Flog a Pro: would you pay to turn the first page of this bestseller?
By Ray Rhamey | January 20, 2016 |
Trained by reading hundreds of submissions, editors and agents often make their read/not-read decision on the first page. In a customarily formatted book manuscript with chapters starting about 1/3 of the way down the page (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type), there are 16 or 17 lines on the first page.
Here’s the question:
would you pay good money to read the rest of the chapter? With 50 chapters in a book that costs $15, each chapter would be “worth” 30 cents.
So, before you read the excerpt, take 30 cents from your pocket or purse. When you’re done, decide what to do with those three dimes or the quarter and a nickel. It’s not much, but think of paying 30 cents for the rest of the chapter every time you sample a book’s first page.
Please judge by storytelling quality, not by genre or content—some reject an opening page immediately because of genre, but that’s not a good enough reason when the point is to analyze for storytelling strength.
This novel was number one on the New York Times paperback trade fiction bestseller list for January 24, 2016. How strong is the opening page—would this have hooked an agent if it came in from an unpublished writer? Following are what would be the first 17 manuscript lines of the prologue.
THEY WERE ABANDONING HIM. The wounded man knew it when he looked at the boy, who looked down, then away, unwilling to hold his gaze.
For days, the boy had argued with the man in the wolf-skin hat. Has it really been days? The wounded man had battled his fever and pain, never certain whether conversations he heard were real, or merely by-products of the delirious wanderings in his mind.
He looked up at the soaring rock formation above the clearing. A lone, twisted pine had managed somehow to grow from the sheer face of the stone. He had stared at it many times, yet it had never appeared to him as it did at that moment, when its perpendicular lines seemed clearly to form a cross. He accepted for the first time that he would die there in that clearing by the spring.
The wounded man felt an odd detachment from the scene in which he played the central role. He wondered briefly what he would do in their position. If they stayed and the war party came up the creek, all of them would die. Would I die for them … if they were certain to die anyway?
“You sure they’re coming up the creek?” The boy’s voice cracked as he said it. He could affect a tenor most of the time, but his tone still broke at moments he could not control. The man in the wolf skin stooped hurriedly by the small meat rack near the fire, stuffing strips of partially (snip)
My vote and notes after the fold.
This is The Revenant by Michael Punke. Was this opening page compelling to you?
My vote: yes–but it would have been no for the first chapter’s first page.
Good writing and voice here, and the page does raise story questions—will the wounded man die? Will the others stay and fight or abandon him to sure death? The stakes are high, there’s tension in the narrative. That aspect is good.
I am, however, not a fan of anonymous characters. This narrator’s name is given at the end of the prologue, so why not on the first page? For me, anonymous characters are at a distance and more difficult to connect with. A name helps create a human being, I think. While I did not feel attached to this character, the situation and the story questions were enough to get me to turn the page.
I was disappointed when the first chapter seemed unrelated to the character or the action in the prologue. More than that, and worse, I found blatant head-hopping. The second paragraph is inside the mind of one character and the next paragraph hops into the mind of a second character. If the chapter had been the first page I read rather than the prologue, I would not have turned the page.
Your thoughts?
Tip: You can actually turn the page for free by utilizing Amazon’s “Look inside” feature, and I recommend doing that if you have the time and interest. The Revenant is here.
Have you checked out the new Monday “Flog a BookBubber” feature on my blog, Flogging the Quill. If you’re familiar with BookBub, it’s a site that offers free or very low cost ebooks. It is heavily used by self-publishers, though established authors are sometimes there.
We often see the meme on the Internet that self-published authors should have had editing done before they published. So the new Flog a BookBubber posts take a look at opening pages to see if that’s true. You can vote on turning the page and then on whether or not they should have sought an editor. Stop by on Mondays and take a look.
[coffee]
Ray Rhamey is the author of five novels and one writing craft book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. He’s also an editor of book-length fiction and designs book covers and interiors for Indie authors and small presses. His website, crrreative.com, offers an a la carte menu of creative services for writers and publishers. Learn more about Ray’s books at rayrhamey.com.
There’a a repeated sentence. “If they stayed and the war party came up the creek, all of them would die.” Not sure if this was intentional or a colossal boo-boo on page 1. It was enough to put me off, anyhow. The ethnicity of the character needs to be established, too. His name would reveal that.
Voted no. I’m not one for westerns. And I’m not keen on the distant omniscient POV. Good suspense, but sluggish prose for me. I did read more in the Look Inside feature on Amazon. So, the POV is omniscient perspective, right? It seemed to dip into the characters’ POV as well. I have a question, Ray, and for anyone else here. In omniscient POV, isn’t the so called head-hopping you mention the norm? I mean, what is the difference between head-hopping and the omniscient view that moves from character to character? One of the reasons I’m uncomfortable with omniscient POV is because in many stories, it doesn’t stay as the omniscient non-character, all-seeing voice. Your thoughts?
