Change in flogging focus:In addition to flogging submissions by writer readers, I’m flogging books that cost, starting with the 99¢ variety, although interesting free books may still get a look. 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 Chapter 1 of The Town. 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.
Stone took his coffee black and strong. Double espresso. But in these parts it was just called coffee. The waitress topped him up, smiled and walked away to the other tables. Truck drivers, farmers, lumberjacks. These were not espresso drinkers. They eyed Stone warily. Something about him. Strong and fit, but a little too clean. A little too tidy.
He watched the man across the street. He had been shouting for a good few minutes. Long enough for Stone to consume the Danish and drink half his cup. There was something curious, something unnerving about the admonishment he was giving. Admonishment the man in the passenger seat was taking. He watched the man giving the scolding walk into the hardware store. He was a big man, but wore it around his gut. He walked stiffly. Stone imagined him to be in his late-fifties, maybe sixty. Someone who had clearly lived a hard life. Something about the stiffness. As though he carried injuries borne from time and perseverance. Not merely a slip or fall.
His attention turned to the man in the passenger seat. Head bowed, shoulders sagged. He’d had a severe reprimand that was for sure, but it was the way he had taken it that had puzzled Stone. The guy looked big. Stone could only see his shoulders and chest; there was power there for sure. But not strength, not in character at least. He looked broken, defeated. Stone had seen the look before.
You can read more here. This novel earned 4.4 stars on Amazon. There are interesting things going on, but they’re across the street and don’t involve the character. Speaking of across the street, if I’m in a café looking out a window, across a sidewalk, across a two-lane street and to the far side of the interior of a car, I just don’t buy that I would see all this detail about the guy in the car.
This narrative needs editing from a craft perspective. The repetition of passive behavior: “He watched.” Thinking of himself as “Strong and fit, but a little too clean. A little too tidy.”
In terms of story, all of this is about people who are not the protagonist. Although we can figure that he will be involved at some point with the scene across the street, he isn’t. There’s nothing here to suggest jeopardy or any stakes related to it. This is what is called, IMO, throat-clearing. Yes, it describes action that affects plot, but the author could have done the same and involved the protagonist by starting later, when the coffee drinker encounters the big guy across the street. Your thoughts?
Cover critique
This cover is okay, could have been better. Were it me, I would have made the title not so tall to have more space for the running man to be larger. That signals action and raises question where the title does not. Putting the title in a color with more contrast, such as red, could have also brought energy to the cover. Your thoughts?
Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling
Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy
Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.