In addition to flogging submissions by writer readers, I’m flogging books that cost 99¢, 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 the opening page for Cottonmouth, 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.
It had been a long, arduous half hour for Tiffany Wheeler, and she feared it would get worse before it got better. Her boyfriend, Russell, stood a few feet away, his head cocked to the side, eyes wild. He brushed a lock of his black hair out of his eye, unbuttoned his suit jacket, and stared at her the way he always did right before his blood reached its boiling point and was about to bubble over.
“What do you mean you don’t want to live in LA anymore?” he asked. “Why not?”
“I’ve already told you why,” she said. “I’m tired of the fast-paced life. I want to move back home.”
“You said you were coming here to do a few simple renovations to this house before you listed it,” he said. “I get here and the place is a flipping disaster. You’ve torn down walls, gutted the kitchen. What gives?”
Tiffany remained quiet, considering the best way to proceed. It didn’t matter what she said. Russell was used to getting his way, something he wouldn’t get tonight.
He was in denial.
She was avoiding what had still been left unsaid.
Confrontation of any kind had always been difficult between them in the two years they’d been together. Russell was used to the high life, climbing the corporate ladder, and taking any (snip)
You can read more here. This earned 4.7 stars on Amazon. Well, the woman character is sympathetic as someone dealing with a hostile male. It definitely looks like conflict is ahead, promising a problem for her. So, on the basis of story questions, this opening has some reasons to evoke interest. But the stakes aren’t known. Worse, and a bad sign for the reader, the opening page ends with a side trip to exposition, to backstory. If there’s more of that ahead, I don’t want it. So I’ll pass on that basis. Too bad, as she discovers a body in a wall in a few pages. Your thoughts?
Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling
Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy
Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.