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.
Roberta has sent the first page of an historical novel set in the year 1478. 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.
I hate doctors. All my life they have been a source of painful and useless back braces to straighten my spine, long exhausting trips to spas, and bitter nasty herbs. The worst so-called remedy was a metal corset, made by my Papa’s armourer. The iron stays did nothing to unbend my spine but were very effective in carving welts into my sides and upper back. Torture in pursuit of the ordinary, I thought of it.
Today is the examination by Dr. Milanzo who has been sent by Count Leonhardt of Gorizia. If the doctor pronounces me unworthy as a bride then I have failed God, Papa, and my country. How I long to be in the stables watching the farrier shoe a horse or help the stable manager mix a poultice for a lame leg, or strolling in the gardens. How I wish to be anywhere but where I was―naked and in my own bed.
All I have ever wished for is to be ordinary—the type of girl you can walk past selling leeks in the market, or gleaning wheat in the fields, and not notice—neither tall, nor short, neither thin, nor fat, neither fair, nor dark, neither old, nor young, with hair the dun colour of bed sheets left out in the sun too long—in other words invisible. I covet being straight of limb, broad of face, robust as a peasant, plain as a bowl of white polenta, steady on my feet as a plow horse. But God has decreed otherwise. The only ordinary thing about me is my name—Paola. Yet I persist in my ambition to be normal. Doggedness is a talent of mine, perhaps my only talent.
I read the full chapter and found the writing, the character, and the world of 1478 excellent and interesting. If you get deeply enough into the narrative, there are jeopardies and troubles ahead for the character, and I would want to read more.
But the focus here at FtQ is the opening page and its ability to raise strong story questions. Looked at through that lens, the page doesn’t make the grade, IMO. My thought would be to include possible jeopardy ahead for her. In the second paragraph, instead of her dwelling on her failure to God, etc., show us the bad things that could happen of she fails the examination. In addition to losing a lot of ducats to the Count, could she have not been told by someone the physical danger ahead for her? The danger should be consequential for her, more than just the loss of money. I don’t have a solution, just a need. 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 © 2025 Ray Rhamey, excerpt © 2025 by Roberta.