Flog a Pro: would you pay to turn the first page of this bestseller?
By Ray Rhamey | June 21, 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 one on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list for June 24, 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 How strong is the opening page—would this narrative, all on its own, hook an agent if it came in from an unpublished writer?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.
The House Select Committee will come to order…”
The sharks are circling, their nostrils twitching at the scent of blood. Thirteen of them, to be exact, eight from the opposition party and five from mine, sharks against whom I’ve been preparing defenses with lawyers and advisers. I’ve learned the hard way that no matter how prepared you are, there are few defenses that work against predators. At some point, there’s nothing you can do but jump in and fight back.
Don’t do it, my chief of staff, Carolyn Brock, pleaded again last night, as she has so many times.
You can’t go anywhere near that committee hearing, sir. You have everything to lose and nothing to gain.
You can’t answer their questions, sir.
It will be the end of your presidency.
I scan the thirteen faces opposite me, seated in a long row, a modern-day Spanish Inquisition. The silver-haired man in the center, behind the nameplate MR. RHODES, clears his throat.
Lester Rhodes, the Speaker of the House, normally doesn’t participate in committee hearings, but he has made an exception for this select committee, which he has stacked with (snip)
You can turn the page and read more here.
This is The President Is Missing by Bill Clinton and James Patterson. Was this opening page compelling?
My vote: Yes.
This book received an average of 4.3 stars out of 5 on Amazon. If you follow publishing, I’m guessing that you knew what the book was and who the authors were after reading it. And, with politics running a fever these days, how can a political conflict such as the one that is promised here fail? There are plenty of story questions raised, and the tension is strong. I’m a political junkie, so this would be nearly irresistible for me, but I think the opening is strong enough, especially these days, to get that page turned. Interestingly, a review in the June 18 issue of The New Yorker panned the writing but still ended up saying that it rises above its faults and is a “go-to read.” 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.
The scene is set immediately with no confusion, the sharks are effective (though swimming with some fatigue after appearing in so many narratives by other authors–“can’t those guys choose some other fish and give us a rest?”), and the stakes are shown to be high. Early dialogue is urgent and informative. Discounting my pol-junkie status, and even forgetting that I watched an interview with the authors several days ago, I focused on the writing and voted yes.
It’s a Yes vote for me.
Not in a million years.
A measured “yes” from me, but only because the topic interests me.
The writing, not so much – it’s bland and voiceless, and unlikely to hold my interest. So I’d give this maybe a page or two more before moving on to something that is simply better written.
I agree with David A if you make it two million years.
Two details make this excerpt compelling – the all-caps nameplate and the note about how the Speaker normally doesn’t participate in subcommittees. They add a sense of verisimilitude that suggests no matter what the politics, this is an insider’s book, with a view quite different from what we normally get. With Patterson, I expect the plot to be ridiculous, and with Clinton I expect the president to be heroically self-justifying (and I actually like the man!), but I’ll also get a take on the DC scene that I wouldn’t get elsewhere, within a fast, easy read.
No. It’s over-the-top amateurish, and the conflict (the actual conflict the meeting embodies) is at this point generic. I wouldn’t want to read another page of prose like that.
Tired cliches (sharks circling, really?), one-sentence flashback to dire warnings (a crude way to create tension), no emotional nuance concerning the MC, and introducing someone as a stranger (“the silver haired man”) when the MC must actually know them very well … seriously, this got published? And is a best-seller?
This is what happens when people publish and buy books based on author(s) name alone. I can’t believe a new writer would get a request for full if they queried such trash, and isn’t the point of flogging openings the education of new writers?
No, and I’m a political junkie. I find James Patterson’s stories formulaic and I bet, even with Bill Clinton as co-author it will be more of the same but with some inside the Beltway perspective.
I think Bill must need the cash to go this route, which I personally find a bit undignified. Not that he wants to write fiction, but that he feels the need to attach his name to Patterson and vice-versa. I would rather see him co-author his experiences with George Bush, père, about raising funds for Haiti and the challenges they encountered along the way.
Sorry to disagree, but I found it kind of boring. It’s the standard trope that TV shows have been using for the last 20 years to open political dramas. Also the language seemed too passive. For example, he begins his description of the Speaker as ‘the silver-haired man in the center…’ as though he doesn’t know him. We’ve already established the narrator is the President – wouldn’t he be more likely to say, ‘Lester Rhoades, the Speaker of the House and silver-haired shark made a special exception to sit on this committee/hearing, etc?’ Or something?
Anyway…didn’t tease my curiosity at all.
Annie
No and the reason is in the very first line. I just don’t think that sharks twitch their nostrils at the scent of blood. They’re not dogs. Nope. If you were going to elect for an over-used metaphor, at least get the details correct.
Right on! That one bungled detail lost me from the get-go. I still can’t shake the image of a school of sharks weighed down with schnozzes.
My vote: No.
Count me among the naysayers. The narrator strikes me as smug and self-righteous, the writing is contrived and melodramatic. (I should have figured it was written by a politician.) A scene that develops more slower and subtly would have hooked me.
My no was based on the blah prose, the so-so stakes, and the fact that I had to prop my eyes open twice during this first page.
Without the names of the “authors”, this would not even have made it over the transom.
No. Just did not connect with it – neither with the topic nor with the writing. It feels like the author is desperately trying to create tension, but I am not curious at all.
Chiming in a little late here (I’m in the process of moving, which includes cleaning out two large storage units–ugh!), so haven’t been spending much time with my laptop.
I suspected which book was being flogged when I read “House Select Committee”, and knew for sure when I read “chief of staff” (how many people have a “chief of staff”?). And, I tried–I mean I really tried–to find something to like, but… My vote is no.
As others have noted, the writing is somewhere between unexceptional and trite. And, instead of hooking me with a bit unique insight into the presidency or some life-threatening action, this beginning reads more like the nightly news. Frankly, I’m so sick of politicians and their out-sized egos, (“At some point, there’s nothing you can do but jump in and fight back.” And facing a “modern-day Spanish Inquisition….”) I have no desire to read further.