Writers, send your prologue/first chapter to FtQ for a “flogging” critique. Email as an attachment. In your email, include your name, permission to use the first page, and, if it’s okay, permission to post the rest of the prologue/chapter.
Many of the folks who utilize BookBub are self-published, and because we hear over and over the need for self-published authors to have their work edited, it’s educational to take a hard look at their first pages. A poll follows concerning the need for an editor.
When you evaluate today’s opening page, consider how well it uses elements from the 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.
Next is the first chapter of Small Town Nightmare. A poll follows the opening page below. Should this author have hired an editor?
Despite the dip in temperature, the night skies were clear and freckled with stars. Tim finished peeing and followed the light from his phone back to the tent. Once inside, he rolled out his sleeping bag, smiling at the ponies galloping across the nylon cover. The one-man tent and girl’s sleeping bag were a bargain at eighteen dollars and worth their weight in gold on cold nights. He’d also gone crazy and bought a battered copy of How it Works – Volume 5 for fifty cents. It was the one book in the series he’d never read, so the probability of coming across a copy at a small town garage sale was somewhere in the range of eight thousand to one. Maths aside, Tim took the find as a good omen, not that he believed in such things. Still, spotting the out-of-date manual on a table littered with porcelain dog statues and Tupperware containers set his pulse racing.
He closed the book and shoved it in his pack. If his sister, Lucy, could see him now, camped illegally just outside a small town, she might not be impressed by his choice of lifestyle, something they’d agreed to leave out their infrequent chats. But she’d certainly have something to say about his living arrangements.
Tim pulled a dark woollen beanie out of his pack and stretched it over his head, dragging the edges down so his ears were covered. Fishing his small stash out of a rolled-up pair of socks buried at the bottom of the pack, he threw open the tent flap and shuffled outside.
You can turn the page and read more here. This book received 4.5 stars on Amazon. The title and a blurb note that this took place in Australia pulled me in. But this opening sure takes its time building no tension. Thi is supposed to be a “gripping thriller full of suspense,” but you wouldn’t know it by this opening page. Your thoughts?
Cover critique
The title works nicely, and the reddish (blood?) color of the scene adds a nightmarish quality to the image, so that works for me. Once again, the author was cheated on the size of her name. What do you think?
My books. You can read sample chapters and learn more about the books here.
Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling
Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy
Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.