In addition to flogging submissions by writer readers, I’m flogging free books from BookBub. The challenge is 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 Recalled to Life, historical fiction. 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.
Earache In any form may be quickly relieved (says a medical writer) by filling the organ with chloroform vapour from an uncorked bottle; vapour only, not the liquid; and mamma’s bag should always contain a small vial of it, as it is useful in many ways. Ten drops upon a lump of sugar is an excellent remedy for hiccough or ordinary nausea, and I have recalled to life more than one person pronounced dead from sunstroke, with half a teaspoonful, clear, poured down his throat. New Zealand Times, 8 April 1890
“What’s he done then, this bloke they’re bringing ashore,” said the man in the shawl kilt. “Murdered someone?”
“No clue. But we was told you was taking ‘im upriver. Must be somefink bad. They didn’t tell you?”
“Nah. I just do as I’m told,” said the man in the kilt. “But they’re a bad lot up there. Don’t know why they keep them alive. Not good for anything and they can’t let them go.”
“How’re you going to get him there?”
The man in the kilt nodded to a cart back near the sandhills. “Put him in that and take him to the river. Then up the river by flatboat. I have some blokes waiting for me on the dock.”
“What if he’s a fighter?”
The man in the kilt didn’t answer. He’d been wondering about that himself. He had a (snip)
You can read more here. This earned 4.4 stars on Amazon. The reference to New Zealand in the 1800’s stirred immediate interest. It’s a place I’d love to go. The opening bit about the headache is a fascinating glimpse into the society there at that time, but not a tension producer. We don’t see the main protagonist yet—if, indeed, he is the bloke they’re waiting on—but still the narrative introduces an person who could bring trouble, and trouble is the source of story questions. The writing and voice are strong, too. With all that, plus New Zealand, I’d look a little further. Your thoughts?
Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling
Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy
Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.