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.
Today, a unique submission. This opening page is from a published book, yet I found that it isn’t. Ima is the pen name of this self-published author. Interestingly, the text she sends is not the same as that on the first page of the published Kindle version. I’ll post what she sent, along with some notes, and then the first page of the published version. It’ll be interesting to see what you think. Here’s the first chapter of a fantasy dystopian novel, First Hunt. The rest of the chapter follows the break.
MY FATHER once said that life can change in the blink of an eye. I never took him seriously until it happened to me. I figure most might experience that kind of event once in a lifetime. Maybe twice. But three times? That’s just not right.
My name is Treya and I live in what used to be a small gentrified city in northwest Arkansas. Now it’s basically a FEMA concentration camp, although they don’t call it that.
They still call it Bentonville.
Yesterday I as I walked toward work, I experienced one of those metaphorical eye-blinks.
A moldy-smelling man materialized right in front of me.
Literally.
He simply appeared out of thin air. And he smelled of mold. He stared hard at me. I stared back, unable to form a coherent thought in reaction, and not even worried that someone might see me making eye-contact with another citizen.
A few long seconds passed.
“I’ll catch up with you later,” he said.
Then disappeared the same way he’d appeared.
Poof. One minute, there. Next minute, not.
The fact that it happened at all was mind-blowing. But the way he said he’d catch up was (snip)
Good writing, clear voice, and an immediate scene contribute to this opening page’s result. The reason they do is that they work to deliver a strong story questions, especially about a person appearing and disappearing.
And the narrative, with quick, deft strokes, starts to build an interesting world without belaboring us with too much setup. Nicely done. There is one edit I’d make to this to get what I think is another strong story question on the first page. Here’s the original:
The fact that it happened at all was mind-blowing. But the way he said he’d catch up was (snip)
The sentence about mind-blowing is an instance of “telling” rather than showing. If you cut that sentence, then the first page would end with a promise of jeopardy in her future:
But the way he said he’d catch up sounded like a threat, not a friendly reunion.
Now for the interesting part. Below is the opening page text from the published Kindle version. See how you think it fares. One nice thing about publishing with Kindle is that you can change the text and upload a new version at no cost. Usually there’s a fee for changing a print-on-demand paperback. The original (poll follows):
MY FATHER once said that life can change in the blink of an eye. I never took him seriously until it happened to me. I figure most might experience that kind of event once in a lifetime. Maybe twice. But three times? That’s just not right.
My name is Treya and I live in Bentonville, what used to be a small gentrified city in northwest Arkansas. Now it’s basically a FEMA concentration camp, although they don’t call it that.
Yesterday I was minding my own business, walking down the sidewalk and avoiding eye contact like a person of my status is supposed to. Out of nowhere a moldy-smelling man, hair and clothes all disheveled, materialized right in front of me. Literally materialized. He stared hard at me, muttered a threat, and then disappeared. Poof. One minute, there. Next minute, not.
That was my second blink-of-an-eye moment.
It totally disintegrated my notion of how the Universe operated.
The first blink happened eleven years ago when the United States, after a long resistance, joined the rest of the world to embrace global governance from the United Nations.
The memory of it feels like another person’s life.
The night that particular blink of an eye happened, it transpired in a blur. At that time I still lived at home with my parents. Late one night, after we’d all gone to sleep, the door (snip)
Which opening did you think was strongest? The original submission, the modified submission, or the published version?
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 Ima.
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:
. . . heart-stopping. It didn’t sound like he meant it would be a friendly reunion. It sounded like a threat. Or maybe even a promise.
I had no clue how to contend with a person with such powers. I had no clue such abilities even existed.
My entire concept of the Universe- all the rules of the game of life- shattered right there on the sidewalk on a mundane day in my life as a re-assimilated working class citizen.
That was my second blink-of-an-eye moment. My heart slowly retreated from my throat and I took a deep breath.
Eleven years ago I’d survived my first pivotal moment. I’d survive this one, too, once I had a little time to recuperate. Another deep breath brought my resolve to take another step forward.
The first eye-blink moment happened eleven years ago when the United States, after a long resistance, joined the rest of the world to embrace global governance from the United Nations.
