Flog a Pro: Would You Pay to Turn the First Page of This Bestseller?
By Ray Rhamey | April 21, 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 hardcover fiction bestseller list for April 24, 2016. How strong is the opening page—would this narrative, all on its own, have hooked an agent if it came in from an unpublished writer?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.
The first wail of the infant was so penetrating that the two couples outside the birthing room of midwife Cora Banks gasped in unison. James and Jennifer Wright’s eyes lit up with joy. Relief and resignation formed the expression on the faces of Rose and Martin Ryan, whose seventeen-year-old daughter had just given birth.
The couples only knew each other as the Smiths and the Joneses. Neither one had any desire to know the true identity of the other. A full fifteen minutes later they were still waiting anxiously to see the newborn child.
It was a sleepy seven-pound girl with strands of curling black ringlets that contrasted with her fair complexion. When her eyes blinked open they were large and deep brown. As Jennifer Wright reached out to take her, the midwife smiled. “I think we have a little business to complete,” she suggested.
James Wright opened the small valise he was carrying. “Sixty thousand dollars,” he said. “Count it.”
The mother of the baby who had just been born had been described to them as a seventeen-year-old high school senior who had gotten pregnant the night of the senior prom. That fact had been hidden from everyone. Her parents told family and friends that she was too young to go away to college and would be working for her aunt in her dress shop in Milwaukee.
My vote and notes after the fold.
This is As Time Goes By by Mary Higgins Clark. Was this opening page compelling to you?
My vote: no.
The writing is just fine, as professional as you would expect it to be. But, for me, this prologue exhibits what prologues do—lather setup on the reader—in an uninteresting fashion. The only story question that occurs to me is to wonder what happens to the baby. But it wasn’t compelling for this reader—there are no stakes or jeopardy attached to the baby’s birth or future. And adoptive parents paying for a baby is hardly a new story.
Later, in the first chapter, we meet the grown-up version of the baby when we learn that she is adopted and desperately wants to know who her birth mother is. So I have to wonder why we used all that prologue space to set up the fact that she was adopted when we get that information soon. On the Amazon page for this book, Ms. Clark is billed as the “Queen of Suspense,” but I read both the prologue and several pages of the first chapter and found no suspense, just setup. I kept my 30 cents.
Your thoughts?
Turn the page for free by utilizing Amazon’s “Look inside” feature, and I recommend doing that if you have the time and interest. As Time Goes By is here.
Stop by my Monday “Flog a BookBubber” feature Flogging the Quill. BookBub is a website 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 my 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. Visit 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.
This is such a great series, first of all, just want to emphasize that. Thanks Ray!
I agree the writing is competent, but small glitches- wow, I’m getting so much better at noticing them in everyone else’s work now! Like rapidly moving from “knew” to “know” near the start; just before the end we hear the news has been hidden from “everyone”- which to me would include present company!
And my principal gripe- here’s a situation that should be utterly awash in emotion, in stakes and conflict, but turns out curiously lacking in interest because of a rather simple point.
We don’t know which character to latch onto.
The spread is so even-handed we’re left in the middle of the room, watching TV. What a lost opportunity! And hearing now that the tale is all about the baby, that begins to make sense. The only character who couldn’t give us her view, feelings, thoughts. So we drop the PoV entirely, right at the start of the story.
I also completely lost my suspension of disbelief when the adoptive dad hands over a briefcase full of money right at the point of sale. Gad, how crude; I’ve never been present at such a moment but I would bet the house money that is NOT the way it happens. You’d buy a kilo of heroin that way, maybe. But even if you prove to me that’s how babies are adopted, I still won’t believe you, so that would be one to give up the ghost on.
I had the same problem with the way he just hands over the cash. I would think that payment would have occurred before the child is even in the room with the couple. I also had a problem with the fact that they’re all in the same room. This is a very illegal situation and it would be in the midwife’s best interest to keep people in the dark as much as she can. I would have expected the two couples to be in separate rooms or that the “adoptive” parents to come in later, after the birth mother and her family are gone.
Totally agree with your analysis, Ray. Interesting data, but didn’t grab me at all. Just felt like info dump.
Hello Ray.
This is a tried-and-true device–the young girl whose disgrace is concealed from the community when her family sends her off somewhere. It seems very dated to me: children born “out of wedlock” have become commonplace in our time. Maybe Clark’s POV on this issue can be attributed to her age. Or, her story is set in an earlier time.
But what catches my attention today has mostly to do with your comment.You say that in this first page taken from the book’s prologue, “there are no stakes or jeopardy attached to the baby’s birth or future.”
That criticism might apply to hell-bent-for-leather, Western-civilization-hangs-in-the-balance thrillers, but I doubt that’s what this book puts on offer. I think the standard demand that all suspense novels must establish high stakes and red-alert levels of jeopardy on the first page is getting shop-worn. Readers who enjoy Clark know going in that this isn’t what they should expect.
I don’t demand that all suspense novels or thrillers open in the cliched way you suggest, nor do I think they must, but I do want some kind of viable story question and an engaging character. Give me those and I’ll be happy.
