Flog a Pro: would you pay to turn the first page of this bestseller?
By Ray Rhamey | May 17, 2018 |
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. In a sense, time is money for a literary agent working her way through a raft of submissions, and she is spending that resource whenever she turns a 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 four on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list for May 20, 2018. How strong is the opening page—would this narrative, all on its own, hook an agent if it came in from an unpublished writer? Following are what would be the first 17 manuscript lines of the first chapter.
Chain Night happens once a week on Thursdays. Once a week the defining moment for sixty women takes place. For some of the sixty, that defining moment happens over and over. For them it is routine. For me it happened only once. I was woken at two a.m. and shackled and counted, Romy Leslie Hall, inmate W314159, and lined up with the others for an all-night ride up the valley.
As our bus exited the jail perimeter, I glued myself to the mesh-reinforced window to try to see the world. There wasn’t much to look at. Underpasses and on-ramps, dark, deserted boulevards. No one was on the street. We were passing through a moment in the night so remote that traffic lights had ceased to go from green to red and merely blinked a constant yellow. Another car came alongside. It had no lights. It surged past the bus, a dark thing with demonic energy. There was a girl on my unit in county who got life for nothing but driving. She wasn’t the shooter, she would tell anyone who’d listen. She wasn’t the shooter. All she did was drive the car. That was it. They’d used license plate reader technology. They had it on video surveillance. What they had was an image of the car, at night, moving along a street, first with lights on, then with lights off. If the driver cuts the lights, that is premeditation. If the driver cuts the lights, it’s murder.
They were moving us at that hour for a reason, for many reasons. If they could have shot (snip)
You can turn the page to read more here.
This is The Mars Room by Rachel Kusner. Was this opening page compelling?
My vote: No.
This book received an average of 4.4 stars out of 5 on Amazon. For me, this is one of those in-between first pages. Not immediately rejectable, not immediately compelling. I respond to the writing and the voice . . . but the narrative? It seems to be rambling and, since opening pages tend to foreshadow what is to come, the promise is for a narrative that rambles. Perhaps if I knew something about the story, but I don’t. Perhaps if I knew/felt more about the protagonist, but I don’t—much of the first page is taken up with the plight of a different woman, a plight that doesn’t impact the narrator.
I like that this introduces me to a world I don’t know, that of being a woman in prison. That’s a positive. There is a vague “what will happen to her” story question, but I don’t particularly care at this point. I’m reminded of a critique group partner who said of the lead character in one of my novels who I had written as cold and uncaring, “Maybe I will care about her. But I don’t. And I need that to want to keep reading about her.” I know that, from a technical point of view, that to actually “care” about a character isn’t absolutely necessary to engage a reader, but it is necessary to feel some sort of connection. Today I didn’t.
I did read on, of course, I’m a reader, and later there were things that did begin to form that connection. But that’s not the challenge here, is it? The task is to engage me, compellingly, on the first page. This writer clearly has the skills to do that—but she failed in my case. I suspect this one will be fairly split between yeses and noes. What did you think?
You’re invited to a flogging—your own You see the insights fresh eyes bring to the performance of bestseller first pages, so why not do the same with the opening of your WIP? Submit your prologue/first chapter to my blog, Flogging the Quill, and I’ll give you my thoughts and even a little line editing if I see a need. And the readers of FtQ are good at offering constructive notes, too. Hope to see you there.
To submit, email your first chapter or prologue (or both) as an attachment to me, and let me know if it’s okay to use your first page and to post the complete chapter.
[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.
I voted yes, but I’ll only hang in there for another couple of pages.
I’m a sucker for a prison story, so I’m immediately onboard. And the author is succeeding in creating tension, introducing an unexplained but ominous thing (Chain Night) that I want to know more about.
But I’m dubious about making it through this book. Repeatedly the author takes two or three sentences to say what could be said in one or two. So I’m concerned that when Chain Night is finally explained to me, it might be OVER-explained. I get that the author is using repetition to establish rhythm and voice, but if the device got old for me on just the first page, how will I make it through a whole bookful (hey, it might be a word) of that device?
So yeah, I’ll give it a couple more pages. But if the author keeps repeating too much, that will do it for me. If the author keeps repeating too much, I’m out.
Yes. I’d be willing to read on a bit longer to see how the author follows through on that opening page.
Ray, for once I disagree with you. I vote yes. I want to know what happens to this inmate.
I voted yes, because I wanted to know what happened on “Chain Night” and why it only happened once for the narrator. The description about the ride in the dark was not very compelling to me, but curiosity would make me turn the page.
