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.
Kathleen sent the first pages of Back to Square One. 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.
As I lower myself onto my chair, my insides clench painfully and the heat rises to my wind chilled cheeks. The teacher’s desk is empty. I alone of my classmates know what has happened. Miss Halstead finally trudges through the door holding a bunched Kleenex to her eyes. Her voice breaking, she utters, “President John F. Kennedy has been shot.”
I wasn’t able to stop it! How could I? I’m still a child. Who would listen to me? One thing is sure, my father will believe me now. Even if he puts it down to premonition, he’ll listen.
I try to slow my breathing, exhaling slowly. If I couldn’t prevent Kennedy’s death, how will I stop a war? The room goes in and out of focus as if I’ve been set in place with no awareness of my surroundings - apart from them. Focus, things I can see, the wood desk with the ink stain, the ragged cuff of my sleeve, touch, the chewed pencil, my thin hair ribbon, hear, muffled distress – tune that out, the wind against the sill.
As the shock settles, I examine my fellow students perched on their hard wooden chairs. Many of their young faces are streaked with grief. All I can see of the tallest boy at the back of my row is the top of his blond head pressed into his crossed arms, shrouding his desktop.
My chief competitor for the honour roll raises his hand. He demands, “How? Why?”
Clearing her throat, struggling to compose herself, Miss Halstead replies, “It happened in Dallas Texas. The only information I have is, the president is in hospital.”
The writing and voice are good, but what about the narrative? For me, I just didn’t know enough to be intrigued by the character’s rhetorical questions. Why would any child have those questions? Turns out she’s living her life for a second time but has knowledge of things to come. The premise is promising . . . but the whole first chapter, while detailing other instances, is pretty much exposition and setup. We don’t come upon her present problem—the actual inciting incident didn’t, to my eye, appear. I think the story starts there—try it, and weave in her unique life along the way.
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 © 2023 Ray Rhamey, excerpt © 2023 by Kathleen.
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 …
Very early in life I realized I had done it all before. Even my earliest memories, wondering where I’d seen the houndstooth pattern on a woman’s coat, left me ill at ease. The realization I had a previous existence was terrifying. Precocious for my age, I walked and talked early. My mother said I was ‘high strung.’ Who wouldn’t be - caught in a nightmare of familiarity.
At age five, I ask Mom if everyone lives the same life over and over. She has no idea what I’m talking about and that evening I observe her talking in whispers to my father.
Dad takes me aside, “Judy, what’s this all about?”
“I remember a previous life.”
“That isn’t possible. We only get one life. When it seems something has happened before, it’s called déjà vu.”
“What’s it called when it seems everything has happened before?” I reply.
Mother suggests a consultation with a doctor, a psychiatrist. I’m wise enough to know that’s not a good idea. Changing tactics, I tell them I often have dreams which later come true.
“Oh,” my mother, Dorothy, says standing in front of the two of us, “Auntie Liz had premonitions. You must have inherited second sight.” Mom deposits herself in the chair opposite Dad and I, her print housedress stretched tightly over her increasingly rotund form and continues, “My mother had it too. One time, she went to the door of the house on our old homestead and stood watching out. When asked why, Mom – your grandma – said they’d be bringing her brother home after the accident. An hour later, the cutter pulled by two horses came into the yard carrying my badly injured Uncle Rick.” Mom leans towards me to get her point across, “This happened on the farm, on the prairies, with no telephones. There was no other explanation for it. My mom said she just knew it would happen.”
All right let’s go with that. There will be no help coming from this quarter. Perhaps when my younger sister, Kristy, is older I can confide in her. Kristy and I were always close, but she’s not yet three, so spilling my guts to her will have to wait. Mom’s explanation is disquieting. Perhaps I inherited this torment.
…
The fall after my fragmentary and false revelation to my parents, I start school. The child I was loved school. Now, it’s repetitive, old hat, boring. I make an effort to enjoy seeing the world once more through a child’s eyes, but it hard to ignore the ennui that threatens to overwhelm.
I come across as the ‘odd man out’. I did even in my preceding life. Overly thin, shy and with features too large for my small frame, I’m often bullied. One loud boy, in particular, corners those in whom he senses weakness. Greg confronts me one day at the end of the blacktop. “Hey, skinny get out of the way. Are your parents too poor to feed you? A strong wind could blow you away.”
