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.
Moira sent the first page of The Tsar’s Angel. 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.
The yowl from the English traitor lifted up the graveyard slope and down the grassy backside to stop Captain Gavril Kasparevich Danilov in his tracks. Any utterance on this foggy April dawn from the estate burial ground would have slowed his already dragging step. How much more… vital that the cry, really a question bleated out like the condemned before a judge, should come from Sir William Ellesworth.
Yesterday afternoon, the travelling knight had swept into the airless, overstuffed room on the fourth, uppermost floor of the estate palace and took it upon himself to give his own introductions to the fifteen gathered members of the reform-minded Northern Society. Newly arrived from the people’s valiant uprising in Greece, he had declared. Some looked up from their tea cups and discussions of poetry. Eager, he had gone up on his tiptoes in demonstration, to inaugurate the glorious revolution in this great land after an unfortunate absence of a quarter-century. A few more paused their conversation to settle back in chairs or against a shelf, and take in the show.
“Not that we were not brothers in arms during the fight against Napoleon.” He tapped his left temple by his black glass eye. “This was my Waterloo.” And the gentlemen, most who had served as officers, murmured their sympathies, and took sips, clicking cups on saucers. “I lost an eye but gained a knighthood.”
There’s some nice writing here (other than the “stop in his tracks” cliché in the opening), but I think the storytelling needs work. We start in a graveyard somewhere, then transition to a room in a palace. Okay, but there’s no real transition out of that palace. As I read on, I figured out that we were back out in the graveyard—but I shouldn’t have needed to do that. I was also unsure of who the “traveling knight” was, Danilov or Ellesworth. So clarity issues abound. Though there is interesting material here, there was no real story question, nothing pressing that either character had to deal with. This needs to start later, I think.
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 Moira.
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.