Flogging the Quill

Wishing the best verbs and nouns for you

 

Flog a 99¢ BookBubber 345 Patricia Wentworth —does this first page work for you?

Change in flogging focus:It occurs to me that free books have a very low bar to clear for making a “sale,” and their first pages don’t have to do much to clear that hurdle. But ask me to pay for a book? There’s a challenge. So I’m switching to flogging books that cost, starting with the 99¢ variety. The challenge is not that you would pay 99¢ on the basis of a single page, but if you would go to Amazon in order to turn the page a read more with the idea in mind that you might buy it.

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.

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Here are the first 17 lines of the first chapter for The Dover House Mystery. A poll follows the opening page below. If you don’t want to turn the page, then I’m thinking that this author should have hired an editor.

Amabel Grey was hemming the new curtains for Daphne’s room. She sat on a low chair, and the bright orange-coloured stuff lay across her knees and was heaped upon the floor beside her. Daphne had chosen the stuff, but she was not helping to make the curtains.

“I suppose I ought to make her help,” was the thought that slipped into Amabel’s mind, only to be pushed out again. “You can’t make people take an interest in things; but if only Daffy would—”

A little foolish blur of tears came between Amabel and her sewing. It cleared in a moment, but after a few more stitches she let her needle rest, and looked across at Daphne sitting idle in the window seat. Outside the rain was coming down gently, unremittingly. There was an open book on Daphne’s knee, but it was at least half an hour since she had turned a page. The rain came down, and Daphne stared at it.

“She ought to interest herself in things—she ought, but I can’t make her.” The same thought, the same distress which it always brought. “After all, she’s more Agatha’s child than mine—it’s Agatha’s world that interests her, and Agatha’s friends. I suppose it’s natural enough—and of course Little Middlebury is dull, and the weather’s been too dreadful.”

Amabel took another stitch or two. Then she said, speaking rather quickly: “Daffy dear, do come and help with this hem. It would be done in no time if you would.”

You can read more here. This novel earned 4.3 stars on Amazon. There were issues here crying out for an editor. On the craft side of things, there’s treating internal monologue . . . thoughts . . . as dialogue. Confusing, since the one line of actual dialogue is treated the same. Then there’s grammar. This:

but it was at least half an hour since she had turned a page.

Should have been this:

but it had been at least half an hour since she turned a page.

And then there’s the story question, which seems to be whether or not Daffy will help with them hem. If that’s the extent of this mystery, then I’m done. We have a sad, defeated character musing and sewing. Where’s the story? Your thoughts?

Cover critique

While the cover does a good job of establishing the historical aspects of this story and making sure it feels mysterious, it’s so laid back that it lacks the energy you hope for from a story. I long for a touch of red somewhere, or making the band of blue yellow to provide vivid contrast. I think the font style for the cover is fine, and the author name treated well. Your thoughts?

Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling

Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy

Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.

Flog a 99¢ BookBubber 344 Kate Flora —does this first page work for you?

Change in flogging focus:It occurs to me that free books have a very low bar to clear for making a “sale,” and their first pages don’t have to do much to clear that hurdle. But ask me to pay for a book? There’s a challenge. So I’m switching to flogging books that cost, starting with the 99¢ variety. The challenge is not that you would pay 99¢ on the basis of a single page, but if you would go to Amazon in order to turn the page a read more with the idea in mind that you might buy it.

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.

---

Here are the first 17 lines of the first chapter for Schooled in Death, a mystery. A poll follows the opening page below. If you don’t want to turn the page, then I’m thinking that this author should have hired an editor.

It was Monday. Always the worst day of the week in the working world. So when my phone rang before I’d showered, brushed my teeth, or even opened my eyes, I knew I was about to be the recipient of bad news and a summons to someone else’s troubles.

I was not wrong.

“Is that Thea, then?” a man’s voice asked.

Reluctantly, I agreed that it was.

He didn’t need to give his name. His gentle Welsh lilt announced my caller was Gareth Wilson, headmaster of The Simmons School. Gareth was the most optimistic person I knew. Usually, just hearing his voice improved my mood. Today, his tones were shot with pain at the situation he found himself in, a situation he rapidly described. One of their young boarding students, a girl no one knew was pregnant, had given birth in her dorm bathroom during the night and left her baby in the trash. It was only because another student had heard the faint sounds of crying that the tiny infant had been found and saved. Now the baby was in a neonatal ICU and the terrified mother, only a child herself, was facing potential criminal charges.

