Flogometer 1045 for Vicky—are you compelled to turn the page?
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.
Vicky sends the prologue and first chapter of Discharge of Destiny. Here are the first 17 lines for each, plus polls. The rest of the narrative follows the break so you can turn the page.
Prologue
I’ve come back again, to the water where I can see things. In the water there’s earth and sun reflected, but absorbed and made cooler. I think that air flows but not with the same connection. It doesn’t touch the same. Feather-light breeze against the skin, what use is that? But sinking down under the wet is slow and methodical. When you push inside the depths the water pushes back. The water calls and it beckons and when the Mere stand still the liquid surrounds like one is standing inside a diamond.
I try to tell Anthym that every time he comes to the edge of the river. He sees me under the water, and even when I splash like a diver around his feet. One time he picked me up and put me in his pocket but I didn’t like the coldness of air. I tried to tell him that this world he lives in is empty of flow. It was like the time his neighbor Bulge took his clothes when he was bathing. Anthym had to come out of the water and run home naked.
Being out of the water, I said to him, it felt just like that, but Anthym just laughed at me. Anthym is that kind of boy. He sees the face under the water and almost talks to me, but he just thinks he must be crazy as well as worthless.
Sometimes it isn’t easy being in his mind.
Chapter 1
There he was. Sitting by the tumbling river, alone and quiet. The kid's shoulders were scrawny and his shirt was thin, but Kye didn't feel a lot of sympathy. It'd been too much of a pain to search for him, and the investigation had taken 14 years. They'd practically had to root out every single child of that age in the whole country of Ouorka and demand to see their pedigree.
He began to pick his way towards the boy, boulder by boulder, but to his annoyance his movement made the boy’s head swivel around in surprise.
The kid was certainly fast as he rose to his feet and moved away. He was comfortable on the uneven rocks and barefoot.
“Wait!” Kye yelled; his voice loud to dominate over the open-air rushing of the river. “I just want to speak to you, boy. You’re not in trouble or anything!”
The boy didn’t even give him a glance as he climbed up and then disappeared over the nearby rocky crest of land and tree roots that blended with the boulders at the water edge. “Halt!” Kye bellowed. In seconds he leapt clear as well, off the unstable boulders, frustrated and with one wet boot. He scrambled up the bank as the boy had done, reached the crest and scoured the horizon on either side. “Blast!” he hissed. The boy had disappeared, or at least, he was hiding nearby so Kye couldn’t see him. Kye glared towards the rugged landscape near the river; the area most likely to have hiding spots. “You think you’ve evaded me!” he (snip)
For me, while the prologue was lyrical and brief, I didn’t connect with a narrator I can’t “see”—he/it seems to be nonhuman, but is it a fish? A what? There are many hints at things in the prologue, but hints are not, for me compelling. If I were this writer, I’d start with the first chapter.
The first chapter, though, puts us in an immediate scene, and does so with good writing and a sound voice. The character, Kye, is sympathetic in the sense that he’s spent 14 years (BTW, in a manuscript numbers under 100 should be spelled out, eg. fourteen) searching and has found his quarry. We can feel empathy for him. But then his quarry seems to escape, and Kye has a problem. Story questions are raised: who is the boy and why is he sought? Will Kye catch him? What will he do with him? For me, there was enough to read on. In fact, at the end of the chapter, I found myself wishing for more. Your thoughts?
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 © 2018 by Vicky.
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.
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