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.
A reminder of what you’re after here. This blog is about crafting compelling openings. Not interesting, compelling. Why does it have to meet that hurdle? First, if your work is going to an agent, you’re competing with hundreds of submissions. You have to cut through that clutter and competition with powerful storytelling and strong writing. If it’s a reader browsing in a bookstore or online, the same goes—there are scores of published books competing with yours. Yeah, you need compelling.
John sends the first chapter of The Reckoning. Tom did not wish to share the rest of the chapter.
WILL SHERMAN SHOULDERED his way out of the steamy subway tunnel on Twenty-Third Street and stopped on the hot sidewalk where he gazed a moment at the rash of trolleys, trucks and horsecabs trundling up Broadway. He mopped his forehead and the leathered seams of his face with a black bandanna, then pinched the crown of his flat-brimmed Stetson, clapped it to his head and squared it. He bent the big brim to shade his eyes and, what the hell, squinted up again at the new building that had caught his fancy earlier. He’d passed it one time already on his way uptown but couldn’t get enough of the thing. “Burnham’s Folly” that fellow in the café up on Longacre Square had called it. Most likely after the one who’d built it. Will admired the clean brown brick of the triangular structure that soared up twenty-one floors like an upright flatiron. It was the tallest manmade thing on earth, the man had bragged. For Will, its majesty called to mind the grain elevators of western Nebraska where he’d grown up. A lot of New Yorkers had been betting seriously on whether it would fall over in the first big wind, but it looked more solid than any elevator Will had ever seen. Even so, it was a lovely sight. And after a few more minutes of studying it, he tugged his hat down level and ambled off south toward his sister’s apartment, which lay eight or nine blocks down the wide, tree-lined boulevard known as Irving Place.
Accustomed to making even his shortest of journeys on horseback, Will began sweating (snip)
The writing is solid in this opening, and the scene is well-set. For me, though, there are several issues that forestalled a page-turn. I’ll do a little editing in a moment, but first here are some of the concerns.
The first is that long, long, long paragraph. Readers need breaks in big chunks of narrative so they can take it in with easy bites. A big block of text is uninviting, like a wall. Reading it becomes work, not fun. So, to start with, I’d break it up.
In an effort to give us a sense of the world and the time, the narrative dives into exposition about a building. I’ll bet you guess the answer to this: is the building involved with the rest of the narrative in this chapter?
Nope. All that wordage that could be spent on engaging a reader in what’s happening to our character is spent on nothing happening to our character. As a result, the real opening of action and story is left to the second page. Just so you’ll know, on the second page is this:
“Gimmie your money. And be quick.”
Will, bent over, resting his chin in his hands, heard the voice at the same moment he saw the tips of the shabby brogans. The sole of one shoe flopped loose, the other’s laces were untied. He sat back and looked up into the face of a boy whose rumpled, outsized clothes at first made him look smaller than he was. A fresh-faced kid, muscular. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. His hair, the texture of new rope, was a dark russet. It frizzed out wildly from beneath the visor of the tattered wool cap that overhung his forehead and half hid the eyes. The outlandish look of the unruly hair and cap touched Will. He started to smile. Then he saw the glint of the knife blade in the kid’s right hand.
“C’mon, old man. You deaf? I said hurry it on up. Gimmie the—”
To be sure, I would trim that big paragraph some, too, but at least there’s s serious problem the character has to deal with, and how he deals with it both continues the story, immerses us in his experience, and tells more about the character. But that opportunity for the first page is squandered in details about a building that doesn’t matter to the story in any way.
Another problem with that leisurely narrative about the structure is that it foreshadows more of the same to come in the novel, promising scaling more dense walls of description. Me? I want story.
There are small craft issues, primarily a break in point of view. Let’s see if we can edit this down to get the strong stuff on the first page.
