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.
Martha sends the first page of Ghost Child. As usual, the rest of the narrative is after the break.
The Oregon coast, 1855
Lettie, exhausted, thirsty, and heartsick, dragged her young son by the hand, wondering if either of them could possibly take another step.
But she knew the white “Moving Men” would beat them if they didn’t keep walking, walking, walking.
The white men took our land, now they are making us leave it.
The blows she’d endured stung and burned, but there was a much greater pain Lettie endured: memories of her home, burned to the ground. Her man, dead, shot by the white man’s gun because he would not leave the house he had built. A house with cedar logs over the great pit he’d dug, with stones he’d hauled.
We had to leave behind much wealth, she thought. So many things we need. Things I spent many days collecting, cleaning and setting aside carefully: shells, woodpecker scalps, grey pine seeds, and clamshell money. Money that would buy food for me, my man, and my boy.
She’d lost her moccasins somewhere, and now, the sharp rocks she stumbled across cut her bare feel so painfully that when she glanced back to see how far they’d come, she could see her own bloody footprints.
And next to her footprints were the smaller, bloody ones of Little Buck’s.
The voice is good here, and the writing sound. And we are thrust immediately into the troubles a sympathetic character is experiencing. A story question comes up right away: what’s going to happen next to this woman and her little boy? The writing is pretty tight, but here are some editorial thoughts:
Lettie, exhausted, thirsty, and heartsick, dragged her young son by the hand, wondering if either of them could possibly take another step. ”dragged” gave me an image of the person being dragged on the ground, being, as it were, towed by a hand. Maybe something like “pulled her little boy along”. ”young son” feels cold to me. I think “little boy” would better communicate age and gender in a more natural way
But she knew the white “Moving Men” would beat them if they didn’t keep walking, walking, walking.
The white men They took our land, now they are making us leave it. No need to repeat white men here
The blows she’d endured stung and burned, but there was a much greater pain Lettie endured much greater pain: memories of her home, burned to the ground. Her man, dead, shot by the white man’s gun because he would not leave the house he had built. A house with cedar logs over the great pit he’d dug, with stones he’d hauled.
We had to leave behind much wealth, she thought. So so many things we need. Things I spent many days collecting, cleaning and setting aside carefully: shells, woodpecker scalps, grey pine seeds, and clamshell money. Money that would buy food for me, my man, and my boy.
She’d lost her moccasins somewhere, and now, the sharp rocks she stumbled across cut her bare feel so painfully that when she glanced back to see how far they’d come, she could see her own bloody footprints.
And next to her footprints were the smaller, bloody ones of Little Buck’s.
I think this is a good start for a story that takes place in an interesting time.
For what it’s worth.
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 Martha.
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.
Continued:
“Keep walking,” she said softly to her boy. “If you don’t, they will hurt you. Maybe worse than that.”
“Tell me a story, Mama,” said Little Buck, trying to make his voice strong. “It will make the trail go faster.”
Lettie thought of the story her mother told her, so she took her son’s hand and smiled down at him. She would try to pretend they were in their home and that her man was out fishing for salmon to smoke.
“Two young men from the Sky World looked down below. They saw only water. They used blue clay, laying it down for land. And tule mats and baskets they laid down to stop the waves from running over the land. Eagle feathers they planted, and they became trees. And just as they were thinking, so it was happening. All kinds of vegetation grew; animals came. The world became beautiful. The world became as it is now.”
She smiled down at Little Buck.
My boy is like his father with his bow and arrow, she thought. He is careful. His aim precise.
But our world is no longer beautiful.
Her feet were bleeding more now. The sun was high, and it burned her head and shoulders. Her chest, legs and feet ached from the long walk. And the pain of her arm, which had been twisted in their struggle to get away, throbbed.
But not as bad as the pain in my heart.
These white-faced men came from nowhere in horse-driven carts, raided the villages, and killed our people. The white men set our houses afire and drove those of us who were still alive away from the place where we have lived since the beginning of the world. They took away this land we have always called home.
Now, they make this great crowd of us walk forever in the hot sun and then in the darkness, where we trip and stumble. They feed us very little, and they do they let us sit down and rest. They beat us with sticks and stinging whips, driving us with loud voices. If we don’t move fast enough, they use guns that make a sound like thunder, that spout fire and take our life spirit away.
“You are going to a new reservation,” they say. “Keep moving.”
I see fear and anger in my boy’s eyes, knowing that he shares his father’s pride in our land, its history, and what was to be our future. Little Buck knows we are being driven away. He tries to fight. But there is the dampness of exhaustion on his face as he tries to speed up his weary, lagging steps.
At night, they give us a sip of water and some disgusting thing to eat that I spit out, moldy grains and brackish water. I hear groans from all of our people. When light comes again, some cannot get up to start walking again. I don’t think I can, but I do. I must.
Now, my boy is sick. I try to carry him, his body limp and hot with fever. But with my painful arm, I stagger, exhausted, hungry, thirsty, frightened. But I keep moving because I must.
Then, in great horror, I realize that life has left Little Buck. He has gone to meet his father.
The fury and pain I feel is so great that I being to scream. I scream and scream and scream.
The white man tells me to shut up.
But I am so full of anger that I cannot stop. I feel as if part of what lives inside of me has been ripped out. If I keep screaming, I don’t feel the pain quite so much. Screaming takes my breath. If I have no breath, I don’t have as much pain. If I’m screaming, that’s all I can feel. So I scream and scream.
One of the white men beats me on the head and shoulders with his gun.
Still, I scream.
The man keeps beating me with his gun. He hits my arm that now hangs useless at my side. He hits me many times. After another hard blow to my head, I see a shower of lights.
Now, I no longer feel pain. I see a different kind of light. I see figures of people I once knew, wavering and floating around me. I fly in the light, moving my arms and legs as I once did whenever I was in the big water.
They are my people. And I know that I am now in the land beyond time.
But where is my boy? I must find him. I know he is part of this light and I swear by the spirits of my ancestors and by the blood of all my people that I will find him. No matter what stands in my way, I will find him. And I will keep him next to me forever.
This I swear on the spirits of the ancestors
Days after the Natives and their White captors moved on to settle the new reservation, scouts for the Coos Indian tribe found the bodies of Lettie, the Native American woman, and her son. During the darkness of night, they returned them both to the now Anglo-occupied land, home of the Natives since the beginning of time. There, they buried the woman and her son in a secluded, shaded and unmarked glen, near their destroyed village. It was a silent, leafy place, where they joined their tribal brothers and sisters who had died. All were all buried without markers, victims of the White settlers’ raids.