Hey, if you’re isolating like I am, get that trunk novel out and get to writing . . . and/or submitting the first chapter to the Flogometer to get free insights into how it’s working.
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.
Kevin sends the first chapter Insomnia . The rest of the narrative is after the break.
I should have known something was wrong when I let out a lion sized yawn and felt the bruise in my neck. I reached up to feel the tender spot when I noticed my elbow, completely black and yellow. I'm a theatre kid, so it's not like I got bruised playing sports. I tried to ignore the bruise when suddenly someone grabbed it, right on the most tender spot.
'Hey!' I yelled.
It was a kid about the same age as me, with dark skin and a turban on his head. 'Chris,' he hissed urgently.
'Do I know you?' I asked, yanking my arm away from him.
'Don't go in the maze,' he pleaded, 'If he doesn't get all of us, he can't restart the competition.' The boy flickered, as though, for an instant he became invisible, and when he reappeared, he was walking on the other side of me.
'What's going on?' I shook my head, 'What are you talking about?'
But I never got a chance to find out. A minivan pulled open beside us and a tall man with long thin arms reached and grabbed him. 'Don't mind my son,' he said with a grimace. I could see into the van for just a moment, and I realized it was way bigger on the inside than it was on the outside, like Mary Poppin's suitcase with Volswagen hubcaps. And then they were speeding off, and I was left speechless on the sidewalk.
The writing is okay here, as is the voice. But there’s no scene set, we have no idea where the character is. We can deduce a street when the minivan pulls up, but we shouldn’t have to backfill that tidbit of description.
More of an issue, though, is clarity. In the first paragraph, he discovers a bruise on his neck by yawning? Not terribly credible to me. The only way I’ve ever detected bruises on me was by sight and by touch. To continue with clarity issues. the “someone” grabs the bruise . . . but there are two bruises. I suspect the writer meant the one on his elbow, but it’s not clear. Then we have this:
The boy flickered, as though, for an instant he became invisible, and when he reappeared, he was walking on the other side of me.
Flickering means in and out, very very quickly. See-notsee=see. On-off-on. When the narrative says “flicker,” that’s what I see. But here the kid didn’t actually flicker. He disappeared and reappeared on the protagonist’s other side. Another clarity issue. One other little thing: I create typos and misspellings, we all do. But before I send out work to the public, I proofread it. If that had happened here, we wouldn’t have “Volkswagen” written as “Volswagen.”
Lastly, there’s no real problem here, though I will say that the kid appearing and disappearing did raise a pretty good story question or two. So, what to do? Read this out loud, it might help you catch some of the things I've pointed out. And try to create a problem stemming from what happens on this page, not later. 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 © 2019 Ray Rhamey, excerpt © 2020 by Kevin.
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.
Cont:
I pulled my backpack up onto my back and kept trudging down 12th street when something else caught my eye. I knew this part of town like the back of my hand, but this day, something had changed. The pizza parlour, which should be right next to the barber, had shifted, and there was a massive field between them. I crossed the street and walked over, mouth gaping open. I could still see the barber shop, way down the street, on the other side of this new mysterious field.
'Chris, do you want a slushee?' It was my friend Clay.
'Clay,' I asked, 'since when is there a field here?'
'Huh?'
'Between 24/7 pizza and Ernie's. This field.'
'I don't know what you're talking about.'
I pointed, 'do you not-'
He shook his head, 'I dunno man,' he didn't seem to be phased by any of this, 'do you want to come shoot some zombies tonight?'
'Oh,' I nodded, 'ya, maybe. I just need to learn my lines for the play still.'
'You don't come over as much as you used to,' he shrugged, 'pop by if you want to.'
I mumbled a 'sure' as he wandered down the street and I was left to stare at this new field.
And then it happened. I blinked. It was a small thing, but for the briefest moment, I saw something. I closed my eyes, but it was as though they didn't really close. Like my eyelids could no longer block the light. In fact, with my eyes closed, not only could I see as well as before, I could see something new as well. In the middle of the field stood a maze, with tall, ivy-covered stone walls and turrets at every corner. I blinked my eyes open and it disappeared.
I thought about the words of the kid with the turban. But not for long. I wanted to see what this was. I ventured forward cautiously, reaching my hand out to run it along the stone wall, and then I yanked my hand back. The wall had burned me! I looked down at my fingertips and saw a small blister starting to form.
Eyes closed, I looked for the start of the maze, which was marked by two turrets and an arch overhead. I walked in cautiously, wary of whatever monsters might lurk in the shadows. The maze was actually surprisingly well lit, and despite the medieval-esque stonework,it felt more like an adventurous quest than a horror movie.
I worked my way cautiously down and around long corridors and passageways. I hit a couple dead ends, but rather than getting frustrated I found myself more eager to solve it. I was in there for almost an hour when I finally found the end, right at the centre of the maze.
I emerged from between two stone walls to a small square clearing lit by torches. A pair of large white oak doors towered over me. They were curved at the top, but shut, and I couldn't see any sort of hinges or door frame. I walked around them cautiously. There was nothing behind them, and nothing holding them up. A set of stairs caught my attention, to the side of the square clearing, and I wondered if it would lead me onto a different maze.
It led me up and over the walls of the maze I was in, down a long tunnel lit by torches, and as I walked I had a sinking feeling in my gut that I was going the wrong way.
'Chris?' I heard my name being called, 'Chris Nightwing?'
I was nearing the end of the tunnel, and I could see that it was opening to a set of stairs that led me down onto the front lawn of my high school. 'Who is it?' I called.
'It's Anna. What are you doing on that roof?'
I opened my eyes, and the tunnel disappeared along with the maze below me. I was standing on the roof of a portable outside of the school. 'I'm just...checking something,' I wasn't sure what to say.
'You forgot about practice,' Anna said.
'No, I'm on my way now,' I replied. Anna and I were in the school play together. We were supposed to have an evening rehearsal when I had been distracted by the new field.
Anna shook her head, 'It's all over. Mrs. Knelsen is kind of mad at you. Did you work on your lines.'
I shook my head, 'I had them last week.'
'Well, you had trouble with them yesterday. If you want to come over tonight, I could help you with them.'
'I'm good,' I smiled, and I waited until she had walked away before I clamped my eyes shut, turned, and sprinted back down the tunnel to the centre of the maze.
The oak doors were still there waiting for me, ominously lit by the torches. I reached my hand up tentatively and grabbed onto one of their handles, pushing the door slowly. It was surprisingly light. They opened together and revealed large glowing orange circle roughly the same size and shape they had been. It was spinning and shooting orange sparks in every direction. It was dark inside the circle, but something about it was calling me, and I wanted to go. I put my foot forward cautiously, stepping through the doorway and into the dark beyond.
I could feel myself stretching, shooting forward. A warm sensation ran up my spine and into my mind. My eyelids burned, but not in an unpleasant way, and then I was catapulting forward, and downward, and I was definitely not in my city anymore.