Gareth needed my help—or rather the help of my business, EDGE Consulting—to manage the situation on his campus and in the wider world. Immediately if not sooner. That was the problem with being a private school trouble-shooter—when people called me, their (snip)

You can read more here. This novel earned 4.4 stars on Amazon. It’s 99 cents or free with Kindle Unlimited. The writing is solid and the voice professional, so we start with expectations of something readable ahead. And I think this one delivers with strong story questions raised about the student and what will happen with the baby.

However, I think this could have been a much stronger opening if some of the setup about her business and the description of her caller had been trimmed so that the following could be on the first page:

“It’s complicated, Thea,” Gareth said. “The girl insists that she has never had sex, never mind been pregnant, and the baby can’t possibly be hers, even though she has obviously just given birth."

I would cut the last paragraph that’s on the first page and put this in for a real a page-turner. Your thoughts?

Cover critique

The title and author are well handled. For me, I think the photo of a girl fleeing into the dark without the added woman would have been more effective. But the cover basically works and does raise story questions as well as setting a tone of dangerous things happening. Your thoughts?

Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling

Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy

Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.

Flog a 99¢ BookBubber 343 Deborah Woodworth —does this prologue work for you?

Change in flogging focus:It occurs to me that free books have a very low bar to clear for making a “sale,” and their first pages don’t have to do much to clear that hurdle. But ask me to pay for a book? There’s a challenge. So I’m switching to flogging books that cost, starting with the 99¢ variety. The challenge is not that you would pay 99¢ on the basis of a single page, but if you would go to Amazon in order to turn the page a read more with the idea in mind that you might buy it.

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.

---

Here are the first 17 lines of the prologue for Death of a Winter Shaker, a mystery. A poll follows the opening page below. If you don’t want to turn the page, then I’m thinking that this author should have hired an editor.

A woman in the long, loose dress of the Shaker sister twirled on the dew-soaked grass, her arms flung straight out from her sides. Her voluminous skirts billowed around her like a dark bell. She spun silently for a minute, then, still circling, raised her face to the sky. Her cheeks glowed with the first pink rays of sunrise.

The woman stopped and stiffened. Her body jerked as if racked by powerful spasms. Her heavy bonnet shook loose and tumbled to the ground. Within seconds, her legs collapsed beneath her. She crumpled and lay motionless, an enraptured smile on her upturned face.

Hidden in a thicket of sugar maples, a young man crouched in the dark, watching. A dry leaf tapped his shoulder as it fell toward the ground. He gasped and steadied himself against the rough, cool bark. He told himself it was the damp, autumn air making him shiver, not fear. He hadn’t gotten where he was by being afraid.

As the silent figure peered into the gloomy clearing, the woman opened her eyes to the sky. She rolled to a sitting position, shook the dew from her bonnet, and retied it under her chin. She heaved herself off the ground and wiped her hands dry on her skirt. With a deep breath, she began to spin again. Words tumbled from her mouth, but not words her listener had ever heard. He’d ridden the rails with all sorts of folks, had heard German and French and even some Gaelic, and this was like none of them and all of them together.

You can read more here. This novel earned 4.3 stars on Amazon. Here’s another prologue that worked for me (if you read all of it). And the first 17 lines raise story questions: what’s happening with the woman? Who is the watcher? What are his intentions? The mood is on the dark side, appropriate for a mystery. Reading on, this narrative seems worthy of 99 cents to me. Your thoughts?

Cover critique

A cover designed for a bookstore, not a web thumbnail. It’s hard to make out the stuff taking up space on the left side—it’s flowers, I think. The review quote from Anne Perry would be effective in a store, but not here. The space those two elements take up could have been devoted to a provocative image. The mysterious one here could work, especially if larger. Your thoughts?

Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling

Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy

Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.

Flog a 99¢ BookBubber 342 Robert Swartwood —does this innovative opening work for you? Plus free book with email signup.

Change in flogging focus:It occurs to me that free books have a very low bar to clear for making a “sale,” and their first pages don’t have to do much to clear that hurdle. But ask me to pay for a book? There’s a challenge. So I’m switching to flogging books that cost, starting with the 99¢ variety. The challenge is not that you would pay 99¢ on the basis of a single page, but if you would go to Amazon in order to turn the page a read more with the idea in mind that you might buy it.

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.

---

This not a prologue or chapter opening, but it is the first 17 lines of of Temple, a thriller. A poll follows the opening page below. If you don’t want to turn the page, then I’m thinking that this author should have hired an editor.

