Flog a Pro: would you pay to turn the first page of this bestseller?
By Ray Rhamey | August 18, 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 August 14, 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 How strong is the opening page—would this narrative, all on its own, have hooked an agent if it came in from an unpublished writer?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 first chapter.
“This is a story that begins with a barbecue,” said Clementine. The microphone amplified and smoothed her voice, making it more authoritative, as if it had been photoshopped. “An ordinary neighborhood barbecue in an ordinary backyard.”
Well, not exactly an ordinary backyard, thought Erika. She crossed her legs, tucked one foot behind her ankle, and sniffed. Nobody would call Vid’s backyard ordinary.
Erika sat in the middle of the back row of the audience in the event room that adjoined this smartly renovated local library in a suburb forty-five minutes out of the city, not thirty minutes, thank you very much, as suggested by the person at the cab company, who you would think would have some sort of expertise in the matter.
There were maybe twenty people in the audience, although there were foldout chairs available for twice that many. Most of the audience were elderly people, with lively, expectant faces. These were intelligent, informed senior citizens who had come along on this rainy (yet again, would it ever end?) morning to collect new and fascinating information at their local Community Matters Meeting. “I saw the most interesting woman speak today,” they wanted to tell their children and grandchildren.
Before she came, Erika had looked up the library’s website to see how it described Clementine’s talk. The blurb was short, and not very informative:
My vote and notes after the fold.
This is Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty. Was this opening page compelling to you?
My vote: no.
The voice and the writing are strong and confident, and that promises a good reading experience ahead. Clearly a skilled writer here. But . . .
But I sure wished a story question had been raised. Oh, there’s the tease in the first paragraph, but no hint of what the story Clementine is going to tell might be—happy, sad, tragic, enlightening, what? After that, we go into Erika’s observations and feelings. Which then led me, due to the writer’s skill, to begin to not like this protagonist.
She seems to be crabby and a little bitchy—the cab story, for example—and a bit condescending in the way she characterizes the audience members. Because of how I felt about this character and the lack of a story question, I had little interest in turning the page.
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. Truly Madly Guilty 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 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. 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.
My vote: yes. It’s unfortunate that the page stopped before we found out what the blurb was, because I suspect that was the hook. I do like the tone of the author’s writing. I found it easy to read and the description just enough to place me in the setting without slowing the story. I would at least read the next page to find out what was so intriguing about this library presentation that the narrator paid a cab for a 45 minute trip to hear it.
I have to agree with you. The author paints a good picture of the setting, but nothing’s happened yet. I liked the writing style, but Erika does come across as whiny. I suspect she’s not normally that way, but without a better hint as to the barbecue’s purpose, we don’t know.
How do you photoshop a voice?
You have obviously not heard me belting out along with the Sinatra channel in my car.
I thought about photoshopped voice for awhile. I take it to mean that microphone caused her voice to sound at odds with her appearance.
Yes, James,
The author lost me at that moment as well. That’s a rare gift so early on.
“Photoshopping” a voice made me stop and try to understand the author’s remark and interrupted the story flow. But judging by other comments, my perplexity must be yet another generation-gap problem. Though I do work with Photoshop in my photography and can voice-over a scene or photo, nothing except video 0 to loud is featured. The author would not be the first to use an incorrect simile and it’s an error easily fixed.
The audio program comparable to Photoshop is called Pro Tools, actually, and a voice that’s processed through it is generally said to be “auto-tuned”. And with (almost) every single artist on the Top 40 today using it, I figured it would be a pretty widespread term. That sentence made my nose pout and my lips crinkle.
LOL. I actually thought that was a brilliant way to say that the microphone made her sound falsely confident, etc. JMHO.
If genuinely restricted to this one page, than no, there wasn’t enough to grab me. At first when I read the “this is a story that begins with a barbecue” I thought it was going to be some kid reciting a writing assignment in front of their class, so I was totally thrown off by the rest–and confused and wondering what IS the point of the scene.
However, I seldom if ever only read one page to make my determination. There might be gold after this first page for all I know.
I would’ve turned one more page to figure out whether I’d go on. There were little writing quirks that irritated me, but then the narrator would say something interesting. I liked the cab thing, and the photoshopped voice, and the “nobody would call Vid’s backyard ordinary” enough to counteract the snideness about the senior citizens. So it didn’t hook me, but made me just interested enough to flip that page in a bookstore (but probably not interested enough to go to a bookstore to actually flip that page and see whether I’d like to read more).
Liane Moriarty’s international best seller The Husband’s Secret also begins with domestic trivia on a numbing scale. Her intent there and here, I think, is to establish normality before injecting a plot shock.
