Whew! What with work, travel, and oral surgery, I’ve missed a number of posts. But things are settling down and the ache in my jaw is diminishing, so I hope to remain back in the saddle.
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 Death’s Door. A poll follows the opening page below. Should this author have hired an editor?
The first time I met Edgar Allan Poe was the night he walked into my bar.
That might not seem strange in Baltimore, where Poe was practically a Halloween mascot, but my instincts rang like church bells, warning that everything about this man was from the nineteenth century. He wore a rumpled, black, hand-stitched suit with a dingy white neck-cloth tied over a high collared shirt. His trademark black hair was matted, his mustache too thick and unevenly trimmed, and he stank of corn whiskey and unwashed wool. To most people, Edgar Allan Poe in a twenty-first-century bar was just a guy in a costume.
I wasn’t most people.
I had just opened The Door, the bar I owned in Fells Point, and had served a couple of regular customers their first drinks when Poe stumbled inside. His head swiveled owlishly, as though his eyes couldn’t focus on any one point, at least not until they found me. The moment they locked on mine they widened slightly, right before they rolled back in his head. He crumpled to the floor in a puddle of black wool and melted bones.
“Damn it,” I muttered under my breath. I had a feeling my life was about to get complicated. I threw the bar towel into the sink and rushed to kneel by his head.
“You need help, Ren?” Paul asked. He and Marla lived in one of the Douglass Place houses, and they used The Door like an extension of their living room.
You can read more here. This book earned 4.8 stars on Amazon. Besides giving us the assurance of good writing, this opens with a strong hook—Edgar Allan Poe in the 21st century? I can’t wait to find out what’s to come. I like the matter-of-fact nature of the protagonist, who apparently can’t be shocked by anything. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be that cool. Which is another appealing aspect, the nature of an interesting and unexpected character. The one thing missing that I think is crucial is knowing the gender of Ren—turns out she’s a woman. Could be easily handled by adding a pronoun to this dialogue tag:
“You need help, Ren?” Paul asked her.
What do you say?
Cover critique
A striking cover with its use of color and story elements. The blood read promises action, the mood of the image with the silhouetted raven arouses interest and suggests something mysterious. The title is strong and clear, and so is the author’s name. Works for me.Your thoughts?
Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling
Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy
Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.