The question isn’t who is Temple—no one knows that—but rather what is Temple. Is he a hero? Is he a vigilante? What Temple most certainly is not is a communist, as the junior senator from Wisconsin has recently suggested in a press conference. The mere idea is preposterous, and the senator has no valid evidence to support such a claim. Earlier, the senator asked, “Upon what meat does this, our Caesar, feed?” Had he looked three lines earlier in Shakespeare’s Caesar, he would have found this line, which is not altogether inappropriate: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

from Edward R. Murrow’s broadcast of See It Now, May, 9, 1954

Today a bill has been passed in the Senate to require Temple to turn himself in to the federal authorities. I am coming before you tonight to tell you that I will veto any legislation of this kind that passes my desk. It is not the opinion of this office that Temple poses any risk to our national security. The complete opposite is true, in fact, as this office maintains that Temple is a hero and a patriotic American. As long as I am President, I will make sure he is protected just as he protects our country.

President John F. Kennedy, October 21, 1963

76 DEAD IN CENTRAL PARK BOMBING. HAS TEMPLE FORSAKEN US?

New York Post headline, July 17, 1997

You can read more here. This novel earned 4.4 stars on Amazon. A nifty way to let a reader know about a character is to show what other people think or know about that character. This opening uses that technique for one of the most innovative novel openings I’ve see in a while.

When you see who those “quotes” are from, you not only have other people telling you about the character, you have hugely important people from our past doing so. How could I not read on to find out about the mysterious Temple. Your thoughts?

Cover critique

Cover works pretty well. The title and author name are just fine, and the image lets us know good detail about a muscular black man as the main character. New York City shows us more of the setting for this book. 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.

 

 

 

 

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Book Giveaway starts today

 

Get free chapters from Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling

Just sign up for my newsletter.

The first email went out today, but I’m sending out the whole book, about 50 chapters, one chapter at a time. So signing up will still get you a bookload of writing craft coaching.

You can check out buyer reviews here to get an idea of what you're signing up for, but there's no need for you to buy.

For what it's worth.

Ray

Beating tension into your story

Today’s post on Writer Unboxed, “The Beat Goes On” by literary agent Donald Maass, focuses on a thoughtful and instructive exploration of what “beats” mean to stories, both in the movies and in a novel.

Don includes what “beat” originally meant in terms of screen stories:

“In screen and stage plays, a beat is most commonly used to mean a pause in dialogue.  Think the pregnant pause in plays by Harold Pinter.  A short silence makes a deliberate space for the audience to digest a shift in circumstances or to take in the meaning of what’s being said.”

In my writing craft book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling, I expand the notion of beats during dialogue to add depth and nuance to the dialogue’s impact on story and character.

You should read Don’s broader definition and what it can mean for creating tension in the reader, something I harp on quite a lot. Do it. It’s worth a read.

But my slightly narrower focus on beats can and will make a difference in your storytelling. In fact, it can be used to achieve what Don talks about. So I thought I’d include that chapter of the book here.

Enjoy, and then go write something.

Cook up some tasty beats

Naked dialogue, just speeches all by themselves, does only part of the job of delivering the experience of a scene. In life and in fiction dialogue doesn’t happen in a vacuum—it happens in the midst of movement, body language, pauses for thought, and more. To bring dialogue to life, create “beats”—action, description, or thoughts interwoven with dialogue—to invisibly accomplish a number of vital storytelling tasks, including:

• Advancing the story
• Increasing tension
• Illuminating character
• Identifying speakers without having to use dialogue tags
• Adding meaning to speeches that wouldn’t otherwise be there
• Breaking up long strings of quotations to avoid a staccato effect and to create a pleasing rhythm
• Creating pictures in the reader’s mind of what’s going on (Construe “picture” to include time [pace], scents, sensations, and sounds as well as action and physical description.)

Here’s an example of a beat that does one of those things . . . and yet is a waste of words. The scene is from a published novelist’s first draft of a new story: a man and a woman sit at a table in a café, talking about a woman (his wife/her friend) who has been missing for over a week. In the course of the conversation in the woman’s point of view, this happens:

A man from the next table asked to borrow the extra chair to my right. As I nodded, Robert said, “I have not told you everything.”

“What?”

“Her car was found abandoned in Stewart State Park.”

“Oh my God! When? How long after . . .”

The solo beat at the beginning did inject action into the scene . . . but it had nothing to do with story—it was “activity,” not storytelling action. It didn’t bear on the subject of the conversation, nor the people talking. It had no impact on the scene. An absolute waste of words.

The dialogue that follows it suffers due to a lack of beats. How about a little body language when Robert confesses he hasn’t told his listener everything? Or a reaction when the narrator learns fraught information?

Robert shifted his gaze away from me. “I have not told you everything.”

How like the man to withhold information. “What?”

“Her car was found abandoned in Stewart State Park.”