Moriarty’s fans are obviously used to her story pattern. They’re willing to be patient while waiting for the big story bombshell. They’ve been rewarded.
New readers don’t have that confidence, though, and I have to agree with everyone today that the rewards to be found here are not on page one.
The tone is too lighthearted for me and the asides are distracting. I would probably turn the page and read a little more. But I voted “no”. This doesn’t appeal to me.
As an insomniac, I read tons of books a week. (on tape, nearly blind), and the writer must start with a good hook–and continue. Don’t get lost introducing me to 500 new characters, boring backstory, etc. This is harsh, but after over 80 years of reading, my patience at 2PM is low. During the day, sun shinning, and 90 degrees, things are kinder. Just finished a David McCallum story that had the silliest plot ever! But it was funny. Ann
As an insomniac, I read tons of books a week, at night ( on tape, am nearly blind), and the writer must start with a good hook–and continue. Don’t get lost introducing me to 500 new characters, boring backstory, etc. This is harsh, but after over 80 years of reading, my patience at 2AM is low.
During the day, sun shinning, and 90 degrees, things are kinder. Just finished a David McCallum story that had the silliest plot ever! But it was funny. Ann
Paragraphs one and two: intriguing.
Paragraphs three and four: tedious and wordy; action stops cold in favor of explanation. Paragraph three, especially, suffers from the long run-on sentence with multiple asides, slowing down the pace almost to a standstill.
Paragraph four has “there were” twice in the first sentence. Like paragraph three, it has multiple asides. Standstill again.
As for Erika’s personality, I agree that she’s unattractive, but I don’t have to like her as a person to be curious about why she’s bitchy and wonder about the consequences. (Henry James, anyone?) But after wading through the tedium of paragraphs three and four, I’m off to read some fiction that engages my interest in the characters and invites me more effectively into the fictional dream.
I didn’t care much about the barbecue or the backyard or Ericka. Clementine’s opening line “This is a story …” construction reads weak. At least give us something to chew on: “This is a story that begins with … a lie or jealousy or a betrayal. But a barbecue? Pretty dull to me and failed to invite me in.
I don’t like the “bitchy” characterization, and I try not to use gender-based adjectives (like calling men “dicks”). I liked the beginning and the style, and I have certainly been in enough of those settings, at libraries and bookstores, to be able to attest to its accuracy.
I do feel that Liane Moriarty’s writing has been pegged as “women’s fiction”, which most men would avoid like the plague. Although I’m glad this was assigned to a male reviewer, I’d like to know how many titles by women he has on his shelves.
I don’t think it was “assigned” to Ray.
Hi, Eileen. As it happens, I’m not a “male reviewer” (I’m an editor/author) and books are not assigned to me. I simply choose the number 1 bestselling book from a week or two before the blog post date and offer that. Sometimes it’s hardcover, sometimes trade paperback. The titles are found on the New York Times bestseller book list. I sample the book through Amazon, which is why there’s a link for reading more on the Amazon site. I do have titles by women on my bookshelves, and I have edited novels by a number of women authors–they have had no problem with me being a male, and several are repeat customers. Thanks for your comment.
Thanks, Ray. I’m glad that there are women who work well with you, which was not my point. I refer you to the excellent 8/6 WU post from by Jo Eberhardt (and the 322 comments on it!) re: female protagonists for my opining on the categorization of women authors. My target was more along the lines of this: once categorized as “women’s fiction”, most men will walk away. Although there’s no “men’s fiction”, and if there was, women would still read it – because, as the Eberhardt post states, male is the norm. So you’ll forgive me if I am suspect of your disregard for the Liane Moriarty.
And for all you readers who disregard a book due to one silly word choice (photoshop? so what?) – I have hardly read a book where there was not a typo or a grammatical or spelling error. But since I’m reading for pleasure, and not judging job applicants from their cover letters, I won’t let a minor eyebump stop me. And I would rarely put anything down after one page. Which I guess is the point of the Flog-A-Pro exercise, which I do enjoy, more for writing tips from people like you.
Eileen, I agree with you on the use of “photoshop” in this creative way. It worked for me. In the opening of my about-to-be-out-there novel I referred to a “noontime trudge of pedestrians” on a city street, and some readers castigated my usage of “trudge.” I’m not changing it as I think it produces an image of a bunch of people trudging.
I’ll do more than TRUDGE to check out your novel when it’s released, Ray! I LOVE that word! One I use when I don’t want to be too mean is to call someone a “boof”.