I voted yes — but very reluctantly — because I was hooked by the exchange of cash for baby. That is not how adoptions are done, but we do know that irregular adoptions exist, and I wanted to see whether that angle would affect the story line. That being said, I thought the info dump was poorly done, the writing ho-hum, and the profusion of names at the outset confusing (how critical was it for the reader to know the midwife’s name right away?). So I can’t take back my vote, but chances are I would have read a little further and then put the book back on the shelf.
It still seems that authors who accumulate a following over the years are guaranteed publication and best-seller status.
Sixty thousand bucks in a suitcase straight to a midwife? That there is some skulduggery going on and I want to know more. What this prologue says to me is “there are going to be a lot of secrets,” and secrets–in fiction and in real life–are always delicious. MHC got my 30 cents.
My reaction as well. And I trust MHC.
I vote no.
I need to see a glinting thread on the first page of the protagonist’s central struggle. I’d have preferred this rather flat scene to appear as backstory in a crucial scene, perhaps as a memory of one of the four people standing outside the door, in response to the young woman’s questions. It could have been used much more deftly and imbued with much more emotional power.
Hooked me immediately. Would gladly hand over my 30 cents. MHC is a great story teller.
Nope, for all the reasons you outlined, and for the one Will mentioned above–who’s the main character? Who am I following? If it’s the adoptive parents I’m not all that interested. Having a baby is hard work, and I’m happy my own child is beyond that stage. I don’t actually want to read about it and be thrown back to that time of life! And it doesn’t seem like the POV character will be any of the others either. Plus, I was unclear on time period. Valise is a word you run into a lot in historical fiction, while prom certainly is not. None of the people are in the birthing room, not even the girl’s mother. What time period is that from? I jump in my head from 1880s to 1960s to modern day and have no idea which is correct.
MHC lost me the moment she described the newborn’s eyes as “large and deep brown.'” Has this woman given birth? or even witnessed one? And some babies may come out with beautiful ringlets and fair skin, but not likely on the planet I inhabit. As others have pointed out, the ambiguity about POV here left me with a MEH response. And that last paragraph … so much “telling” (setup as you said) … boring. And then, again, the unlikely scenario! Midwives? (Does this take place in England?) Handing cash over? I admit I have not read the author’s work. But if she can’t win me over in 17 lines, I am afraid I won’t be compelled to now.
Oh and fyi Ray, your posts are one of my few “must click” on messages in my in box. Very much appreciate your insights!
I used a midwife when I had my baby seven years ago. Not sure when that books takes place, but it’s become more common to use midwives in recent years.
I vote no, but for very different reasons. I do want to know what happens to these people. The adoption process is intriguingly weird and I don’t mind the lack of a clear POV. However, the writing style just makes me itch–it doesn’t look “competant” to me. The first sentence is way too busy. The pacing–how new details are introduced and when–is awkward and tends to dissipate emotion rather than building it. There are too many words for the small amount of information and action we get.
And, I know it’s a small thing, but the baby’s pale skin and the money involved suggest that she is white and white newborns don’t have brown eyes. The problem was distracting and leads me to distrust the author.
I had trouble getting through even this intro. Boring, so what, what are the stakes, etc. etc. No surprise to find it was Mary Higgins Clark, who’s been churning out this stuff for decades.
For once I disagree with you, Ray. I forked over my 30 cents. As some have remarked, those opening a MHC book know what they are getting, and like her traditional themes.
I was intrigued by the opening and would probably be even more intrigued were I a woman.
Thanks, David A. I don’t know (or care, really) if it’s sexist for me to say that most men are not interested in the subject at hand and most women are – though exceptions abound, of course.
Hooked me not at all. It’s just too common a situation these days. Except perhaps for the method/timing of the payment.
I stopped reading after the couple gasped in unison.
My vote is no.
As an adoptive dad I am irritated by stories built on adoption shenanigans. They cheapen and demean a type of parenting that is hard, loving and full of integrity. It’s soap opera storytelling.
Babies may be kidnapped (as in Southern Ethiopia this week), they may be birthed through surrogates, they may be “given up” (ugly term for a tough choice) but only in inconsiderate fiction are they sold.
If nothing else, in a world awash in runaways, orphans and refugees, pure economics make this idea ridiculous.
I did, however, fork over my $.30, for only one reason: Sixty thousand dollars?? Even quasi- or extra-legal adoptions conducted by shady lawyers do not cost that kind of cash.
Something weird is going on here. There is something special about this situation, this baby. Perhaps. MHC is a clever plotter. (And a nice lady, if you ever get to meet her.) I’d read on a bit more.
I must admit, the amount caught my eye as well, and the odd timing of the payment. Those were the story questions I latched onto: Why so much? Why here and now?
But I also share Bernadette’s aversion to simultaneous gasping.
I guess you could say I’m straddling my fence, which in this instance is nowhere near as painful as it sounds.
Like Bernadette, I didn’t get past the couple gasping in unison. Who SAW them gasping in unison? Who KNEW they gasped in unison?
