Submissions sought.Get fresh eyes on your opening page. 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.
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.
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.
Thomas sends the first chapter of a mystery, The Brain Loses the Game. The rest of the chapter follows the break.
I had an appointment with a lawyer, and I was running late.
“There’s nothing unintentional about that,” I thought to myself. “No one hires a snoop for their punctuality.”
“Worse,” myself responded, “the lawyer might think I just follow rules.”
“That would put me in the wrong line of business,” I thought further.
Not too late, though. I was just a run-of-the-mill body chaser. Too late, and the lawyer would start thinking about the next body chaser. No point in thinking about who-makes-who-wait to declare who’s more powerful either. I knew what I was, a young woman working out of a plywood office and a beat-up van, and I needed the work.
The law office was a mahogany-and-glass affair sixty stories up. The office people might as well have been made of mahogany-and-glass too. The only human crack in that facade was that, instead of the usual pretty face at the front desk, there was a tall, wiry guy. Not that his face wasn't pretty, but at least it wasn't female. The guy couldn’t have been much older than me.
“I’m here for Ruth Andover,” I said to him.
He said, “Your name, please?”
I said, “Charlotte Handler.”
He picked up the phone, talked softly, listened for a moment, and pointed down the hall. (snip)
This narrative is nicely written with a light and lively style, and it introduces what appears to be a likeable character. But what/where’s the mystery? She introduces herself as a snoop and a “body chaser,” which don’t, for me, immediately translate into private detective. Instead of mystery, we have self-identifying musing and an interest in a male receptionist.
What problem does this person need to solve? What is wrong in her life? What goes wrong in this introductory page? What trouble can we see ahead for her? Answer: none. The chapter is primarily setup. While mystery/detective novels have to do some of that to get the reader up to speed on the crime or the case, for me it was a lot of talk that, while it did serve to characterize the protagonist and her professional thinking, didn’t introduce a compelling story.
A witness is missing, someone who might have done something, but we don’t know what it is. A man is accused of something, but we don’t know what it is, or how serious it is, or what the stakes are if the protagonist doesn't find the missing witness. I’d much rather have something going on that focuses on our heroine dealing with events that matter than sit through a fairly mundane job interview. I suggest you take a look at starting the story later, when she has to grapple with something that could mean trouble for her.
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 © 2017 Ray Rhamey, chapter © 2017 by Chris.
My books. You can read sample chapters and learn more about the books here.
Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling
Fantasy (satire) The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles
Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy
Science Fiction Hiding Magic
Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.
Continued:
. . .“Conference room B,” he said.
His eyes might have lingered on me for a moment there. Interested in me or not? There might be time to test that on the way out.
In the cavernous area of the heart that we call love, something stirred in the deeps. It had heard the call of its master too often to uncoil and spring to action like the Genie of Amour (who grants three heartthrobs or ten very tacky valentine cards), but a gentle sniffing of the air seemed alright. It issued a few short sprays of what we, for lack of imagination but love of categorization, call pheromones.
The lawyer said, “Miss Handler -”
I said, “Please. Charlie.”
She said, “Thank you for coming in.”
A call would’ve been easier. An email, even better. But hectoring a potential client about the waste of resources involved in travel wasn’t the way to retool the entire corporate world or cover my bills. And I’m not a hectoring person anyway. Or a lazy person. And while saving the world was a grand idea, the probability that my tiny conservation of resources would make a dent was nil.
“I’m all ears,” I said.
She said, “We understand you do surveillance work. You also track people down.” The royal we. Ugh. Way to put a stick up my spine. Most people think of the first meeting with a client as kneeling to royalty, but, to be useful, it has to be a two-way street. They’re subtly interviewing you (sometimes not so subtly); you’re subtly making sure they’re worth your time.
I said, “Yes, just like a lawyer tracking down some law.”
The lawyer smiled and said, “For which you bill much less than it would cost to send a lawyer on surveillance.”
Okay, not so buttoned up. She deserved a smile back for that.
“Tell me what you need,” I said.
She said, “We have a witness. We can't find him.”
Moving straight to business is good, so I decided to take charge now and start with a profile.
I said, “I haven’t tracked an eyewit before, but I’ve looked for bail jumpers. They’re nervous, so they run. This isn’t planned. They forget things or just don’t bother -”
“He forgot everything,” the lawyer said. “From what we can get out of his wife, he didn’t take a thing with him.”
I said, “I don't mean packing a suitcase. They forget to be careful. They leave a trace, they go to a friend, they keep their phone.”
The lawyer nodded.
I said, “Now we add in the people he knows, expand the circle. Maybe he works or she’s in business. Boring people. Predictable people.”
The lawyer asked, “So how will you capitalize on his predictability?”
She was getting into my game. Should I pull her in, get her interested in how this works, or move her along? A low-class client might need to be brought along until they see the value of my work. She’s highly educated, really busy, so no need for that.
I said, “In the time it’ll take me to explain it to you, I could be doing it.”
The lawyer nodded. “Alright. Go ahead.”
I said, “Okay, easy enough. Just let me know what you know about him.”
