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 opening from Blackquest 40. A poll follows the opening page below. Should this author have hired an editor?
I am in the middle of solving homelessness when my boss raps his knuckles on my cubicle border. I know it’s Paul—my eyes stay on the computer monitor, what with an intractable social ill hanging in the balance—by the timid tap...tap-tap pattern. Also the smell. Paul eats McDonald’s every morning for breakfast. He’s a Sausage McGriddle man.
“Deb, we’re heading up to the meeting—”
“Busy.” I squint around the San Francisco street map on-screen, mousing over a blinking dot labeled Wanda. She isn’t moving. None of them are moving.
Paul sighs. “We’re all busy. But it’s a Company-All, so if you—”
“Is it a Susan meeting?”
“No. It’s the kickoff for Blackquest 40.”
“Means nothing to me.” I click Wanda. Why aren’t they moving? Database problem?
Paul says the meeting invite should have explained everything. Blackquest 40 is a training exercise, mandatory for every employee in the company.
I look up and see that, indeed, he has the whole team in tow. Jared in his My Code Can’t Fix Your Stupid trucker hat. Minosh fingering his spiral-bound notebook, peeking at a clock. They are watching me—all 5’2” if you count the platinum spikes, and a decade younger than them—like zoo visitors wondering if the glass is thick enough around this freak-colored poison (snip)
You can read more here. This book earned 4.4 stars on Amazon. The writing and voice are fine, and we have an idea of the setting—an office environment of some kind. I liked the sassy voice of the character, so that part’s fine. But what of story questions? The boss wants her to go to a meeting. She doesn’t want to. So there’s conflict. But what are the stakes? No idea given here. The character has a problem, but it seems to be a computer problem, which is hardly compelling unless something valuable to her is in danger, and we don’t know that yet. So, compelling? Not here. Your thoughts?
Cover critique
I have no idea what is going on in this image, and it doesn’t help me decipher the title (what does it mean?), but the color and image are strong and evoke a certain mood of action ahead. But the designer did the author a terrible disservice in putting his name sideways and out of the way. Color and image worked for me in those ways. Your thoughts?
Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling
Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy
Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.