“Oh my God!” Fear for my missing friend jolted through me. “When? How long after . . . ”

Here’s what each of those beats accomplished:

• The first told you who was speaking and gave characterization and nuance to his speech.
• The second is internal monologue that adds characterization for both people.
• The last one injects emotion, information, and more characterization.

Let’s beat up some more dialogue. Here’s part of a scene stripped naked, all of the beats removed. In this scene, KB, a law enforcement officer, reports to her superior, and she expects him to praise her for what she’d done the day before.

Captain Berman’s door is open, as usual. His white-haired head is bent over a stack of paperwork, as usual. Adrenaline pumps her up, and she taps on the doorframe and goes in. The office is too warm, as usual; the radiator must be cranked all the way open.

“Take a seat, Lieutenant. So, you think you found a subject of interest.”

“Yessir!”

“Did you see it with the thermal imaging device?”

“I did, sir.”

“Did you record it?”

“Ah, no, sir.”

“I see. You say it changed appearance on three occasions?”

“From a youngish woman to an older woman, then to a hick, then to a girl. Yessir.”

“Did any of your team see these apparitions?”

“Schultz saw it come in. Martinez saw it on the stairs, and Bailey saw it come out.”

“After receiving your email, I asked your team for their input. Schultz didn’t see a face.”

“No, ah, he didn’t get a good look. But he saw the glow in the camera.”

“I see. No one else saw the older woman?”

“Not before she, uh, changed into a farmer.”

You learn things, but there’s no tension, no depth, you can’t see a damn thing, and there’s no rhythm—it’s like a radio machine-gunning words at you. Now here’s the full narrative—note one other thing while you’re at it: there’s not a single use of “said” or “asked” or any other dialogue tag in this narrative.

Captain Berman’s door is open, as usual. His white-haired head is bent over a stack of paperwork, as usual. Adrenaline pumps her up, and she taps on the doorframe and goes in. The office is too warm, as usual; the radiator must be cranked all the way open.

He looks up and nods. No smile. “Take a seat, Lieutenant.”

The old fart is old-fashioned and formal, so maybe he’s not gonna come right out with her attaboy. Sitting, she tells herself to be patient, something that never comes easy.

He signs a piece of paper, places it in an out box, leans back, laces his fingers over his belly, and gazes at her. “So, you think you found a subject of interest.”

She smiles. “Yessir!”

“Did you see it with the thermal imaging device?”

Inside, she smirks at his fussy way of talking. “I did, sir.”

“Did you record it?”

Oh, shit. She’d been too excited. “Ah, no, sir.”

“I see.” He leans forward and studies a printout of her email. “You say it changed appearance on three occasions?”

“From a youngish woman to an older woman, then to a hick, then to a girl. Yessir.”

“Did any of your team see these apparitions?”

Can’t the old idiot read? “Schultz saw it come in. Martinez saw it on the stairs, and Bailey saw it come out.”

“After receiving your email, I asked your team for their input.” He picks up a printout. “Schultz didn’t see a face.”

“No, ah, he didn’t get a good look.” Why does she feel like she’s on trial? “But he saw the glow in the camera.”

“I see.” He reads more. “No one else saw the older woman?”

“Not before she, uh, changed into a farmer.”

The beats give pace to the conversation and much, much more. Through the beats you experienced:

• His chilly greeting when she expects warmth, and then his dawdling even though she is anxious (finishing with papers, leaning back, lacing his fingers)
• Her smugness (the old fart was old-fashioned)
• Her eagerness (she smiled)
• Her low opinion of him (smirked at his fussy way of speaking to her)
• Her realization of a mistake she’s made (too excited to record the suspect)
• His calm, steady approach (leaned forward and studied a printout)
• More of her disrespect (couldn’t the old idiot read?)
• His steady pursuit (he picked up a printout and read it)
• Her increasing anxiety (was she on trial here?)

You get a sense of escalating tension in KB. The scene continues to build from here and ends with her feeling defeated, angry, and near tears when she’d begun the scene expecting praise. And it is the beats that take you there.

Not every line gets a beat—that’ll wear a reader out. Every beat is tied to characterization and/or giving a picture of what is going on. The beats utilize physical action and internal monologue (Couldn’t the old idiot read?) to add depth and context to the spoken words.

The beats help pace the exchange, creating pauses (signed a piece of paper, placed it in an out box, leaned back, laced . . . ) and emphasis (reading from something, etc.). Although there are no dialogue tags, you always know who’s speaking and how they deliver their speeches.

The other cool thing about using beats is that it avoids the third most common dialogue flaw, explaining the dialogue with “with.”