In addition to flogging submissions by writer readers, I’m flogging 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 is the opening page of The Crime Beat, Episode 1. 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 old man’s life flashed through his mind as he methodically unpacked the rifle. His calloused hands had aged, but the muscle memory created by hundreds of repetitions still lived in his fingers. Laying the base of the weapon on his lap, he attached the barrel, locked the takedown pins into place, and affixed the scope. Finally, he rested the spiked feet on the soft tar at the edge of the townhouse roof.
His back ached. Sharp pulses of pain coursed through his right knee. But the pain was worth it. His shot would change the world.
Gritting his teeth, he dropped to his stomach and took in the crowd. Six stories down and across Fifth Avenue, a couple hundred people had gathered on the wide marble steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to greet the arrivals of celebrities and billionaires with ooohs, aaahs, and countless photos. This is what America has become, he thought. A handful of elites hoard the wealth and the sheeple snap pictures and praise them for it.
He scanned the crowd and whispered the twenty-nine words in a hoarse monotone. “An international brotherhood, united by General Ki for a singular mission: to end the great replacement, to restore the sovereignty of nations, to birth a new era of freedom.” He’d repeated the words dozens of times each day for a year. Today he would do his part to put them into action.
You can read more here. This earned 4.2 stars on Amazon. Other than the reference to the old man’s life flashing before his eyes, both unnecessary and a cliché, the voice and writing are good here. The scene is set and tension-producing action is about to begin. Story questions rise—who is he going to assassinate? Is it truly justified? Will he succeed? What is there about the guy he’s gunning for that calls for his death? Your thoughts?
Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling
Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy
Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.