The memory of it feels like another person’s life.
The night that particular blink of an eye happened, it transpired in a blur. At that time I still lived at home with my parents. Late one night, after we’d all gone to sleep, the door suddenly burst open. You would think tremendously loud noise and blinding white light would shock a person into some sort of action. But it didn’t happen that way for me. I was paralyzed with fear. The noise and confusion that followed makes it hard to recall the details.
“On the floor! Hands behind your back!” Someone, a man’s voice, kept yelling that and moving from room to room. I thought we were all about to be executed. I was too afraid to move, couldn’t obey the order.
Before I knew what had happened, I’d been yanked from the bed and thrown to the floor. My hands were jerked behind my back and I felt the vibrating zip of a plastic tie as it tightened and cut into my wrists.
I couldn’t see anything but smoke and my nostrils burned.
“Clear!” The voice shouted from my room. The same thing in various other male voices was shouted from my parent’s room, and from the bathroom and kitchen. While I choked and gagged, a man pulled me to my feet and dragged me from my room and out the front door.
Through the haze I could see my parents had suffered the same fate, except they’d been held in the living room instead. While they stood there dazed and coughing in their night clothes, uniformed and armed soldiers patted them down and my mother shrieked at the invasion of privacy.
Because I was apparently not guilty of whatever sins my parents had committed, or not old enough to warrant sufficient suspicion, they left me out of the pat-down search. They made me stand against wall in the dogtrot hallway outside of our duplex while they conducted their business. One of the men stood in front of the door. When I tried to get past him to go to my parents, he slammed me against the wall using one hand. The other gripped his assault rifle.
There would be no help from neighbors for us. No one lived in the other apartment, and even if they did, I can’t imagine what they might have done. Watch, maybe.
So I stood there. Between the sounds of my mother’s wailing and the dull thuds of what I knew were punches given my father’s gut, and the noise of books hitting the floor along with every other thing on the shelves of our home, I knew then that my life as I knew it then was over.
Two men came through the door, each dragging one of my parents away.
“I love you, Treya,” momma cried as she struggled to turn toward me.
“I’ll come for you, momma. I’ll come as soon as I can,” I told her. In my heart, and I’m sure she knew in hers, the odds of me being of any help were slim. My father never even looked back at me. His bloodied face had the dazed look of a man beaten beyond sensibility, though I couldn’t get a glimpse of his eyes to know for sure if he’d given up.
Then an officer, I’m not sure what rank, but I saw at least one star, walked into the duplex foyer from outside and handed me a paper.
“What is this?” I croaked, my throat sore and dry. My eyes still watered too much to read.
“Employment and relocation orders,” he said.
There was something else, too. A new, hair-thin identification card. Oh, and an envelope I was told not to open until the next day. When everyone else had gone and the room had been cleared, the officer gave me ten minutes to pack up my things. After that, the man still guarding me would escort me to my new assigned living quarters near my place of employment.
The officer left after spending a few minutes inside our wrecked home. He walked in measured paces down the hallway and out into the night. The street light outside cast a sort of haloed glare around his body as he passed through the door.
When I went inside, after changing into the gray cargo pants I’d worn yesterday, the first thing I grabbed was the potted Ilex vomitoria. It was still just a whip of a tree tied to a three foot stake, but it had significance and not just for the caffeine content of the leaves. The man guarding me raised his eyebrows.
“Shouldn’t you be gathering more important things?” he asked.
“Shouldn’t you be minding your business and letting me mind mine?” I replied. He shut up after that.
My room had been ransacked, too, but I managed to find the few things I owned besides the tree that I wanted to take with me. All I could carry would be whatever would fit in the backpack. The plant would take up both of my arms.
Once I’d used my allotted time, he escorted me to the car and drove away from our suburb duplex on the outskirts of Rogers. He brought me to a sparse FEMA sponsored apartment right in the middle of downtown Bentonville. According to my employment papers, I was due at the cafe around the block at 0600. It was conveniently within walking distance.