I felt like an elf sitting somewhere up under the ceiling wondering how to escape the sheer mundane tone of the first couple of paragraphs. I didn’t wait long enough to see the bag of cash.
For this reason I think the purely omniscient POV has long gone out of favour. We need some emotional attachment to the characters, not a newspaper report. On the other hands, this was probably the intention of the writer: keep it distant. The real story comes later.
This was too slow of a prologue for me, and it didn’t seem necessary anyway.
I too was bothered by the baby’s brown eyes. Because of this one small detail it makes me wonder how many other things the author got wrong. Thus, I mistrust the story.
Went to Amazon, looked inside, and this prologue is NOT the way this novel opens.
Ray, wasn’t this a bit of a cheat? I didn’t see any prologue. OTOH, I didn’t see anything that would keep me reading past the first page, either. The very sort of writing that you yourself rant against – for example, a description by the protagonist looking in the mirror and commenting on her shoulder-length black hair, “And Iris, her favorite make-up artist, had done a good job accentuating her dark brown eyes and long lashes…”
I think it’s this style of writing which stopped me years ago from enjoying M. H. Clark’s novels.
With apologies to M.H. Clark, who is laughing all the way to the bank.
:)
Lyn, I don’t know what you’re seeing. I clicked the link in the post, it got me to the book’s Amazon page, and when I “looked inside” I came to an Acknowledgments piece followed by the word “Prologue” and then the text presented above.
Ray, I went to the hardcover edition. Did you look into the kindle?
I don’t know what’s going on here.
So now I went back through the link you provided and looked into both editions, and it starts with the prologue.
HOWEVER
Earlier, when I ‘looked inside’ the hardcover first pages, it took me right to chapter 1. I scrolled up, but did not find a prologue.
And here I am wondering which cloud-cuckoo-land I’m floating in.
So now I went BACK. I ‘looked inside’ the hardcover and clicked on ‘first pages’. This took me to chapter 1, completely bypassing the prologue. Try it yourself.
Weird. Yes, I looked at the Kindle. The main reason is that I can download a sample to my Kindle computer app and copy the text I need.
No, it wasn’t the Kindle, it was the Hard Copy “first pages”, which skip the prologue.
I read manuscripts for an agent and would have put this one aside after the first paragraph. “Relief and resignation formed the expression on the faces of Rose and Martin Ryan” is awful. One of my biggest pet peeves is when best selling authors’ coast and get published solely due to name recognition. Yes, they’ll still sell a lot of books, but more should be demanded of them.
I just want to commend you, Ray, on this whole idea, whether it be an examination of a pro’s work, or of a beginner’s baby. Whether readers are working for a publisher or just standing in the aisle at a bookstore, they’re making quick judgements. This helps me as a writer.
Many thanks, Michael. It helps me, too, when I look at my own work.
That collective gasp deserved a NO vote. A bestseller should be more compelling than cardboard parents in a cardboard room.
Naming the couples Smith and Jones sounds about right.
Nope. To me the writing was lifeless and klunky – particularly that unnecessarily spoon-feeding dialog tag “she suggested.”
The pregnant teen being sent away is a VERY old-fashioned convention, unless this is a book set in the past – which I don’t think it is, based a quick look at Amazon.
The repeated use of the characters’ full names was also klunky. Overall, this opening just feels artless and phoned in.
I didn’t like being told the complete names (first and last) of both couples at the beginning of the story.
The white baby was born with brown eyes that were open? They should be watery looking blue-green-gray alien eyes that hardly squint open. It will take about two years before the color sticks with brown. Is this a baby with special DNA? Maybe. How does the baby cost so much? Did they wait to make sure the baby was born healthy before paying? Is this the only time all the parties involved could be together in the same room, and for some reason they needed to all be together for the birth and money exchange? It is intriguing.
Most students start college when they are seventeen going on eighteen.
I’d read this. I want to know what is going on.
I was willing to pay my 30c until I realized that the story was about the baby. I thought the girl or her parents were central and the mystery was about the dad. He was somebody terrible or viscous or with a terrible past. Someone earlier commented about the POv confusion. I agree. A little disappointing that MHC would publish a book with grammatical errors and unlclear POV
I come away with an impression of an experienced writer trying to get the words on paper as fast as possible so her publisher would just get off her back.
I could be wrong. This prologue felt more like an outline than a scene or a setting.
It’s happened to other writers in the past, whose work deteriorated under the pressures of getting the next title out there.
We can blame the publisher, who didn’t bother to team the writer up with a good editor.
I think you’re right about this. “The mother of the baby who had just been born…” reads like a rushed job.
I had to read the first couple paragraphs two times before I understood who all the people were (and felt no connection to any of them). Then (like others noted) the brown-eyed newborn completely threw me. A writer who doesn’t get basic facts right isn’t going to get my vote. (And why didn’t the editor catch this?)
Yep. It was the 60K that caught my attention.
Too many names in the first paragraph and I don’t know who is important. I stopped reading after the second paragraph when they suddenly all became known by different names.