Submissions sought. Get fresh eyes on your opening page. Submission directions below.
The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.
Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.
What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page. Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.
Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this 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 (PDF here)
- 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.
A reminder of what you’re after here. This blog is about crafting compelling openings. Not interesting, compelling. Why does it have to meet that hurdle? First, if your work is going to an agent, you’re competing with hundreds of submissions. You have to cut through that clutter and competition with powerful storytelling and strong writing. If it’s a reader browsing in a bookstore or online, the same goes—there are scores of published books competing with yours. Yeah, you need compelling.
Sharon sends the first chapter of BJ’s Story. The rest of the chapter is after the break. Remember to focus on writing craft regardless of genre. This might not be a genre for you, but you can surely judge the strengths of the opening page.
Virgil awoke late at night to find his wife gone. He kicked off the sweaty bed sheet, box springs squeaked when he sat up. A steady breeze, weighed down with humidity, carried the vanillalike fragrance of Joe Pye weed and the faint sound of laughter through an open window.
He stood behind fluttering white sheers and watched Marie trot across the back yard, her long black curls bouncing with each footfall. The opaque security light above the barn doors cast an eerie pallor on the limbs of an elm tree draped with Spanish moss. He noticed her belly, in the narrow space between her shirt and shorts, seemed rounder than normal. He lazily scratched his ass, wondered what the hell she’s doing.
A man stepped out of the shadows, and drew her into an embrace. They kissed for a moment, then entered the barn.
Marie came back out. She turned her head from side to side, looked up. Virgil leaned back without thinking.
The man clasped her hand. “C’mere, baby.” He brought a shiny metal flask to his lips and took a long swig.
She giggled again. “Gimme some.”
“Sh! Not yet.” He pulled her into the barn, loosely swung one door shut, the other already latched at the top.
This opening page is strong with story questions, plenty to make me wonder what will happen next. The scene is well set, so we know the context of the action.
There are little issues with tense here and there, and the staging left out the man coming back out of the barn—that really should be there. There’s a little head-hopping in the chapter that follows, but the story moves well and keeps its tension. The little glitches are easily fixed with an edit, so it works for me. Your thoughts?
Submitting to the Flogometer:
Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):
- your title
- your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
- Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ. Note: I’m adding a copyright notice for the writer at the end of the post. I’ll use just the first name unless I’m told I can use the full name.
- Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
- And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
- If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
- If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.
Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.
Flogging the Quill © 2022 Ray Rhamey, excerpt © 2022 by Sharon.
My books. You can read sample chapters and learn more about the books here.
Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling
Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy
Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.
Continued
***
Light rain bounced off his cap, trickled down a bare back and bib overalls. Virgil crept past the half closed door. Standing beneath the loft, he listened to the sounds of raw lust. Glossy photos in his dog-eared girlie magazines crossed his mind. He hiked the leather rifle strap onto his shoulder, gripped the sides of the ladder. Climbed slowly, the wooden rungs scraping mud off the soles of his scuffed work boots.
He could see them in a clearing bordered by short stacks of hay. Virgil recognized him. He was the same slick salesman who’d come sniffing around last April trying to sell them some kitcheny crap. He didn’t know if his wife got any. He’d left the house to spend the rest of the mild and sunny morning planting eggplants to be sold at the farmers market and to local chefs.
A July heatwave made the guy come a-knockin’ again. Now he was a-rockin’, in the hayloft, with a young wife and mama. His face was nestled against her neck. He grunted mightily, each deliberate thrust building to a faster rhythm.
She flexed her leg muscles, gasped for air.
“Bring it home, baby,” he told her.
A metallic click.
Marie froze.
Her dark eyes and flushed golden skin oddly reflected the lantern light. She tried to speak but couldn’t. It was too late to warn her loverboy, anyway. He shot the salesman named Russell Something-or-other when he raised his head and turned to see what was going on. She screamed bloody murder. Virgil yanked her up off the floor, caught a whiff of the man’s scent, resisted giving her the beating she damn well deserved.
Trembling with fear, she used handfuls of hay to wipe the blood off of her. She looked out the loft doors, her gaze shifting from one upstairs window to the next. Her four-year-old son, Bernie, leaned his arms on the sill, stuck his thumb in his mouth. Marie hung her head and cried.
Virgil loaded Russell’s body into the bed of his truck. Sped across the field, toppling crops in his path. He put the body in a rowboat. Filled a burlap sack with the man’s belongings, added a concrete block. Tied the bag around Russell’s scrawny neck. Virgil heard a slight gasp, tightened the rope. Using a pair of wire cutters he removed the guy’s gold wedding band with his finger attached, and slung the bloody digit to the ground for the snapping turtles to fight over.
He rowed to the middle of the bottomless pond where scum floated on the surface and mosquitoes multiplied by the hundreds, and chucked the salesman in. Vivid lightning bolts spread their energy across the sky, their crinkled branches thinning at the tips. A high-pitched crackle of thunder followed by a loud crackle then a fading rumble. The rain grew in strength and intensity. Straight-line winds stole his cap, and damn near flipped his boat. Virgil quickly returned to the water’s edge.
Amidst a torrential downpour his truck became stuck in the mud. He made a mad dash through the field. Lightning revealed a dark green Chevy parked under a pindo palm tree.
He jerked the barn door open. Marie ran out screaming, waving her arms in the air, stringy hair covering her face. Crazy bitch looked like a banshee. He felt his heart beating too fast, his wet hands fumbled with the rusty iron slide bolt on the other door.
He brought the salesman’s car to the barn just as a strong gust of wind blew one of the flimsy wooden doors shut. “Dammit.” One by one, he rolled two empty oil drums out of the barn, propped them against the doors to hold them open. Drove in behind a do-it-yourself pegboard wall holding an array of hand tools, hooks, and baling wire.
Virgil wouldn’t allow Marie to change out of her wet clothes or to sleep in his bed, making her spend the night in the living room instead. Lamplight threw a shadow on an old seascape painting hanging off-kilter on the wall above a redbrick fireplace. He gripped the newel post supporting the worn banister, watched her tossing and turning on the couch. He was tempted to put her out of her misery. Reckoned a bullet would be too swift. He needed to teach her a thing or two about faithfulness. Too bad he didn’t think of that before he shot her boyfriend.
Marie knew it was only out of meanness when Virgil woke her up at five o’clock one dark, rainy morning to come and get the rest of her things out of his bedroom. About to bend down to scoop up the last pile of clothing in her drawer, he took hold of a fistful of her long spiral curls and slung her onto the bed.
She didn’t tell him she’s pregnant. Or about having frequent thoughts of murder-suicide.
* * *
As the months passed, her stomach swelled to the size of a ripe watermelon. Marie started wearing the long and baggy homemade dresses she’d found in a heavy trunk with iron fittings in the attic. She’d also discovered a secret compartment inside of a closet. A place to run and hide.
By her seventh month it was no longer possible to hide her big belly.
“Jeebus Christ, woman, you gettin’ fat?” Virgil asked in a drunken manner.
She frowned. Is he that stupid?
He flattened his hands against the mattress, pushed himself up. Stared intently at her. She shrank back. He moved to her side. “Get the hell away from me,” he whispered in a threatening tone. Virgil pressed his socked foot against her hip, shoved her off the bed.
Marie bolted from the room.
Lying on the couch, she listened to him pacing overhead. Footsteps thudding. Floorboards creaking. Every sound was deafening.
Her teeth chattered. She balled her hands around the top of a wool blanket, tucked them under her chin. The house was very hot. She was freezing cold.
Teardrops disappeared in her hair.
Will this be the day I die?
“I hope so.”