WILL SHERMAN SHOULDERED his way out of the steamy subway tunnel on Twenty-Third Street and stopped on the hot sidewalk where he gazed a moment at the rash of trolleys, trucks and horsecabs trundling up Broadway. He mopped his forehead and the leathered seams of his face with a black bandanna, then pinched the crown of his flat-brimmed Stetson, clapped it to his head and squared it. He bent the big brim to shade his eyes and, what the hell, squinted up again at the new building that had caught his fancy earlier. He’d passed it one time already on his way uptown but couldn’t get enough of the thing. “Burnham’s Folly” that fellow in the café up on Longacre Square had called it. Most likely after the one who’d built it. Will admired the clean brown brick of the triangular structure that soared up twenty-one floors like an upright flatiron. It was the tallest manmade thing on earth, the man had bragged. For Will, its majesty called to mind the grain elevators of western Nebraska where he’d grown up. A lot of New Yorkers had been betting seriously on whether it would fall over in the first big wind, but it looked more solid than any elevator Will had ever seen. Even so, it was a lovely sight. And after a few more minutes of studying it, he tugged his hat down level and ambled off south toward his sister’s apartment, which lay eight or nine blocks down the wide, tree-lined boulevard known as Irving Place. In close third person POV he would not be thinking about “the leathered seams” of his face. Cutting all the information about the building enabled the inclusion of all of the following:
Accustomed to making even his shortest of journeys on horseback, Will began sweating heavily about six blocks into the walk. The moist, heavy air made breathing a chore. His head began throbbing and the hand-tooled saddle boots he’d bought on the recent stopover in Cheyenne were raising blisters like white grapes on his heels and ankles. Finally he hobbled over to an iron bench in a secluded, shady corner of Gramercy Park and eased himself down on it. He slung off the stiff boots, letting air get at his stinging, swollen feet, and sighed heavily. This part about the boots tells us a lot about the character and makes him sympathetic—we’ve all had blisters on our feet, I’ll bet, and know how it hurts.
He couldn’t recall a time when his head had hurt so. It started on him in the oppressive heat of the subway and only got worse with the endless clatter of hansom cabs and the chug of motorcars flitting about. Now he was beginning to wonder if this trip was—
“Gimmie your money. And be quick.”
I loved being taken into this world, and the rest of the chapter shows us a man of action who is also a fairly warm human being, someone I’d want to ride a little further with. So use that delete key, John, and start this story out at a gallop.
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 © 2019 Ray Rhamey, excerpt © 2019 by John.
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:
. . . heavily about six blocks into the walk. The moist, heavy air made breathing a chore. His head began throbbing and the hand-tooled saddle boots he’d bought on the recent stopover in Cheyenne were raising blisters like white grapes on his heels and ankles. Finally he hobbled over to an iron bench in a secluded, shady corner of Gramercy Park and eased himself down on it. He slung off the stiff boots, letting air get at his stinging, swollen feet, and sighed heavily.
He couldn’t recall a time when his head had hurt so. It started on him in the oppressive heat of the subway and only got worse with the endless clatter of hansom cabs and the chug of motorcars flitting about. Now he was beginning to wonder if this trip was—
“Gimmie your money. And be quick.”
Will, bent over, resting his chin in his hands, heard the voice at the same moment he saw the tips of the shabby brogans. The sole of one shoe flopped loose, the other’s laces were untied. He sat back and looked up into the face of a boy whose rumpled, outsized clothes at first made him look smaller than he was. A fresh-faced kid, muscular. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. His hair, the texture of new rope, was a dark russet. It frizzed out wildly from beneath the visor of the tattered wool cap that overhung his forehead and half hid the eyes. The outlandish look of the unruly hair and cap touched Will. He started to smile. Then he saw the glint of the knife blade in the kid’s right hand.
“C’mon, old man. You deaf? I said hurry it on up. Gimmie the—”
Will rose up suddenly to his full height—six-two in his stocking feet—and almost fainted from the heat. His heavy-knuckled hands hung loosely at his sides. He inhaled slowly and his chest heaved out to the girth of a nail keg. The sharp shooting pains in his heels began to fly up his aching calves again.
“Best give me that knife, son, or use it. I ain’t carrying much, but what I do got I ain’t handing over just like that.”
Startled, the boy paused and twisted the bill of his cap fiercely out of the way with his free hand. Then, as quickly, he re-composed himself.
“The hell I will.”
He was blocking Will’s exit, cornering him between the bench and the heavy hedge that hid them both from the line of horse trams and motorcars rattling up the street. Sightseers atop a horse-drawn omnibus craned and pointed toward the mounting confrontation across the hedgerow.
“You’re making a mistake here, son,” Will said.
“I ain’t got time for this.” The voice wavered momentarily before regaining its command. Will kept his eye on the knife. “You wait an see what I do, old man. Now hand over your money.”
With no further warning, the boy lunged desperately at Will’s belly. Will sidestepped him—the blade slashed his vest—then snatched at the front of the wool cap, grabbing along with it a fistful of thick curly hair. He jerked hard and the boy lurched forward suddenly. His knees slammed hard onto the sidewalk. The knife spun from his hand and clicked crazily along the brick walkway until it was beyond reach.
