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 prologue of The Culling, dystopian science fiction. A poll follows the opening page below. If you don’t want to turn the page, then I’m thinking that these authors should have hired an editor.
Papa fell down and he didn’t stand up again.
I’d seen Papa jump the tallest fence in our colony. I’d seen Papa laugh and dance with Mama in the living room when I was supposed to be asleep. And I’d seen Papa run alongside me, so fast. But I’d never seen Papa fall down until that morning.
I puzzled it out as I sat with Mama in our front yard, one of my twin sisters on my lap. “But where did he go?” I asked her.
“I don’t know.” Her voice didn’t sound like Mama’s voice.
I looked at the place where he’d fallen. The red dirt was pushed around like something had been dragged through it. I tried to understand. “But those men took him somewhere.”
Mama stood up quickly then, one of the twins on her hip. “They took him away. With the rest of the culled, Glade.”
I frowned. I didn’t know what that meant. All the grownups had been talking about the Culling, but no one had told me what it was. And then Papa had fallen down. And hadn’t moved for hours. Mama had gone out to him. Just once. Just for a minute. She’d leaned down over him and shook and shook. It had looked like she was talking. But she hadn’t let me go outside. Not until men had come by on a truck and picked Papa up and driven him away.
“And he won’t come back?” It didn’t make any sense. Papa always came back. He was (snip)
You can read more here. This earned 4.4 stars on Amazon. This is one of those rare good prologues, one that is a scene that introduces a sympathetic character who has a problem. The child narrator doesn’t understand what the problem is, but readers see trouble ahead for her. Nicely done, IMO. Your thoughts?
Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling
Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy
Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.