Submissions sought. Get fresh eyes on your opening page. Submission directions below.
The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.
Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.
What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page. Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.
Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this 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 (PDF here)
- 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.
A reminder of what you’re after here. This blog is about crafting compelling openings. Not interesting, compelling. Why does it have to meet that hurdle? First, if your work is going to an agent, you’re competing with hundreds of submissions. You have to cut through that clutter and competition with powerful storytelling and strong writing. If it’s a reader browsing in a bookstore or online, the same goes—there are scores of published books competing with yours. Yeah, you need compelling.
Bobby Jim lied to me and it took two months to find out. The clues were there, but he was thirty-three and until he quit telling me the truth, he was no trouble at all. It started with a phone call at seven o’clock in the evening.
“Hi Mom,” he said. “There’s a terrible snowstorm here.” Lie number one. “I think I’ll grab a room and leave early in the morning.” Lie number two.
Earlier that day I had sent him to Vale to take an old cancer-eyed cow to the sale. Then he was supposed to go to Bruneau and pick up three bulls from the Hirsh Ranch. He left at six o’clock in the morning, driving my Ford three quarter ton pickup. He was pulling the six-horse trailer. I figured he would get home around eight-thirty that night if he didn’t get to visiting at the sale yard. Now this.
“You’re just now in Bruneau?” I asked.
“Yep, it was slow going.” Lie number three.
“What about the bulls, have you talked to Fred Hirsch?”
“I just got off the phone. Hey Mom, you’re breaking up…” Probably lie number four. I settled myself in my old leather recliner, a glass of Pendleton whiskey on the rocks in one hand and the remote in the other. I knew I would fall asleep there, so I set the alarm on my end table for my midnight heifer check.
Okay, good voice and writing, nice to see. There’s mild tension in the references to lying but, without context, you can’t assign importance or stakes. Is it a betrayal? She doesn’t seem to think so. And she doesn’t react at him, and that suggests that it’s not a serious issue. With "why’s he lying" as the only story question, with no jeopardy or stakes giving it oomph, this opening page doesn’t reach page-turn level for me.
The rest of the chapter is also well-written, but no more story questions come up. It’s all pretty much stage-setting (some call it “throat-clearing”) and not much reason to read on. I think this story starts later. The information here can be woven into something happening that creates story. As Steven James says, there’s no story until something goes wrong. Not much going wrong here. I'd love to see the part where the story begins. Your thoughts?
Ray
Submitting to the Flogometer:
Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):
- your title
- your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
- Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ. Note: I’m adding a copyright notice for the writer at the end of the post. I’ll use just the first name unless I’m told I can use the full name.
- Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
- And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
- If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
- If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.
Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.
Flogging the Quill © 2019 Ray Rhamey, excerpt © 2021 by Jane.
My books. You can read sample chapters and learn more about the books here.
Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling
Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy
Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.
Continued:
Deep down, I must’ve known something was up. I couldn’t get comfortable. I thought it was my bad hip. It’s been sneaking up on me for years, but last month I fell in a muddy corral and damned if it didn’t feel like an electric shock going through me about half the time. I know I should go get it fixed, but it’s something like three nights in the hospital and four weeks recovery and I just don’t have that kind of time. I have to admit though, some nights it’s hard to ignore.
So, here’s the thing, I’m going to have to not only get up at midnight to check the heifers, I’ll have the three o’clock check too. Then with Bobby Jim gone, in the morning I’ll have to feed the cows by myself. None of this is bad; I can handle it just fine; I just might want to smooth things out a little. So, I went up to my bedroom, opened the top drawer of my dresser, the one that mostly holds my Walmart Comfort Choice briefs and my industrial size bras. What no one knows because it’s no one’s business, is that clear in the back, rolled up in a pair of pastel pink briefs, is a pill bottle full of all kinds of remnants of pain pill prescriptions that I have squirreled away through the years. OxyContin for my broken arm, Hydrocodone for Bobby Jim’s bruised ribs, Oxycodone that my oldest son Christopher left three Christmas’s ago. I grabbed two pills, rolled the bottle back up in the undies, and stashed it back in its hiding place. Then I limped back to the kitchen, grabbed the bottle and washed the pills down with a slug of Pendleton.
I don’t do this too often, just when my hip is bothering me or when I’ve had a really long day. Okay, also sometimes when I just need to relax. In twenty minutes, my hip quit hurting right on schedule. Usually all I needed now was an old movie and I’d nod off in a pleasant haze. However tonight, even though I found Oliver on HBO, my mind wouldn’t quite turn off. I started switching channels with the remote and nothing would hold my attention for long enough to drift off. For some reason I found myself continually switching back to the Weather Channel. It was a long, muddled, night.