“You goddamn—”
“Now look here, sonny, you—”
The boy scrambled to his feet and began swinging angrily with both fists. He was strong, hard to hold. Will saw little choice but to slide the old Navy Colt from under the back of his jacket. He brought the unwieldly weapon down in a short, powerful arc and whacked the kid sharply on the forehead.
The kid collapsed face forward on the ground. Blood began pooling on the brick walk, congealing rapidly in the hot breeze that blew through the park. Will’s head was spinning. He needed to sit down again. All of this sight-see touring around was starting to culminate for him in a bizarre introduction to what his sister took pride in calling the “civilized” city of New York in this summer of 1904.
When he got his own head settled, Will knelt down at the boy’s side. Twenty minutes passed before the police clattered up in a Black Maria, apparently summoned by someone who’d witnessed the fracas from a high window overlooking the park. Will by now had tugged the boy off the bricks and settled him in the grass beneath an elm. The boy’s head lolled in his lap as Will dabbed with his damp bandanna at the jagged gash an inch over the kid’s left eye. The boy was semiconscious, his face now bone white. The two officers, tricked out in long coats and gray summer helmets, had driven right over the curb and stopped on the grass. They noted to themselves the irony of Will having rolled up his leather jacket and tucked it carefully under the young thug’s head. Will stood by while they conferred.
“He’ll remember this day awhile, I guess,” Will said finally.
“He will at that. I’m Sergeant Finley. Tell me what happened here with the boy.” Finley glanced curiously at the old man’s odd western garb. “From a show, are you?”
“Say, lookit ‘ere, Arch,” Officer Horgan, said. Horgan had stooped down and was studying the boy’s face. “If it ain’t our old pal, Tommy Callaghan.” The boy’s eyes opened suddenly. He jumped to his feet and bolted across the grass. Finley’s face flushed even before he started to give chase on his bandy legs. He sprinted no more than twenty yards before leaping on the boy’s back and seizing him in a hammerlock, bringing him down hard. Horgan charged up, wielding his nightstick, his long gray coat flopping about his waist. While Finley stood and straightened his uniform, Horgan slapped an iron come-along on the boy’s wrist. Tom winced as Horgan twisted hard on the chain links attached to the steel cuff.
“You fellas know this boy?” Will said. “I expect he was trying to rob me,
but—”
“Hey, this old man sucker punched me,” the kid protested. “I wasn’t lookin. I didn’t do nothin. Lemme out of here, will ya?”
“Oh, we know Tom for certain,” said Finley, watching closely as Horgan escorted him to the paddy wagon. “We been keepin our eye out for him. There’s a little warehouse job over on Mulberry Street that we been wantin to interrogate him about. Breaking and entering, it was. And Tom seen by eyewitnesses leaving the place.”
“Wadn’t me, coppers.” Tom glanced once at Will before Horgan shoved him into the black recess of the police van. Horgan slung his cap in behind him. Will thought the kid was a sorry sight, in those worn-out hightops, torn pants and that oversized cap. But there was something else about him, too. Maybe the searching look he imagined he’d seen in the boy’s dark eyes as he lay helpless on the grass. His face was filled with anger, but those green eyes looked almost frightened and confused. He saw Arthur look like that once as a child, the time he was cornered by a wolverine in the chicken coop. A mixture of fear and pleading. Arthur had dropped every single egg he’d gathered and didn’t know which to fear more, the snarling wolverine or the miserable mess he’d made of those eggs. He was six years old then. Mollie, Will’s ranch cook, arrived in time to chase the beast off with a broom. Will had all but forgotten the incident until now.
“He’s a bad one,” Finley said. He was breathing heavily from his run. “Got no mother. She’s dead. Old man’s a drunkard. The boy’s run wild for a long time now. We’ve run him in many times. But this year he’ll be off to the state prison, for certain. Sing Sing for him.”
Will gave Finley a sharp look. “What the hell for?” he said. “He’s just a kid.”
“He’s nineteen this year, I do believe. I don’t know where you’re from, sir,” Finley said, “but nineteen’s an adult in this state. Making this lad a criminal, and the Tombs is where he’s goin for now.”
“I’m from Wyoming, by way of Nebraska.” Will picked up his Stetson and whapped it on his leg to shake loose the dust. “My own son is that age, or would be. And he was just a kid.”
“There’ll be a court trial this time,” Horgan put in. “I’m sure you’ll be invited to testify. The judge’ll let you tell all about it.”
As they drove off and headed down the street, Will saw the boy glaring at him through the small barred window at the back of the swaying Maria. His fists clenched the black bars, the knuckles white. His eyes hard, green stones.