She said, “We know everything about him. Just not where he is.”
There was a folder lying on the table. The lawyer slid it across to me.
I said, “Okay. Privilege doesn’t cover me, right, so without telling me -”
She said, “Actually, it might cover you, depending. But go ahead.”
I said, “How important is he to your case?”
She said, “Why would you need to know how important he is?”
I said, “Because our possibilities may be endless, but our probabilities aren’t. If he ran, if he’s dead, if he was taken - the probability depends on what you want, what he wants and what other people want.”
The lawyer said, “Honestly, he isn’t all that important. Our defendant claims this witness committed the crime he’s accused of, but we can’t find any proof that’s true. It would be nice to prove who did it, but we just need to prove our man didn’t do it.”
I said, “So why do this?”
She said, “The defendant insists. We advised against it. After all, even if we find this witness, he’ll be a hostile witness.”
I said, “But?”
She said, “But the defendant pays the bills, so we indulge him.”
A slightly sinking feeling. If this was tug-of-war, I was going to get caught in the middle.
I asked, “Just to be clear: You really want him found, or you just want me to look around?”
The lawyer said, “No, once we hire you to do it, you’re hired to do the best you can.”
I said, “Give me a minute, please.”
I flipped through the papers in the file while I thought. “Someone is being framed here,” I said, “either your defendant - Reilly Sinrad?” - the lawyer nodded “- or the witness.”
She said, “McKilvore.”
I said, “Of the two possibilities, the chance is higher that McKilvore was the one. The crime here is corporate espionage.” The lawyer nodded again, leaning in to consider my thought process, and she was looking at me with more respect than a minute before. I continued. “Why would the company care which one is guilty? If it’s not Reilly, then it’s McKilvore, they have their justice. Let’s take the low probability, that McKilvore is guilty, and on top of that, for some reason, the company wants Reilly out. Have you seen any reason for the company to want that?”
“So far, nothing here looks personal,” the lawyer said.
I said, “Well, if I see some hesitation on their part, if they don’t want McKilvore found or something like that, then I’ll know more.”
The lawyer sat back. She said, “Contract and retainer?” I nodded.
I took out my sheet of terms, while she slid their contract out from a pile of papers. It could’ve been worse, it was only two pages long. We smiled at each other. We were both going to be making changes.
“I’ll send you mine,” I said, “and you send me yours.”
As we stood up, I thought of the guy at the front desk. I could test the lawyer some more and get information and test the guy too.
I asked, “Can I get some advice?”
She asked, “Retainer type advice, or on this business?”
I said, “The guy at the front desk. If I were to develop an approach to test his interest in me, what would my options be?”
She looked stunned, then laughed, hopefully just at the change in conversation.
She said, “Cooper? Flirty wouldn’t work for you. Let me get this straight. You don’t want to ask him out. You don’t actually want to go out with him. You just want to… What?”
I said, “Confirm or reject a hypothesis.”
She said, “What we would call a theory of law. No, more like jury analysis. Hmmm. I can tell you that -”
I said, “Thank you, but no. No information.” That got me a broad smile.
The lawyer said, “If you ask him for his favorite coffee flavor… And the conversation happens to move along to his favorite color.”
I said, “I don’t know anything about coffee.”
She said, “Then you have one minute to find out. I’m sure you’ll inform us of developments.”
I said, “About your secretary? Or the case?”
She said, “Both.”
I pulled out my phone, and Google helped me cram for coffee.
I walked past Cooper at the front desk, then sniffed and stopped abruptly. He looked up.
I inhaled deeply and said, “I’m getting my coffee fix just breathing.”
He said, “You can still smell it? Must have my nose stuffed.”
I said, “No, it probably smells that way all the time, and you got used to it.”
He raised the empty coffee mug to me.
“Here’s to cup number six,” he said.
He got up and turned around to the coffee machine. Nice view. And the coffee machine wasn’t a terrible sight either, because it had the flavors labelled, and he was pulling a mochaccino. At least my hasty Googling gave me enough coffee cred to shorten it.
I asked, “Do you take your mocha straight?”
He said, “Mocha is supposed to be sweet. Look at that darkness… Just a little lighter than that and it’ll be perfect…”
He set the mug down next to my arm and poured milk in small streams, his eyeballs glancing at my arm, then the coffee.
He said, “Perfect color.”
Move in on him? No, save it for the next time. I smiled and fake-hand-shook the handle of the mug.
I said, “Mocha, meet mocha.”
He smiled, and I waved as I walked out.
“So I make him think of his coffee,” I thought to myself. “That’s about it.”
“But relationships have started based on less,” myself responded.
In the depths, the thing called love curled down, sensing possibility but not immediacy. It dreamed, but not her dreams of coffee shop dates. Well, she isn’t really the dreaming type. Her thoughts of the probabilities of a coffee shop date emerging from future thrusts and probes. The curled thing’s dreams, lacking eyes and speech, might remind us of the haze of a smoky room, in which all seems lovelier than it truly is. Although to her, a smoky room indicates the possibility of fire more than anything else.
The smoky dreams smack of eternity. Her thoughts only lasted until she got to the street.