Bobby Jim came home with the bulls around noon the next day. I was feeding cows in the Henderson field next to the barn. It was a classic February morning; cold air under a cloudy sky that blocked the sun and occasionally spit snow.
Bobby Jim was talking on his cell phone, laughing, as he pulled up. Now why is he pulling that trailer I wondered? I pulled out my cell phone to call him and ask. Just as soon as I got his voicemail my cobwebs cleared. Of course, he had bulls from Hirsch’s. Sometimes I’m a little slow on the uptake the morning after I take a couple of pills. I turned away toward the barn just in case he could see me turn red clear from the driveway.
But dammit sure enough my phone started buzzing, “Oh When the Saints Go Marching..” A little grandkid humor, Bobby Jim was no saint, but I had no idea how to unprogram my phone so the damn song wouldn’t start whenever he calls. I let it play until I heard Bobby Jim honking his horn. I looked his way and he was pointing to me, then his phone. Fine.
“What?”
“Why did you call me?”
“I didn’t, oh that was a what do you call it, a bottom dial?”
“Your butt dialed me?”
“No, my fingers did. I had a question, but then I hung up before you answered it. Who were you talking to anyway?”
“Why did you call it a butt dial if your fingers…?”
“Why are we wasting minutes when we can see each other?”
“Good question.”
Bobby Jim headed to the house and I sighed and tightened my jaw; he didn’t unload the bulls. They would be fine in the trailer, but how many times have I told him to take care of the animals before you take care of yourself? I took my time walking to the house, making sure I had everything clear in my head. I don’t need Bobby Jim setting me straight again.
“How did you make it this morning?” I yelled into the kitchen from the porch as I perched on an old wooden bench and took off my leather gloves.
“Great,” he yelled back. I could hear him rustling around in the refrigerator.
“Great? No problems with the storm?” I removed my boots.
“Huh?” He asked, poking his head in from the kitchen. “Oh, yeah, the storm. It was fine.”
“Fine?” I took off my scotch cap and hung my coat on a horseshoe hook nailed to the wall. “I’ve never heard of a fine storm.”
He grinned and moved back into the kitchen. “I just mean, well, I got home fine. Just fine.”
I walked into the kitchen in my socks, slapping hay off my jeans. “We have any leftovers?” I asked.
“Why you asking me?” Bobby Jim replied. He pulled a bowl from the refrigerator. “When did you make this spaghetti?” He lifted the foil and sniffed it suspiciously.
“Less than a week ago, I think. It ought to be fine.”
I was relieved to see that there would be enough for supper too. I hate to cook. Every minute spent in the kitchen is time I could be repairing a gate, tending to newborn calves, or checking the pump. It had been just Bobby Jim and me for twenty-two years. Neither of us cooked very well. Bobby Jim must have decided the spaghetti passed the smell test because he shoved the bowl into the microwave and slammed the door.
My son looked like me. That’s what everybody said. We shared fair coloring, curly brown hair, and greenish blue eyes. Well, we used to share curly brown hair. Truth be told, if it weren’t for Clairol, mine was almost entirely gray. I kept it cut so short that I really didn’t know for sure if it was still curly. At six feet, he was taller than me, but not by much. He was a great worker too, strong and tireless. We both were a little on the husky side. Our most distinguishing feature was our Jordan nose. Just like my Dad, Bobby Jim and I had distinctive roman noses.
Yes, we looked alike, but we sure didn’t think alike. Frankly, I wished Bobby Jim were a little smarter. Oh, he had a nice disposition, but he just couldn’t see the next step. He’d go cut a field of hay when I’d point out to him that it was ripe. When I told him it was time to rake that hay, he’d go do it. He’d bale it just as soon as I told him the moisture content was right. Then he’d haul the bales to the stack yard and place them in the exact place I directed. It never occurred to him that he should know how things run together on a ranch. He just placidly took my orders. I’d turned sixty-four that year and I’ll admit it, I was a little worried.
We sat down at the round wooden table covered with a red checked oilcloth. “Where do you think we ought to put those new bulls?” I asked him.
He looked at me patiently. “Wherever you say.” He jumped up as the microwave dinged and placed the bowl on the table with a big spoon stuck in the middle. He stirred the spaghetti while I filled two glasses with milk and pushed one to him.
“I say, where do YOU think we should put those bulls.” I massaged my temples. He heaped spaghetti onto his plate and gave me a puzzled stare. “Put them in the Clancy field, Bobby Jim. Away from the cows and heifers until June. We don’t want fall calves.”
“Okay, that won’t take long. What should I do next?”
I lined him out for the rest of the day.