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. Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.
Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling.
Donald Maass,, literary agent and author of many books on writing, says, “Independent editor Ray Rhamey’s first-page checklist is an excellent yardstick for measuring what makes openings interesting.”
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.
Jody sends the first chapter of The Harvard Edge. Here are the first 17 lines. The rest of the chapter follows the break so you can turn the page.
The warning came in an email.
Your grade point has fallen to 2.0. As a student at Harvard University, admitted on an athletic scholarship (Women’s Crew), you must maintain a 2.5 average to continue receiving scholarship status. Please see your advisor immediately.
It was the night before the final for Introductory Economics. The narrow, small-paned Gothic windows of Jocelyn’s room hung open, and sounds of spring on Harvard’s campus were riotous. Music blared from every corner of the quad, shouts and hoots of laughter, a piercing whistle, and, rising above it all, a cry of joy that carried into her room where she sat on her bed, cross-legged, hunched over the laptop.
Exhaustion from training on the Charles River every morning pulsed through her body like a jab of electric current. Her muscles twitched and ached. Something trembled deep in her chest. She stared at her thick hands, taped fingers like sausages, broken fingernails and peeling skin.
Jocelyn had barely passed the Econ midterm, and now that spring training demanded endless hours, she was even further behind. It was hopeless, and she knew it. The first in her family to attend college, much less Harvard, the very real possibility of flunking out struck her as both impossible and utterly horrifying.
Good writing, strong voice start us out nicely. The scene is set, and we meet a character who is in trouble, and her dedication to her sport makes her sympathetic. But what of tension?
In terms of story questions, we have this: will she flunk out? But that’s not an immediate consequence—it takes time to flunk out, and there are things a student can do to avoid that. And what are the consequences of failing? Disappointment for her family and herself? People can survive that kind of thing. Much of this page is backstory and setup, and not much is actually happening. In other words, I didn’t find the opening compelling as it is.
But on the very next page was what I think would be a strong opening. Without modification, here it is. A new poll follows.
Jocelyn was never sure, even years later, how he’d seen her cheat on the final. She’d written formulas and notes on tiny pieces of index cards, and had them taped to the insides of her palms, easily hidden because of the taping used on her damaged hands. The proctoring grad student, glued to his front desk, barely glanced at any of them during the entire three hour exam. She knew this because her gaze constantly rose to find him, terrified he’d discover what she was doing.
Yet Andrew Hyde definitely noticed. After the exams were collected, and they were shuffling out of the surprisingly dingy classroom, given it was Harvard, he’d spoken.
“You, the girl with long red hair, wait a minute.”
She could remember the feeling of heat rushing to fill her pale white cheeks and the powerful thump of her heart.
When the room had emptied and they were alone, he stared at her with a face of stone. “You cheated.”
Jocelyn went still, overwhelmed with fear. What should she say? Deny it? The evidence was in her jeans pockets, but she didn’t know if he had the right to ask her to empty those pockets. Her blood pulsed with dread, and a terrible nausea flooded her mouth with saliva.
“I know, and you know.” Andrew rose from behind the desk and moved with languid (anip)
This could be a little tighter to be an opening page—for example, from a pov point of view, she would not be thinking of her “pale white” cheeks in that way, and the dinginess of the classroom doesn’t matter to the story. But, for me, there is definitely tension here and a strong “what happens next” story question. What did you think?
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 Jody.
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.
She did what she had to do, or so she told herself.
Jocelyn was never sure, even years later, how he’d seen her cheat on the final. She’d written formulas and notes on tiny pieces of index cards, and had them taped to the insides of her palms, easily hidden because of the taping used on her damaged hands. The proctoring grad student, glued to his front desk, barely glanced at any of them during the entire three hour exam. She knew this because her gaze constantly rose to find him, terrified he’d discover what she was doing.
Yet Andrew Hyde definitely noticed. After the exams were collected, and they were shuffling out of the surprisingly dingy classroom, given it was Harvard, he’d spoken.
“You, the girl with long red hair, wait a minute.”
She could remember the feeling of heat rushing to fill her pale white cheeks and the powerful thump of her heart.
When the room had emptied and they were alone, he stared at her with a face of stone. “You cheated.”
Jocelyn went still, overwhelmed with fear. What should she say? Deny it? The evidence was in her jeans pockets, but she didn’t know if he had the right to ask her to empty those pockets. Her blood pulsed with dread, and a terrible nausea flooded her mouth with saliva.
“I know, and you know.” Andrew rose from behind the desk and moved with languid (anip)grace, a tiger on the prowl, until he stood in front of her, barely a foot away. He was tall and thin, with a long handsome face, the cheeks stubbled by blond whiskers.
She wanted to cough but didn’t dare.
If the idea of flunking out had been impossible to grasp, now the thought of being kicked out for cheating sent shivers up and down her strong body. Her father, a car salesman bad enough at selling that he could barely cover the rent, had been so proud of her acceptance to Harvard that he’d broken down in uncontrollable sobs when she told him the news. And her mother? A secretary at their local synagogue, who didn’t believe in God or anything at all, had rediscovered a faith, of sorts, in Jocelyn’s extraordinary success.
Every direction failed her. The pain filled her like a pressure cooker.
And then the graduate student spoke.
“Suck my cock,” Andrew said.
“What?”
He unbuckled his belt and lowered his zipper.
“Here?” she whispered, stepping back.
“Yup.” His breathing had deepened and become rough. He pulled out his hard cock.
Jocelyn knew she should negotiate, get his promises to never turn her in, or ask for this again, but she’d become frozen all the way to her core. Her body was rigid. She had no sense of how to bend her knees when they were locked with fear and shock.
Andrew placed his large, powerful hand on the top of her head and pushed hard. She fell to her knees, the pain immediate. In front of her face, his cock bobbed with desire. She opened her mouth. It didn’t take long, and for that she tried to be grateful.
Afterwards, he zipped up with quiet efficiency and turned away.
Jocelyn managed to rise to her feet by grasping the edge of the desk. She needed to get to the bathroom, to be sick, but she was scared to move.
He glanced at her, a brief flick of his eyes from where he was collecting his phone and the book he’d been reading. It was a look of absolute hatred.
When she met him again, fifteen years later, she would once again recognize the righteous indignation buried beneath a sanctimonious attitude everyone who knew him called love. Somehow, he’d become an old-fashioned Hebrew God, punishing and giving. He judged her, and atonement wasn’t offered, even after the terrible act he demanded from her. She was unforgiven.