I might end up getting hurt, but I sass back anyway. “We can’t all be as large as you. Can you imagine a world where everyone is the same size, shape and colour?”
Momentarily stunned by my even responding instead of racing out of his way, Greg turns to his friend, “The little pipsqueak talks.” He blows hard in my direction, as if attempting to blow me away like dandelion fluff, before shoving me.
I stumble but don’t fall. “Don’t you ever touch me again,” I yell loudly, hoping to get the attention of supervising teacher, whiling away the remaining minutes of recess out of the wind near the entrance doors.
Greg checks over his shoulder quickly to ensure no help is coming, then shoves me harder. This time I do fall, scraping my knee on the rough tarmac. I bite back tears and rise again, running head first with all my might into his solid stomach. I’m angry enough I’ve knocked the wind out of him.
The bell rings, and I limp hurriedly to line up. My teacher notices my bleeding knee. “Judy, what happened?”
Greg is two students behind me in the queue. I glance at him then back at the teacher. “I fell but I’m fine.”
Inside, as Greg struts past to go to his desk at the end of my row, I stick my foot out tripping him. He falls heavily and unfettered laughter leaks from those nearby. Teacher raises her head to the sound and asks, “Are you all right, Greg?”
My nemesis glares daggers at me but doesn’t squeal and I’m never the object of his bullying from that point on.
…
I’m growing up, as before, in Winnipeg, Manitoba in the fifties and sixties, during the cold war. One sunny spring day, the newly installed air raid siren, in the field at the back of the school, blares. As instructed, I reluctantly crouch under my desk. How could that possibly help if an actual atomic bomb was headed our way? I’m aware it’s a test and the school wasn’t alerted – it will be the talk of the town for days. The smell of urine permeates the small classroom. Poor little Donald is crying and has wet his pants; he stands over a slowly growing puddle at his feet. The teacher rushes to him. That will be remembered as well.
…
After the Bay of Pigs incident in April 1961, President Kennedy brings the world to the brink of a Third World War. Nine years old, I remember the fears of that turbulent time. My dad, Gordon, is fretting over the situation and following the news about the nerve-wracking impasse in Cuba. In an effort to comfort him, I tell him events will work all right, but he doesn’t have any faith in my ‘premonitions’.
President Kennedy addresses the nation more than a year later, on October 22, 1962, warning of the presence of Russian missiles in Cuba. A naval blockade is put in place. On October 24th, Soviet ships bound for Cuba reach the blockade but stop. On October 27th, a U.S. reconnaissance plane is shot down. On the 28th, Russia agrees to remove its missiles from Cuba and the U.S removes theirs from Turkey. Crisis averted. The world breathes a sigh of relief.
One day not long afterwards, I ask, “Dad is there any way we can stop President Kennedy from being shot next year?”
“You’ve got to stop this. I mean it!” he says shaking his head, folding his newspaper and leaving the room.
…
The sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach mounts, as I tramp home from school this cold, wet November 22nd day. My mother has been crying and keeps repeating, “I can’t believe it. How could this happen?” She sends us all out of the house, in order to tackle the necessity of putting together a meal. I’m eleven now. It’s dark early in November; the streetlights have halos around them from the mist. Plodding silently along the soaked, dreary streets with my shell-shocked girlfriends, the assassination is on everybody’s lips. It is the one topic I desperately wish to avoid.
Dad is waiting for me when I return. “Can I speak to you in private please?” he demands.
…
It may be infeasible to affect world affairs, but by using my foreknowledge of events and all the wisdom garnered from my previous life, I may be able to change less favourable circumstances of my own existence. I gnaw at my cuticle fretting over the potential danger in doing that. Like a fictional time traveler, it is foreseeable any changes I make will have repercussions on other lives.
…
One thing that bully, Greg, was right about. Our family is poor – not dirt poor – poor for the middleclass neighbourhood we live in. My Dad’s salary as a clerk in the government doesn’t stretch far with my mother not working outside the home and six children to feed and clothe.
The family budget doesn’t extend to extras and our diet consists of mostly home-grown vegetables, preserves and baking. Often store-bought food supplies, peanut butter or bananas are low before payday. At lunch my friend, seated next to me, asks what I’m eating. When I tell her a lettuce sandwich, she asks, “Lettuce and what?”
