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.