel like I had given Mom a proper goodbye. The first sentence is "telling." Just show us.
“I'm not frustrated,.” Dad's voice was rising,.“I just want to eat and you're holding us up.” He was yelling. I don't think I'd heard him yell much, at least not since we were little and misbehaving. But the glaring fact that one of the chairs at the table was now empty was obviously hanging heavy on him. Punctuation issues.
I picked up a slice of egg salad sandwich. It was on white bread, cut into four slices. It was leftover from the funeral. I had never thought about how gross the texture of egg salad was before, but (snip) Echo of slice/slices—substituting “pieces” would cure that.
There’s a good post on Writer Unboxed titled “Perception and How to Identify POV Leaps.” In particular, I recommend it to anyone who struggles with maintaining a consistent POV (point of view) in their narrative, but it’s definitely worth a read for any student of craft.
The key clues, says writer Jordan Rosenfeld, lie in what he calls “perceptual words,” which are “signifiers that tell us who is having the experience, thus, whose POV we are in . . .”
“Whenever you offer up observations, perceptions, beliefs, feelings, sensations or thoughts of any character, you have dropped into their POV . . .”
Here’s a valuable tip for determining the POV of a passage:
“I always recommend if you’re struggling with POV to ask: Am I inside the character looking out, or am I outside the character, looking in?”
Whether you craft POV easily or not, this post is worth a read for a fresh way to look at what signals POV to a reader.
Writers, send your prologue/first chapter to FtQ for a “flogging” critique. None in the queue. Email as an attachment.
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.
Next are the first 17 manuscript lines of chapter one in a mystery novel titled Written in Blood. A poll and the opening page of the first chapter follow. Should these authors have hired an editor?
Now, there’s a heart attack waiting to happen.
The man who heaved himself out of the Mercedes 500SL kept a meaty hand on the doorframe, rocking a little until his feet settled on the asphalt. The shoulders of his suit coat strained, the belt disappearing under his belly as he buttoned it closed. He was about six foot and just shy of obese. A shock of thick, wiry hair cut short had started to grey on the sides. A salt-and-pepper beard hid his jaw.
Despite the coolness of the fall afternoon, the man plucked a handkerchief from his breast pocket and mopped his forehead, as if the mere act of exiting the vehicle had zapped his energy. From her office window, Claudia Rose watched him pop the trunk and haul out a briefcase, every step labored.
The passenger door opened before the man could get there. A stunning blonde stepped out of the car with a wriggling Bichon Frisé clamped under her arm and a phone to her ear. In response to the man’s apparent offer of help, she shook her head and bumped the door shut with a curvy hip and preceded him up the path. Women would kill to have that shape. Men would describe her as “smoking hot.”
Paige Sorensen. The new client.
By the time the man had climbed the wooden staircase, Claudia was at the door, ready to (snip)
Did this writer need an editor? My notes and a poll follow.
This book received 4.3 stars on Amazon. To start with, how many of you knew what a “Bichon Frisé” was? I sure didn’t, and I’m pretty sure the author could have guessed that most readers wouldn’t, either. It’s a toy dog, and it could have been defined in context or, better, replaced with a relatively known breed. In context, this would have worked:
A stunning blonde stepped out of the car with a Bichon Frisé clamped under her arm, the tiny white toy dog wriggling and squirming, and a phone to her ear.
Other than that, the writing is strong and clean, the voice professional. But, with all this detailed description of two people getting out of a car, where’s a story question? There really isn’t one, nor is there a hint of what the story is about. Oh, a new client is coming, but we don’t know (unless we have a cover blurb to tell us) that Claudia is a forensic handwriting expert or what she might have to do with these people. For this reader, the carelessness with the dog breed, the lengthy description that leaned toward overwriting, and the lack of story were unable to overcome the strong writing. No turn of the page here. What do you think?
Start with the unexpected—good examples, and a good idea. Avoiding the ordinary helps you clear an agent hurdle.
Start with an image—I’ll buy this one, too. It can be a character or setting, and it can ground us in “seeing” the story right away. Avoids the musing problem, too.
Start with action—you’ve heard this from me more than once.
Start with brevity—yep. I edit to make a narrative crisper, and brevity helps avoid the curse of overwriting.
Start with a question—how many times have you read here to start with a story question?
Start by appealing to curiosity—seems to me that this is the same as starting with a question, and their examples show that. Should have been part of number 5.
Start with an understanding of your fictional world—an opening can indeed give you a sense of what I’ll call the reality of a story’s world.
Start with something new—their example shows how to twist the ordinary into something fresh, and reminds you of the clichés to avoid.
Start with intensity—and they don’t mean just heavy action, there are other ways to create intensity.
Were I you, I’d give it a read. Might spark some thoughts in you. Note: the image is from the Reedsy article.
Writers, send your prologue/first chapter to FtQ for a “flogging” critique. None in the queue. Email as an attachment.
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.
Next are the first 17 manuscript lines of chapter one in a mystery novel titled In for a Penny. A poll and the opening page of the first chapter follow. Should these authors have hired an editor?
Her purse swinging from the crook of her arm, Lillian Summer Fairview pressed both wrinkled hands against the barred door of the downtown Atlanta pawnshop and pushed with her whole weight to get inside.
She glanced at the bright yellow measuring stick on the doorjamb. Frequenting this place on the seedy side of town for the past two years was bad enough, but according to that ruler she’d fallen below the five-foot mark somewhere along the way. She’d noticed it on her way out last time and convinced herself it was a mistake. Maybe a bad angle. She dang well knew she’d been five foot two once upon a time. Just one more jab on possibly the worst day of her life.
No. The worst day would arrive within the month.
Today, she wore her only pair of pricey low-heel pumps and stretched her spine like a ballerina, but she still didn’t pass four-eleven. It was a sore spot but only one of them. Having to visit J& R’s Pawn at all was worse than eating potato chips with a paper cut.
Harlan, I may never forgive you for putting me in this position.
When the preacher who’d married Harlan and her all those years ago said “for better or worse,” she’d had no idea the worse would come after the until-death-do-you-part.
“Hello, gentlemen,” she called out as she made her way past a long counter of jewelry, coins and other collectibles.
Did this writer need an editor? My notes and a poll follow.
This book received 4.5 stars on Amazon. I really like the voice, and the character is both likable and engaging to me. And then there’s the writing and humor—the line about eating potato chips with a paper cut made me smile. But there’s trouble in her day, too, and even more coming up. We don’t know exactly what it is, but this bit of foreshadowing, along with the voice, character, and writing, was enough to get me to turn the page. I’ll be reading this one, and it’s the first of a series of “granny mysteries.” Your thoughts?