The comment about the voice being “photoshopped” is contradictory and pulls the reader from the story. You can’t photoshop a voice. You can enhance a voice or modulate it. I think what the writer does here is called “mixing metaphors”. And the bitchier Erika’s thoughts became, the more I wondered why she was even there. She seems to already know what this woman is going to talk about, seems to have some firsthand knowledge because she knows what Vid’s backyard looks like, but we don’t get any sort of hook or explanation. By the end of the excerpt, I was ready to put the book down and move on.
I agree, there’s nothing here to make me keep reading, but I was also completely turned off in the first paragraph where she says the voice sounded as if it had been Photoshopped (which should have been capitalized in the book). You can’t Photoshop a voice. Hence the name: PHOTOshop.
It was simple. The opening pages failed to deliver the goods from an intriguing title. I voted no.
Ray, just an observation re: your 30 cent premise. Considering real ‘look inside’ features, it’s probably more realistic to ask us if we would pay $30 to read the next chapter?
I always look forward to your posts.
That would be a “nope.”
I stumbled HARD over the mangled photoshop metaphor, and gave up after the second or third bitching-and-moaning self-interruption. It’s too soon to be so whiny and snide, when you’ve not yet given me a reason to care about you.
Ray, I agree totally with your assessment – there’s clearly a skilled writer at work here, but can we PLEEEEEEEASE get to the story already?
My vote: Nope. Unless the blurb has intrigued me more.
This story has s great first line but the photoshop word jarred me out of the story as I tried to comprehend how I would actually, physically do that to a voice. The rest of the lines then became chatty and full of asides leading me to imagine another murder in Oxford but good filler for the screenplay that could be adapted. In other words, it got boggy. All that said, I would read on based on the author name were I to pick it up in the store. The upside? The bar isn’t so high for an unpublished author. Or so we think.
I’ll keep my 30 cents. No grabbing power. To be fair, who opens a book without reading the cover blurbs? If I were a publisher looking at a book, I would still have the synopsis to look at before I read it. The blurb might have appeal -the sample had none for me.
Ray, I can think of two books, which grabbed my interest and ran within the first paragraph. One is Steven Erikson’s ‘Gardens of the Moon’. The other is John Bellairs’s ‘The Face in the Frost’. Both went on to become personal favorites.
This made me go look at the opening in my WIP. I’m still telling myself the story so no editing yet, but I jotted down some notes.
Thanks for a thought provoking post.
I’d have read at least a few more pages to see where it was going. And knowing Liane Moriarty’s work, I feel pretty certain she would have grabbed me in that time.
And there’s the rub for new authors–they can’t have an agent or an editor think that there’s better stuff ahead because they know the work. That’s the point of this “test”–is the narrative strong enough for an unknown, unpublished, unheralded writer to get a jaded, over-experienced professional to read on? Having read more than 900 first chapters/prologues on my Flogging the Quill blog, I can certify that the huge majority show their fatal flaws on the first page.
My vote is yes. I would turn the page. It begins with a lie and I’m intrigued. Clementine tells us it was just a bbq in an ordinary backyard, but Erika immediately contradicts that statement. *ding ding* Conflict.
Photoshopped didn’t bother me, because the author preceded it with “amplified and smoothed her voice” and I understood photoshopped to mean enhanced.
I found Erika to be slightly snooty or catty, but I didn’t mind it. Many great books begin with a character who is less than sympathetic. Sometimes they’re the most interesting characters, and you know almost from the outset that that character has some change coming. Not to get on my feminist high horse, but I think too often people find it objectionable, or are quicker to be dismissive of, a female character who appears rude or unlikable.
I like that there’s so much response and engagement about what incites us to read beyond the first (17-line) page. I tend to reject snarky-sounding narrators. In my experience that’s been more common with female narrators, but as an avid reader of male and female authors I know it can be the product of either gender. Maybe it’s because there’s so much derision and rejection and meanness in public discourse and politics and, well … life. I like my stories served up with a bit less snark than what I can get from CNN.
I guess I’m in the minority. I voted yes.
The voice and tone promises a good read, somewhat funny and light.
I wasn’t caught up in the photoshopped metaphor. It’s deliberate and I knew exactly what she meant. It’s something like ‘the sigh of wings’ or ‘ the smell of red’, not meant to be literal at all.
And the hook (for me anyway) was there in a subtle way. You have two women, one giving a presentation and the other, by words and actions and internal dialog thinking “this is bull crap”. I’m wondering about their relationship and where the animosity comes from and, if Erika feels this way, then why the heck is she here (45 not 30 minutes out of the city)
So yes, I’d read on.