…
Nineteen sixty-eight rolls around and I can’t focus on anything but the senseless deaths soon to occur. As my chemistry teacher reprimands me for not knowing what I’ve been asked, the warm blush of blood heats my face. I’ve torn the skin from my cuticles so badly they bleed and the boy seated behind me in homeroom comments loudly, while taking the sheets of paper I’m passing back, that my thumbs look like they were dipped in acid.
One day in early March, when dad’s home from work, I approach him. “Dad, I need to talk to you privately.”
“Now what?” he complains, “I just got in the door. Can’t I sit in peace and quiet for a few minutes?”
Mom’s working in the kitchen getting supper ready and I motion towards the doorway. “I’m worried about something. Please can we talk in the basement, so Mom doesn’t hear?” I gnaw away at a ragged cuticle. Dad sighs resignedly and follows me out of the room.
In the cool of the cellar, I blurt out, “Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy are going to be shot this year. King soon – sometime this spring. I remember Kennedy is the 6th of June because it happened – will happen on my birthday.”
“Please don’t tell me stuff like that. There’s nothing I can do about it. If it doesn’t directly involve our immediate family, please keep your prophecies to yourself. You need to let this stuff go!” he shakes his head and stomps upstairs.
Disappointed and upset, I remain in the cellar contemplating what to do. The basement is only partially finished. Walls are roughed in with two by fours, but the floor is still cement. Dad has a workbench in the single walled room with the furnace and mom’s wringer washer. There’s a little metal stool in the room and I perch on it pondering the unfairness of my plight. Swiping away tears with the back of my hand, I brood, angry Dad won’t listen when he’s benefitted from my advice before on investment matters. I need him to help me fix big problems.
An idea surfaces. Maybe Kristy will believe me now. We’re hanging out a lot more now she’s a teenager and besides being creative, she’s bright and well-informed for thirteen. With this idea in my head, I climb the stairs in search of my kid sister. Busy at the stove, Mom doesn’t notice my distressed countenance as I pass her in the kitchen. “See if you can find your sister. Dinner’s in twenty minutes.”
Entering our shared bedroom, I find Kristy reading a copy of Catcher in the Rye. Otis Redding’s voice croons Sitting on the Dock of the Bay from the corner radio. As I hover at the end of her bed, she looks up but doesn’t set the book aside.
“Kristy, I know you have doubts my prophecies are some kind of foreknowledge, but I’m stressed out about something that’s going to happen and its imperative I talk to you.”
Kristy lowers her head to read again, “Nothing you say will ever convince me you and only you have lived your life before.”
I lower myself onto the bed at the bottom of her bent legs. “First of all, I don’t know I’m the only one. Maybe lots of people get to live their lives more than once.”
Looking away from her book again, she sighs, “If it were a common phenomenon, it would also be common knowledge.”
“Maybe it isn’t common. What about reincarnation?”
“When you are reincarnated, you come back as someone else, not yourself.”
“Oh, never mind. It’s useless arguing with you.” She begins reading again and I angrily push at the book. “Stop reading and listen to me! What’s weighing on my mind and giving me sleepless nights is the knowledge Martin Luther King is going to be assassinated soon - next month in April, I think, and Robert Kennedy in June.”
Kristy splays her book upside down and open on the bedside table. Angrily she tears into me, “You’re one sick puppy. Why say something as horrid that?”
“Will you take me at my word if those events happen?” I plead, close to tears at the forcefulness of her harsh words.
“Why not try to stop it, if they’re going to die?”
My own voice raises, “Why would I make something like this up? How could I stop it? I couldn’t stop John F. Kennedy’s assassination.”
“Oh sure, you knew about that.”
“Yes, I did, and I told Dad before it happened.”
“You’re lying! I’m going to ask Dad.” Jumping up, she thumps from the room.
“Time has Come Today” comes on the radio. I plop onto Kristy’s bed in the spot she was sitting, pressing my back into the pillow angled against the headboard. It’s still warm. Flagging the page of her forgotten book, I close it.
Dinner is unusually silent. Dad glares over at me a couple of times and Mom finally asks what’s going on. “Oh, Judy and Kristy had a little argument. I’ll talk to them both after dinner.”
