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 Oblivion. A poll follows the opening page below. Should this author have hired an editor?
Armand Laurent picked a summer night when the moon, in its last quarter, shrouded his hiding place in total darkness.
Dressed in black, lying in a thicket a hundred yards from the target, he was nearly invisible. He peered through his binoculars at the farmhouse. Dark except for a fluorescent lamp over the kitchen window. An hour had passed since the other lights in the house had been put out — enough time for all to be asleep. In prison he’d learned the virtues of Zen-like patience and stillness, and could endure long hours motionless, especially if it meant the difference between life and death.
He rose silently from his makeshift blind, stretching, flexing, untensing. He was a big man, six foot four, with a weightlifter’s bulked arms and chest, and a neck as wide as a fireplug. His massive head was tucked between his shoulders, like a prizefighter.
He patted his coat pockets, feeling for the rope cut in measured lengths, duct tape, and a folded commando knife. He had no need to check on his gun, a .44 magnum, tucked snugly into the small of his back.
He would have little trouble gaining entry through the sliding glass kitchen door at the back of the house. They always left it unlocked. He’d been watching for days, always arriving after dark, disappearing before dawn, careful not to leave any signs behind.
While this opener doesn’t explicitly let you knowthat Armand is the bad guy, it sure seems like it (he is). How do you feel about opening a story with the antagonist’s point of view?
You can read more here. This book earned 4.8 stars on Amazon. While this opening page does a good job of raising compelling story questions—what is this armed and dangerous guy about to do?—there are lapses in the narrative that an editor could have helped with.
Two things jumped out at me. One is the paragraph describing the character. In deep third person point of view, and that’s where we are, the narrative should not include things that a character cannot directly see, hear, taste, feel, think, do, or know. In this case, he can’t see what he looks like, though he would know it. More than that, he would not be thinking of his body build at this moment—that’s an author intrusion.
The second thing that popped out was that the last three paragraphs of the page all began with “He . . .” The repetition begins to give the narrative a staccato feel that doesn’t contribute to a reader’s absorption. So, no editor for story reasons, an editor for craft reasons. Your thoughts?
Cover critique
The dramatic use of red and black is eye-catching, and does generate some mood—red is a signal of danger, isn’t it? The title is loud and clear. But what does the image of a bridge over a river tell you about the story inside? Didn’t mean much to me. And, once again, the author is robbed of his proper presence on the cover. Your thoughts?
Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling
Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy
Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.