I was given an early copy of this book through NetGalley and I did read further BUT I never finished this book because overall it is a rambling story that jumps between too many characters and I found the title misleading. I thought there would be much more connection to The Mars Room and there really isn’t.
The first section that deals with this inmate is interesting. And I think if the story just stuck with her POV I would have stuck with it. But I wasn’t engaged with the other characters that were given POV sections. I kept wondering why am I reading this, why is this important to the story…
If anyone has finished the book and can tell me if all the other characters ultimately link up sufficiently and have an overall importance to the story (and if the title ultimately makes sense to the overall story) let me know.
It’s a yes vote for me.
I felt the character’s need to see past their surroundings as genuine. A face mashed against a window and a mind spinning are subtle actions but more to me than rambling.
Take these lines: “She wasn’t the shooter, she would tell anyone who’d listen. She wasn’t the shooter. All she did was drive the car.” That is repetitious but all so believable. Whether you’re guilty or not, if you profess your innocence you’d do it over and over since you’d have nothing else to do.
Thank you Ray for these posts.
Voted yes. My sentiments are much the same as those above. And I don’t mind a ramble. :)
Ray,
Another “yes” here…but, barely. Curiosity about “Chain Night” would keep me reading at least a bit longer. What makes “Chain Night” a “defining moment”, and why it would be a “defining moment” for some women “over and over” but for the narrator, only once? And, why does it require an all night bus ride? And, how can a “defining moment” happen “over and over”? Didn’t they get it the first time? Or, is the author being sarcastic, facetious? (Isn’t a “defining moment” a moment of clarity; of new insight, or understanding, that alters or clarifies one’s perception of something, someone, or themselves? So, is it something that the same event [in this case, Chain Night] can trigger “over and over” in the same people? Now, I’m not sure I know what a “defining moment” is.)
I’m also intrigued by the setting. I don’t think I’ve ever read a story set in a women’s prison. And, based on this opening, I would expect the “driver not the shooter” character to play a role at some point in the story. So far, she’s the only character I know enough about to have any reason to care at all.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a patient reader, willing to let a story develop if the writing is strong–a captivating premise, being immersed in an unusual/exotic setting, and/or one or two interesting characters will keep me going for a while. But, for this story, once my questions about Chain Night were answered, I’m not sure how much more I’d read–guess it would depend on the answers and what I learned about the protagonist and her situation.
Even though I don’t always have time to comment, I thoroughly enjoy participating in these floggings. I gain so much perspective into my own stories. Thanks!
The rambling repetition was one factor for my “no” vote. But the grammatical awkwardness of “was woken” turned me clear off.
“I was awakened” or “I had been woken”, but don’t confuse them, please.
That distracted me, too. Granted, that may be the speaker’s way of saying it, but that early, and with no other clues about how she might speak, it stuck out like a stone in the path.
I did vote yes, though, for most of the same reasons that others mentioned above. Once I got past “was woken”…
I am not a grammar expert and the use of the two forms of awake is murky. But here it is just clumsy and lifted me out of the story. What followed was not compelling.
In addition, the menace is existential . There needs to be a second character on stage to make the threat of Chain Night personal to the main character.
I voted no.
I had a hard time voting on this one. I was curious about “Chain Night” and the setting. It is obviously a women’s prison but the title made me wonder if it was a prison on Mars or a different planet. I ultimately voted yes since I was a bit interested but the narrative seemed disconnected. I would like to have seen some dialogue or some reason to care about the protagonist. I would read a little farther but not much.
I almost voted yes because the second paragraph did capture my attention, but the all important first paragraph didn’t. I think if the author cut the first paragraph down and got to the second paragraph faster, I could have confidently voted yes. I’m thinking maybe something short like:
They woke me up at two a.m. and shackled, counted, and lined me up with the others for an all-night ride up the valley. I am Romy Leslie Hall, inmate W314159.
And then into paragraph two.
I voted yes, but agree that a snippet of intriguing information about the protagonist and how she ended up there would have strengthened this considerably.
I too was not grabbed. I would keep reading because I don’t like rejecting so quickly. A woman-in-prison story is interesting, ditto that story at the end of the woman who insists she’s not the shooter, plus the facts about the legal system. But this isn’t the smoothest writing, for sure. The repetition doesn’t hint at madness or OCD, but a woman who didn’t get an astute editor. I felt my mind drifting. I may stick with it the whole way, but the beginning is neither here nor there, for me.