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 of The Stranger Next Door. 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.
After
My stomach heaved. I coughed, hacking up smoke and soot, wheezing with the effort, my eyes watering in protest as the first body bag was zipped and tagged. The paramedics didn’t look at me. I wasn’t hurt. Not badly. I heaved again.
The stretcher caught on the kerb, the wheels snagging, lurching to the left before righting itself. The paramedics yanked it free, cursing as they pulled it on to the road.
Smoke billowed from the rear of the house. The firefighters ran in and out, unpacking more equipment, rolling hoses across the front lawn, shouting at each other with controlled urgency. The noise swept over me. I couldn’t process it. Just another wave of chaos.
I resisted the urge to run to the ambulance, to jump inside and beg. My legs were frozen, rooted to the ground. The grief was overwhelming; the relentless build-up of the last few weeks seizing my every muscle.
A second stretcher appeared, a second body bag, wheeled more carefully, missing the kerb. The paramedics lifted this one easily into the vehicle. The bile caught in my throat this time. I coughed again, my saliva thick with ash.
How did it come to this? How could it? This was my house, my family, destroyed by reasons too hurtful to contemplate. I sank to the ground, hugging my knees to my chest, thoughts spinning with pain as the shivers took me.
You can read more here. This earned 4 stars on Amazon. I failed to connect with the protagonist despite the clear trouble he/she is going through. After a little thought, I realized that it was the overwriting that stopped me. Eyes watering in protest, the extremely detailed description of how the stretcher (wouldn't it be a gurney?) lurched, etc. And what's with it being all in italics? I'm thinking that this is a prologue of sorts, even though it takes place after the events in the story. Not for me. Your thoughts?
Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling
Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy
Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.