“Head-hopping” and omniscient POV are slippery devils. A Warren Wilson College writing instructor said he didn’t attempt the omniscient POV until he was in his 40s because it’s so hard to pull off. I read a Virginia Woolf novel where she handles it masterfully, but too often a less skilled writer will, as you so nicely put it, dips into a character’s POV.
A begrudging yes, only because the narrative hit a “speed bump” in the second paragraph that took me out of things for a moment. I had to read it a couple of times to figure out who was who and what the narrative position is. I wasn’t sure if the wounded man and the man in the hat were one and the same.
I did like the imagery of the third paragraph, and really got interested at “…and txhe war party came up the creek…”
But that second paragraph tripped me up. There’s an Omni/3d POV mix that doesn’t quite work. I think perhaps it could be rewritten this way:
For days, the wounded man had battled his fever and pain, never certain whether conversations he heard were real, or merely by-products of the delirious wanderings in his mind.
After that grounding, mention of the man in the hat would be clearer.
I stayed because I recognized the scene immediately. The film was riveting, but I wanted to see what it was about the book that made the film happen.
There is something about the spareness of the language that hints at the stark beauty of the setting and the intensity of the situation. Yes, I would have left out the second ” up the creek” or emphasized “up” with italics. The direction of the war party was a matter of life or death.
The real hook for me was the boy’s voice breaking. That lost tenor said so much, presaged both hope and hardship.
I’ve been seeing this expression “head hopping” too often. It’s my opinion that people are not reading closely enough these days. People are distracted.
If you are not fully present when you are reading it would be all too easy to lose track of who is saying, thinking or doing what if there is anything complex going on. I’ve been guilty and plan to remedy this fail. Otherwise, why bother reading at all?
A grudging yes also, because of the story questions you pointed out, Ray. But I was irked by the tense change in paragraph 2 (“Has it really been days?”) and the repeated lines in paragraph 4, which I am praying are not in the book but are a blogging mishap. Also, I agree about anonymous characters.
The repeated phrase is not a blogging mishap. I copied the text directly from the Kindle sample I downloaded. It’s in the book. If I’d edited it, it wouldn’t be there.
Maybe check again. In the sample over on Amazon the repeated language isn’t there. Maybe a slight mishap on the download?
ACK! You’re right. I’d thought you were referring to the double use of “up the creek.” I have fixed it in the sample. Sorry about that. Good eye. My excuse? I was under the influence of a nasty cold. I probably shouldn’t attempt cognition in my condition.
The POV changed from one character to the other in the first two lines. I found it disconcerting. For me, the omniscient POV is like the opening long-shot on camera. Once the POV zooms in, I like being with one character at a time. It gives me a hint whose story I’m about to read. This didn’t do that. I felt more connected to the landscape and the whiff of impending danger than I did to either of the characters.
I agree! I had this same experience upon reading this and I hate when I have to go back and reread passages to see who is speaking! I voted no.
An almost but no, from me. I tried to forget that this was a movie that’s receiving lots of attention, and just go with the writing (but to some extent, once a film has been made a movie, often the movie can affect the way a reader approaches and engages with the writing and possibly even overwhelm the book). The writing is sparse, simple, telling, but I feel like it needs to engage with the scene and setting and the immediate moment more so than the wounded guy’s thoughts; seems like the real tension of the moment is lacking.
I imagine we then delve into some backstory eventually to explain how he was wounded, etc. It may have been better storytelling to surprise the reader (leave out the prologue) and start from an earlier scene, which I think was something Ray was alluding to as well.
I agree with both Deb and James above. Problems with by-paragraph or larger unit separation of pov shouldn’t be a problem, and usually aren’t with either close reading or clarity, and preferably both.
For me, the language in the scenes is a touch too wordy for the danger of the situation. Almost too contemplative.
I’d change and break up the last paragraph like this:
The boy’s voice cracked.
“You sure they’re coming up the creek?”
His tone still broke at moments he could not control.
The man in the wolf skin stooped hurriedly by the small meat rack near the fire. Stuffing strips of partially (snip)
*
Just a personal preference.
I did like the story, but not enough. So I voted no.
Loved the movie though, even if supposedly different from the book.
I voted yes. I’m not a fan of this genre, nor did I see the movie, but the situation felt compelling to me.
The omniscient POV with the dipping into various characters’ heads didn’t distract me, though obviously lots of other people didn’t agree! I’ve been re-reading Anna Karenina, and it seems that Tolstoy does that a lot, even within a scene.