Hi Ray,
You don’t Photoshop a voice.
You Auto-Tune it. It’s an audio processor that makes the voice perfect.
Ahh-hem…like pop singers use.
I think this is the word the author was looking for.
I liked the strong voice and the writing carried me in. I got “photoshopped.” But it got a no from me for two reasons: first, absolutely nothing is happening, and second, I, like others, found myself disliking the POV character and didn’t want to be in her head for a whole book.
That said, I’m a newbie for this author, and if this book had been recommended by a friend, I’d have certainly given it a couple chapters, enough, apparently, for the author to grab me.
I totally agree with Eileen when she says “But since I’m reading for pleasure, and not judging job applicants from their cover letters, I won’t let a minor eyebump stop me.”
(I will, however, let a bunch of eyebumps in a row stop me, but didn’t come close to that with this author on this first page.)
I voted yes. After this introduction, I at least want to know what the blurb says. Whether or not I’d continue turning pages after that is another question.
Also, I can’t believe there has been so much discussion concerning the use of the word ‘photoshop’, and that so many people seem to have taken it literally. I saw it as just an acknowledgement of modern technology’s ability to make something seem better than it really is. I read it as nothing more than a contemporary way of saying people weren’t hearing her natural voice, and that she wasn’t as ‘authoritative’ as the electronics made her sound.
Looking forward to your trudging pedestrians, Ray.
Now, I’m off to the Amazon link to find out what that damn blurb says.
I think as writers and readers we should get “hung up” on the word choice. I guess it’s more important to some than others.
Photoshop is universally understood to fix images. The use of this word pulled me out of the story. If the author had said that the speaker’s makeup looked perfect because the lighting was dim and she was lit with a diffuse spotlight, I’d say yay, that’s photoshopped.
I recently read a romance where in the heat of the moment the woman mantled the man. What??? I think she meant mounted. That pulled me right out of the story too. (Mantle means to cloak or envelope. Still not working for me.)
I voted no based on the lines we read, but I’m currently reading this book, and I can tell you that so far, it’s worth reading further. I love the voice of the narrator, snark and all. Some people might not like that type of voice, but Moriarty’s readers won’t complain.
And I loved the photoshopped voice and knew exactly what she meant.
The use of “photoshop” didn’t bother me, but I voted no because the POV was snarky without being witty or insightful. Something about this page — maybe the banal suburban setting, the snarkiness, the phrase “This is a story” — hinted at triteness.
Nope! I thought since Clementine was mentioned first, she would be a focus. But no, Erika was. Couldn’t get a grasp of why this event was being held in the first place. Never got a clue about why Vid’s yard was chosen and why it was anything but ordinary. And what would it add to the story if it were so? There was an attempt at being humorous, it seemed, but it fell short with me. Too much needless information.
I would not pay the money to read on. I think some of the writing reminded me of the way I’ve seen many self-published authors write. It seems that the “voice” of self-pubbers has a similarity to it, as if lines come from a collective consciousness of some sort. Unfortunately, I can see some of me in that in me too. If this was a traditionally published author, then my experience tells me that many self-published authors are as good or better.
Ok, besides the fact that Mike Swift is awesome … and I would turn the page on his photoshopped voice, I would not turn the page on this one. I totally agree: Where is the story question? Where is the depth or nuance with this character? In order for me not to think she’s crabby and surfacist … I need some nuance here. Is she torn about something? … anyway … no. First pages these days need to grab us, and it didn’t do that for me in any way whatsoever.
The Photoshop thing wasn’t a deal breaker for me, but it did make me stop for a second before going on. What was the deal breaker for me, however, was I found it dull and uninteresting.
Yes – I would I liked the conflict over the back yard, and Erika is clearly – Jealous – Irritated – Put out ?? I want to know why. The p
Photoshop element didn’t worry me. I knew what the writer meant.
The photoshopped voice was the only thing that appealed to me in this extract. It was clear to me what she meant and I liked the unusual comparison.
Unfortunately the rest is very bland and has a “same old same old” feel to it. There’s nothing here that makes me think this is going to be anything more than run-of-the-mill. I wasn’t turned off by the snarkiness, just bored. I feel this will be a small story about small lives and I like a much broader canvas.
Nope. It’s a lecture scene, which is boring by default. A lecture to the elderly, and not much happening. I can’t tell what genre this novel is, and I don’t empathize with the POV character.
However, as a non-agent, I would give any novel more chance than 1 page, as long as the grammar/spelling/punctuation looks correct (i.e. beyond first draft stage.)