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 is the opening page of Without a Trace, a mystery. 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.
The rain was relentless; cold and spiteful. Its stinging wetness slapped at Ruth Prendergast’s face as she dashed from her car towards the shelter of the porch. After putting down the groceries she was carrying, she pulled a key from her pocket, unlocked her front door, and hurried inside.
A warm, centrally heated fug closed around her as she stepped into the hallway. Ruth felt for the light switch and flicked it on, glancing censoriously at the scuffed paintwork and gloomy wallpaper. First impressions were important, and her hallway was definitely letting the side down.
After yanking a handful of junk mail from the teeth of the letterbox and hanging up her coat, she threw open the double doors to the living room and turned on more lights to brighten things up. Except for the ticking, clicking sound of the central heating radiators, the silence in the house was absolute.
Ruth had moved to Hollybrook Close three weeks earlier, and was struggling to adjust to the suburban seclusion of her new home. Weirdly, she missed the constant buzz of the traffic-infested main road where, until recently, she had lived with the man who was now her ex-husband.
At the end of the hallway, the kitchen door stood open. She went in and turned on the (snip)
You can read more here. This earned 3.5 stars on Amazon. A classic example of overwriting, something I cover in my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. Here, for example, is how the first paragraph could go:
The rain was relentless; cold and spiteful. Its stinging wetness slapped at Ruth Prendergast’s face as she dashed from her car towards the shelter of the porch. After putting down the groceries she was carrying, she pulled a key from her pocket, unlocked her front door, and hurried inside.
More than that, I don’t see hide nor hair of a story question, or of anything happening that raises tension. Someone comes home on a rainy day and she moved there three weeks ago? So? This needs an editor, a lot. Your thoughts?
Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling
Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy
Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.