…
Dad’s upset with me for unloading on Kristy. Ensconced in the basement once more for privacy, “She’s only thirteen, for heaven’s sake!” he practically shouts at me.
“Well, I have to live with the knowledge. I’m going crazy not having anyone to confide in.”
“Do you want to talk to a psychiatrist?”
“No, and if you send me to one, I won’t tell him any of this.”
“Leave your sister out of it!” he barks abandoning me in my misery.
If I keep confiding in Dad and Kristy, they’ll assume I’m insane. Maybe I am insane! Mounting the stairs, I plod dejectedly along the narrow hallway still musing. I’m going to have to learn to cope with this, be less bothered by events I can’t change and focus on the ones I can. If I end up talking to a psychiatrist, they might lock me up. I’d never be able to tolerate that.
Reaching the bedroom Kristy and I share, I enter, slam the door and switch off the radio. I’m alone as Kristy hasn’t returned to her book. Flopping dejectedly onto my one of the twin beds, I lie there mulling things over in my head. I’ll have to keep my own counsel for the time being anyway. Rolling onto my back, I stare at the ceiling with its pattern of hairline cracks and smile to myself even as the tears run over my cheeks into my ears. It’s great to get a redo, I agonize trying to convince myself. Maybe I can make more of a difference this time. I don’t need anyone else. I’ll do it all on my own.
I’ll list all the important events I remember. Then, I’ll choose ones I deem possible to affect and decide which ones are beyond my control. Dad’s right, changing world events seems an unattainable challenge. Nonetheless, I’m determined to prevent Bobby Kennedy’s and Martin Luther King’s deaths.
The branches of the willow scrape their long nails against the windowpane as the wind blusters outside. Ignoring the eerie sound, I contemplate my list. I can remember the approximate times of celebrity deaths and events such as, 9/11 mainly because those types of events are burned in my memory. Other phenomena like major earthquakes and tsunamis are, at best, vague memories; although they impacted many people, they happened far away. As tragic as they were, I don’t know how I can forewarn anyone. Can I prevent the horrific – No! No! No! I won’t worry about that – not until I’m an old woman and it seems inevitable. I shake my head to clear my brain of the foreknowledge of a worldwide calamity.
…
Five years ago, I sent a pencilled, handwritten, unsigned note to the White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.D. before President John F. Kennedy died. There had been rumors, later on in my former life, the FBI were involved in his assassination. This time, I’ll send my attempt to warn Martin Luther King in care of the Baptist Church in Atlanta. I’ll write to the Democratic Party in California and address the letter to Robert Kennedy. I don’t know who reads their mail or if they’ll be told of my warnings, but it’s worth a try.
Taking my draft warning letters to school, I transcribe them on one of the classroom typewriters surreptitiously during typing class. The teachers never bother me – an A student who always has her work done. Along with the letters, I smuggle the carbon copies home.
Nothing changes and both men die tragically, the same way as in my previous life. It’s reported Martin Luther King received warnings he might be assassinated. The airline took the threats seriously and searched passengers’ luggage. When King arrived in Memphis, he heard of more threats against his life. I wonder if one of the warnings spoken of was mine. I still haven’t been able to change events I deem critical. Why did these men have to die? What might the world have been like if they lived? Would King have become the first black American president well in advance of Obama?
…
In my early teens, I convince my Aunt Edna to give me her old typewriter to improve my typing skills. Finding good quality stationery on sale one day, I buy lots of it. Both the typewriter and ivory cardstock will be used solely for my warning letters. My confidential papers are locked in Edna’s old safe, well hidden in the furnace room of our basement. I’ll continue to write to people in danger, John Lennon’s death in 1980 is on my list but it’s only 1968. As I’d never be able to explain how I have knowledge of future events, where the letters are coming from has to be hidden.
…
Conrad, my former future husband, enters my life again. As before, he’s dating Kristy when I meet him. He’s younger than I am by two years. We were married when he turned eighteen. This time, I intend to get my education degree before my son is born when I’m twenty-five. Events must be recreated exactly to ensure that same son is born to me. This is where danger lies. What if I can’t reconstruct milestones that were important to me or my timing is slightly off?
…