Excuse me for saying so but the writing is really not very good. The wounded man wondered briefly twice in the same paragraph and there a loads of ly words. I was castigated for using them by my editor. And he uses looked twice in a sentence. Boy, if he can sell this, I just might have a chance too. :-)
No…I feel a bit petty admitting it, but the repeated use of ‘the wounded man’ got on my nerves too much.
Thanks, Ray, for your series.
The three pronouns in the first sentence (they, man and boy) created a stumbling start. Who’s POV are we to follow? And lacking any specificity about two of them, I reread immediately, which I never consider a great sign. Finding no scene-grounding image in the first two paragraphs, I felt anxious, ready to bail. Where are we? And the change of verb tense sealed my opinion that the writing wouldn’t hold me. (Perhaps that was a typo?) I trust Mr. Punke sees this scene vividly. I only wish he had helped us more. I voted no because of the writing. The story may be great. An editor could have made this fly.
Not for me, and I want to see the movie.
Like Tom, I found the pronoun use with an all-male cast required several re-reads, and the dispassion of the wounded man didn’t make a case for why I should become passionate.
I loved the imagery of the cross, though. And I do love a good testing plot, so there’s that.
An absolute resounding no. It reminded me of ‘Owen’s story about a man in a hat for his writing class in ‘Throw Mama from the Train’.
I abandoned this opening at the word abandoning.
But then Owen went on to write a bestseller pop-up book.
Yes. Because the dire situation melded with the spare but graphic imagery transcended all the traditional “no-nos” we’re taught in writing, I could truly see what was going on, and I wanted to know what happened next.
I’m not a published or qualified writer, but I would have continued reading after the prologue, because even though I had to reread bits, I felt that tension and atmosphere had been created and propelled the story forward. I was disappointed to see that Chapter One went back in time a week, and I was even more disappointed to see words misused, for example, I thought it was correct to say that a person engaged the enemy, not “engage in an inferior foe,” and I wondered, what is “ill-shod clothing”? I read through the end of the sample in Chapter Two just because of this discussion. But I won’t read the book because the writing isn’t good enough to overcome the facts that I already know the history of Hugh Glass and I don’t like dirty, violent westerns unless there are other threads woven into the story.
Lost me on the second sentence. Three subordinate clauses in a single sentence is a major turn-off for me. I take it as a sign of sloppy writing and/or editing.
I agree with Veronica Knox.
“…the wounded man… the wounded man… the wounded man…”
To me it is always a writer’s trick, deliberately not identifying the character under stress. When I run into such tricks repeated and repeated this way, for the obvious reason of preventing me, the reader, from even ‘seeing’ who this person is, I have to reckon the writer is going to continue to play with me, the reader.
I lose patience.
Don’t play games with me. Just tell the story honestly.
Oops, sorry: Not Veronica – I meant Meghan Masterson, who objected so pointedly about “wounded man”.
I just wanted to explain my personal reason why I found it so off-putting.
Also, Beverly said it very well. Terrible writing, and misuse of simple words.
IMHO
I paid the 30 cents because I saw potential. Not having a name nearly made me keep the money in my pocket, but I’m fan of internal dialogue, getting deep into a character’s head. The questions set up here made me want to know the rest of the story. However, as an editor, I’d have used a generous red quill.
I felt exactly the same way. Because I just finished adapting my second novel (yet unpublished, but optioned for film) into a screenplay, I read the novel first, then the screenplay. Saw the film yesterday. The novel prologue pulled me in, even with its errors, only to be followed by dizzying head-hopping throughout the book. Very disappointing given the success of the film, though I have to say, a better plot came through in the novel than on the screen…Leonardo’s acting, and the brilliant direction and cinematography saved the film.
I thought the wounded man, the man in the wolf-skin hat, and the man in the wolf-skin were all the same man. (I could be wrong.) If so, the POV stays with this man, except when we are told that the boy cannot control his voice during certain times.. The wounded man somehow knows when the boy cannot control his tone of voice. It should be stated that the man knows this about the boy.
Since the title is The Revenant I liked that the wounded man was not given a name. If I didn’t know the title, well, I would have been irritated by it. It reminded me of a spaghetti western with a Man with No Name, (who was supposedly dead), who returned to a town of corrupt people to exact his revenge. I think it was a Clint Eastwood movie called Hand ‘Em High. “Next time you hang a man, make sure he dies, or make sure he’s dead.” Or something like that.
I don’t want to know their ethnicity at this time. That’s part of the mystery.
I liked this especially because of the inner dialogue and symbolic imagery. I would love to see the film.
Eeek. I looked through the book and see that the wounded man and the man in the wolf skin are different people.