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 prologue of The Someday File. A poll follows the opening page below. Should this author have hired an editor?
Las Vegas works hard to maintain its reputation as the city that never sleeps.
Through most hours of the day and evening Vegas pulsates with multi-hued, neon-enhanced, electronically embellished energy that radiates an aura of action and risk. But in the small hours of the morning, before the deep darkness retreats from the displacing shoulder of dawn, Las Vegas steals a short interval to doze. In this seam in time, when awareness ebbs by an increment, nobody notices the assassin.
He swings the rented Ford off southbound Interstate 15 and down the ramp to Tropicana Avenue, the heart of The Strip. The hotels and casinos rise out of the flat, brown floor of the Mojave Desert, garish, surreal monoliths glazed in LED color so intense it overpowers the senses. The impact, the assassin thinks, is a hedonistic indulgence and a waste of a perfectly decent wilderness.
At 3:30 in the morning, he is just another motorist driving conservatively through the light traffic: taxis looking for late fares, cops looking for trouble, and ordinary citizens performing the city’s worst jobs while trying to get through their graveyard shifts.
He drives a short distance on Tropicana, into the canyon between New York New York and the Excalibur, and turns into an Excalibur parking lot. He circles the area once and pulls over under a “Do Not Park” sign against the turreted hotel building. Security won’t tow the car, (snip)
You can turn the page and read more here. This book received 4.5 stars on Amazon.
Author sidebar: Jean Heller is a journalist nominated for the Pulitzer Prize 8 times. What’s interesting to me about this book is that she has self-published it (2018). One wonders why a publisher didn’t go for such an immensely talented and respected writer?
Right away, the quality of the writing lets you know that you’re in the hands of a pro. And sprinkling in the word “assassin” seeds good story questions. The scene is well set, perhaps more than I’d prefer, but the “assassin” tease works to keep me involved. The last (interrupted) sentence manages a mini-story question to contribute to micro-tension: why won’t security tow the car? I’ll try this one out. Your thoughts?
Cover critique
The image on the cover contributes to mood but no more—I have no idea what it depicts. But the title is excellent, love the flush left alignment, and the author name is what it should be. 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.