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 What She Forgot--it’s one line longer than the usual first page, but it was so short if seemed appropriate to show you the whole thing. 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.
I didn’t mean to kill her. Not like that. She just wouldn’t stop screaming, no matter how much I begged her to. She wouldn’t stop.
Killing her was messy. But it’s done now, and I can’t take it back.
This new one, she doesn’t scream. She’s eager, maybe a little too eager. She promises she’s never going to tell anyone what we do, what she saw me doing. She says I excite her.
She says a lot of things. I’m not sure I believe any of them.
I tell her that she’s special, that she’s my only love. It keeps her under control. I need to control her, even though we’re out here so far away from anyone and anything. She has to keep my secrets. I don’t want to kill another one. All she has to do is stay, and be mine when I want her, and things will work out.
But I’m starting to think she’s crazy. Maybe crazier than me.
Now I don’t know what to do anymore. She’s still mine — so young, so beautiful, so eager to please. She swears she’ll never leave, that she’ll always be here waiting for me. And I want to believe her. I really do.
I just can’t be sure. After all, can I really trust a crazy person? It doesn’t seem like a good plan, with everything she knows about me. I may have to kill her too.
I’m thinking maybe that’ll be okay. Maybe killing won’t be so hard this time.
And I can always get another one to replace her.
You can read more here. This earned 4.6 stars on Amazon. What a creepy character. I don’t want to spend much time in his head. But how about them story questions? Who is the crazy woman? Will she be killed? Will this guy be stopped before he kills again? Lots of good ones. I’m going to check this out a little more. Your thoughts?
Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling
Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy
Science Fiction Gundown More than 600 free ebooks given away.