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.
Jide sends the first chapter of Birth of Gods: The Paradiso Trials. The rest of the chapter is after the break.
In one fluid motion, the head separated from its neck. Job well done. Victims rarely saw Chrome before it was too late. This time, it was someone far outside the walls of Thieves, another unfortunate existential who had been making too much noise. But out here in the middle of a frozen wasteland, no one would have heard him scream, even if given the chance.
Esco had been sending Chrome to take care of these nuisances discreetly. He rarely put a preyer request out on anyone, yet this marked the one hundredth existential that Chrome had silenced within the last three spans, a rushed succession of back-to-back assassinations. He spared the details about the targets and why they needed silencing, but it was of no concern to Chrome. This was the last existential she needed to dispose of; and then, Esco would reward her efforts by letting her participate in this cycle’s Paradiso Trials. Only teams who had received a blessing from a guild’s head could enter the Trials. Once she got the stubborn old deity’s blessing, she would go and find Vice. Her nightmares had grown more vivid lately and she had become more irritable, which spurred her hidden abilities to the surface more often than she liked. Esco had other deities to deal with, and ole high and mighty never had the time to consider the stress the night terrors put on Chrome. She felt it was finally time to share the truth of her abilities with someone other than the guild’s head. She gathered her three rods, strapped them across her hip in a low-slung holster, and (snip)
The writing is clear in this opening, but it didn’t connect with me. It’s hard to warm up to what appears to be a cold-blooded killer, to begin with. After we’re introduced, instead of going deeper and revealing a human side to this person, we go for dense exposition and backstory. By “dense,” I mean so much is packed into the narrative that it’s difficult to absorb. In particular, the third paragraph: she has nightmares that make her irritable and she has hidden abilities (so what are they?), there are other dieties, there’s a truth of her abilities (what is that>) she need to share . . .
I think this narrative needs to be replaced with something happening that forces the protagonist to deal with it in a way that reveals character and raises story questions. There is no jeopardy for the character on this page, nothing she has to immediately deal with. Her “issues” are told to us, not portrayed for us. Separate out these many things and give them narrative room to be felt and absorbed, not rained down in a torrent. This is a richly imagined world with many new things to perceive and understand--immerse us with something critical happening to your protagonist. 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 Jide.
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.
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