Overnight, I had effectively become indentured. I now owed my livelihood to the owner of a cafe on the corner of Second and Main. I hadn’t been arrested, but was surely not “free”, either. I couldn’t go anywhere except to work and to the apartment. The same guard who escorted me shadowed my every move and stopped me every time I tried to detour. He wouldn’t answer my questions about my parents’ whereabouts. He wouldn’t tell me what had happened to our previously somewhat normal way of life.
Apparently I hadn’t been the only one uprooted and relocated that night. The whole city was under guard, and as far as I knew, so was the whole country. Everyone I passed on the sidewalk on my way to work wore a dazed, confused look. Our cell phones had been confiscated, all weapons were confiscated. My guard was nowhere in sight, but others had guards following them. I saw one man, a little older than me but still young, with enough defiance in his eyes that I could tell he wasn’t totally undone yet.
I’ve found that anger lends a different look to a person’s eyes than submission. This guy was angry. Everyone else either were guarded or had submitted. I managed to get that one to stop by grabbing his arm when we passed each other.
“Can I use your phone?”
He looked around, eyes darting this way and that before he turned to me.
“There’s no signal. The Internet is gone, too. I checked and couldn’t get online or make a call right before they came and took me last night.”
“No loitering.” The guard assigned to me had arrived. He prodded the spot between my shoulder blades with the tip of his gun. The situation was hopeless. On every street, on every corner there were guards. Anyone who stopped to talk to someone else was ushered on by the guards. No loitering was allowed. I didn’t recognize anyone I encountered, so it wasn’t likely that a friendly alliance could be made easily.
Before I left for work that day, I opened the envelope.
It was an invitation to apply for a position at the recently reorganized Apprehension, Retribution, and Silencing Agency, otherwise known as ARSA.
All I had to do, the enclosed note said, was take it down to the office and enlist. I shook my head. Right. Me, enlist with the local branch of hit men otherwise known as law enforcement officials. Not happening.
It seemed too easy. Why would they want to hire me? I thought about my options. Working as a waitress at a cafe seemed like a safe job. But a bounty hunter could make a lot more money.
Then again, if they gave me this invitation there must be some ulterior motive to having me want that job. The very fact that they wanted me to do it was enough to make me not want it. I wasn’t in the habit of being shepherded by the government. Especially not now with NATO involved.
I crumpled the note into a tight ball and threw it in the trash. Kept the invitation as a reminder that things could be worse. Each day thereafter was the same. Go to work, go home. No need to shop for necessities, as they were delivered to my door in a recyclable box.
Clothes were an issue, though. Every once in a while in the box there’d be an order form for new uniforms – and they were always the same. Gray drab fatigues. The pants I’d worn on my way out of a normal life must have set the stage for everyone’s future wardrobe, because it was the same for everyone I saw on the street as I went to work each day.
The café required me to wear a white apron sort of smock over my clothes.
At least the pants had lots of pockets, and I always carried my survival essentials and things I didn’t want to lose to an unexpected house-search tucked here and there throughout the many pockets.
The envelope was torn and dirty now, but it stayed folded in my pocket every day while I led my personal resistance. I’d work as a waitress until the cows came home if I had to, but there was no way I’d side with the government, let alone work for them.
I carried on going to and from work as I’d been assigned. I did this for eleven years. My shadow guard eventually quit following me, but the street guards remained ever vigilant, as if they sprang out of bed each morning with the anticipation of shooing away people who dared to talk to each other.
Last night the cafe caught on fire, and just like that, I was out of a job.
That was the third eye-blink. I went back to my apartment when I saw the condemned notice on the cafe door. Standing in front of the rent deposit box I thought about my options. I was completely out of money, no way to pay my daily rent, and there was a lunatic disappearing man threatening to come back to get me at his convenience.
I turned around and walked toward the town square. For a few minutes I just stood there, reluctant to take the next step. A guard would harass me soon, I knew. After taking a deep breath I pulled the envelope out of my pocket, carefully unfolded it and slipped out the card. There was only one line on it:
“You are cordially invited to apply for the position of Bounty Hunter with ARSA.”
That was it. I sighed and returned the card back to my pocket. I found it hard to believe it had already been more than a decade since I started carrying that card around with me. Hopefully the invitation hadn’t expired. But there I was. Outside on the sidewalk contemplating what might become the next hard blink of my eye.